heres a crazy idea in regards to "i cant play gw2 cuz of the portals everywhere" 1. you have to find them first. 2. if they reallly bother you... d o n t u s e t h e m ?
Originally posted by nariusseldon Originally posted by FoomerangOriginally posted by AxehiltOriginally posted by FoomerangWhat is your definition of gameplay? Its probably different than mine.edit: im getting off work now, so I probably wont see your response for a while.
Do you consider watching your avatar's walking animation "gameplay"?Gameplay is when the player makes interesting decisions. It's better gameplay if the decisions remain interesting for a long period of time.Travel lacks almost all gameplay because the only decision you're typically presented with is avoiding mobs. This is an alright minigame for about the first week we all encountered it in MMORPGs (if that.) After which, travel essentially becomes devoid of any interesting interactions -- it essentially just becomes a massive shallow timesink. Hence my argument in favor of either (a) removing it (fast travel), or (b) improving it (giving it deeper gameplay.) Since there are several game mechanics which require travel, option B is a possibility which should get explored more often.Travel is(was) part of the experience. Maybe you ran into a mob or two. Maybe you took in the scenery. Maybe it gave you downtime to chat. Or perhaps organize your inventory and plan out the rest of your gaming session. It was all part of the gameplay.Think about it this way: When you play poker with a group of people and its not your turn, are you no longer playing cards? No. You're still playing cards. You're still in the game and participating even if you're not constantly betting or drawing. Maybe you're talking to another player, or looking at your pot or planning your next move. Its part of the experience. The point is that it is NOT a fun part. If people want to skip it, they don't find it fun. Boring part of gameplay should be cut. Back in EQ when it was first released, you need to stare at your spellbook to gain back your mana.
It was part of the gameplay too, and it was part of the "experience". Few likes that "experience" very much and obviously they got rid of this ridiculous "gameplay".
So, it is not a defense saying that it is a part of the gameplay. If it is boring and considered bad gameplay by many, why have it?
Games that have one constant, screaming level of FUN! are dime a dozen. I don't need my games to be shoving action down my throat nonstop. Whats so wrong with a game having subtlety and dynamic range? What better format than a virtual world to give varied paces in the gaming experience? I understand you want action on demand. And there is a place for that. Id just like to see that dynamic range come back to virtual world mmorpgs. Thats what made the genre unique.
I want ALL games to fit MY idea of fun. ALL of them GODFUCKINGDAMNIT.
I've been part of the Day Z development team for over a month now, and I have some exciting news for you. We've come to realize that it's just not FUN! most of the time. Sure, it has its moments, but it's brought down by gaps of downtime where all you do is run around looking for supplies and evading zombies. To make things more FUN! we'll be starting new players off with an SMG and a ground-based vehicle of their choice, and we'll also be adding vendors to all major settlements for easy access to key supplies.
We'll also be implementing an epic questline in which the players get to battle the zombie menace alone or with their friends, eventually taking on and defeating the Zombie Overlord himself!
Finally we felt that the players weren't quite getting the sense of "progression" we were going for, so we're also adding our "EP" or "Experience Progression" system in a future patch. We're not quite ready to talk about the details yet, but we can promise it'll be FUN!.
Originally posted by FoomerangWhat is your definition of gameplay? Its probably different than mine.edit: im getting off work now, so I probably wont see your response for a while.
Do you consider watching your avatar's walking animation "gameplay"?Gameplay is when the player makes interesting decisions. It's better gameplay if the decisions remain interesting for a long period of time.Travel lacks almost all gameplay because the only decision you're typically presented with is avoiding mobs. This is an alright minigame for about the first week we all encountered it in MMORPGs (if that.) After which, travel essentially becomes devoid of any interesting interactions -- it essentially just becomes a massive shallow timesink. Hence my argument in favor of either (a) removing it (fast travel), or (b) improving it (giving it deeper gameplay.) Since there are several game mechanics which require travel, option B is a possibility which should get explored more often.
Travel is(was) part of the experience. Maybe you ran into a mob or two. Maybe you took in the scenery. Maybe it gave you downtime to chat. Or perhaps organize your inventory and plan out the rest of your gaming session. It was all part of the gameplay.Think about it this way: When you play poker with a group of people and its not your turn, are you no longer playing cards? No. You're still playing cards. You're still in the game and participating even if you're not constantly betting or drawing. Maybe you're talking to another player, or looking at your pot or planning your next move. Its part of the experience.
The point is that it is NOT a fun part. If people want to skip it, they don't find it fun. Boring part of gameplay should be cut. Back in EQ when it was first released, you need to stare at your spellbook to gain back your mana.
It was part of the gameplay too, and it was part of the "experience". Few likes that "experience" very much and obviously they got rid of this ridiculous "gameplay".
So, it is not a defense saying that it is a part of the gameplay. If it is boring and considered bad gameplay by many, why have it?
Games that have one constant, screaming level of FUN! are dime a dozen. I don't need my games to be shoving action down my throat nonstop. Whats so wrong with a game having subtlety and dynamic range? What better format than a virtual world to give varied paces in the gaming experience? I understand you want action on demand. And there is a place for that. Id just like to see that dynamic range come back to virtual world mmorpgs. Thats what made the genre unique.
Games that have one constant, screaming level of FUN! are dime a dozen. I don't need my games to be shoving action down my throat nonstop. Whats so wrong with a game having subtlety and dynamic range? What better format than a virtual world to give varied paces in the gaming experience? I understand you want action on demand. And there is a place for that. Id just like to see that dynamic range come back to virtual world mmorpgs. Thats what made the genre unique.
If you can't give any examples or explain "subtlety" or "dynamic range", they mean absolutely nothing.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
heres a crazy idea in regards to "i cant play gw2 cuz of the portals everywhere" 1. you have to find them first. 2. if they reallly bother you... d o n t u s e t h e m ?
that is all. thank you.
Can you hear the conversation now?
Player 1 : HEY! what the hell is taking so long?
Player 2 : I didnt want to take the port some im riding there.
Player 2 has be kicked from the group
Player 1 : Invite the next random person that wants to gro......
Player 1 : Welcome!
New Player 2 : Be there in a few mins. Need to get kids ou.....
Games that have one constant, screaming level of FUN! are dime a dozen. I don't need my games to be shoving action down my throat nonstop. Whats so wrong with a game having subtlety and dynamic range? What better format than a virtual world to give varied paces in the gaming experience? I understand you want action on demand. And there is a place for that. Id just like to see that dynamic range come back to virtual world mmorpgs. Thats what made the genre unique.
If you can't give any examples or explain "subtlety" or "dynamic range", they mean absolutely nothing.
Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Eve, Day Z.
When a game is FUN! all the time, it ceases to be fun. The best example of this is the current WoW, which has had almost every non-FUN! feature replaced by a FUN! one, so now the game is a lot of FUN!, but it's just not fun anymore. The games I mentioned have gaps of not-FUN!, which allows you to not only have FUN!, but fun as well.
Examples: It's FUN! to get awesome epics and super-cool mounts all the time. It's fun (and where there's fun, there's also FUN!, for the nitpicky) to find that cool mount no one else has. It's FUN! to enter a battleground for instant random-bashing and reward points, and then instantly be back up again the moment you die. It's fun to finally kill those guys you know who beat you earlier, knowing that their death mattered to them, and that if you had lost it would have sucked a bit.
If you're a casual who just wants a bit of FUN! before dinner you won't understand, but if you play a lot you'd be a fool not to.
Sure ... most games last less than a month. So what? I would MUCH rather play a very fun 4 week game, than a so-so 1 year one.
This is the mentality of a console gamer. 4 weeks is what it takes to beat games like Metal Gear, Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Dex. Not MMOs. MMOs use to have a shelf life of 2 years but now people like you have reduced them to these throw-a-way games we have today. Shame really the industry caved in to your ADHD approach to MMOs.
More like a gamer. I play more PC games than console. I do NOT apologize for my preference. So what if i am a "console gamer". Games are entertainment products and i use them as i see fit. Many console games, such as Dead Space, are much better games than MMOs.
I go to fun games, not specific genre. And if this style of MMO fits my play style, i do not see why i should/would not play & support them.
If you want so-so long term repetitive games, it is your perogative. I do not see having to stick to a GAME for 2 years as a virtue.
I play D3, Borderland, and probably torch light 2. But let me ask you this .. is there a reason for me NOT to play a fun MMO with lobby features?
Why should i stick to D3? Oh, i will play it .. but it will prob last only for a few month (which is a long time for a game). So if i want to play a super hero lobby game, is there a reason why i should not play DCUO? In fact, i did for some time and have fun .. i do see any reason to listen to your "advice".
Everything you justed described is the opposite of what a MMO should be. Your not even desribing MMOs anymore. There is a whole genre out there for you to play in. GameStop carries thousands of titles of single player console games for you to loose yourself in for 10 mins. ( if you can muster up the stamina to play that long)
"should be"? You decide that? News flash .. MMOs are more and more like that now, and I like it. And i will actively participate. Why even travel to gamestop? I can get many games, INCLUDING f2p mmos, on STEAM, which is a click away.
By now if no one can see WHY this genre is in the state its in now, just refer yourself to every post nariusseldon has ever posted and read them. HE and his kind ARE the majority now and is the reason why the genre is the way it is.
Thank you for boosting my readership. This genre is just progressing nicely. The next one i am watching out for, Marvel Heroes, will be like a Marvel Ultimate Alliance with MMO features. Definitely a must-play for me, particularly it is F2P.
@Bunnyhopper: So if psuedo-AFKable travel requires maybe 1-3 decisions in 5-15 minutes, you think that's enough decisions for travel itself to be interesting?
The frequency of decisions isn't some absolute "more is always better" metric.
However a baseline of decisions is required to achieve the desired amount of game depth.
That baseline is greater than 1 decision every 5 minutes.
Well, what if travel could be tied into the game of playing the market? Rather than a global AH, you have a lot of local markets where people can up a items to sell. Someone could take items from one market travel a long ways away to another market to resell at a higher price. That makes it more a virtual world. With the got to have it now crowd, you teleport everywhere making that game play meaningless.
I would love this idea but you would have people ( You know who you are ) Screeming from high hevens about they only have 5 mins to play the game and they cant find the time to travle to 5 different market places to look for an item then need/want.
If you only have 5 mins to do something, logging into a MMO shouldent be something your looking to do.
Well, what if travel could be tied into the game of playing the market? Rather than a global AH, you have a lot of local markets where people can up a items to sell. Someone could take items from one market travel a long ways away to another market to resell at a higher price. That makes it more a virtual world. With the got to have it now crowd, you teleport everywhere making that game play meaningless.
The root problem is travel itself isn't fun, and is extremely shallow.
You would have to have a consistent and almost constant stream of these types of interactions for travel's shallowness to be ignorable (because in that case you'd consistently be engaging in some deep system, even if it wasn't travel itself.) Obviously it would be more types of interactions than just a local market (and local markets aren't even all that deep or fun a system compared to some of the other alternatives.)
As for the "got to have it now" crowd? The alternative is a game which deliberately wastes players' time (which is what's happening with excessive travel.) So we have the "gotta have it now" crowd and the "enjoys having their time wasted" crowd. Which would you rather be in? The former crowd gets to experience games just as deep (or deeper, given that they're actually interacting with game systems rather than having their time wasted) than the latter.
How about we add an Excitebike track to ALL trails and byways. Would that add to your 100% all the time excitment that you so crave when traveling? Give me a break with this "travel needs to have depth 100% of the time" shit.
@Bunnyhopper: So if psuedo-AFKable travel requires maybe 1-3 decisions in 5-15 minutes, you think that's enough decisions for travel itself to be interesting?
The frequency of decisions isn't some absolute "more is always better" metric.
However a baseline of decisions is required to achieve the desired amount of game depth.
That baseline is greater than 1 decision every 5 minutes.
Well, what if travel could be tied into the game of playing the market? Rather than a global AH, you have a lot of local markets where people can up a items to sell. Someone could take items from one market travel a long ways away to another market to resell at a higher price. That makes it more a virtual world. With the got to have it now crowd, you teleport everywhere making that game play meaningless.
You could still have meaningful trade like that, with travel, if you can't carry the weight/volume by teleports.
That would leave the game world feeling like it's actually there, offering the chance to go explore for adventure or just travel and see the scenery if one wants, while still keeping meaning for trade and such. Or they can instantly travel to a dungeon to meet up with friends or check out a mystery or grind for X.
It can even add an element to the last, grinding for X. If weights and volumes require overland travel, then encampments outside of Dungeons for storage can be implemented, and caravans back to cities, homes, or guild headquarters also. These can be player run, or at least player built or owned. And added game play can be in the form of these encampments and caravans attracting random NPC raids, so that having players involved in the defense of them is game play. Player caravan Masters and Camp Quartermasters can be "jobs" for players, and NPC hireling guards can add to their professions.
You wouldn't need very many players, percentage wise, to want to do these things to make a name for themselves, as well as their fortunes, in this way. From my experiences from UO, there were plenty of players crying for the chance to be a little unique and establish a "place" in the game world. Whole guilds wanted to make a name for themselves like this.
Originally posted by FoomerangWhat is your definition of gameplay? Its probably different than mine.edit: im getting off work now, so I probably wont see your response for a while.
Do you consider watching your avatar's walking animation "gameplay"?
Gameplay is when the player makes interesting decisions. It's better gameplay if the decisions remain interesting for a long period of time.
Travel lacks almost all gameplay because the only decision you're typically presented with is avoiding mobs. This is an alright minigame for about the first week we all encountered it in MMORPGs (if that.) After which, travel essentially becomes devoid of any interesting interactions -- it essentially just becomes a massive shallow timesink. Hence my argument in favor of either (a) removing it (fast travel), or (b) improving it (giving it deeper gameplay.) Since there are several game mechanics which require travel, option B is a possibility which should get explored more often.
Travel is(was) part of the experience. Maybe you ran into a mob or two. Maybe you took in the scenery. Maybe it gave you downtime to chat. Or perhaps organize your inventory and plan out the rest of your gaming session. It was all part of the gameplay.
Think about it this way: When you play poker with a group of people and its not your turn, are you no longer playing cards? No. You're still playing cards. You're still in the game and participating even if you're not constantly betting or drawing. Maybe you're talking to another player, or looking at your pot or planning your next move. Its part of the experience.
The point is that it is NOT a fun part. If people want to skip it, they don't find it fun. Boring part of gameplay should be cut. Back in EQ when it was first released, you need to stare at your spellbook to gain back your mana.
It was part of the gameplay too, and it was part of the "experience". Few likes that "experience" very much and obviously they got rid of this ridiculous "gameplay".
So, it is not a defense saying that it is a part of the gameplay. If it is boring and considered bad gameplay by many, why have it?
Well, what if travel could be tied into the game of playing the market? Rather than a global AH, you have a lot of local markets where people can up a items to sell. Someone could take items from one market travel a long ways away to another market to resell at a higher price. That makes it more a virtual world. With the got to have it now crowd, you teleport everywhere making that game play meaningless.
The root problem is travel itself isn't fun, and is extremely shallow.
You would have to have a consistent and almost constant stream of these types of interactions for travel's shallowness to be ignorable (because in that case you'd consistently be engaging in some deep system, even if it wasn't travel itself.) Obviously it would be more types of interactions than just a local market (and local markets aren't even all that deep or fun a system compared to some of the other alternatives.)
As for the "got to have it now" crowd? The alternative is a game which deliberately wastes players' time (which is what's happening with excessive travel.) So we have the "gotta have it now" crowd and the "enjoys having their time wasted" crowd. Which would you rather be in? The former crowd gets to experience games just as deep (or deeper, given that they're actually interacting with game systems rather than having their time wasted) than the latter.
How about we add an Excitebike track to ALL trails and byways. Would that add your 100% all the time excitment that you so crave when traveling? Give me a break with this "travel needs to have depth 100% of the time" shit.
This is directed at the guy you quoted.
I remember playing Asheron's Call back in the day. To get to a certain quest dungeon we had to run south-west of Qalabar through a narrow pass and into the Direlands where all sorts of mobs above my level lived. There were five of us, and we all gathered on top of a hill near Qal to begin the journey. Then we buffed up and started running. By the time we made it there, we were only three; the others had died on the way, and had ended up at their lifestone back in Qalabar. The run probably took 20-30 minutes or so and I didn't fight a single monster, but I saw all sorts of really scary ones, and saw one of the others die, probably losing some of his items in the process (they'd be guarded by the monsters that killed him). On the way we also saw a level 65ish player -- a godlike level at the time -- fighting the monsters we couldn't even begin to touch. I didn't even know such high level players existed.
I was constantly worried/excited, and when we completed the quest it was goddamn satisfying. This story would be impossible in a post-WoW mmorpg, where travel is genuinely and inescapably boring.
From reading this you might think that I am some kind of wacky roleplayer, but that's not true. I was in a top 10 WoW guild for years, i've played WC3 semi-professionally, i'm a high master league SC2 player, i've been among the first to max level in many mmorpg's. I've always been a min-maxing powergamer.
Well, what if travel could be tied into the game of playing the market? Rather than a global AH, you have a lot of local markets where people can up a items to sell. Someone could take items from one market travel a long ways away to another market to resell at a higher price. That makes it more a virtual world. With the got to have it now crowd, you teleport everywhere making that game play meaningless.
The root problem is travel itself isn't fun, and is extremely shallow.
You would have to have a consistent and almost constant stream of these types of interactions for travel's shallowness to be ignorable (because in that case you'd consistently be engaging in some deep system, even if it wasn't travel itself.) Obviously it would be more types of interactions than just a local market (and local markets aren't even all that deep or fun a system compared to some of the other alternatives.)
As for the "got to have it now" crowd? The alternative is a game which deliberately wastes players' time (which is what's happening with excessive travel.) So we have the "gotta have it now" crowd and the "enjoys having their time wasted" crowd. Which would you rather be in? The former crowd gets to experience games just as deep (or deeper, given that they're actually interacting with game systems rather than having their time wasted) than the latter.
How about we add an Excitebike track to ALL trails and byways. Would that add your 100% all the time excitment that you so crave when traveling? Give me a break with this "travel needs to have depth 100% of the time" shit.
This is directed at the guy you quoted.
I remember playing Asheron's Call back in the day. To get to a certain quest dungeon we had to run south-west of Qalabar through a narrow pass and into the Direlands where all sorts of mobs above my level lived. There were five of us, and we all gathered on top of a hill near Qal to begin the journey. Then we buffed up and started running. By the time we made it there, we were only three; the others had died on the way, and had ended up at their lifestone back in Qalabar. The run probably took 20-30 minutes or so and I didn't fight a single monster, but I saw all sorts of really scary ones, and saw one of the others die, probably losing some of his items in the process (they'd be guarded by the monsters that killed him). On the way we also saw a level 65ish player -- a godlike level at the time -- fighting the monsters we couldn't even begin to touch. I didn't even know such high level players existed.
I was constantly worried/excited, and when we completed the quest it was goddamn satisfying. This story would be impossible in a post-WoW mmorpg, where travel is genuinely and inescapably boring.
And you can say goodbye to that memory had there been insta porting to instances. There forgeting that the journy IS depth and IS gameplay. Its the things that COULD happen Thats keeps you traveling.
Thats what these other people just dont care about. One of the posters said it himself. There throw away friends. These people dont mater to them. Not interested in anything but items. All their there for is to help him get the items HE wants. Selfish selfinduldged gamers that only have eyes for the "shinny"
Well, what if travel could be tied into the game of playing the market? Rather than a global AH, you have a lot of local markets where people can up a items to sell. Someone could take items from one market travel a long ways away to another market to resell at a higher price. That makes it more a virtual world. With the got to have it now crowd, you teleport everywhere making that game play meaningless.
The root problem is travel itself isn't fun, and is extremely shallow.
You would have to have a consistent and almost constant stream of these types of interactions for travel's shallowness to be ignorable (because in that case you'd consistently be engaging in some deep system, even if it wasn't travel itself.) Obviously it would be more types of interactions than just a local market (and local markets aren't even all that deep or fun a system compared to some of the other alternatives.)
As for the "got to have it now" crowd? The alternative is a game which deliberately wastes players' time (which is what's happening with excessive travel.) So we have the "gotta have it now" crowd and the "enjoys having their time wasted" crowd. Which would you rather be in? The former crowd gets to experience games just as deep (or deeper, given that they're actually interacting with game systems rather than having their time wasted) than the latter.
How about we add an Excitebike track to ALL trails and byways. Would that add your 100% all the time excitment that you so crave when traveling? Give me a break with this "travel needs to have depth 100% of the time" shit.
This is directed at the guy you quoted.
I remember playing Asheron's Call back in the day. To get to a certain quest dungeon we had to run south-west of Qalabar through a narrow pass and into the Direlands where all sorts of mobs above my level lived. There were five of us, and we all gathered on top of a hill near Qal to begin the journey. Then we buffed up and started running. By the time we made it there, we were only three; the others had died on the way, and had ended up at their lifestone back in Qalabar. The run probably took 20-30 minutes or so and I didn't fight a single monster, but I saw all sorts of really scary ones, and saw one of the others die, probably losing some of his items in the process (they'd be guarded by the monsters that killed him). On the way we also saw a level 65ish player -- a godlike level at the time -- fighting the monsters we couldn't even begin to touch. I didn't even know such high level players existed.
I was constantly worried/excited, and when we completed the quest it was goddamn satisfying. This story would be impossible in a post-WoW mmorpg, where travel is genuinely and inescapably boring.
And you can say goodbye to that memory had there been insta porting to instances. There forgeting that the journy IS depth and IS gameplay. Its the things that COULD happen Thats keeps you traveling.
Thats what these other people just dont care about. One of the posters said it himself. "There throw away friends." These people dont mater to them. Not interested in anything but items. All their there for is to help him get the items HE wants. Selfish selfinduldged gamers that only have eyes for the "shinny"
Travel gives immersion and a sense of a huge persistant world, travelling also can give a sense of accomplishment. I was so pleased with myself when I made the trip from Darnassus to Elwynn Forest as a Night Elf in WoW. It' gives adventure. If you just port to where ever, your missing all of the exciting events that could happen on the way there.. One of the reasons I hate GW2 is because you'll just be porting around everywhere, it makes the world feel small and for me, boring.
The first time you made that trip it was great.
Games with fast travel let you make that first trip.
Subsequent times, you'd seen the trip before and it was less and less interesting. Not too long after, it became completely uninteresting. That's the type of travel that needs changing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Expanding in one direction, not diversifying or innovating.
Agreed (generally). The market is focussing in one direction currently as it's becoming clearer (esp with SWTOR's recent f2p bomb) what DOESN'T work in the MMO space. I personally would say we're heading towards a mmo market crash much like the Atari2600 crash of '85. While it sucks for us MMO fans, it's good for the genre creatively.
I give it 3 years and we'll start to see some truly amazing MMO's again (pulled that number out of my arse... but it's not a bad estimate ) Until that time, hold on to your wallets.
Games that have one constant, screaming level of FUN! are dime a dozen. I don't need my games to be shoving action down my throat nonstop. Whats so wrong with a game having subtlety and dynamic range? What better format than a virtual world to give varied paces in the gaming experience? I understand you want action on demand. And there is a place for that. Id just like to see that dynamic range come back to virtual world mmorpgs. Thats what made the genre unique.
We're not talking about one screaming level of fun.
We're talking about not requiring a completely dull level of non-fun.
If every single moment outside your capital city was non-stop action, a MMORPG would still have plenty of players chilling in town unwinding and socializing. What's being requested here isn't even non-stop action outside of town, it's simply that the game never forces you into ultra-shallow activities.
I fish with the best of them, spending upwards of 15-30 minutes doing nothing but relaxing and catching fish in MMORPGs. This is not a required activity. A game where fishing was a required activity would be terrible, because some days the player isn't in the mood to sit and do nothing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
How about we add an Excitebike track to ALL trails and byways. Would that add to your 100% all the time excitment that you so crave when traveling? Give me a break with this "travel needs to have depth 100% of the time" shit.
Games are supposed to be fun. An Excitebike track would be a poor improvement, but still actually would represent a dramatic improvement to the mandated shallow gameplay that travel currently is.
Again, the options are remove travel or improve travel. Any other option will result in an unpopular game (because it deliberately wastes players time with non-gameplay) which will result in less profits for that company, which will result in the other companies (which remove or improve travel) doing better and making more games.
This natural selection process is going to happen, and anyone who likes travel should be in favor of improving its depth rather than let it remain shallow (because that will ensure its removal.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
How about we add an Excitebike track to ALL trails and byways. Would that add to your 100% all the time excitment that you so crave when traveling? Give me a break with this "travel needs to have depth 100% of the time" shit.
Games are supposed to be fun. An Excitebike track would be a poor improvement, but still actually would represent a dramatic improvement to the mandated shallow gameplay that travel currently is.
Again, the options are remove travel or improve travel. Any other option will result in an unpopular game (because it deliberately wastes players time with non-gameplay) which will result in less profits for that company, which will result in the other companies (which remove or improve travel) doing better and making more games.
This natural selection process is going to happen, and anyone who likes travel should be in favor of improving its depth rather than let it remain shallow (because that will ensure its removal.)
Yeah, but what is "fun"? For me, I'd include things like interesting, currious, wonderous, etc.
But also, I've always felt that if you're going to have things that sort of surprize people, you also need the normal.
The OP is right on one thing - the sandbox mmo is dead. However, the mmo genre is not dead judging just by the numbers. No matter how we old timers my moan before WOW the mmo genre was a very small piece of the total gaming pie. WOW showed investors that they could make some big money from mmos and nearly every mmo after that went after the money.
This is what the OP does not get - mmos cost money. The bigger the mmo the more it costs. You need investors to develop big mmos and those investors support a game for the assumed payback. MMOs are built by developers with an idea of what players want to play but they are funded by investors out for a buck.
The genre is falling on hard times. This is mainly because of too many mmos and a declining audience. Nearly all the potential mmo players are in mmos. Generalizing, the more mmos the few players per mmo. Eventually the game is not profitable for investors. Eventually the plug will be pulled. Even ftp is just a quick adrenalin hit. Now even the ftp games are being shut down.
In one sense this might be good news for the OP. When the big investors leave the indies will come back. Maybe you will see sandboxes come back but they are going to look like the early versions of Meridian, EQ and UO.
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Welcome to this world.
Every generation changes what the generation before it tried to accomplish managing to alienate the older generation to some degree.
I suggest buying a walking stick so you have something to point at the young'uns while yelling at them for ruining the world/s.
heres a crazy idea in regards to "i cant play gw2 cuz of the portals everywhere" 1. you have to find them first. 2. if they reallly bother you... d o n t u s e t h e m ?
that is all. thank you.
Travel is(was) part of the experience. Maybe you ran into a mob or two. Maybe you took in the scenery. Maybe it gave you downtime to chat. Or perhaps organize your inventory and plan out the rest of your gaming session. It was all part of the gameplay. Think about it this way: When you play poker with a group of people and its not your turn, are you no longer playing cards? No. You're still playing cards. You're still in the game and participating even if you're not constantly betting or drawing. Maybe you're talking to another player, or looking at your pot or planning your next move. Its part of the experience.
The point is that it is NOT a fun part. If people want to skip it, they don't find it fun. Boring part of gameplay should be cut. Back in EQ when it was first released, you need to stare at your spellbook to gain back your mana.
It was part of the gameplay too, and it was part of the "experience". Few likes that "experience" very much and obviously they got rid of this ridiculous "gameplay".
So, it is not a defense saying that it is a part of the gameplay. If it is boring and considered bad gameplay by many, why have it?
Games that have one constant, screaming level of FUN! are dime a dozen. I don't need my games to be shoving action down my throat nonstop. Whats so wrong with a game having subtlety and dynamic range? What better format than a virtual world to give varied paces in the gaming experience? I understand you want action on demand. And there is a place for that. Id just like to see that dynamic range come back to virtual world mmorpgs. Thats what made the genre unique.
I want ALL games to fit MY idea of fun. ALL of them GODFUCKINGDAMNIT.
I've been part of the Day Z development team for over a month now, and I have some exciting news for you. We've come to realize that it's just not FUN! most of the time. Sure, it has its moments, but it's brought down by gaps of downtime where all you do is run around looking for supplies and evading zombies. To make things more FUN! we'll be starting new players off with an SMG and a ground-based vehicle of their choice, and we'll also be adding vendors to all major settlements for easy access to key supplies.
We'll also be implementing an epic questline in which the players get to battle the zombie menace alone or with their friends, eventually taking on and defeating the Zombie Overlord himself!
Finally we felt that the players weren't quite getting the sense of "progression" we were going for, so we're also adding our "EP" or "Experience Progression" system in a future patch. We're not quite ready to talk about the details yet, but we can promise it'll be FUN!.
Excellent post, Foomerang. I agree 100%
If you can't give any examples or explain "subtlety" or "dynamic range", they mean absolutely nothing.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
100% agree with OP.
I remember playing QE1 into all hours of the night and saying to myself--
"my god; I cant wait to see what gaming will be like 10 years form now"
It is now 13 years later; the the technological world has advanced exponentially; while MMO gaming is stuck in a genra created in 1999
G.E.Schaefer
Played: EQ1. EQ2. FFXI. SWG. Aion. WAR. LOTRO. TabulaRasa. Hellgate London. Diablo 1. Diablo II. Diablo 3. STO. WOW. Vanguard. Guild Wars. Rift. Terra. The Secret World. EVE. Guild Wars 2. Firefall. Neverwinter.
Can you hear the conversation now?
Player 1 : HEY! what the hell is taking so long?
Player 2 : I didnt want to take the port some im riding there.
Player 2 has be kicked from the group
Player 1 : Invite the next random person that wants to gro......
Player 1 : Welcome!
New Player 2 : Be there in a few mins. Need to get kids ou.....
Player 2 has been kicked from the group
Player 1 : Invite the next rand...
Player 1 : Welcome!
Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Eve, Day Z.
When a game is FUN! all the time, it ceases to be fun. The best example of this is the current WoW, which has had almost every non-FUN! feature replaced by a FUN! one, so now the game is a lot of FUN!, but it's just not fun anymore. The games I mentioned have gaps of not-FUN!, which allows you to not only have FUN!, but fun as well.
Examples: It's FUN! to get awesome epics and super-cool mounts all the time. It's fun (and where there's fun, there's also FUN!, for the nitpicky) to find that cool mount no one else has. It's FUN! to enter a battleground for instant random-bashing and reward points, and then instantly be back up again the moment you die. It's fun to finally kill those guys you know who beat you earlier, knowing that their death mattered to them, and that if you had lost it would have sucked a bit.
If you're a casual who just wants a bit of FUN! before dinner you won't understand, but if you play a lot you'd be a fool not to.
Thanks once again for proving my point.
I would love this idea but you would have people ( You know who you are ) Screeming from high hevens about they only have 5 mins to play the game and they cant find the time to travle to 5 different market places to look for an item then need/want.
If you only have 5 mins to do something, logging into a MMO shouldent be something your looking to do.
How about we add an Excitebike track to ALL trails and byways. Would that add to your 100% all the time excitment that you so crave when traveling? Give me a break with this "travel needs to have depth 100% of the time" shit.
+1 for depth.
Oy Vey
This is directed at the guy you quoted.
I remember playing Asheron's Call back in the day. To get to a certain quest dungeon we had to run south-west of Qalabar through a narrow pass and into the Direlands where all sorts of mobs above my level lived. There were five of us, and we all gathered on top of a hill near Qal to begin the journey. Then we buffed up and started running. By the time we made it there, we were only three; the others had died on the way, and had ended up at their lifestone back in Qalabar. The run probably took 20-30 minutes or so and I didn't fight a single monster, but I saw all sorts of really scary ones, and saw one of the others die, probably losing some of his items in the process (they'd be guarded by the monsters that killed him). On the way we also saw a level 65ish player -- a godlike level at the time -- fighting the monsters we couldn't even begin to touch. I didn't even know such high level players existed.
I was constantly worried/excited, and when we completed the quest it was goddamn satisfying. This story would be impossible in a post-WoW mmorpg, where travel is genuinely and inescapably boring.
From reading this you might think that I am some kind of wacky roleplayer, but that's not true. I was in a top 10 WoW guild for years, i've played WC3 semi-professionally, i'm a high master league SC2 player, i've been among the first to max level in many mmorpg's. I've always been a min-maxing powergamer.
And you can say goodbye to that memory had there been insta porting to instances. There forgeting that the journy IS depth and IS gameplay. Its the things that COULD happen Thats keeps you traveling.
Thats what these other people just dont care about. One of the posters said it himself. There throw away friends. These people dont mater to them. Not interested in anything but items. All their there for is to help him get the items HE wants. Selfish selfinduldged gamers that only have eyes for the "shinny"
And you can say goodbye to that memory had there been insta porting to instances. There forgeting that the journy IS depth and IS gameplay. Its the things that COULD happen Thats keeps you traveling.
Thats what these other people just dont care about. One of the posters said it himself. "There throw away friends." These people dont mater to them. Not interested in anything but items. All their there for is to help him get the items HE wants. Selfish selfinduldged gamers that only have eyes for the "shinny"
The first time you made that trip it was great.
Games with fast travel let you make that first trip.
Subsequent times, you'd seen the trip before and it was less and less interesting. Not too long after, it became completely uninteresting. That's the type of travel that needs changing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Agreed (generally). The market is focussing in one direction currently as it's becoming clearer (esp with SWTOR's recent f2p bomb) what DOESN'T work in the MMO space. I personally would say we're heading towards a mmo market crash much like the Atari2600 crash of '85. While it sucks for us MMO fans, it's good for the genre creatively.
I give it 3 years and we'll start to see some truly amazing MMO's again (pulled that number out of my arse... but it's not a bad estimate
) Until that time, hold on to your wallets.
We're not talking about one screaming level of fun.
We're talking about not requiring a completely dull level of non-fun.
If every single moment outside your capital city was non-stop action, a MMORPG would still have plenty of players chilling in town unwinding and socializing. What's being requested here isn't even non-stop action outside of town, it's simply that the game never forces you into ultra-shallow activities.
I fish with the best of them, spending upwards of 15-30 minutes doing nothing but relaxing and catching fish in MMORPGs. This is not a required activity. A game where fishing was a required activity would be terrible, because some days the player isn't in the mood to sit and do nothing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Games are supposed to be fun. An Excitebike track would be a poor improvement, but still actually would represent a dramatic improvement to the mandated shallow gameplay that travel currently is.
Again, the options are remove travel or improve travel. Any other option will result in an unpopular game (because it deliberately wastes players time with non-gameplay) which will result in less profits for that company, which will result in the other companies (which remove or improve travel) doing better and making more games.
This natural selection process is going to happen, and anyone who likes travel should be in favor of improving its depth rather than let it remain shallow (because that will ensure its removal.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah, but what is "fun"? For me, I'd include things like interesting, currious, wonderous, etc.
But also, I've always felt that if you're going to have things that sort of surprize people, you also need the normal.
Once upon a time....
The OP is right on one thing - the sandbox mmo is dead. However, the mmo genre is not dead judging just by the numbers. No matter how we old timers my moan before WOW the mmo genre was a very small piece of the total gaming pie. WOW showed investors that they could make some big money from mmos and nearly every mmo after that went after the money.
This is what the OP does not get - mmos cost money. The bigger the mmo the more it costs. You need investors to develop big mmos and those investors support a game for the assumed payback. MMOs are built by developers with an idea of what players want to play but they are funded by investors out for a buck.
The genre is falling on hard times. This is mainly because of too many mmos and a declining audience. Nearly all the potential mmo players are in mmos. Generalizing, the more mmos the few players per mmo. Eventually the game is not profitable for investors. Eventually the plug will be pulled. Even ftp is just a quick adrenalin hit. Now even the ftp games are being shut down.
In one sense this might be good news for the OP. When the big investors leave the indies will come back. Maybe you will see sandboxes come back but they are going to look like the early versions of Meridian, EQ and UO.