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[Column] General: The War Against Down Time
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Last week I wrote about the loss of class interaction and dependency as one reason for weakened socialization in modern MMOs. This week I want to discuss another big factor in the decline of social MMOs, the war against downtime.
Read more of Mark Kern's The War Against Down Time.
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Comments
Seems like what's needed is something that does what downtime does, give players a space to chat and learn about the game, without actually looking like downtime. I'd like to see what you come up with as a solution.
A while back I thought about integrated a game's forums into the game itself in some way, with bulletin boards or signs or something. It wouldn't be very in keeping with most games' theme or environment, but it would certainly give players a reason for downtime, and a way to interact with other players in the game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Why on earth would you advocate solo-ability in a game meant for socialization? MMOs were always about other people, not playing all by yourself. Why are their dungeons or raids or even battlegrounds if you don't want to play with others? The crux of the problem is they have turned MMOs into single player games and the reason no one sticks around is because they ARE single player games.
Talk about ideas? What a load of .....
A lot of people don't remember that well it seems. But one of the biggest topics back in the day about EQ1 was always "which class can solo, where do I solo, how do I solo?!?!" People always wanted to solo sometimes. Why? because it was easier, you could be on all day soloing and take a piss when you wanted, grab something to eat, stop and watch a show etc etc. You weren't locked in with another group of players.
Yes, being social is a big part of MMOs. But I think the biggest factor has always been persistence the sense that your character continues to live on. Even if you never talk to another damn person and play solo 100% of the time a single player game can just not give you same feeling of persistence that an MMORPG does.
It's funny to mention in game forums! Meridian 59 actually did this with their community globes. There was one for community posts of any kind and another for developers to post updates, patch notes, etc.
Also NexusTK had in game forums too! I believe it was actually a community bulletin board or something in game.
travel is pleasant downtime < ruined by instance travel and lfg raids championed by Blizzard and morons who make stupid disconnected statements like 'people need interesting choices'
grinds is pleasant downtime < ruined by the drive to constantly reward every week championed by Blizzard (its more addictive, lower skill range means younger players = more subs)
class interdependancy is great < ruined by blizzard generalising class roles and abilities so tanks who complain about no being able to dps without an alt can dps on their tank main (etc etc)
it goes on.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Not that one would blame developers as such; combat's easier to make fun than most things, it's easier to abstract away behind numbers, it's the most obvious thing.. but I really do think when a game comes along where players can just enjoy Being there; wandering around, seeing how things change from day to day, finding various other little things to do besides wailing on monsters.. maybe working on a crafting project over a realistic period of time through a system lets them engage with the effort. That's anything but easy but I do think it'd lead to people slowing down, losing this insane urge to just fight and level and.. blagh.
Mabinogi is one game to look to. It added lots of little systems that had nothing at all to do with combat, but could be engaged with by other players. The most obvious was music; using instruments to perform tunes coded in using MML, but there were a fair few others.. not to mention non-combat character interactions like say, larger characters being able to carry smaller ones on their shoulders.
Interesting read. Two things if you really are interested in playing with downtime mechanics imho.
A. flat/blatant downtime was/is/and will be un-popular in the same manner that blatant.in your face never-ending grinds are/were; Find a way to mask it that clicks with certain demographics, and you may have something(cut-scenes, non-interactive story telling would be a limited example of such)
B. in your marketing hype be sure to highlight the downtime aspects and make a concerted attempt to NOT market towards everyone, just the demographics who may find it fun/new/interesting.
A break from the action is always good and your forum idea hits on how the break works best - when it is user chosen as opposed to game enforced. What has happened though is that MMOs have changed in many other ways at the same time that downtime faded away, and many have falsely attributed the lack of socialization to the removal of downtime. Some of those other changes are:
But to get back to your idea...
I think MMOs are building toward supporting community, but they are doing so in ways that may cater to communities most here aren't part of. Twitter/FB integration, Twitch streaming and in-game browsers allow many players to socialize in the ways they are more accustomed to. More importantly, it allows them to do so in their chosen circles, where they are far more comfortable and far more likely to encounter like-minded or similarly-interested gamers.
"Can we make downtime fun and slow enough to allow for rich social interaction?" - Mark Kern
It seems the better question would be:
"How can we support social interaction in a manner that is makes sense to today's gamers?"
Downtime and interaction really do not have much to do with each other unless one wants to suggest that creating boring non-moments is a desired way to get people to socialize just out of sheer desparation for something... ANYTHING... to do. AC, UO, ATITD are all MMOs where you can just grind your ass off if you wanted with zero downtime, yet people regularly made time to stop by their favorite watering hole to BS with their buddies, sometimes for hours on end. Coming at socialization and community interaction from the angle of downtime seems to be the least optimal way to approach it.
*not an industry term. Acronym is solely for my own amusement
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I posted something similar to this almost 4 years ago, stating that downtimes are where I was able to socialize especially in EQ when you needed to wait for the boat.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3803753#3803753
Please don't necro this thread that I linked guys, i'm just pointing to it as a source of reference to back up what the article is saying.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Although your logic is reasonable, you still need to keep in mind that since the fact is that game developers made the change, so maybe there was a reason why they did it. And it probably because players prefers to be able to solo, which would attract more players and generate them profit. Big popular games today all have soloability added to them and players actually like those aspects. If majority of players actually prefer team dependacy over soloability, then there is no way game developers would make games like that. However, the problem for developers now is that players don't stick around games as much as before due to lack of socialability. Therefore, I believe it makes sense to discuss how to keep players to games instead of simply reverting back to a team-only game.
It's still going to take companies a little while longer to realize that MMO's will all be niche from now on. When they understand that 1 million players is all they are going to get on a good day, then we will see the changes start to happen, and they wont be so concerned about hurting the feelings of one particular group or another.
In other words they will make their game with downtime whether you like it or not, and another studio will make theirs with xp loss in Pvp whether you like or not, etc..etc. Some studios are still hanging on that fantasy of hitting the MMO jackpot, but they are starting to come around to reality, so it shouldn't be too much longer ( hopefully ).
When I played wow and had nothing to do I used to sit around town and chat with people. I did it mostly because there wasn't really anything else to play ( that I wanted to )
If that happens in an mmo now I quit and go play something else.
As for actual talking while lvling...I use voice coms and talk all the time. Down time would just be annoying and boring.
I liked your post but I think you are missing something.
Removing those "downtime moments" which were huge social opportunities, DID remove social interaction.
this is not false.
Those moments, whether one thinks they were boring or not, were opportunities for people to interact and they did it. Even so much as grouping in order to minimize overlong downtime.
It doesnt' make sense to suggest that removing moments of "downtime social activity" falsely attributed to the lack of socializating.
If that's when people were socialing and you remove it then you remove those moments. I'm not sure why that's difficult to see?
There's a saying "there's a lot of music in the silence", It essentially means that silence is not about "nothing".
Heck, I met one of my best friends at a bus stop. we are very different people and normally would never have met each other but for "downtime" at a bus stop.
Though the idea of "being bored" because you are alone with your own thoughts is a bit disturbing to me I suppose some people just don't like it so I have to accept it. But let's not suggest that one size fits all here. You don't like downtime, you get bored, not everyone sees it that way. But I do understand the idea of "not playing" being disliked. I get it as modern quests seem to be the biggest contributor of "not playing" as you mostly are running from one small moment of game play to another all the while "not playing" while you are just running from arrow to arrow.
While waiting for a ship in lineage 2 one opened themselves up for attack from enemies. Sometimes others would help the one being attacked and you would have "game play".
Pauses in activity aren't bad except for those who don't want to take advantage of those pauses. And Lineage 2 had a LOT of downtime (at times). Sometimes you would meet buffers looking to minimize some of that downtime and you get grouping buddies. There was still downtime but by banding together with other players you would have grouping moments and many great stories that grew out of those groups.
I do agree with your assessment of piling on different personalities. Just doesn't work.
I thought ESO was supposed to allow people of like mind to be in the same game instance?
guess that didn't happen.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
As I said above it was an interesting read. But I remain unsure that developmental recourses devoted towards promoting social interaction is necessarily wise. Such basically represents a nanny state or an exercise in herding cats. I do however agree with the OP that the trends/mechanics that actively de-incentivize social interaction is less than optimal. Social interaction is either spontaneous, forced, or limited. Ideally I supposed allowing social interaction without forcing or limiting it would be the most beneficial path, regardless of whether downtime plays a factor or not. A more accurate look at downtime to my mind would be towards content extension.
I'd disagree on that one. With virtual worlds, a big part of what you are building is a virtual community.If you want a healthy, thriving community, you need to work toward building that, actively foster it, and continue to maintain it. This means far more than simple forum moderation and conduct agreements. This means devoting resources not only to managing and leading the community, but to the tools that the community needs or desires to effectively and enjoyably communicate, collaborate and grow.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
EDIT imo developer contribution to social interaction should start and stop with not de-incentivizing it.
I always wished that there was more to an inn than simply parking your toon there. Ie, if there were mechanics that made you take your character to an inn to "decompress XP" so to speak, that would be great. BUT you would need something to 1. facilitate not getting too bored 2. not be required too often to make it tedious 3. make it not eat up to much time.
Inns have so much potential to capitalize on.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
I'd like to add that:
Internet databases contribute to ruining socialization in an MMO. Google it, wowhead it, done, moving on.
I'd like to see a game that takes a portion of a zone (15-20%) and RANDOMIZES location in sub-dungeons (open world caves), points of interest, areas that are geographically prominent or aesthetic, etc.
Static quests and objectives remove surprise, and surprise and adventure is half of what a game is about to me.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
The closest thing to this I've seen was cantinas in swg. They provided non combat roles for people into that, a community focal point and never felt like a burden to me as a combat player. I saw some weird stuff go on it cantinas but overall I thought it was a pretty cool system and fun to just go hang out in when I didn't feel like actually doing things.
Yes, social interaction is a choice. Nowhere did I say anything about regulating, censoring or forcing interaction. You seemed to have read a whole lot into that that was neither written nor implied in my post. A whole lot.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Developers have enough on their plate just making a well targeted game without getting involved in some form of digital social engineering.
EDIT the very games(pre wow) the OP was talking about as the hey day of social interaction never did actively manage social interaction, they merely stayed out of the way. I think some of the confusion is he thinks time sinks, dead time were social management features. They actually had nothing to do with social engineering from a developer standpoint, they were content extensions, one of the reasons it took months/years to reach max level in those games.
I think you're misunderstanding here. A virtual world's (VW) community isn't just those currently logged into the client, and their method of communication isn't just local chat. Actually, a good bit of a virtual world's community gathers in and communicates in circles that are often completely separate from the in-game environment. No one is suggesting that a developer should tell those people the "true way" to do anything. The goal is to connect with those branches of the community. A VW's community has many segments, and the overlap to a degree, but they are still distinctly separate. Engaging or at least reaching out to the VW's FB crowd, the Twitter crowd, forum crowd, /r crowd, etc is part of nurturing the community and encouraging interaction.
This is much broader than "hey guys, go talk in local chat." Actually, it has absolutely nothing to do with that at all. It's about supporting a community which is important no matter whether the community is physical or virtual.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre