Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Who wants camping back?

2456717

Comments

  • RydesonRydeson Member UncommonPosts: 3,852
         Bring back old camps and bring back the style certain camps had..  KC was full of fun back in the day..  Seb was great, and so on, and so on.. Granted Kill Stealing was an uncommon problem, but if you changed the "named" loot around and made it more random, problem solved..  People questing for J-boots or their epic weapons were awesome.. and I even enjoyed helping a friend get his ranger gear..  Every zone had character and style, none of which were matched since..  I remember camping the gators in lower guk for days to get my leggings.. and DAMN it felt GREAT..  Those were the days.
  • RydesonRydeson Member UncommonPosts: 3,852
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    nah .. i am glad those days are over.

    Camping is boring to me. I play a game for gameplay, not for waiting around doing nothing or chatting.

     

    If all you did was wait around and chat, that sounds like a personal problem...... I never had any problem finding a group or camp to enjoy.. and the PULLS were coming faster then we could kill em.... So many times we had to tell our puller to STOP because we needed some free time to rest.. LOL 

  • OberholzerOberholzer Member Posts: 498

    I don't think I could go back to camping on a regular basis anymore. It had its time and place and I have some great memories but it did get boring. 

  • kyssarikyssari Member Posts: 142

    I miss camping at times but at other times I don't. Personally I would love for it to make a return but not as the ONLY viable option but an option that is just as viable as questing etc.

     

    The primary thing I miss in regards to this is the open world NONLINEAR Dungeons. That is by far the thing I miss the msot and wish would make a come back, and the reason that even today I enjoy playing Vanguard over pretty much every other MMO out there. Instanced linear dungeons get old real fast while open world nonlinear dungeons are much more fun and exciting to explore especially when mobs are respawning and you could easily get yourself lost and dying actually means something, making it a lot more dangerous and exciting all around, especially when you got all the random nameds dropping cool stuff but also respawning so you can actually farm them.

  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332

    Me and big time,i hate running around for no reason than to cover space from point a >Point B.

    I don't mind being the puller,but even then i want a break,i prefer the relaxed setting of a camp.When i am not pulling i can take part in friendly chat or ask/answer questions.

    Questing is not done like a realistic quest would be done,they are just run back n forth fetch me ideas to guide and level up a player.When i think of the term ROLE PLAY,i would never think about leveling because there is no such thing as levels in the real world.There should not be 2-5k quests in a game,they should be few and meaningful and really change the world.

    A realistic quest in term of role play would be your King would send you on a quest to conquer some foreign land or in terms of Fantasy a quest to slay some giant dragon that has been menacing the local towns.You would not be embarking on a quest to bring some npc his beer mug or go kill 10 bears or rats.A famous Warrior would scoff at such nonsense,he would probably say "go kill the darn rats yourself".

    I totally understand the argument against camping,people get bored killing the same creatures over and over.The problem i have with that argument is there really are NO alternatives.How is going to kill 10 rats solo any more fun,especially when 99% of quests are so ridiculously easy,they are even more boring.Devs could remedy the boredom factor by giving us a few options to kill in the same area and perhaps as you kill the odd boss might spawn to for a really interesting battle and some better drops.

    Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.

  • GreezGreez Member Posts: 103
    I don't really see how this "camping" is invalidated in other MMO's? Heck, this sounds like something I did in a few other games.
  • craftseekercraftseeker Member RarePosts: 1,740
    Originally posted by Greez
    I don't really see how this "camping" is invalidated in other MMO's? Heck, this sounds like something I did in a few other games.

    Yep, lots of other games.  In RIFT I have seen people camping "invasions", camping mobs for repeatable faction quests, camping mobs to harvest skins etc etc.  I have seen it in every MMORPG I have played.

    The structure and behavior of camping has changed.  In EQ there were specific locations that everyone camped.  People used to enter the zone and yell "camp check" if they did not get a response about their favorite spot off they headed and established the camp.  If you discovered someone already camping a spot you moved on.  Today the behavior is more "hoorah for me and F U" so no "camp checks" and straight to kill the mobs whether or not someone is already there.

  • GreezGreez Member Posts: 103
    Originally posted by craftseeker

    The structure and behavior of camping has changed.  In EQ there were specific locations that everyone camped.  People used to enter the zone and yell "camp check" if they did not get a response about their favorite spot off they headed and established the camp.  If you discovered someone already camping a spot you moved on.  Today the behavior is more "hoorah for me and F U" so no "camp checks" and straight to kill the mobs whether or not someone is already there.

    This sounds very... immersion breaking and artificial.

    I'm not sure I understand why this is a good thing. It's an exploitation of the mob spawning mechanic and if there was a way to remove it I would.

    So your only issue with modern games is that people don't respect your exploit?

  • PaRoXiTiCPaRoXiTiC Member UncommonPosts: 603

    I remember camping in Knight Online with a group of 8 and just hammering down on GURU in the PvP zone. Always that chance you could get raided by a group of Orcs, but also working together to farm the highest EXP mob in the game.

    So much fun and intense. Miss those types of game.

  • craftseekercraftseeker Member RarePosts: 1,740
    Originally posted by Greez
    Originally posted by craftseeker

    The structure and behavior of camping has changed.  In EQ there were specific locations that everyone camped.  People used to enter the zone and yell "camp check" if they did not get a response about their favorite spot off they headed and established the camp.  If you discovered someone already camping a spot you moved on.  Today the behavior is more "hoorah for me and F U" so no "camp checks" and straight to kill the mobs whether or not someone is already there.

    This sounds very... immersion breaking and artificial.

    I'm not sure I understand why this is a good thing. It's an exploitation of the mob spawning mechanic and if there was a way to remove it I would.

    So your only issue with modern games is that people don't respect your exploit?

    I do not see a value judgement about camping in my post.  A judgement about the change in behavior of people camping yes but not about camping itself.

    It is artificial, it is not and was not an exploit but it is about the spawning mechanics.  Personally I would prefer different spawning mechanics and a more meaningful flow of activity. 

     

    OH and to answer the OP, camping does not have to "come back" it never went away.

  • karat76karat76 Member UncommonPosts: 1,000
    Camping could work if they changed it up a little. Like others have mentioned put variations in the spawn rate and I would go as far as having camps eventually become empty. Maybe the longer a camp is empty the more mobs that spawn there until eventually more powerful mobs show up and then they spawn there.
  • GrymmoireGrymmoire Member UncommonPosts: 179

    Well remember that early EQ1 had no spoiler sites outlining where and when spawns occurred; also gold and gear farmers were fewer and the player base smaller and dare I say, more polite. Therefore, with some exceptions, static spawns seemed to be more viable than today. However, as one example, I recall camping alone for the Fisherman's Earring. I spent hours there, only to lose the mob to a teleporting player that had the spawn timer down to the veritable second...not much fun when that happens.

    Today, we have super guilds that camp almost every spot in every game; spoiler sites that  go up before launch; beta testers using their time to denote spawns and timers and complete spreadsheets for themselves and friends; too many farmers and disrespectful players ( Dragon Prophet for ex: hovering a site letting others clear the area so they can swoop down and kill the boss spawn).

    Now many of these issues could be addressed quite simply by making rare spawns generate on more random timers and within a larger geographical play area; you want the rare go look for it and killharvest while you are are in the area. Resources can be designed to allow each player to harvest and still allow static location or like in one game, when one went to harvest, 2-3 mobs spawned and you had to kill em before you could harvest; now that is fun (provided the resource is tagged for that player).

    Want socialization, take friends or encourage the developers to incorporate fishing gambling mini-games in taverns or other contests. However, seems static and predictable timers and small spawn areas for rare mobs is still used more frequently encouraging greed and player conflict; lazy design imho.

     

  • KBishopKBishop Member Posts: 205

    I don't know how I really feel about camping.

    1) this is pretty much normal for quests "Kill X animals" so there's no real change here.

    2) depends. Do the bosses drop extra nice goodies and/or have a long spawn time (more than an hour) if so then no.

    3) I don't know. Maybe.

    4) I don't know about this. This sounds more just like making sure there are a bunch of visually interesting areas?

    5) depends on how big a hold the line is and how many can be in que at once. I've played games where there was a ginormous siege and the end result was an incredibly lackluster lag fest.

     

    The thing I hate about camping is that you are straight up taking a spot away from other people. That's really not fun when you're on the tail end of this dilemma and said group is there for hours on end, or they are camping a single spawn that has a ludicrous spawn time or whatever. This is one of those times where instances are just blatantly better.

  • gessekai332gessekai332 Member UncommonPosts: 861
    some parts of the game, but not all. i dont understand why everything has to be all or nothing these days...

    Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Rydeson
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    nah .. i am glad those days are over.

    Camping is boring to me. I play a game for gameplay, not for waiting around doing nothing or chatting.

     

    If all you did was wait around and chat, that sounds like a personal problem...... I never had any problem finding a group or camp to enjoy.. and the PULLS were coming faster then we could kill em.... So many times we had to tell our puller to STOP because we needed some free time to rest.. LOL 

    You have never taken a number, and camp a boss with multiple groups?

    Even xp spots can be all taken with multiple group taking turns. How could i not wait when there is nothing to pull?

     

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by Rydeson
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    nah .. i am glad those days are over.

    Camping is boring to me. I play a game for gameplay, not for waiting around doing nothing or chatting.

     

    If all you did was wait around and chat, that sounds like a personal problem...... I never had any problem finding a group or camp to enjoy.. and the PULLS were coming faster then we could kill em.... So many times we had to tell our puller to STOP because we needed some free time to rest.. LOL 

    You have never taken a number, and camp a boss with multiple groups?

    Nope, because I didn't play poorly designed games. I played DAoC.

     

  • ChieftanChieftan Member UncommonPosts: 1,188
    Originally posted by kyssari

    I miss camping at times but at other times I don't. Personally I would love for it to make a return but not as the ONLY viable option but an option that is just as viable as questing etc.

    Thank you!  All I'm saying is I wish they would present us with an alternative to questing and rushing thru dungeons.  Everquest never would have been successful if the camping mechanic wasn't fun for alot of people.

    In SWTOR the Gree event actually had outdoor camping and it required a group.  The only problem was it was pointless to stick around longer than the 15 minutes it took to complete the quest objective.  Once that was done everybody scattered.

    We all know the easy-solo-quest formula has just about been beat into the ground.  Whether its camping or something else, developers better start coming up with some new ideas.

    My youtube MMO gaming channel



  • Jairoe03Jairoe03 Member Posts: 732

    I think this thread does a good job pointing out how MMO's focal point is in the social aspect of the game. The somewhat casualness of camping is something I somewhat miss, despite the disadvantages, it was still fun hanging out with people you enjoy socializing with and I think this is something that is terribly missed today.

    Many players are too focused on their own progress and generally won't do anything for the sake of actually doing it. Every second spent has to have some reward and I sadly think previous MMO's has trivialized the whole experience down to that.

    Now I don't mean to be grim but my favorite MMO's of all time to this day is still Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies because of how well you can casually play the game and socialize with others. Not many other MMO's since then allowed you to organize and build your own towns and cities or provide that degree of freedom within the environment.

    Now its all about combat and combat mechanics and everything else is just lost or trivialized. What I believe separates great MMO's from the good ones today is which ones provides the best social tools and group activities IMO.

    It just appears that too many MMO's are trying to cater to as many people as possible rather than trying to focus their game onto a target audience.

  • twruletwrule Member Posts: 1,251
     

    No, thank you to bringing back camps as a main xp source. This is another classic case of players under the influence of nostalgia looking back and latching on to some incidental feature of the games they used to play and enjoy, wrongly associating that feature as one that somehow produces fun in all contexts.

    I really enjoyed FFXI back in the day when you had to camp, but it wasn't the fact of camping that was enjoyable. Think about it: what attracted you to the game in the first place before you knew how the mechanics worked? For me, it was the promise of being able to establish myself in fictional worlds I had an affinity for (I played SWG and FFXI when I was younger among other MMOs), and have adventures alongside my friends.

    When I think of having grand fantastical adventures and/or making an identity for myself in such a world, I don't think of finding a random corner in the middle of the wilderness to sit in and intentionally not move for hours on end (at least, not without building a village or something there).

    Now, if there was an option that allowed (and encouraged) me and my friends to progress in a game that involved forming a small band that needed to stay together to survive outside town in most cases, but who would move about, either to explore, or better to explore while on a grand over-arching quest/mission (as was occasionally the case in FFXI, though quite rarely), then we might have something. THAT is adventuring, not squatting in a corner all day. It has to be open world though - instances, especially linear ones, ruin this whole dynamic by throwing together random players with no context or immersion.

     

     Originally posted by kyssari

     

    The primary thing I miss in regards to this is the open world NONLINEAR Dungeons. That is by far the thing I miss the msot and wish would make a come back, and the reason that even today I enjoy playing Vanguard over pretty much every other MMO out there. Instanced linear dungeons get old real fast while open world nonlinear dungeons are much more fun and exciting to explore especially when mobs are respawning and you could easily get yourself lost and dying actually means something, making it a lot more dangerous and exciting all around, especially when you got all the random nameds dropping cool stuff but also respawning so you can actually farm them.

     

    ...Which leads me to agree with this. Exploring open world dungeons was one of my favorite things to do in all the earlier MMOs I played (SWG, FFXI, Lineage 2, EQ2 - hell I went back to some of these games on free trials just to solo explore a bit more). I do remember being really impressed the first time I played WoW's polished instanced dungeons (the earlier ones were arguably much less linear than the ones since BC), but they eventually became overdone and boring, with no feeling of exploration anymore, just the need to rush to the end. They were a cool way of presenting story, especially the ones that had you to embark on a lengthy questchain that lead up to them, explaining why you were there and why it was important, but otherwise...

    From what I understand, there are still soem modern AAA MMOs that have such dungeons, though they are few. TERA I know has them, for example. As developers realize the instanced dungeon paradigm is a bit too played out to build an entire progression experience around anymore and start experimenting more with new forms of content, there is some hope that they will bring something reminiscent of these back I think. Honestly, I don't even care if they are dungeons - any excuse to navigate across a map progressively with a party in a way that is rewarding both xp wise and in other senses - I would be happy. Dynamic content may be a step in the right direction, but so far it doesn't strongly encourage people to form and stay in persistent groups when tackling open-world content, and simply grouping for short/simple themepark quests doesn't quite achieve the desired effect... 

    TLDR: No to camping, yes to group-based open-world ADVENTURES.

  • Mr_MechanicalMr_Mechanical Member Posts: 88
    Originally posted by Uproar

    Camping is fun.  I like camps.  I like camp checks.  I like clearing a camp.  I like leveling in camps.  I want camps.

     

    What I don't want is camps that require 8+ hours (and that was once considered short).

    I pretty much agree with what was said here.

     

    Camps were some of the fondest memories i've had in MMO's starting w/ my years in FFXI.       Quest hubs today really are streamlined evolved and 'accessible to a broader audience" versions of camps.   Still the place people go when they wanna level up out in the world.    But there's no charm to quest hubs and quest grinding solo the way there is when camped with people for hours after earning your camp 'site' via patience, smarts, quickness, knowledge of terrain/spawns. etc.     

    Personality and flavor go a long way for me in terms of whether I feel a task (in game) is bothersome or delightfully challenging and worth the payoff at the end.

    So, I for sure raise my hand to the OP.   

    Yes please!

  • evilastroevilastro Member Posts: 4,270
    No thanks. Hoping they have moved beyond static mob spawns.
  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713

    EQ and FFXI are still there actually. You can camp all you want, for the record :-p.

    But I think most people just have nostalgia for a mechanic that seemed exciting when it was so new. I do think better group/multiplayer options are needed. Biggest problem with MMOs is this thought that getting to end game is the only point.

    When did RPGs start having an end game? I don't ever recall playing Dungeons and Dragons and thinking "man we gotta hurry up and get to 20 so we can start the end game!" or playing an Elder Scrolls game thinking the same. Even the Diablo series!

    Why are MMORPGs the only genre in the history of video games where 90% is considered pointless and the "real" game happens only after you have surpassed everything? Huge flaw in my opinion.

    image
  • twruletwrule Member Posts: 1,251
    Originally posted by Fendel84M

    EQ and FFXI are still there actually. You can camp all you want, for the record :-p.

    I don't know about EQ, but with its most recent expansion, camping in small parties is pretty much a thing of the past in FFXI. Now, from what I understand, you'll only find huge alliances of 18 people sitting in a general area killing whatever spawns (due to some changes in how xp rewards work). Those alliances are usually kept going perpetually with people coming and going over time. It's not *impossible* to be social in those contexts, but it's not exactly as intimate as a smaller group.

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by Fendel84M

    EQ and FFXI are still there actually. You can camp all you want, for the record :-p.

    Ah, the dumbest argument in the book...

     

    No, the games as we knew and loved them have long ago been patched away.

  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521

    I think it would be pretty easy to have both quest and grind progression where you actually can choose.

     

    Take away quest xp and just reward items.

     

    If items also randomly dropped from mobs you could choose either the quest route or the camp route.  Both would offer the same amount of xp, you need the kills for the quest afterall, and in the time it would take to run back to the quest giver for the item reward one could have dropped from a mob.

     

    I think it's a tad silly to affer the biggest amount of progression to an end result and is why questing often feels like a drag.  You spend 20 minutes gaining virtually nothing and getting a little shot at the end which is just enough incentive to do it again.

Sign In or Register to comment.