{"id":2085,"date":"2012-08-31T13:21:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T20:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/?p=2085"},"modified":"2012-08-31T13:21:27","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T20:21:27","slug":"what-im-looking-for-from-my-next-mmorpg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2012\/08\/what-im-looking-for-from-my-next-mmorpg.html","title":{"rendered":"What I’m looking for from my next MMORPG"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Okay, while I’m still in mourning about City of Heroes<\/a>, I want to set down what’s made it so special, in a way that looks forward to the next MMO Margie and I get involved in.<\/p>\n

Because, yes, while there are any number of pragmatic reasons why this provides a good opportunity to kick the habit and turn all those hours into something more “productive” … playing CoH has been such a very nice thing for Margie and me to do together<\/em> that I want to maintain that experience. Though, obviously, sadly, in a different game.<\/p>\n

So … here’s what I’m looking for the next thing (and, it goes without saying, I’m looking for specific suggestions from my vast reading audience as to what that next thing should be based on that).<\/p>\n

1. It needs to be soloable and duoable.<\/strong> That’s how we play. If the significant content and advancement requires you to belong to a guild of some sort in order to access it, that’s not for us. \u00a0I don’t mind mass events or the options to do such a thing, but this is about Me and Us time.<\/p>\n

2. I’d prefer minimal grinding.<\/strong> One thing CoH got away from over the years were a lot of the “Go shake down 20 Council and find out their next target” kind of things. Those missions still existed, but they were a minimal part of the action in more modern content. \u00a0That sort of busy-work was one of the things I disliked about LotRO, too (“Collect 30 Neek-a-breeker wings! Great. Now go out and collect 40 Fruit Bat Eyeballs!”). \u00a0That leads into …<\/p>\n

3. I want to be a big damn hero.<\/strong> This was another place where I always felt LotRO fell short. I never felt heroic<\/em>, in the sense of being a person of extraordinary skill and ability, able to do incredible things (and faced with incredible things to do). \u00a0Sure, I was a cool character with a sword, but I was fighting other guys who were also cool and who could take me down at any moment. I’m not asking for a walk in the park, but feeling extraordinary, not just another guy with a sharp axe, is important to me.\u00a0Travel powers<\/em> are definitely a part of that (something LotRO has partially solved with more pony-power options) — if I spend the majority of my time running across the landscape to the next content, I’m not being heroic, just persistent. And bored.<\/p>\n

4. I’m an alt-aholic.<\/strong> The system has to have a high “paper doll” factor in terms of letting me try a wide array of both appearances <\/em>and abilities<\/em>. \u00a0And I don’t want to be limited to just a few of those as my sole build(s) (“Man, I’d really like to try this character concept, but I only get four slots so I’d have to drop someone else.”) And, by definition, that means a high replayability factor in terms of content and approaches to tackling it.<\/p>\n

5. Instanced missions are okay. In fact, preferred.<\/strong> One thing I always disliked with Champions Online was the “Okay, go defeat XYZ” … who is standing in the open and thus gets gacked by a series of people on the same mission and you have to stand around and wait for your turn to do it. \u00a0Going through a mission door and being on our own to defeat the bad guy(s) is a big improvement, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

6. Decent scaling. <\/strong>I seem to recall LotRO had (has?) this problem — a very narrow band of mission levels suitable for your character. Take one a level or two too hard, and you’re dead meat. A level or two too easy and it’s drop-dead boring. \u00a0CoH, over the years, really added a lot of flexibility to tackle content above and below with appropriate scaling, as well as being able to set global difficulties for your character (bump up\/down the opponents X levels, multiply the villains X much). \u00a0As a sidebar to this, appropriately scaled missions are also important — Champs Online felt way too uneven, as though one mission was way easy, then the next nigh-impossible. \u00a0I like a constant and consistent challenge.<\/p>\n

7. Not so much with the crafting, please. <\/strong> Though I eventually got used to it on CoH and enjoyed playing games with it, in most systems crafting is (a) a time sync, (b) a way to keep you from exhausting content, and too often (c) a requirement for advancement. I don’t like any of those options. \u00a0If I want to worry about a day job, I’ll worry about my real one. This was another place where LotRO failed for me.<\/p>\n

8. I’m investing my time and, probably money. Likewise, please.<\/strong> So now I’m skittish about getting involved in a game only to have it yanked out from underneath me. \u00a0Call it commitment anxiety. \u00a0My inclination is for a game with something of a track record, and certainly from a company that’s doing well.<\/p>\n

9. Trying things out. <\/strong>I don’t mind a subscription model. In fact, I’ve kind of liked that with CoH. \u00a0I wouldn’t mind starting out on a F2P format and be able to graduate to a playing player once I’m convinced the game style is what I want. \u00a0But I’m open to a variety of options, as long as it’s not too<\/em> microstransactional (“Welcome to Level 5. Please deposit 35 BlastCorp Bucks to continue playing!”).<\/p>\n

10. I’m looking for RP Lite.<\/strong> In line with the Solo\/Duo thing (and the Alt-aholic thing) above, I don’t need something that’s highly social, but I would <\/em>like to stand out a bit in a crowd, and have a backstory concept that’s reflected in how I can behave. I want to feel at least some level of role-playing in the design and naming of the characters. If every toon is simply a set of characteristics and standard abilities, and there’s a sense of \u00a0“Oh yeah, well, every Blue Elf is like every other Blue Elf,” then it’s just mixing and matching numbers and not nearly as much fun.<\/p>\n

I’m not particularly tied to any genre — I’ve done a lot of supers, obviously, but fantasy or SF or whatever are certainly viable settings.<\/p>\n

I suspect it’s not going to be easy to find these things all in one bundle. They’re what I’ve loved most about CoH, and obviously no other game is going to have quite the same level set in these attributes. But, as I said, options and opinions are welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, while I’m still in mourning about City of Heroes, I want to set down what’s made it so special, in a way that looks forward to the next MMO Margie and I get involved in. Because, yes, while there are any number of pragmatic reasons why this provides a good opportunity to kick the … Continue reading “What I’m looking for from my next MMORPG”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character-design","category-gameplay","category-mmo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}