What ever happened to the MMO Manifesto?

So I'm going down memory lane and I rewatched the MMO Manifesto that got us all hyped up back in 2011, and I'm thinking.. whatever happened to the design philosophy stated there?

"ReeSoesbee" saidEveryone around you is doing the same thing, the boss you just killed respawns 10 minutes later, it doesn't care that I'm thereOkay while respawns are needed or you'd run out of content pretty fast and while spawns usually aren't "10 minutes" it does often feel like it's just a schedule, in fact for world bosses, it is a schedule. I'm not sure how you get around this one and design another way.. but she had a point then and well.. nothing really came of it to correct it.

"ColinJohanson" saidYou'll get quest text that says 'I'm being attacked by these horrible things' and it's not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a fieldThat has always bothered me in MMO's, and I understand in many MMO's you need to grind a lot of enemies to progress, so they litter the world with a mob every 5 feet so that you never run out of things to kill for xp. But man, you ever go hiking in the woods? There are not vicious wild animals waiting for you to kill them every 5 feet, most animals avoid human contact, you go on hikes and it's a surprise to see anything aside from birds and squirrels in trees. But in every MMO, including GW2.. violent creatures that want to kill you every 5 feet, just waiting for you to button mash them into the grave. Yawn. sometimes I really do nod off while fighting in the game because after fighting 10's of thousands of enemies it becomes so monotonous no matter how good your combat system is, it cannot maintain freshness in the face of infinite repetition. I've always wanted an MMO with a world more realistically populated. Enemies focused in dens, camps, caves, shelter, villages, bivouacs, but most of the area between is open and realtively empty. You might encounter a wild predator here or there on a rare occasion if they're a loner, but more commonly a pack of predators, or a patrol group. Something that's actually DOING something whether actively hunting other wild animals (and you do see this occasionally, predatory beasts attacking yellow prey mobs)... But no Mordrem just standing there in the middle of nowhere doing absolutely nothing just waiting to be killed. Anyway, from the manifesto, it seemed like GW2 was going to have a world like that.. sadly that didn't happen, and we have the same fodder fest MMO as every other MMO out there, because we need to be in combat 100% of the time if possible. swinging swords over and over until you're tired of it. It's only gotten worse with increased mob aggro radiuses that's been happening frequently since a mob or two had it in HOT, then more mobs had it in each LS3 map and now half the mobs in the game have extended aggro radiuses in PoF. Yay.. more swinging a sword again, that's great.

"ReeSoesbee" saidYou affect things around you in a very permanent way ... (cut to Colin talking about cause and effect and event chains)... You rescue a village which then stays rescued, and they remember youThis is kind of like the boss respawning problem, you DO need to have events be repeatable or you can just plain run out of content, and when things like collections happen that require some items from an event .. that you completed years ago.. how would you now get that item? Though it still would be nice if some events you do have a permanent effect. TESO actually does this with its questing system and use of phasing. even to the point where if I've done a quest but my friend who is next to me but not grouped with me has not, he'll be in a different version of that subzone where there are enemies to fight while I'm in a village that I saved and all the enemies are gone, and in TESO the guards and other NPC's will talk about your actions, including choices you made in some quests that are mutually exclusive.. The permanency of your actions in that game IS a great thing. For example. Orr is currently perpetually locked in 2012. Even though we killed Zhaitan, it's still overrun with Risen. In TESO, as soon as I killed Zhaitan, when I exited back out to cursed shore.. it'd be basically empty, all the risen would be dead. If I left the zone then came back to it, it'd still be devoid of Risen, because I'm phased to be in a post Zhaitan version of the map. There's pros and cons to this. On the one hand.. that permanency is a nice thing, on the other hand, once I've completed all the events in a mapand they're permanently done, there's almost no reason to come back to that map, just picking flowers and mining ore and crafting at specialized crafting stations, maybe looking for easy marks to steal from with the game's crime system, but there's no more quests, and a lot of the areas that had mobs to kill are cleaned out and peaceful, permanently. It's almost like you need a "best of both worlds solution" when you zone into a map, there'd be 2 versions of the map. "New" and "Progress Saved" New would obviously allow you to do events and repeat them, Progress Saved would permanently change the map, and an event like killing Zhaitan/Mordremoth would clear out that map basically. and the map would have new events like building more permanent settlements and trying to salvage things. But that's a lot of work. Still.. it'd be nice .

"MikeO'Brien" said[it has] a fully branching, personalized storylineWe used to have this. I liked it. I liked that it was worth repeating the personal story several times because there were branches to the story you hadn't taken before.. But we haven't had that SINCE Zhaitan was killed. We've been railroaded narratively since Living Story started. Even HoT and PoF stories have no branches, they're railroads. Nothing I picked about my character has mattered at all since the death of Zhaitan, and the things I picked at creation stopped mattering around level 30. LS2 had some story steps worth repeating for rewards and so did HoT.. PoF is worth repeating maximum 3 times for the different backpacks (the only consequence for the only choice we made since Zhaitan was defeated).. but LS3 and LS4, not worth repeating for any reason outside of getting achievements you missed the first time through.. I miss the branching storyline.

Things change.

Several years of iterative development is what happened to it.

The Ree Soesbee quotes are largely about the Personal Story, and were not meant to be references to the persistent world.

The Colin Johanson quote was about how Dynamic Events occur -- and that is still in the game. The heart system, with static tasks, was put in at the 11th hour because feedback told ANet that the standard MMO players were lost without quest hubs, so they put in hearts, then keyed dynamic events to happen when people were in the vicinity doing those hearts. That's why a lot of hearts get completed if one participates fully in an event tied to that area. As to mobs in the persistent world, I think ANet resorted to fairly standard levels of MMO mob density because, again, that's what MMO players expected.

I suspected at the time that ANet would have preferred more time to refine their approach to permanency, but settled for typical MMO graven-in-stone zones due to time and financial pressures from NCSoft. Not that anyone at either company would ever say that. However, ANet often said, "When it's ready." Much of the game at launch was clearly not ready. Look at the personality system, where we choose a philosophy for our characters. You see a few sprinkles of this here and there, but as a system it was clearly never developed, and has been abandoned.

Again, I suspect that branching storylines worked to some degree in content designed pre-launch, but that time pressures to put out enough new content post-launch to satisfy the voracious MMO audience precluded the extra time needed to produce several options for different storylines.

It's a real shame about the #2 with how hearts came to be. I wonder how much different the game would be if those players from other MMO's just.. disregarded what they're used to and had been open to a new way of playing an MMO.

I really wish spawn density was toned down in open areas though. mobs shouldn't just be out there standing aimlessly just to fill space. That's something I REALLY liked about Breath of the Wild, the landscape wasn't just crawling with enemies, they were more realistically populated, with enemies hanging around camps or places where they made sense except at night. Some people called it empty and didn't like it, But that's the kind of open world I'd been looking for, too bad it's a single player game. Less is more sometimes, and that applies to combat frequency too.

They left the heart system in the following updates, look at the maps that where released between vanilla release and HoT. I believe that none of them have hearts but once again complaints came from players that there where no hearts, and then complaints came that hearts wasn't repeatable... Now they are in the new maps.

@Devildoc.6721 said:So I'm going down memory lane and I rewatched the MMO Manifesto that got us all hyped up back in 2011, and I'm thinking.. whatever happened to the design philosophy stated there?

It died August 28th 2012, the game has switched directions multiple times since then.Some things work and some don't, like living story season 1. Moving on to raids and expansions, heck you can see design differences between HoT and PoF.

@"Tanner Blackfeather.6509" said:Several years of iterative development is what happened to it.

Whilst I am generally on board with this comment I agree with the OP's sentiments on the branching story. I appreciate the (very) slight nod to story choices when choosing to request support from Joko, the Sunspears, or for Amnoon to stand alone at the start of the PoF story and the changes you see in the world going forward. This isn't a "branching story" though and I would want to re-play the personal story much more if there were additional real choices to be made. I accept that the scope and funding maybe isn't there in the Living Story episodes for this, but I really feel like it should be a feature of the Expansion content.

Keep in mind that a lot of these things have changed due to negative feedback. Things like the destruction of lions arch and hero that saved it, was a one time event. People loved it, but people complained they missed it and couldn’t replay it.

The hearts are also in the game due to feedback pre launch as dynamic events are too random to keep you busy

@Devildoc.6721 said:It's a real shame about the #2 with how hearts came to be. I wonder how much different the game would be if those players from other MMO's just.. disregarded what they're used to and had been open to a new way of playing an MMO.

I really wish spawn density was toned down in open areas though. mobs shouldn't just be out there standing aimlessly just to fill space. That's something I REALLY liked about Breath of the Wild, the landscape wasn't just crawling with enemies, they were more realistically populated, with enemies hanging around camps or places where they made sense except at night. Some people called it empty and didn't like it, But that's the kind of open world I'd been looking for, too bad it's a single player game. Less is more sometimes, and that applies to combat frequency too.

ummm.. they actually tried it before launch, and it didnt work at allwhen it doesnt work in the test run, why would you put it on live servers?

Sometimes a good idea on paper is a bad idea in practice.

@Sarie.1630 said:

@"Tanner Blackfeather.6509" said:Several years of iterative development is what happened to it.

I would love some meaningful branching, but I think I like the pace of content more...Branching creates an exponentially bigger workload on story creation unless each branch is closed before the next begins.

As a middle ground, I'd really love two things:

• More alternate paths - like the branching in early level stories, two paths to the same point.
• More minor nods that relate to earlier choices - voice/text lines that are different based on things like Legion/College, Order choice, Who we chose in Amnoon etc. (Like the one line difference for humans "blessed by Kormir" in Facing the Truth)

A manifesto states intentions, and I'd say they've done well with the actual result. But sure I want a truly dynamic, living world with persistent meaning to actions. I burned a $100 on the funeral pyre of Landmark to have Sony take that ideal further (as a side note, a big 'kitten you' to Smed). GW2 might not be the living, breathing fantasy world we want (yet), but it sure as hell ranks with the best attempts yet.

Would help a bit if the monsters had a modicum of intelligence.eg monster notices that its dying pretty fast because of the zerg thats beating the stuffing out of it , and instead of just hanging around waiting to be killed decideshell Ill run away and they will have to chase me .Or better still, monster notices a army of nasty looking players coming in fast to kill it , so instead of hanging around waiting to be killed, it hides.Obviously the players wont like this because the entire aim of the game is to kill everything in sight in the least possible time.

@mauried.5608 said:Would help a bit if the monsters had a modicum of intelligence.eg monster notices that its dying pretty fast because of the zerg thats beating the stuffing out of it , and instead of just hanging around waiting to be killed decideshell Ill run away and they will have to chase me .Or better still, monster notices a army of nasty looking players coming in fast to kill it , so instead of hanging around waiting to be killed, it hides.Obviously the players wont like this because the entire aim of the game is to kill everything in sight in the least possible time.

AI is tough on the CPU, and its well known that the GW2 graphics engine leans hard on the CPU too. So I doubt AI could be improved in the current engine, considering how many people already complain about performance.

In an interview that I watched, Colin said that manifesto was made in a hurry and people in it weren't even originally planned to speak in it and they were just told "tell us what you wish Gw2 to be like" ... so basically bunch of "this is what we want but not necessarily what will be"Here you go

UO was the best MMO i've ever played, since GW2, but i miss some elements from UO a lot.I miss dungeons in open world, like it was in Ultima Online, for example.

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Devildoc.6721 said:It's a real shame about the #2 with how hearts came to be. I wonder how much different the game would be if those players from other MMO's just.. disregarded what they're used to and had been open to a new way of playing an MMO.

I really wish spawn density was toned down in open areas though. mobs shouldn't just be out there standing aimlessly just to fill space. That's something I REALLY liked about Breath of the Wild, the landscape wasn't just crawling with enemies, they were more realistically populated, with enemies hanging around camps or places where they made sense except at night. Some people called it empty and didn't like it, But that's the kind of open world I'd been looking for, too bad it's a single player game. Less is more sometimes, and that applies to combat frequency too.

It didn't work because the test players they used came from WoW and were well, there's not a nice way to put it and I'll get warned and the thread deleted so you can imagine what I might say about their intelligence and lets leave it at that. I saw test videos and people complained about not knowing what to do and thought they just had to grind to 80 killing mobs which was the absolute last thing the designers wanted. But if the players had been more intelligent, and maybe just dropped what they knew of normal MMO design and looked from the intended perspective. I think we'd have a better game. Hearts are boring, and packing the world with enemies every 5 feet kills the enjoyment of the combat system really fast.

@"mauried.5608" said:Would help a bit if the monsters had a modicum of intelligence.eg monster notices that its dying pretty fast because of the zerg thats beating the stuffing out of it , and instead of just hanging around waiting to be killed decideshell Ill run away and they will have to chase me .Or better still, monster notices a army of nasty looking players coming in fast to kill it , so instead of hanging around waiting to be killed, it hides.Obviously the players wont like this because the entire aim of the game is to kill everything in sight in the least possible time.

I wouldn't mind if mobs could say, see you killing one just like them without any trouble and decide it might be a good time to make themselves scarce rather than run into your face to die just like the last. Kinda like the imp creatures in Diablo. you kill one the rest scatter fleeing for their lives,.. they might come back at your when your back is turned thinking they have an advantage, but there's an initial fear reaction in them, I liked that. "holy cow that guy just exploded Rakanishu, I'm next if I stick around!". I've always wanted more intelligent enemies to be able to determine the difference in your strength and theirs and determine their chances of survival and maybe perhaps flee instead of attack, or at least cower and let you pass. Other MMO's KIND of do this when your level difference is too much they go "grey" and stop being aggressive to you but they don't react to you at all, when they should be fleeing for their worthless lives.

@"MetalGirl.2370" said:In an interview that I watched, Colin said that manifesto was made in a hurry and people in it weren't even originally planned to speak in it and they were just told "tell us what you wish Gw2 to be like" ... so basically bunch of "this is what we want but not necessarily what will be"Here you go

Now THIS is interesting heh

What happened to the Manifesto? That's easy: The players happened.

@"IndigoSundown.5419" said:

1. The Ree Soesbee quotes are largely about the Personal Story, and were not meant to be references to the persistent world.
2. The Colin Johanson quote was about how Dynamic Events occur -- and that is still in the game. The heart system, with static tasks, was put in at the 11th hour because feedback told ANet that the standard MMO players were lost without quest hubs, so they put in hearts, then keyed dynamic events to happen when people were in the vicinity doing those hearts. That's why a lot of hearts get completed if one participates fully in an event tied to that area. As to mobs in the persistent world, I think ANet resorted to fairly standard levels of MMO mob density because, again, that's what MMO players expected.
3. I suspected at the time that ANet would have preferred more time to refine their approach to permanency, but settled for typical MMO graven-in-stone zones due to time and financial pressures from NCSoft. Not that anyone at either company would ever say that. However, ANet often said, "When it's ready." Much of the game at launch was clearly not ready. Look at the personality system, where we choose a philosophy for our characters. You see a few sprinkles of this here and there, but as a system it was clearly never developed, and has been abandoned.
4. Again, I suspect that branching storylines worked to some degree in content designed pre-launch, but that time pressures to put out enough new content post-launch to satisfy the voracious MMO audience precluded the extra time needed to produce several options for different storylines.

I would have to find it but I believe with 4 they changed how they told the story due to story related issues. In the PS you would often come across NPCs that were important for some reason that you may not know why because you didn't pick a certain option or you didn't pick the right race. They changed it to help clear the confusion people had. It makes sense honestly because the first time I played through the story I kept meeting people that were apparently important but had no clue who they were and I didn't discover it until playing through a completely different PS.

I don't even know what's going on in the story mainly because I absolutely HATE how the commander acts to braham/ etc. It's boring, the characers are boring. Why even have custom options to pick from if they only matter in vanilla? In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter.But, Guild Wars 2 is not played for the story, it's utter garbage. It's played for everything other than the story.

"No MMO Manifesto survives contact with reality"

-Helmuth von Moltke

The early days of gw2 were very experimental imo. Anyone remember what a mess season one was knows what I mean. The 2018 game feels much more deliberate and confident with content updates. Yes miss steps still happen(mount gate) but I’m enjoying the current cadence. I feel the manifesto is more a metaphor to try and make the best game Anet can.