Just Thinking - Mob Placement

Occasionally, there's a few thoughts, or ideas that I have about games in general that I'd like to share, so when I post them, they'll be 'Just Thinking' posts. I may have a rant, suggestion, story, or some random thought that I'll be posting to these, so don't be surprised if they're all over the place.

In this post, I'm going to be talking about one of my biggest pet peeves to do with MMO's, a particular immersion killer. A lot of draw to playing a MMO is being able to get lost withing the world that the creators have built for you to explore. I realize that in order for a game to stay fun, that the creators can't make a game TOO realistic. A game could quickly become bogged down in tasks which aren't fun... such as having to do laundry or some such. However, there is one thing in particular, that has begun to really bug me in MMO's, can be fixed relatively easy, and it seems that every MMO out there is guilty of it...

Mob Placement

A huge part of every MMO is going out and hunting critters, bandits, monsters, etc. And this is usually about how it goes...

So after strapping on your armor, grabbing your favorite sword (or shotgun), and visiting the local quest giver, you head out to the jungle to slay a dozen panther' for the safety of the guards. After a surprisingly short distance off the main road, you arrive at your quest location, and prepare to hunt. But low and behold, there before you in the open field....  a sea of panthers wandering about, just waiting to be slaughtered. Convenient, yes. Immersive? No.

These are supposed to be deadly predators, leaping from the bushes, or tackling you from a treetop by surprise, not domesticated putty tats wandering aimlessly in a field for your ease of killing. Every MMO I've played has suffered from this lack of creativity. I'd expect to find a herd of grazing herbivores chilling in a field, but not forty predatory cats in once place. You would rarely find more than one panther in the wild, let alone forty.

To me, there are three things missing from the current mob systems...

Purpose:

Sure, our panthers are there to kill to complete your quest, but that's not the kind of purpose I'm talking about. Why are our panthers out in the field? Are they playing whack-a-mole out there? Not likely. At the moment, there's no good reason for a mob to be there, in most cases. Some games at least give you a story behind as to why a mob camps is around, which will give it purpose.

How can we fix this? One way I can think of, is developing the world itself more, to give a reason for our panther to be there. Instead of having a sea of panthers in this field, lets change it to a herd or gazelle, and add a pond to the field. Now we have something for the a panther or two to munch on, and a reason for the gazelles to be there as well. 

To take this one step further, give the mobs a better routine. Instead of wandering from point a to point b, have them search for food. Once they've eaten, have them find a water source, then perhaps find some cover to nap under. It's these kind of things that could really add to the immersion of a game.

Proper Difficulty:

Most MMO's have some sort of common/rare/elite/boss system in place. This works well in a way, but can also become tedious because of the current mob designs. In most games, if you're hunting a level 39 deer (Super-Doe!), it's going to be as dangerous, or nearly as dangerous as the nearby level 39 bear. Both are going to be a cakewalk as long as you're level appropriate.

The problem with this is that the world becomes a game of attrition. You no longer have to think of how to defeat the bear, but only begin to count how many you can take down before you have to stop and rest. To me, this is both boring, and silly.

Did hunters ever talk about how many bears they took down in one day? Possible, but it's more likely that they celebrated the fact that they actually killed one, and survived! That's what I feel is missing now. If you have an opponent that should be hard to kill, it's not really, unless it's a boss of a dungeon.

I want to have a hard time taking down some tough monster. Let me carve my way through the rabbits, and sheep, but make the monsters interesting. And don't forget to make it more rewarding, as you'll be risking more. The added bonus to this, is that you can tuck a bear away in a cave, or by a stream somewhere, and you don't need to have a field full of them.

On the other end of this, large scale battles could be made to make you feel more super-heroic by scaling the difficulty of the enemies more. Peons could take very little damage, warriors may take some work, while the captain giving directions in the back may take a whole group to take down. Done right, you could feel as if you were a powerhouse, but still have to use your head as to who to engage.

Proper Respawn:

MMO's in general suffer from a stale respawn mechanic. After it's killed, mob X takes X amount of time before it suddenly pops back up, and wanders about aimlessly just as it did before.

I hate this mechanic with a passion. The only good part to it, is that it can keep you on your toes, but there's plenty of ways around this. Otherwise, the fact that the monster appears from nothing, out of nowhere, with no warning, tends to take away from your sense of achievement. After you've clear an entire camp on bandits, and turn around to find another one wandering about like nothing happened, it's kind of a downer.

The fix for this can go back to our panthers, and by putting a little thought behind it, could make a game a whole lot more fun. Having a panther suddenly lunge from a bush, or drop out a tree, would be much more exciting than having one phase in from nowhere. If you were careful, and observant enough, perhaps you could even catch one resting in a tree.

As for the bandits, reinforcements could be transported in on a truck,  they could crawl out of a tent, or a patrol could return to camp. Bears, or wolves, could crawl out of a den and begin to hunt. Giant spiders could climb out of a tree stump, or drop from the trees. If developers would put a little more thought into this, it would create a much more immersive world for us all.

Wrap Up:

Sadly, a lot of developers have become lazy in their monster spawning designs. I'm sure a lot of gamers have also become used to having their mobs served to them on a golden platter. I for one, would be willing to to spend ten minutes, hunting for an elusive panther, only to have it ambush me instead, and then be stuck in a life or death battle with a truly fearsome foe. Walking away alive from that would be a lot more rewarding to me, than the 'kill 30 demons, rest for 20 seconds, and repeat until boredom ensues' that is the current make up of most MMO's today.

Now & Then - Dungeons of Fayte vs. Realm of the Mad God

Just to take a look at how far gaming has gone, I'll be doing a Now & Then posts. Generally I'll be comparing something older, to something relatively new. However, to kick it off, I'm going to be showing a couple of games made relatively close to each other, but that shows a huge change.

DUNGEONS OF FAYTE

I first ran in to Dungeons of Fayte while working with a program called Game Maker. It's one of the games available to download from their site, made with Game Maker. It's a simple dungeon crawl game, complete with a few RPG elements, and a shooter kind of feel.

You have only so many weeks until some Lich comes to ruin your day, not to mention the town you help protect. As time passes you train your character, during your non-adventuring weeks, and do side jobs in order to unlock other classes and afford your equipment. Once a month you head off to a dungeon, and try to clear it for maximum reward, so that you have a better chance when the Lich comes calling. If you've played Princess Maker, or Monster Rancher, you'll be familiar with this kind of flow.

The graphics are old school, NES'ish, or older, but they get the job done, and are actually part of the game's charm. Clearing a whole dungeon is surprisingly difficult, and you can run through the game many times in a relatively short period of time, making a pretty decent replay value.

Don't expect huge thrills and chills from this game however, as it's pretty straight forward. It's fun for short periods of time, and due to it's small size, it's easy to hide away for a rainy day. Overall, I'd say it's a good time killer, something to play when you don't have enough time to tackle something bigger.

REALM OF THE MAD GOD

My wife was tuned into Towelie's live stream on day, and I saw him playing this game. Since I was familiar with Dungeons of Fayte, I had a good hard laugh at the massive group of people playing with Towelie, and proceeded to find the game. I believe that this game, developed by Wild Shadow Studios, and Dungeons of Fayte have the same creator at the heart (or at least their artist 'Oryx')

Anyhow, Realm of The Mad God is an Massively Multiplayer Co-operative Fantasy Shooter. That's a mouthful, but describes it right. Up to 64 players can join a single map at a time, all connected together by a main trading/chat hub. It requires no download, and plays directly on your web browser. Neat trick. Neat enough that it's become a finalist for the Technical Excellence award at the Independent Games Festival.

Gameplay is similar to Dungeons of Fayte, however much faster and much more action based. You (and hopefully at least a couple other players) take on hordes of beasts as you gather enough strength to take on the Mad God. Each class plays much differently, with different ranges, stats, and special abilities. To finish up a map, you need a large group of various classes to succeed. Dying in the game means the end of your character, no respawn here! However, it is a mechanic of the game, as you complete quests with one class in order to unlock another. So if you want to play them all, you're gonna die a lot too.

The graphics are actually the same sprites from Dungeons of Fayte, with a good helping of new monsters thrown in, and a few different classes to play. The gameplay is fun, and strangely addictive. There's always a mass of players on, so if grouping up is your thing, it's easy to do. It is a Free-To-Play game, which means there is an money shop. You can unlock additional character slots, and grab some items if you really want, however I didn't feel the need.

Wrap Up!

These two games to me show a huge jump... not for gaming in general, but for the possibilities for game designers. A programmer started with a Game Maker game, and was able to make a full fledged MMO'ish game, which I'm sure has landed him a decent chunk of change. I'm sure he had his fair share of help along the way, but this proves that you don't need a whole company to be successful in the market, just a good idea, and some determination.

Links to Check Out!

Play Realm of the Mad God

Download or play Dungeons of Fayte

Watch Towelie #1 Livestreaming Gamer

Currently Playing - Fallen Earth

One of my main goals of this blog, is of course, to share with you all my gaming experiences. 'Currently Playing' will most likely be the main way I do this. In these blogs, I'll give a bit of a review on a game that I'm playing now, along with tips, tricks, or links to resources for the game. So let's get down to business shall we?

FALLEN EARTH

For my first 'Currently Playing' I'll be giving you all a look into Free to Play MMO, named Fallen Earth. It's currently being run by GamersFirst, and can be found on Steam as well, which is how I came across it.

Fallen Earth is an MMO set in a post-apocolyptic future, somewhere in Arizona near the Grand Canyon. You play as a clone, revived from a cloning facility, and freed from the facility for reasons beyond your immediate knowledge. You quickly learn how being a clone grants you, in a round-about way, immortality. You can imagine how useful that is in a nuked out world, and gives a good twist on the normal death and respawn from other MMO's. The world is full of crazed mutants, bandits, ticked off wildlife, and even the majority of your 'friendly' NPC's are out for themself in one way or another.

The gameplay itself is a mixture of a FPS (first person shooter), and your more traditional RPG. Basically, combat does require you to aim. There's melee, ranged, and psionic powers, which all require proper aiming. The fun part about this, is that you can land head shots, which gain you a decent damage boost. The bad part is, if you suck at aiming, you can blow through a lot of ammo, or die rather fast. Objects will provide cover too, so you can use the terrain to your advantage in a fight. If you happen to have played Neocron, you'll have a good idea how this mechanic works.

Character creation allows for the normal changes, hair, eyes etc., plus some. You'll have several tattoos, scars, and peircings to choose from. A big difference is that there is no Classes in Fallen Earth. As you play, you gain Ability Points, which can be spent in any way across many different skills and abilities. You can be a pistol wielding, car crafting, healer, if you want. Or you can bash heads with melee, then switch to a rifle for those long distance kills. It's all up to you, of course, some builds work better than others.

The main storyline follows the company which created you Life Net, and a rival supercomputer named Tetrax. Of course every town you come across has it's own mini-story line, and quests branch off to explore those as well. A lot of the storylines are cliche, and almost expected, but Fallen Earth pulls them off pretty well anyway. There's not a lot of suprises with the quests, as they're your basic mix of kill quests, fetch, defense, and escort quests. 

There is, of course, Pvp in Fallen Earth, and it comes in 3 basic forms. There's Blood Sports, which act like your normal battlefield, 2 teams face off, he who kills best, wins. There's open world Pvp for anyone brave enough to trot around with their Pvp flag on. And there's Territory Pvp, areas which 6 different factions fight for control over. This can get quite interesting considering things will actually get a bit political. Certain factions may agree to temporary alliances, or get vindictive towards one another, which can lead to a lot of different dynamics.

If you enjoy crafting, you will most likely really enjoy Fallen Earth. There is virtually no 'loot' to be had from killing creatures in Fallen Earth. Anything you do tend to pick up, is either food, or crafting ingredients for items. Yep, that's right, you won't be grinding bosses to get some uber loot, you'll be crafting it or buying it from the auction house. The system itself is expansive, and you can craft anything from closet rods (a weapon), to Mad Max style cars. Any materials you don't get while killing critters, can be harvested from junk piles, ore, plants, etc.

The graphics are effective, as well as the sounds. They are adjustable, and on the highest settings, the world actually looks very good. It's easy to get immeresed in your surroundings. Just wait until you catch a sunset, they did a good job of capturing a real Arizona sunset.

Pros:

  -The Community: Fallen Earth has a Help Channel, which the community actively participates in, and helps new players, and old alike, with questions. There are GM's which monitor the usage of the different channels, and will mute or ban players from certain channels if they misuse them. In general, the community here is one of the best I've played with.

 -Immersion: I believe the FPS style of Fallen Earth, along with their attention to some often overlooked details really helps you become immersed in the game. You're not just targetting a critter and hitting hotkeys, you're aiming and dodging and fighting for your life. One good example, is that your mounts, or vehichles, must be stored in a garage or stable. You can't just slap them in your backpack and go, if you leave it outside of a cave, you'll have to come back to it when you leave (or get it towed later.) While that may sound like a pain, it's actually something I've come to appreciate.

 -Crafting: A bit complex, but the crafting system is one of the most expansive I've seen.  There's a TON of weapons and armor, and you can even 'train' horses. If you put your time into it, you can craft nearly every item in the game. There are even towns which the players help create, grow, and defend with crafting. You can dye some clothing, and vehicles as well.

 -Pay To Play: Fallen Earth's pay to play system is much more forgiving than most. They have been running a special, which for a 5 dollar purchase, removed nearly all your restrictions. Regardless, even without that purchase, the game feels fully playable. There are some restrictions which may become a problem at higher levels, but for 5 bucks, most people can afford to get rid of them.

 -Combat: It's refreshing for a new spin on the normal RPG. It gets you more involved, and you can have some very tense combat moments. There's a good sense of accomplishment when you manage to dive deep into a 'dungeon', survive, and get out all in one peice. They managed to mix the FPS with RPG elements pretty well.

 -Character Growth: Although there are several accepted builds which are considered to be most effective, it's possible to grow your character in hundreds of different ways. The only limit is that you get 1960 AP to spend over your characters lifetime.

Cons:

-Learning Curve: The mixture of FPS, and RPG seems to throw a lot of people off. It took me a couple straight days of playing to get used to the controls, and get the general sense of how things work. There is a tutorial, but sadly it seems most people skip it, and even if you do it, you'll have a lot of questions. Good thing there's a good Help Channel!

-Crafting Time: Crafted items take TIME to make as well as the components. While this is more true to real life, it can suck to have to wait 4 hours just to make 1 part of a vehicle, knowing that there are several more to go. This can be somewhat avoided by the fact that you can continue crafting while you're offline, but only up to 8 hours worth of time if you havn't spent the 5 dollars.

Wrap Up:

So far, I'm really enjoying Fallen Earth. I've spent hours exploring the Arizona wastelands, just becoming immersed in the world. The combat is refreshing, and I've got to admit, I enjoy beating down bandits, like Mad Max on steriods. The world seems properly populated, with NPC's and PC's alike. I've yet to reach the higher levels, which hold my only concern. It seems that Pvp is definately the endgame focus. There are some events to keep you occupied, but unless you are a huge Pvp fan, there may be a lack of endgame content at the moment.

All in all, I'd recommend to try Fallen Earth. Even if you're not a FPS fan, give it a try.

Once you get accustomed to the gameplay, it's one of the most unique, and rewarding MMO experiences out there at the moment. It's easy to get lost in Fallen Earth... (there's triple meaning in that o.O)

A Few Links to Explore:

Get Fallen Earth Here!

Ultimate Guide to Fallen Earth - Forum Post

Skill and Stat Planner

Hello World!

Welcome to my little corner of the internet, Lost Dungeon's Gaming Corner! If you're seeing this, you've probably stumbled across this in it's infantile stage. I have some good plans for this page, including game reviews, experiences, and general thoughts on today's gaming world.

 

 

Quickly, a little about myself. I've been gaming, and even programing (to an extent), since I was barely old enough to walk. I used to punch in programs line by line, on an old Tandy computer, watch them run, erase and repeat, before I could even read. I spent a HUGE chunk of my childhood in front of a Commodore 64, and the Atari. Heck, I remember recycling soda cans in order to afford the original NES when it first came out. I rejoiced when gaming went online, signing on to BBS after BBS in order to spend my turns on ASCII games (Remember Trade Wars anyone?). Soon after, iD Software released Doom, and my life changed forever! Enter the world of realtime online gaming. Though it's been more than 15 years, it feels like it's been just a hop and a skip to where we are now. I believe we're in a wonderful time for gaming, and that it still has a long ways to go!

 

 

On this Blog, I plan on giving my opinions on games that I'm currently playing. Tips and tricks, or links to good resources on them. Most importantly to me though, I will be posting my ideas and thoughts on how gaming should continue to evolve. I may not be the #1 resource on gaming, but I have a HUGE amount of experience, and a TON of games under my belt. I've seen what works, and what doesn't, what makes a good game, and what makes a blockbuster game!

 

 

I'm reviving an old gamer handle of mine to sign off on this blog, Malevolence. Many, many, poor souls have died to that name, across many different games.