Genesis Forums

Hello there,

I had a long break from Genesis. Druing that break, I tried MMORPGs of
different kinds and one thing that struck me is...
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EVERYTHING is a team play. Which means, that by solo playing you have availble
maybe 10% of game content. Starting from pvp, the smallest team size is 2v2,
pve are raids, with strictly class divided structure. Genesis on the other hand
is way more- single player designed environment accessable by multiple chars at
the same time.
On Genesis, most of the time, being in team, does not pay off. It's not even
neutral. Most of the time it's drawback, unless you are a calian. The variety
makes sense only when you have a reason to interact with others. On the WOW for
example, when you wanted to have a break from teaming etc., you would go farm
things like herbs, ore, play a battleground or do the daily quest (another
thing genesis is missing).

Genesis combat design lacks this structure. IMHO for the beginning a team of
tank, demage dealer and a healer/cleric-enhancment class, should be a must to
have any reasonable exp. This way, players would encourage their friends and
others to play. Not because they are advised this by administration, who's
saying:
-Hey we need more players!
Pleyers respond:
-Yeah, more players, right away!- and then on the second thought realise- hmpf,
why would we need more players? More players means that rare items will be
distirbuted among more people, do we really need more players? I find my xp
ground cleared even with 20-30 online. Why would I need even more crowd, if 95%
of the time I play solo. Just tell me... WHY?!?!
The idea here is. Yes you fucking need more players, 'cos without them, you
can't grind or get the magical items you want. If the npc did tons of more dmg
and reward lots of more experience and guild were more strictly divided
between- tanking, demage, cleric specs, pleyers would invite their friends,
because they friggin' need them. Better a weak healer, we can drag and teach
than no healer. And the would help not because of some weird altruistic
reasons, but from pure necessity.
Therefore it only makes sense to have players being allowed to choose different
paths, if they have others to share with, others that need their skills. Any
other way it's a single player text game, you can set triggers in and play at
work, so your doesn't find out, you're not actually 'working'.

I agree with a lot of your points.

Yup, Genesis is a single player game with an option to be a multiplayer ;P
Just start selling it as a boxed product

Ah, I also forgot to mention, also add some graphics and sound etc...


on the other hand... i dont care any more

You're right, but the problem is much much deeper than just combat roles.

To begin with, Genesis combat design also allows individual players to become bigger and stronger than the big NPCs. This is the first thing that eliminates the need for teaming.

All the big commercial games have level caps to control player growth. And they have standardized NPC sizes and powers and xp rewards and everything. Genesis has had nothing of this.

The most important characteristic of Genesis historically is the decentralized design. This has been great for allowing the game to grow initially (and goes along with the whole reason for the invention of LPC), but has also made it impossible to even have a coherent combat design in the first place, in the true sense of the word. One domain can design a guild with certain powers, then another domain designs NPCs and items that work in a weird way against that guild, then the central combat design changes and the guild's powers start to work differently. These things heavily affect Genesis combat, and they have been both uncoordinated and difficult to get an overview of.

Not to mention that the whole decentralization thing has meant the Big Guild Recode Project has taken years and is still not finished. That's not years of redesign but simply years of recoding because nothing is standardized and everything works differently.

Partially this is what makes Genesis more interesting, I've always felt that the individuality and non-standardization of things makes the game world feel more real and unpredictable and chaotic, more like the Real World. But game design-wise and in terms of controlling how the game works it's a nightmare.

But as I understand, a priority of Gorboth and friends lately is to centralize things more to make the game more manageable design-wise. This is very important and will help make the game much better in the future.

Hi,

I didn't have a chance to reply earlier. I understand what you're saying Recoba, though I just think it works better, if you take small steps and do one thing at a time. Re-designing the whole system is, I dare to say, impossible and I am far from being sure, preferable by players. Muds cannot be graphic MMORPGs just without graphic. It's like trying to compete on a car market through selling cars without an engine. Not gonna work. However, you can try to sell bicycles instead. Although you can observe the car market and adjust to your bicycles solutions used in 'automobiles' - eg. lighter materials.

Same with Genesis. If a tank/cleric/dmg dealer is an absolute requirement to grind people will organize in these groups, look for others and be nice and sociable. It's like with these economy or negotiation theories. It is the best when everyone is satisfied (win-win). Therefore you start with something simple, like:
Step One:
a) Multiply npcs dmg e.g. 3xtimes
b) Add two global skills e.g.
- thoughness/inner strength/strength of will (whatever)- for the tanking guilds decreasing dmg taken, but also dmg done
- ravaging fury- for the dmg dealing classes, increasing their dps output, but also dmg taken
Skills are exclusive, so perhaps in some guilds you can pick one of the paths, though never both of them.
c) Decrease healing/enhancing spells cost or increase mana regen/increase mana pool- something for the caster so they cannot just idle by casting a spell once per 5minutes.

It is completely made up system, given as an example. You can then expand it, think of guild exlusive skills, pvp options, adding skills that work only on npcs and other which are for pvp-ing, but the main idea is the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Should you have time or be willing to add something later on- go ahead. No? You've got a core which works just fine.