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Do you miss corpse runs?

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  • jesadjesad Member UncommonPosts: 882
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by jesad

    And so I understand why they took them out of the game.  Still, they did have their place, as I am discussing from my soapbox.

    No they don't. Not according to devs, and many players. Otherwise, why is corpse run (or at least the EQ harsh brand of corpse run) taken out?

    Well I guess I can answer that with a variety of reasons...

    1. Console games - Console game players are traditionally averse to harsh death penalties and have been weened on the idea of the "last saved place" reset penalty for death. 

    2. Business Feasibility - Everquest is run by Sony.  Sony makes both PC games and Console games thus, the developers of Everquest are probably under a near constant scrutiny to remain economically feasible.  As you can see from this string, the number of players who appreciate more harsh death penalties are clearly lower than the number of players who prefer the console reset system, and so to hell with community, to hell with character viability, and to hell with anything that makes people not sit in front of these things as much as humanly possible.  It's a heck of a good business plan, but does it make for an overall better game experience?  Many, as you can also see from this string, would say no and those people can itemize the reasons why it doesn't.  Those that think it does however generally fall into pretty much the same category.  Scroll back and check it out, I'm not lying.

    3. Programming overhead - Not having to keep track of all of those corpses with all of that gear and all of those timers probably represents a substantial amount of databases that do not have to be created, accessed, or maintained.  Not to mention the entire subroutine itself.  I look at that one like this..."What?  They don't like corpse runs?  Well ok!  I didn't like having to do all that work anyway!  Give em a reset and let's keep on rolling!"

    4. Corpse runs still exist in several non-AAA games that lean more towards the "simulation" theory and less towards the "game" theory, and in these games they are still as viable a social mechanism as they always were.  One in particular that comes to mind is "Wizardry" which not only makes you run for your rez but puts adversaries in your path to attempt to permadeath you on the way.  Sure, the game could use a little more work, but on a bad day it gets your blood pumping like nothing else.

    5. Less customer service demand - I think this one is self explanatory but just in case I'll explain anyway.  Just a few posts back you will hear a guy talk about how he petitioned getting zone lagged and losing ships in Eve.  In his statement he doesn't just say it happened once, but many times.  He also states that when he petitioned he got no good response.  Imagine then how often that doesn't happen anymore once you remove the penalty of losing the ship.  Now imagine Eve without the possibility of losing your ship.

    I think I'll stop there but as you can see, at least from my understanding, and as I have said, there are just as many good reasons for not having corpse runs as there are for having them, but at the end of the day I am not just going to say that they are or were overall without worth just because you don't agree.

    I hope you consider that a reasonable response.

    image
  • jesadjesad Member UncommonPosts: 882
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by jesad

    You know, your opener summed up the entire reason corpse runs were great.  Because, in fact, without a more substantial penalty for death than just a reset, killing a mob boss is indeed just a zerg.

    Tell me if I am being truthful here or lying.

    In many games today people don't even wait for a rez anymore, they just click to respawn or even worse, in some games, pop right back up on the spot.  This almost nullifies the reason for having a resurrecting class in the group for anything other than to facilitate more forward momentum through heals.  This, in turn, makes players far less dependent on each other to do the particular tasks that each of them were built to do as there is no longer a reason to protect one another and THIS nullifies the need for almost any social interaction.

    All you really need to do is get into a group, zerg your way through the content, and leave once you've accomplished whatever task you came to accomplish.

    I see this happening all the time now, and it really takes a LOT away from the idea that these are supposed to be actual characters living in an actual world.  Setting up alternatives like timed events and other things like you have stated, only serves then to remove the player yet another step away from being able to enjoy the purpose that many people enter these games to fulfill, which is to play make believe.

    Now we just have another game like any other game.  May as well play on your console, because you have about as much chance or opportunity of feeling like a character in a 3d shooter or in a fighting game is representative of you (actually more at that point) than you do in a game where you are nothing but extra dps or heals.

    Actual death penalties however, change all of that.  If for no other reason than they prevent forward momentum until the group either reconfigures or addresses the death.  Sure, in a world where people are going to be impatient, are working with limited time, or are just plain not smart enough to know when to stop spamming their biggest damage spell, this in inconvenient.  But I, for one, believe that people can be taught to be better at these things, and that in the learning and overcoming of such shortcomings there are greater rewards such as a sense of accomplishment, a sense of improvement, a sense of community etc.... all the things that people come here and complain that they don't feel anymore.

    Right now the devs are just trying to make it so that everyone, young or old, smart or dumb, impatient or patient can play.  I don't hate on that because I know that they do this in order to make as much money as possible.  But just like your argument that they only had corpse runs in order to make money, the same can be said for not having them as well.

    The devs are going to get paid no matter what they do.  They don't do things that don't get them paid.  That's why they are devs.  Taking corpse runs, or other heavier death penalties out of the game however, shortchanges YOU, the player.

    Yadda, yadda, yadda, I could go on in about 5 different ways.

    A reset is (wait for it) a reset.  Which means (wait for it) the boss is reset.  Which means the boss can't be zerged.  So by definition what I'm describing is unzergable.  (And while I don't think you're lying, it makes me wonder if you've played a MMORPG in the last decade that you'd even consider the possibility of zergable bosses.)

    As for waiting for rezzes, resurrection is busywork.  It's not deep gameplay.  It doesn't add significantly to immersion.  In PVE if your entire party/raid automatically rezzed for free in the boss' chamber (or slightly prior to it, with a few trash mobs respawning) then that wouldn't impact the challenge of MMORPGs at all but would dramatically improve the pacing of death (which even in the best MMORPGs nowadays is still clunky.)

    The fact that you'd imply rezzing classes are relied upon to rez and not to perform their primary role (healing, etc) also makes me wonder if you've played an MMORPG in the past decade.  The complete removal of rez spells (apart from battle rezzing, naturally) would have no effect on the desire to take these players into the dungeon.

    In MMORPGs you either play skillfully enough to beat the challenge, or you wipe.  There is no "zerging through content", because until you exhibit enough skill you're going to keep wiping.  And while improved difficulty options are something more MMORPGs need (to ensure the challenge is actually challenging) increasing the death penalties wouldn't really make things any better (you'd either have easy content which is still too easy and zergable, or you'd have challenging content which is a complete hassle to engage with because some random asshat can screw up and waste you a lot of time, money, XP, or whatever.)

    The "keep it alive until I get back" has been a long standing tactic of most of the games that feature the "player reset" mode that have come out in the last 10 years.  A lot of the newer games don't even confine the raid to a dungeon anymore but instead just put the monster outside with the player respawn point just a little ways down the road.

    A tactic, may I add, that was impossible to accomplish when respawn points were way back in town and the gear needed to get passed the mobs that stood between you and the target was laying somewhere on the ground.

    The "boss reset" routine is buggy, frustrating, costly (when you add up all the clickies, pots, and item charges, coincidentally that are usually for sale in the item store, that get used only to have a boss randomly reset because your group has not achieved some pre-defined dps measurement that has NOTHING to do with skill or ability in most cases) and pales in comparison to the social aspects of having to rez, regroup, rebuff, and refocus offered by a full wipe complete with corpse retrieval.

    And now, with public quests, they are moving towards not even requiring a raid to communicate with one another in order to get that much done.  Even less reason to talk to each other.

    As for character differentiation, games have been attempting to remove the healer class from the picture all together. 

    GW2 makes everyone a healer.

    Star Wars gives everyone the ability to either heal themselves or mitigate damage to the point that it equates to healing.

    Rift allows everyone access to a healing archetype.

    So why even take a healer with you for any reason other that to facilitate the rest of the group ramming head first into the mob without having to worry about taking care of their self, and as far as that goes, why take a tank, crowd control, or even dps if you can do it all?

    As for challenge and/or skill in todays MMO, what challenge?  I defy you to name me even ONE mob, boss or otherwise that remains unbeatable or at the very least legendary in its difficulty.  There is no challenge.  How could there be when everyone can do everything and the only thing that counts are having the right numbers and the correct gear in order to hit the previously mentioned pre-defined dps number?

    You don't "play skillfully enough to beat the challenge" you get the right amount of gear from the expansion to hit that pre-defined dps number and you win.  Raid over.

    The only challenge that I know of these days is to keep from falling asleep at the keys as the game is served to you at pace, calculated by someone in the finance department, that will allow you to pay just enough for the company to make budget this year.

    Classes no longer matter, only numbers matter.  As a result you are no longer married to your class, you are no longer married to your character, and even more importantly you are no longer even married to the game anymore because all the game represents is a paper doll that you spend a month or two dressing up in shiny new clothes (also for sale in the player store) while you "casually" walk through the content on your way to max level and max boredom.

    All this because you are no longer required to rely on each others specific, individual skills, and you are no longer required to do that because the spells and abilities that were only in the game half the time because corpse runs existed, resurrection, invisibility, increased run speed, and most of all socialization, have been made obsolete with the removal of said corpse run.

    Look, I am all for the kids being able to play.  I love kids.  I wanna be one when I grow up.  I'm all for parents being able to take their kids along in these adventures because I think that's cool too.  But I am not going to sit here and say that corpse runs and rezzes didn't have a place in the social and character refining aspects of the games in which they existed just because you think that the only thing important in playing these game is the ability to keep moving.

    The name of the game is supposed to be RPG.  At the very minimum then you should have to play some kind of "role".  Whether that role be a physical one or a mental one should be up to you, but you should at least have a choice.

    If a tree falls in the forest though, and there is no one around to hear it, no one gives a damn.  And that's pretty much how an MMORPG without socialization works as well. Corpse runs, if nothing else, promoted the skills and abilities of the characters that were created to make them easier or even possible, and at the very least they promoted socializing.  So that's where I stand on that.

    Just because they required a little more time than you were willing to spend does not make any of this less true.

    image
  • KaledrenKaledren Member UncommonPosts: 312
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by Kaledren

    As compared to quest hubs from lvl 1 to 50-60 in today's MMORPG's? That seems like a much worse and longer period of shallow features.

    Corpse runs aren't constant...unless of course the person plays like a twit. Nor even the slow travel (Depending on the game in question). But again....in most MMORPG's today they are all built the same. Around shallow quest hubs that lead you from one to the next via map GPS or minimal NPC dialog very quickly just to get you to that "deep feature".

     The last part about designers is probably going to end up being correct. Just as those who play these themeparks now and tell us old schoolers to "move on" will probably (Some anyways)  be in our shoes when the market finds a new way. =)

    The leveling process is a failure of MMORPGs not learning from City of Heroes that you can do a difficulty slider and offer every player their sweet spot of challenge.

    So again, it's a little different from the overtly time-wasting, shallow activities of slow travel and corpse runs.  It is close though, because without sufficient challenge even a deep game mechanic loses the tension it needs to be deep in actual practice.

    Pointing out the places where today's games are poorly implemented does not rationalize the even shallower mechanics of the past.  (I can keep saying this each time you try to poke another hole in modern games, but it'd be nice if you got the point and realized that as bad as modern mechanics can be in places, they're not overtly time-wasting, shallow activities.)

    Dude. They are just as time wasting is what I am trying to point put to you. It's ALL based on wasting time to get you to stay and pay longer. Nothing has changed from then to now.

  • ArglebargleArglebargle Member EpicPosts: 3,367
    'Back in the old days, we wasted time uphill, in the snow, both ways!  Not like you young whippersnappers!'

    If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.

  • DeivosDeivos Member EpicPosts: 3,692
    [mod edit]

     

    As for the topic itself. Can't say I miss corpse runs themselves, but I do think they are in a sense a lost opportunity.

     

    For example consider this idea. Combine phasing with death. When your character dies, they flip into an afterlife world like you see in WoW or similar titles. Rather than being an empty run to your corpse this way or you simply coming back to life to sprint to your body and recover stuff, you have what's essentially a second juxtaposed world to traverse, and an opportunity to expand game play based around the ability to do unique things and have adventures while dead.

     

    Simplifying death and revival shortcuts people to the action of usual play, but it also cuts out the potential of more varied and complex play. So I don't particularly miss corpse runs, but I can see the potential in the mechanics behind them.

    "The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay

    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin

  • PhelcherPhelcher Member CommonPosts: 1,053
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by Kaledren

    You mean like end game raid content in today's MMORPG's that make you do the same dungeons over and over for gear? Or rep? Or to gain access to the next raid dungeon?

    If you think the same doesn't take place now for the same reasons...you are delusional.  However.. it's more about taking more money from players via cash shops with items that entice the player to stay longer and spend more money. 

    To answer the OP's question...yes. Miss the fear, excitement, and the friendships and comradery it produced.

    Similar, but not quite.

    That form of repetition isn't great.  However it's repetition centered around the deepest activity in the game, which is the best thing that can happen. Whereas activities like corpse runs (shallow feature) and slow travel (shallowest feature) are some of the shallowest activities in a game.  This makes it obviously much worse.

    It's also about progress:

    • Designers of last decade probably laugh at players this decade who defend design choices they made to keep players subscribed (wasting time traveling or corpse-running)
    • Designers of this decade will probably laugh at players next decade who defend boss-repeating (...assuming next decade's designers find a way to solve a content problem which has existed for more than 2 decades now...)

     

     

    LOL^

    You want a video game, not a game world.

     

     

    Secondly, a game that does not have corpse runs and/or travel are shallow.  Games that do have these features have depth.

    You simply cannot understand the importance of your character dieing and you loosing everything. You are afraid of playing such a game, so much so... u want nannny death so you can continue to keep playing your arcade game.

    Right?

     

     

    Having to go get your belongings after death, doesn't prolong subs. Isn't a ploy.

    It is a PENALTY for dying. You do not like to be penalized for your own mishaps, therefore you don't like the death penalty. It makes you accountable for your in-game actions. And that is something you are unwilling to confront in yourself.

    right?

    "No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."


    -Nariusseldon

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by Heretique

    I don't.

    Because games haven't done anything interesting when it comes to "the afterlife". Just another time waster.

    It is a largely untouched RP area to explore.

    If we're going to pine forever over lost mechanix past, couldn't we at least pick interesting ones?

    :Buzz: Three minutes in the Penalty Box. Hey, wake up.

    Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

  • RydesonRydeson Member UncommonPosts: 3,852
    Originally posted by Phelcher
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by Kaledren

    You mean like end game raid content in today's MMORPG's that make you do the same dungeons over and over for gear? Or rep? Or to gain access to the next raid dungeon?

    If you think the same doesn't take place now for the same reasons...you are delusional.  However.. it's more about taking more money from players via cash shops with items that entice the player to stay longer and spend more money. 

    To answer the OP's question...yes. Miss the fear, excitement, and the friendships and comradery it produced.

    Similar, but not quite.

    That form of repetition isn't great.  However it's repetition centered around the deepest activity in the game, which is the best thing that can happen. Whereas activities like corpse runs (shallow feature) and slow travel (shallowest feature) are some of the shallowest activities in a game.  This makes it obviously much worse.

    It's also about progress:

    • Designers of last decade probably laugh at players this decade who defend design choices they made to keep players subscribed (wasting time traveling or corpse-running)
    • Designers of this decade will probably laugh at players next decade who defend boss-repeating (...assuming next decade's designers find a way to solve a content problem which has existed for more than 2 decades now...)

     

     

    LOL^

    You want a video game, not a game world.

     

     

    Secondly, a game that does not have corpse runs and/or travel are shallow.  Games that do have these features have depth.

    You simply cannot understand the importance of your character dieing and you loosing everything. You are afraid of playing such a game, so much so... u want nannny death so you can continue to keep playing your arcade game.

    Right?

     

     

    Having to go get your belongings after death, doesn't prolong subs. Isn't a ploy.

    It is a PENALTY for dying. You do not like to be penalized for your own mishaps, therefore you don't like the death penalty. It makes you accountable for your in-game actions. And that is something you are unwilling to confront in yourself.

    right?

         Well said.. however, it's even worse then that..  Even arcade games have a penalty called "GAME OVER" when you die too much..  What people like Axe want is unlimited deaths without ever having to face a "GAME OVER"..  That is just how bad some gamers have become today.. They want everything, by doing nothing, and they want it now  :( 

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

    And so I understand why they took them out of the game.  Still, they did have their place, as I am discussing from my soapbox.

    No they don't. Not according to devs, and many players. Otherwise, why is corpse run (or at least the EQ harsh brand of corpse run) taken out?

    Well I guess I can answer that with a variety of reasons...

    1. Console games - Console game players are traditionally averse to harsh death penalties and have been weened on the idea of the "last saved place" reset penalty for death. 

    2. Business Feasibility - Everquest is run by Sony.  Sony makes both PC games and Console games thus, the developers of Everquest are probably under a near constant scrutiny to remain economically feasible.  As you can see from this string, the number of players who appreciate more harsh death penalties are clearly lower than the number of players who prefer the console reset system, and so to hell with community, to hell with character viability, and to hell with anything that makes people not sit in front of these things as much as humanly possible.  It's a heck of a good business plan, but does it make for an overall better game experience?  Many, as you can also see from this string, would say no and those people can itemize the reasons why it doesn't.  Those that think it does however generally fall into pretty much the same category.  Scroll back and check it out, I'm not lying.

    3. Programming overhead - Not having to keep track of all of those corpses with all of that gear and all of those timers probably represents a substantial amount of databases that do not have to be created, accessed, or maintained.  Not to mention the entire subroutine itself.  I look at that one like this..."What?  They don't like corpse runs?  Well ok!  I didn't like having to do all that work anyway!  Give em a reset and let's keep on rolling!"

    4. Corpse runs still exist in several non-AAA games that lean more towards the "simulation" theory and less towards the "game" theory, and in these games they are still as viable a social mechanism as they always were.  One in particular that comes to mind is "Wizardry" which not only makes you run for your rez but puts adversaries in your path to attempt to permadeath you on the way.  Sure, the game could use a little more work, but on a bad day it gets your blood pumping like nothing else.

    5. Less customer service demand - I think this one is self explanatory but just in case I'll explain anyway.  Just a few posts back you will hear a guy talk about how he petitioned getting zone lagged and losing ships in Eve.  In his statement he doesn't just say it happened once, but many times.  He also states that when he petitioned he got no good response.  Imagine then how often that doesn't happen anymore once you remove the penalty of losing the ship.  Now imagine Eve without the possibility of losing your ship.

    I think I'll stop there but as you can see, at least from my understanding, and as I have said, there are just as many good reasons for not having corpse runs as there are for having them, but at the end of the day I am not just going to say that they are or were overall without worth just because you don't agree.

    I hope you consider that a reasonable response.

    Yeah . your response is quite reasonable. In fact, you stated even more reasons why corpse run has no place in MMOs, except in very niche cases.

    I agree.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by ReallyNow10

     

     

    You want a video game, not a game world.

    Yes, of course i want a video game. MMOs are electronic entertainment to me. I don't want another life in a GAME.

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by jesad

    The "keep it alive until I get back" has been a long standing tactic of most of the games that feature the "player reset" mode that have come out in the last 10 years.  A lot of the newer games don't even confine the raid to a dungeon anymore but instead just put the monster outside with the player respawn point just a little ways down the road.

    A tactic, may I add, that was impossible to accomplish when respawn points were way back in town and the gear needed to get passed the mobs that stood between you and the target was laying somewhere on the ground.

    The "boss reset" routine is buggy, frustrating, costly (when you add up all the clickies, pots, and item charges, coincidentally that are usually for sale in the item store, that get used only to have a boss randomly reset because your group has not achieved some pre-defined dps measurement that has NOTHING to do with skill or ability in most cases) and pales in comparison to the social aspects of having to rez, regroup, rebuff, and refocus offered by a full wipe complete with corpse retrieval.

    And now, with public quests, they are moving towards not even requiring a raid to communicate with one another in order to get that much done.  Even less reason to talk to each other.

    As for character differentiation, games have been attempting to remove the healer class from the picture all together. 

    GW2 makes everyone a healer.

    Star Wars gives everyone the ability to either heal themselves or mitigate damage to the point that it equates to healing.

    Rift allows everyone access to a healing archetype.

    So why even take a healer with you for any reason other that to facilitate the rest of the group ramming head first into the mob without having to worry about taking care of their self, and as far as that goes, why take a tank, crowd control, or even dps if you can do it all?

    As for challenge and/or skill in todays MMO, what challenge?  I defy you to name me even ONE mob, boss or otherwise that remains unbeatable or at the very least legendary in its difficulty.  There is no challenge.  How could there be when everyone can do everything and the only thing that counts are having the right numbers and the correct gear in order to hit the previously mentioned pre-defined dps number?

    You don't "play skillfully enough to beat the challenge" you get the right amount of gear from the expansion to hit that pre-defined dps number and you win.  Raid over.

    The only challenge that I know of these days is to keep from falling asleep at the keys as the game is served to you at pace, calculated by someone in the finance department, that will allow you to pay just enough for the company to make budget this year.

    Classes no longer matter, only numbers matter.  As a result you are no longer married to your class, you are no longer married to your character, and even more importantly you are no longer even married to the game anymore because all the game represents is a paper doll that you spend a month or two dressing up in shiny new clothes (also for sale in the player store) while you "casually" walk through the content on your way to max level and max boredom.

    All this because you are no longer required to rely on each others specific, individual skills, and you are no longer required to do that because the spells and abilities that were only in the game half the time because corpse runs existed, resurrection, invisibility, increased run speed, and most of all socialization, have been made obsolete with the removal of said corpse run.

    Look, I am all for the kids being able to play.  I love kids.  I wanna be one when I grow up.  I'm all for parents being able to take their kids along in these adventures because I think that's cool too.  But I am not going to sit here and say that corpse runs and rezzes didn't have a place in the social and character refining aspects of the games in which they existed just because you think that the only thing important in playing these game is the ability to keep moving.

    The name of the game is supposed to be RPG.  At the very minimum then you should have to play some kind of "role".  Whether that role be a physical one or a mental one should be up to you, but you should at least have a choice.

    If a tree falls in the forest though, and there is no one around to hear it, no one gives a damn.  And that's pretty much how an MMORPG without socialization works as well. Corpse runs, if nothing else, promoted the skills and abilities of the characters that were created to make them easier or even possible, and at the very least they promoted socializing.  So that's where I stand on that.

    Just because they required a little more time than you were willing to spend does not make any of this less true.

    What part of "keeping it alive" gives you the impression the boss has reset when the party wiped?  That's not a reset, it's a zergable boss.

    Why would we care if bad solutions existed to solve zerging (distant respawn points, or harsh penalties) if a better solution exists (actual, instant resets)?

    Implying that all games are trying to remove the healer is pretty much off-topic and wrong.  The good games which want to have fun teamplay have player specialization.  And also, come on: GW2's removal of specialization is obviously way different than RIFT or ToR's flexible classes.  RIFT and ToR actually have better teamplay than typical MMORPGs (because you always bring the player, not the class) whereas in GW2 it's just watered down.

    As for challenge, you completely missed the point.  The point was the underlying design of these games is such that you cannot "zerg" through content because you never beat a boss unless your skill exceeds its challenge.  So nevermind the fact that at any given time nearly all WOW guilds aren't fully-progressed through all existing content, because the existence of challenging content isn't even the point: the point is that nothing's being zerged.  The point is that repeating a boss till you get it right is the point of gaming (to learn to do something challenging in a low-risk environment.)

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by Kaledren

    Dude. They are just as time wasting is what I am trying to point put to you. It's ALL based on wasting time to get you to stay and pay longer. Nothing has changed from then to now.

    All games are going to require time.  Subscription games more so.

    Are you suggesting you see no difference between a game which uses your time with shallow game systems, compared with one that involves deep game systems?

    Some examples:

    • Game A has instant reset bosses.  When the party wipes, they can immediately start fighting again.
    • Game B's bosses flee across the game world.  So when you wipe you spend a lot of time (most of your time actually) traveling across the world to reach it again.
    So basically you're fine with Game B, where 80% or more of your time is spent traveling (one of the shallowest mechanics in a game), even though Game A has you spending 95% of your time engaged with the boss?   Assuming it's a difficult raid boss that takes 2.5 hours to beat, this also means Game B's boss is easier (since 2 hours of your time will be spent traveling, meaning it only takes 0.5 hours of engaging the boss to beat him, compared with 2.5 hours of engaging the boss in the harder-but-instant-reset version.)
     
    All games require time.  But how you spend that time is what separates the good games from the bad ones.  Generally players want to spend time interacting with something deep and interesting, not something shallow and overtly time-wasting.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by Phelcher 

    You want a video game, not a game world.

    Secondly, a game that does not have corpse runs and/or travel are shallow.  Games that do have these features have depth.

    You simply cannot understand the importance of your character dieing and you loosing everything. You are afraid of playing such a game, so much so... u want nannny death so you can continue to keep playing your arcade game.

    Right? 

    Having to go get your belongings after death, doesn't prolong subs. Isn't a ploy.

    It is a PENALTY for dying. You do not like to be penalized for your own mishaps, therefore you don't like the death penalty. It makes you accountable for your in-game actions. And that is something you are unwilling to confront in yourself.

    right?

    Sure I want a game.  Nearly all players play games to be engaged mentally (gameplay) not to simply wander an empty world.  Guess what the G in RPG stands for!

    The thread has already covered how corpse runs and travel are themselves shallow.  So coming in and claiming that black is white doesn't make it so.

    I understand the proposed "importance" of harsh penalties, however I don't fear harsh penalties so much as I intellectually understand that deeper gameplay makes for a deeper experience where one can learn more.  That's the point of play -- skill development.  And what football team is going to develop more skills: the one that practices constantly in a low-risk environment, or the one where if they make a mistake during practice they are forced to sit on the bench for the rest of that practice?  Obviously constant practice produces more skill, and as a result of the evolutionary trait of our brains to enjoy such skill development, a game about constant practice produces more enjoyment too.

    Let's not get hung up on my not enjoying penalties.  I enjoy penalties which are exactly as penalizing as they need to be, but no more.  You enjoy penalties which go far beyond the need into the realm of pain.  (It's okay, some of my best friends are masochists.)

    Accountability for one's actions is established with a light penalty and hard challenges.  Because until you exhibit enough skill to defeat a boss, you aren't progressing anywhere.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by Rydeson

         Well said.. however, it's even worse then that..  Even arcade games have a penalty called "GAME OVER" when you die too much..  What people like Axe want is unlimited deaths without ever having to face a "GAME OVER"..  That is just how bad some gamers have become today.. They want everything, by doing nothing, and they want it now  :( 

    It's not a "modern gamer" thing.

    It's a fundamental trait of our minds to enjoy developing skills, and skills are obviously developed faster when you can constantly practice them.  Failure is still failure, but we can become skilled faster if the football coach lets us practice at practice instead of benching us for the rest of practice each time we make a mistake.  It's less enjoyable because our minds delight in developing skills, and the penalty has prevented us from practicing and improving -- it's gated us off from enjoying the experience.

    So nevermind "modern gamers", this is a trait our minds have which predates videogames entirely!

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by Kaledren

    Dude. They are just as time wasting is what I am trying to point put to you. It's ALL based on wasting time to get you to stay and pay longer. Nothing has changed from then to now.

    All games are going to require time.  Subscription games more so.

    Are you suggesting you see no difference between a game which uses your time with shallow game systems, compared with one that involves deep game systems?

    Some examples:

    • Game A has instant reset bosses.  When the party wipes, they can immediately start fighting again.
    • Game B's bosses flee across the game world.  So when you wipe you spend a lot of time (most of your time actually) traveling across the world to reach it again.
    So basically you're fine with Game B, where 80% or more of your time is spent traveling (one of the shallowest mechanics in a game), even though Game A has you spending 95% of your time engaged with the boss?   Assuming it's a difficult raid boss that takes 2.5 hours to beat, this also means Game B's boss is easier (since 2 hours of your time will be spent traveling, meaning it only takes 0.5 hours of engaging the boss to beat him, compared with 2.5 hours of engaging the boss in the harder-but-instant-reset version.)
     
    All games require time.  But how you spend that time is what separates the good games from the bad ones.  Generally players want to spend time interacting with something deep and interesting, not something shallow and overtly time-wasting.

    Exactly.

    Running 20 min to the boss is not fun (for me). Fighting the boss is. I would prefer spending time fighting (and hopefully challenging and engagin combat) rather than running around.

     

  • ArclanArclan Member UncommonPosts: 1,550


    Originally posted by Rydeson
    Well said.. however, it's even worse then that.. Even arcade games have a penalty called "GAME OVER" when you die too much.. What people like Axe want is unlimited deaths without ever having to face a "GAME OVER".. That is just how bad some gamers have become today.. They want everything, by doing nothing, and they want it now :(


    I was just saying how people who paid for arcade games had to experience game over (death penalty), and reach into our pocket for more $$ to play. Or go to the change machine for more quarters (corpse run).

    Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
    In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit

  • NadiaNadia Member UncommonPosts: 11,798

    i liked the mission penalties in GW1

     

    every PVE death you took a 10% loss to your stats -- with a cap of a 60% death penalty  

    at max penalty you were limited  to 40% of your health / power / etc

     

    if you left the mission, the penalties were removed

    but it made the existing mission *much* more challenging with continued deaths

     

    no time sinks -- just challenge

     

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Arclan

     


    Originally posted by Rydeson
    Well said.. however, it's even worse then that.. Even arcade games have a penalty called "GAME OVER" when you die too much.. What people like Axe want is unlimited deaths without ever having to face a "GAME OVER".. That is just how bad some gamers have become today.. They want everything, by doing nothing, and they want it now :(

     


    I was just saying how people who paid for arcade games had to experience game over (death penalty), and reach into our pocket for more $$ to play. Or go to the change machine for more quarters (corpse run).

    Sure. It is paid to win, and certainly the whole arcade business declined to a niche for good reasons.

     

  • KaledrenKaledren Member UncommonPosts: 312
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by Kaledren

    Dude. They are just as time wasting is what I am trying to point put to you. It's ALL based on wasting time to get you to stay and pay longer. Nothing has changed from then to now.

    All games are going to require time.  Subscription games more so.

    Are you suggesting you see no difference between a game which uses your time with shallow game systems, compared with one that involves deep game systems?

    Some examples:

    • Game A has instant reset bosses.  When the party wipes, they can immediately start fighting again.
    • Game B's bosses flee across the game world.  So when you wipe you spend a lot of time (most of your time actually) traveling across the world to reach it again.
    So basically you're fine with Game B, where 80% or more of your time is spent traveling (one of the shallowest mechanics in a game), even though Game A has you spending 95% of your time engaged with the boss?   Assuming it's a difficult raid boss that takes 2.5 hours to beat, this also means Game B's boss is easier (since 2 hours of your time will be spent traveling, meaning it only takes 0.5 hours of engaging the boss to beat him, compared with 2.5 hours of engaging the boss in the harder-but-instant-reset version.)
     
    All games require time.  But how you spend that time is what separates the good games from the bad ones.  Generally players want to spend time interacting with something deep and interesting, not something shallow and overtly time-wasting.

    Yes to the highlighted. Because not everyone likes what you like.

    Not everyone despises travel and not everyone has a short attention span and impatience for such things. If travel wasn't incorporated into an MMMORPG...what's the point in the world? IMO anyways.  Sure..it's fine to have SOME instant travel...perhaps in major cities or points within the world that will likely be major travel hubs. But to be able to instantly blink anywhere kills the world.

    Just like corpse runs. It depends on the person in question how they look at it. To you it's an inconvenience to you're "gameplay" and time management. To me and some others it adds to the fun. Why?

    Because I look at it as another challenge. DON'T DIE because it will suck. It makes me THINK about my strategy, the risk involved...and adds to the excitement of a down to the wire fight. Unlike MMORPG's now where if I die...meh...I respawn at a safe point..maybe lose a few copper to repair and a slight debuff for a minute or two. Rinse and repeat. No fun in it to me.

    What is considered a "good game" is in the eye of the beholder. Games you think are good, I may not. Games I think are good, you may not.

    But again...I just have a different outlook on it than you. Doesn't mean either is wrong. So kind of pointless to keep arguing about it.

     

     

     

  • NadiaNadia Member UncommonPosts: 11,798
    Originally posted by jesad

    2. Business Feasibility - Everquest is run by Sony.  Sony makes both PC games and Console games thus, the developers of Everquest are probably under a near constant scrutiny to remain economically feasible.  As you can see from this string, the number of players who appreciate more harsh death penalties are clearly lower than the number of players who prefer the console reset system, and so to hell with community, to hell with character viability, and to hell with anything that makes people not sit in front of these things as much as humanly possible.  It's a heck of a good business plan, but does it make for an overall better game experience?  Many, as you can also see from this string, would say no and those people can itemize the reasons why it doesn't.  Those that think it does however generally fall into pretty much the same category.  Scroll back and check it out, I'm not lying.

    3. Programming overhead - Not having to keep track of all of those corpses with all of that gear and all of those timers probably represents a substantial amount of databases that do not have to be created, accessed, or maintained.  Not to mention the entire subroutine itself.  I look at that one like this..."What?  They don't like corpse runs?  Well ok!  I didn't like having to do all that work anyway!  Give em a reset and let's keep on rolling!"

    there is an exception - Everquest Mac

     

    SOE still runs the mac server

    the game is free to play with no cash shop,  EQMac still has Corpse Runs

     

    SOE makes no profits off the game

    only reason its still running is because Smed had a change of heart after player outcry regarding being shut down

    http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/21/the-game-archaeologist-chats-with-john-smedley-about-eqmacs-sal/

     

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Kaledren

    Not everyone despises travel and not everyone has a short attention span and impatience for such things. If travel wasn't incorporated into an MMMORPG...what's the point in the world? IMO anyways.  Sure..it's fine to have SOME instant travel...perhaps in major cities or points within the world that will likely be major travel hubs. But to be able to instantly blink anywhere kills the world.

    And not everyone likes travel, and not everyone has time to sit through boring (to them) parts of a game before getting to the fun (to them) par.

    The point of the world .. good question. In many MMO, a world is not needed for fun. If most of the gameplay is in instances (like wow, 5-man dungeons, & 10/25-man raids), then the world is nothing but a lobby.

    And yes, it kills the world. May be the world should be removed from many MMOs, and if you don't like the label, you can even call them something else rather than MMOs.

     

  • DeivosDeivos Member EpicPosts: 3,692
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by Kaledren

    Dude. They are just as time wasting is what I am trying to point put to you. It's ALL based on wasting time to get you to stay and pay longer. Nothing has changed from then to now.

    All games are going to require time.  Subscription games more so.

    Are you suggesting you see no difference between a game which uses your time with shallow game systems, compared with one that involves deep game systems?

    Some examples:

    • Game A has instant reset bosses.  When the party wipes, they can immediately start fighting again.
    • Game B's bosses flee across the game world.  So when you wipe you spend a lot of time (most of your time actually) traveling across the world to reach it again.
    So basically you're fine with Game B, where 80% or more of your time is spent traveling (one of the shallowest mechanics in a game), even though Game A has you spending 95% of your time engaged with the boss?   Assuming it's a difficult raid boss that takes 2.5 hours to beat, this also means Game B's boss is easier (since 2 hours of your time will be spent traveling, meaning it only takes 0.5 hours of engaging the boss to beat him, compared with 2.5 hours of engaging the boss in the harder-but-instant-reset version.)
     
    All games require time.  But how you spend that time is what separates the good games from the bad ones.  Generally players want to spend time interacting with something deep and interesting, not something shallow and overtly time-wasting.

    This commentary is rather deceptive.

     

    If you note, taking 2.5 hours to beat a boss, if given any consideration, rather leads you to the realization that the boss is just as much an vapid treadmill as simply running somewhere would be.

     

    Anything that takes that long to beat is more than likely requiring an exceptionally huge amount of redundant activity that is not in the least bit mentally engaging. It's instead highly formulaic and protracted. The boss isn't any harder than game B's boss, and can quite literally be considered to be easier by noting the fact that if equivalent time is taken on both bosses, it's because the boss in Game B is defeating the players more readily even though he's a physically weaker boss.

     

    This is also a problem Axehilt has displayed consistently in addressing games with travel. He always takes the extreme and characterizes travel as empty of all activity. This is a claim that's in general rather false and highly biased, used by him to paint a false dichotomy in gaming to support his notion of what's right.

     

    He is right when he says "All games require time.  But how you spend that time is what separates the good games from the bad ones.  Generally players want to spend time interacting with something deep and interesting, not something shallow and overtly time-wasting." At least, that much is a true remark.

     

    However, it's very clear that what's considered time wasting and the characterization of game content is highly subject to player perspective and preference. He doesn't like to travel, his focus is on combat it seems and consequently his preferred game will cut down on all aspects that don't expedite the fight.

     

    This is obviously not the only opinion. As there are people who still adamantly play games with such content and enjoy it's presence. Noting, there's more to games than combat. There's other places to seek depth and quality, and on top of that, seeking depth in combat on an MMO is generally not a practical endeavor.

     

    Point in case, the example Axehilt used above. His idea of a deeper boss fight was a boss that you spent more time working on killing. This can be realized as actually a very shallow experience, spending a long time working down a boss that is ultimately the equivalent of a sponge. Some people find this gameplay just as vapid in the same way as some who find travel and exploration to be  'overtly time-wasting'.

     

    The claim of a deep game system flies right out the window with the argument presented.

    "The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay

    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Deivos

    Point in case, the example Axehilt used above. His idea of a deeper boss fight was a boss that you spent more time working on killing. This can be realized as actually a very shallow experience, spending a long time working down a boss that is ultimately the equivalent of a sponge. Some people find this gameplay just as vapid in the same way as some who find travel and exploration to be  'overtly time-wasting'.

     

    The claim of a deep game system flies right out the window with the argument presented.

    You make the erroneous assumption that the boss fight is monotonic. What if it has multiple stages (common in MMO), with the boss can activate many (and sometimes random) abilities. And you need to change your tactics all the time.

    The 2.5 hours is a red herring.

    In this case, the boss fight is more fun, and deeper than traveling. I wouldn't want to engage in boring travel even 5 min to get to the fun boss fight.

     

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by ReallyNow10
     

    To take that mindset beyond gaming and into literature, would we not skip the entire LOTR and just have Frodo tossiing the Ring into the lava, ad infinitum?

    The journey, the struggles, the efforts, are all part of the adventure, and ultimately the fun in an MMO (or anything).  No pain, no gain.

    There is no "struggle", "effort" in MMO travel.

    If LOTR Is spending pages to describe how Frodo rides a horse through endless forecasts with different kinds of trees .. yes .. please cut it.

    Get to the old part .. adventure .. which is NOT travel.

    Make an instance, and have counters happens on the road ... i am all for it. But don't make me walk 20 min before getting to the encounter, just like i am not reading novel 20 min for describing walking before getting to meet the bandit coming at me.

     

  • DeivosDeivos Member EpicPosts: 3,692
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    You make the erroneous assumption that the boss fight is monotonic. What if it has multiple stages (common in MMO), with the boss can activate many (and sometimes random) abilities. And you need to change your tactics all the time.

    The 2.5 hours is a red herring.

    In this case, the boss fight is more fun, and deeper than traveling. I wouldn't want to engage in boring travel even 5 min to get to the fun boss fight.

     

    Well the simple answer would be, most bosses aren't multi-staged, that's  still a developing concept. In many cases it's multiple bosses with a bigger boss at the end of a raid.

     

    When you talk of fighting a single boss, it's considerably more common for the boss to not change form. At most you are might expect a few modes, but those are equally finite conditions.

    Justa as well, what you apply to boss A can exist all the same for boss B. A boss that possesses multiple states and requires a changeup in tactics. So that argument is an entirely moot point. 

     

    The 2.5 hours is what Axehilt presented, so if it's a red herring the onus is on him. Combined with the statement above it can be understood that if time was taken into account, boss A is still padding time not by complexity, but with more numbers to waste your time whittling down.

     

    [mod edit]

    "The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay

    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin

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