Making a realistic game

I think it would be best if the game was as realistic as possible.(Let’s ignore the magic for now)
Star Citizen is the best example I can think of.
• I think the whole planet should be made from the start (even if we don’t have access until an expansion is released or another planet can be the expansion) with real weather patterns, rotation, orbit, sunrise/sunsets etc.
• Player characters and NPCs can become fatigued, hungry/thirsty, out of breath to the point of fainting (survival type games)etc. I don’t mean a stamina bar but the player character is visually showing these thing to the point where it makes you feel out of breath etc.
• All character animations that a normal human can do. Climbing, crouching, prone etc
• There is plenty more things (add it if you think of it)
Once all these things are implemented than add the magic aspect to everything. At least the foundation of realism will be there making the game more solid. IMO

Without that...no matter how much they put into the game like all the goodies you guys suggested that the devs picked to make the game better will only make another more dressed up mmorpg that’s pretty much just like the previous mmos on the market.
AoC is only one planet. I’m not saying it won’t be hard and time consuming but we need to get out of the old groove and think outside the box. It’s an open world...SO it should be a WHOLE world. Just make the levels a grind and give us a planet to explore.

There is no roadmap so I’m not sure what the goal is or if I cover what they might be aiming for but I do want AoC to be the best.

And don’t give me “It won’t work or won’t fit the genre/play style... to time consuming/to much money.” If there’s a will there’s a way. Zooming way out to the point your character looks like an ant isn’t very immersive. (I did that too...) It’s the difference between being in the thick of the battle to holding a magnifying glass over an anthill.

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Comments

Damokles

I somehow really like the idea of having a hunger and thirst bar, even though it will be really irritating at the beginning.
It would at least place strong importance on the cooking and farming profession (cooks couls make food that gives you a buff to the hunger or thirst meter etc)

We already saw some climbing animation ala Assassins Creed stile in the rogue/predator gameplay showcase i believe, yes it needs polishing but hey, he can climb walls.

I would really like the ability for things to catch fire and spread it. We already can destroy things with major spells, why not go the extra step?
The thing to prohibit the wide spread use of fire magic in sieges would be that the invaders would have to invest mones, time and resources at the end to repair everything.
(Spread of fire should depend on surrounding territory, a fresh forrest does not catch fire as easily as lets say a plane, a steppe or a sahara)

theonegargoyle

LoBane wrote: »

I think it would be best if the game was as realistic as possible.(Let’s ignore the magic for now)
<snip>
Once all these things are implemented than add the magic aspect to everything. At least the foundation of realism will be there making the game more solid. IMO

Lemme guess, you're one of those people like me who will quite happily say things like "Yes I know it's pretendy-land with fantasy magic to break all the laws of physics but godammit that's no reason it can't be INTERNALLY CONSISTENT !!!!" ... am I right ?

I think we'll get along just fine :-)

zinnie

I like a bit of realism in my games to add immersion, however too much realism tends to make games more into simulators rather than games.
I think the survival trope has been done to death already, and for most people, constantly keeping up with 4-5 different bars of thirst, hunger, temperature, fatigue etc can become very tedious and detract from overall game-play.

I get that people that like the survival genre want an MMO to fit their tastes, but Ashes is not that MMO.

Shoklen

Im just excited we are getting seasons.

Next step would be simulated weather patterns. They don't have to be hyper-realistic, but having a thunderstorm roll over the open world would be amazing.. Instead of it just raining in the entire zone or not..

Amist

I like some realism in the MMO's I play, however too much tends to become tedious and too much like real life. If you are looking for a super realistic game, I would suggest checking out Chronicles of Elyria. That game literally has aging

Azathoth

Perhaps Star Citizen could add Nodes, Magic, and Fantasy armor/weapons/environment to their game too. I mean it might not fit their genre but I am sure they would love to open crowd-sourcing to do it.

I am glad you like Star Citizen, but I don't want IS to do the never-eneding crowd sourcing P2W bs that has happened to Star Citizen (buying ships as crowd-funding before release). Also, your argument seems to suggest "be more like Star Citizen, not all the other MMORPG's on the market."

Survival mechanics are nice when playing survival games, but I would prefer not to turn Ashes into a Survival game.

Having a whole world to explore is meaningless. Some games have small maps but feel huge (Neir), while others have huge maps but feel empty (NMS). As much as I would like the Open-World exploration actually mean Open-World, I would also like server populations to remain manageable while making the in-game experience feel populated. Having an entire world to explore with a player server limit might make most nodes small and vacant. That wouldn't feel like an MMO.

Wandering Mist

There is a fine line to be had when it comes to "realism" in games. Yes it is realistic for your character to get hungry and thirsty and tired, etc and adding in those elements could increase the immersion. However, add too much and you spend all your time micromanaging your character's needs instead of playing the game. Red Dead Redemption 2 had this problem where you spent most of your time caring for your horse than progressing the story.

Features like character fatigue, hunger, etc work in survival games because they add to the sense of tension the player feels. Those games are all about correctly managing your resources and taking risks to secure desperately needed things in order to survive. Your character is almost out of food and it is getting dark, so you are forced to go out at the most dangerous time and risk getting attacked. Ashes of Creation is NOT that sort of game, and therefore survival game mechanics have very little place in it.

Are you saying you don't want to be able to zoom the camera out all the way? Not all of us want to look over our character's shoulder all the time, especially in difficult group content where you need to be able to see as much as possible.

You say you want "realism" in your games but I reckon you don't even know what that would entail. How about this for realism. When you log in to the game there is a chance that in the night, your character got bitten by a diseased rat/bug/etc and caught a fatal disease, and dies. Does that sound like fun to you? Or how about, if you fight a wild animal there is a chance you get bitten on the arm and if you can't get to a healer in time you get gangrene and your arm falls off. Both are entirely possible situations based on the time-period this game was inspired by.

Everything in the game has to be programmed in. It's all very well saying "I want this feature" but there are limits. Character animations have to be individually designed, animated and coded for. You say you don't want to hear any excuses like this but quite frankly that just shows how ignorant you are when it comes to games development. Maybe you should try making it yourself before you say "no excuses".

grisu

Expanding what an mmo can do is always a good starting point to create something good.
Survival mechanics tho I can live without no matter what type of game.

Adding all those extra bits of immersion, sure down the line you can add them after you did your base set and are done with whatever needs to be done to make the game run in the first place. (the general idea of intrepid is big quarterly content updates and small ones in between)
If there ever is some extra time, go for it. I personally don't need it because in my opinion your view on consistency doesn't work for me.
I will always come back to a 5 ton dragon hitting you with his paw. No internal realistic consistency will ever make me believe you survive that. You are mush, that's what you are after that hit.

So no, in my opinion that doesn't make it more realistic, it just makes it more charring when you have those really fantastical moments. If a guy can run in full plate armor for several days straight without ever making a single huff of exhaustion, that's the worlds basis. THAT'S it's realism and consistency.

Comparing it to our world just throws in wrenches for me, kicking me out of the experience.

Edit: I just thought of John Carter as perfect example. That guy could probably outrun the setting sun. Is it realistic in our everday world? No.
Does it make sense and totally could be that way making it realistic for that world? Yes, yes it does.

neuroguy

You are just asking for a different genre of game. In order to "need" food and drink, you kind of need death to have severe consequences. Usually this is accomplished by losing items in your inventory... most survival games make your survival important because otherwise you lose what you have. If dying from hunger or thirst only relocated you in game (you lost nothing), people wouldn't care. They would just collect a lot of food and water and keep dying until they have collected enough to survive for a raid or some long adventure. For survival mechanics to work in AoC, you'd need to amp up the consequences of dying. This would mess with the corruption (anti-griefing) mechanic because that is supposed to be the consequence, and oh my god please do not even suggest they mess with that system as people already freak the fuck out about "but will it REALLY stop griefing?" we don't need to have that convo for the millionth time until we see something more from them.

There are a bunch of survival MMOs already out there with more to come like new world, AoC doesn't need to do everything and be every game. They are already adding parlor games haha.

LoBane wrote: »

• I think the whole planet should be made from the start (even if we don’t have access until an expansion is released or another planet can be the expansion) with real weather patterns, rotation, orbit, sunrise/sunsets etc.

It's fun to say things like this but computationally to be able to deliver this in an MMO is really not easy and I don't understand why you need orbits when you can just have the sky change lol. Also, to prepare the entire world makes you rigid, as you are less likely to want to make changes to your original plan if a lot of development hours went into something already. Plus, we don't know how big the ultimate vision is, it could take a long time and delay the game. Imagine if ESO waited until all of their other zones were finished.

LoBane

I just don’t want the devs to put a limit on the core structure of the game.
Even if the devs don’t use some of the realistic aspects at the maximum but having it at the minimum would make a huge difference.
Plus all the realistic stuff will make the possibility for more creativity.
More mini games that are different from Apocalypse and pvp.

Amist

LoBane wrote: »

I just don’t want the devs to put a limit on the core structure of the game.
Even if the devs don’t use some of the realistic aspects at the maximum but having it at the minimum would make a huge difference.
Plus all the realistic stuff will make the possibility for more creativity.
More mini games that are different from Apocalypse and pvp.

I think if too much realism is put into the game, it will limit the players and developers much more than enable them

Wandering Mist

LoBane wrote: »

I just don’t want the devs to put a limit on the core structure of the game.
Even if the devs don’t use some of the realistic aspects at the maximum but having it at the minimum would make a huge difference.
Plus all the realistic stuff will make the possibility for more creativity.
More mini games that are different from Apocalypse and pvp.

No, relying too much on realism reduces creativity which is why most developers throw realism out the window.

As with so many other people on this forum you have seen some features that you like in other games and want to put them into Ashes without considering the "why". Why do those features or mechanics work in those games? Very rarely can you take a single mechanic out of one game and put it into another without something going wrong.

LoBane

Innovation is dead! :'(

Amist

LoBane wrote: »

Innovation is dead! :'(

Innovation is not dead, but there are certain types of games that thrive in realistic settings and others that don't. Often straying away from the realistic route offers a lot more innovation.

If you are so keen on realism I would highly suggest you check out Chronicles of Elyria as it markets itself on being a very realistic MMORPG.

Karthos

Innovation is far from dead.

It's just people are less willing to take a risk on their games so the real innovation is coming from Indie studios.

LoBane

Adding more gimmicks(nodes, well liked systems from other mmos)to a play style that can be considered outdated will only slow down the game getting boring.

I like the nodes but it’s just a high end gimmick in the long run.

Amist

LoBane wrote: »

Adding more gimmicks(nodes, well liked systems from other mmos)to a play style that can be considered outdated will only slow down the game getting boring.

I like the nodes but it’s just a high end gimmick in the long run.

So you want the entire premise (the nodes) on which the game is build upon to be removed?

zinnie

Maybe the games does not suit you if you feel the core aspect of the game is a gimmic to you. The same way that I don't like Survival games because I feel like increasing difficulty arbitrarily through unnecessary game mechanics (hunger, thirst, fatigue) ruins the core game experience for me.

Wandering Mist

Innovation definitely ISN'T dead, but the innovations need to make sense. Taking random elements from different genres and putting them in Ashes isn't going to work. Making a game "realistic" just for the sake of it doesn't benefit anyone.

If I wanted to play a life simulator I would play The Sims. If I wanted to play a survival game I would play Outlast 2. I'm not playing either of those types of games here, I'm playing Ashes of Creation, an mmorpg.

Zonned

I don't like super strict realism something like Darksouls is close enough.

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