As for Diablo we are talking about a different kind of game for a different player. And frankly didn't Diablo 1 and 2 really sell that much compared to Wow or even Guildwars, Diablo sold 2 million copies and Diablo 2 4 million. It is still impressive but compared to Wow it is nothing, and you are comparing apples and oranges.
Diablo and Diablo 2 combined have sold 17 million copies so it is absolutely comparable to MMO numbers. The Battlechest was seen in top10 lists as late as 2008. They still keep selling.
In my opinion, what it really comes down to is the industry selling out. The people in charge of these companies are gamers (like Smedley of SoE), and once contributed to quality immersive games. Now they squabble to follow mainstream market trends and copy previous successes to a T.
You know, if people were to actually pay attention to history, not just history of countries or of a people but the history of our relationship to what we create, none of this would be news.
This is a dance that has already been done too many times to count.
things get created, things get attention and adopted, if it's good then more people become interested and that thing then evolves to reach more people.
Then you have a popular version of the thing and some niche version of the thing.
As my mother said of the first time she heard a rock album "I thought it was a joke record. Then I listened a bit and realized I liked it".
Bam! Rock N' Roll started having a following. Don't you think that there were people who were horrified at the bastardization of music with the new rock craze? How musicians were "selling out"?
This has happened before, it happens now and it will continue to happen.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Interesting read. I think immersion is still around (Skyrim is great for this), but I don't get immersion in modern MMOs. When was the last AAA MMO to be designed as a living world? It's not an emphasis when they're making themeparks that lead you by the nose from quest hub to quest hub. I'm still looking for an MMO that allows the freedom to make the character I want instead of making the character the dev wants.
___________________________ Have flask; will travel.
Immersion... it still exists for me, just harder to find in games than it used to be. Being able to impact the world in most games is rare. Without the ability to direct the game in some way, it is really hard to find that connection to it and get that feeling.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Interesting read. I think immersion is still around (Skyrim is great for this), but I don't get immersion in modern MMOs. When was the last AAA MMO to be designed as a living world? It's not an emphasis when they're making themeparks that lead you by the nose from quest hub to quest hub. I'm still looking for an MMO that allows the freedom to make the character I want instead of making the character the dev wants.
Although, you can't really quote Immersion, Skyrim, AND MMO in the same sentence. If a single player game had no immersion, ESPECIALLY as an RPG - then it wouldnt ever sell.
In terms of MMO's, the old school original games were the king of immersion. Nowadays, its all about grinding out as many quests as you can before you log out. Back in the day, you actually changed things, because developers actually had a team of people willing to adjust the world depending on player actions. As it stands now.. the most immersion in any MMO I have played in the last decade falls to SW:TOR's storyline quests.. you actually feel awesome doing thigns in it. BUT, there is no change in anythign else, other then jsut beating the storyline. I miss game changing massive global quests.. :-(
Looks like he added another article to respond to some questions being brought up about his first... Including the comment about Skyrim that someone had on this thread. :-) Here is a bit of it:
By immersion, I meant the sense of playing a game without ever getting its mechanics rubbed in your face. In the past I have said that there are two core abilities a designer needs to have: to be able to strip away all the surface and only see the math and systems; and to do the exact opposite, and only see the surfaces, the fantasy of it.
These are also two ways to play a game. You can come to it as purely a math puzzle to solve, or you can come at it as an experience. And ironically, with all the advances we have made in terms of presentation, it feels like more and more games are less about the experience and more about the acronyms and mechanics.
I agree with the fact that immersion is no longer a virtue but i disagree with the reasons.
I think many like Raph loses sight that games are just entertainment products. Immerision is all good if that adds to the enjoyment of the game.
I could not possibly and respectfully disagree more. You do make excellent points on what the core values of an entertaining product are, but to Raph games have devolved into entertainment products. In his golden years of development they were works of art, and it is this loss of the appreciation and necessity of the art of immersion that he mourns. He, and others of his kind, are artists in the game development arena. When they set out to make games, what they have in mind isn't driven whatsoever by commercialism but rather by the innately human tendency to create. Living, breathing, vibrant worlds are birthed by their minds and written into code as best as technologically possible. They did not trail blaze in the gaming industry for the money. In the beginning there was no money. They did it for the love of what they were doing, for the ability to create what was art to them (and is to so many of us).
It is exactly the same as a novelist. You have your cheap thrills mystery, sci-fi, romance/smut and horror books that are penned and shipped out by the truck load in very rapid order. Their sole value lies in the quick "fix" they provide the consumer. 99% of what they contain will never, ever be read a second time. This is not art, this is entertainment and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It serves its purpose admirably, and this type of entertainment is common across all media types.
The flip side of this coin is a product of such depth, purpose and desire that only a true artist that has dared to begin to dream can ever hope to bring this dream to life and make it a reality. Shakespeare was an artist. Michaelangelo was an artist. To this day we still can lose ourselves in their works, and that is why immersion is a virtue of art, even within the gaming industry. Immersion has no place in most games nowadays because it does not add zeroes to the bottom line of a product's profit potential.
Right now the majority of people in technologically advanced countries are still very immature in their selection of games because they've only just begun to expose themselves to the online world that we, the mature old school gamers, have been a part of for the past 20+ years. Bored mid-30's housewives are now farmville champions. They are getting their fix. When the now 10 year olds that are growing up with Wi and XBOX Live mature into young adults, their taste in games will also mature. They will start looking for games with greater substance and longevity. And when that happens, the market will shift with them and immersion will be one of the necessary building blocks of any successful game.
The industry will have to get worse before it gets better. Strap in for the long haul and keep looking for that light at the end of the tunnel.
I just came across a recent artcie by Raph Koster, known for his work in MUDs, UO, and SWG. It is about immersion, what it is, and how developers have lost video games immersion in exchange for a wider audience.
"Is immersion a core game virtue?" - Raph Koster (LINK)
Games didn’t start out immersive. Nobody was getting sucked into the world of Mancala or the intricate world building of Go. Oh, people could be mesmerized, certainly, or in a state of flow whilst playing. But they were not immersed in the sense of being transported to another world. For that we had books.
... Things that we once considered essential to games drift in and out of fashion. And I think immersion is one of those.
Immersion does not make a lot of sense in a mobile, interruptible world. It comes from spending hours at something. An the fact is that as games go mainstream, they are played in small bites far more often than they are played in long solo sessions. The market adapts — this reaches more people, so the budgets divert, the publishers’ attention diverts, the developers’ creative attention diverts. ...
I thought that the article was incredibly insightful and and chilling. It really does describe the current climate of MMOs and the way that things have changed from making virtual worlds that players can lose themselves in into making quick cash. It probably started in 2002 and 2003, when MEO was cancelled to be replaced by the linear LOTRO and WoW was released. And of course in 2004 when SWG was changed to be more mainstream.
In my opinion, what it really comes down to is the industry selling out. The people in charge of these companies are gamers (like Smedley of SoE), and once contributed to quality immersive games. Now they squabble to follow mainstream market trends and copy previous successes to a T.
Heres something interesting that reveals some of Raph's feelings about the direction his industry has gone in:
I mourn. I mourn the gradual loss of deep immersion and the trappings of geekery that I love. I see the ways in which the worlds I once dove into headlong have become incredibly expensive endeavors, movies-with-button-presses far more invested in telling me their story, rather than letting me tell my own.
I really feel sorry for him... I have always been a game designer at heart and now I am very glad that I am going to optometry school instead of attempting to participate in the game industry. I often wonder why it has been so long since Raph has worked on a AAA mmorpg; he could probably get a decent job as a designer; he has a ton of experience. And I think I understand now that he is unwilling to sell out the way other MUD/game designers have.
UPDATE: Koster has added another article on his site on the same topic:
I want to build ships, castles, walls, fortifications, towers, etc.
I want to affect the land and make real change in the mmorpg environment I play in.
I want my enemies to not be mirrors of my character.
I want to see enemies on a battlefield that look different than I do. If I'm an elf I don't want to fight elves I want to fight orcs, trolls, goblins.
I don't just want one enemy realm I want 2, so that if one gets too big the third realm can act as a wild card and make everyone look over their shoulders.
I don't want pvp to be instanced zones by which people just sit around a major city and spam a LF BG key.
I want more mob grind than questing so it forces players to group to wipe out packs of mobs.
I want territory to defend and take, and I want my guild's victories to be seen in my realm. No ladder rankings, no arena teams - just good old fashioned medieval warfare.
That sounds like well made to me. Blizzard decided what group to make the game for and made a well polished game for that.
I don't play Wow either but you can't get that many players with a badly made game. There are plenty of other games that tried the exact same thing but they werent as well made and failed.
A well made game is made for a particular group of players and have good programmers as well as a good system for that group.
Heck, even Spears are good on what she do or she would have stopped selling CDs when she got uglier. Bieber on the other hand plainly sucks and will be forgotten as soon as he looks fade.
I did not say Wow is the ultimate MMO or anything of the kind (and I am right now listening to Rob Zombie) but it does what it is supposed to do very good.
Yes you can. Make it easy enough so every player feels powerful and like a hero...then throw tons of shiney overpowered and visually ridiculous glowy weapons and armor at them and presto! Every person with ADD and a pulse will flock.
I have been playing Stronghold Kingdoms for 3 months now, which is a F2P MMO (So it calls itself)...and sadly...it is far more engaging than any MMO in the past 10 years. I mean, it has more of an MMO feel to it than these supposed MMO's do. Player interaction is critical, politics, strategy...and it doesn't give you big shiney rewards. About the only reward is retaining your lands and titles. But I keep playing. Why? It is engaging and isn't just an obvious hamster wheel bent on keeping me playing on a linear path. The gameplay can go in MANY directions based on other players actions. That keeps it interesting to me. This just doesn't exist in MMO's...but needs to for them to survive IMO.
I just came across a recent artcie by Raph Koster, known for his work in MUDs, UO, and SWG. It is about immersion, what it is, and how developers have lost video games immersion in exchange for a wider audience.
"Is immersion a core game virtue?" - Raph Koster (LINK)
Games didn’t start out immersive. Nobody was getting sucked into the world of Mancala or the intricate world building of Go. Oh, people could be mesmerized, certainly, or in a state of flow whilst playing. But they were not immersed in the sense of being transported to another world. For that we had books.
... Things that we once considered essential to games drift in and out of fashion. And I think immersion is one of those.
Immersion does not make a lot of sense in a mobile, interruptible world. It comes from spending hours at something. An the fact is that as games go mainstream, they are played in small bites far more often than they are played in long solo sessions. The market adapts — this reaches more people, so the budgets divert, the publishers’ attention diverts, the developers’ creative attention diverts. ...
I thought that the article was incredibly insightful and and chilling. It really does describe the current climate of MMOs and the way that things have changed from making virtual worlds that players can lose themselves in into making quick cash. It probably started in 2002 and 2003, when MEO was cancelled to be replaced by the linear LOTRO and WoW was released. And of course in 2004 when SWG was changed to be more mainstream.
In my opinion, what it really comes down to is the industry selling out. The people in charge of these companies are gamers (like Smedley of SoE), and once contributed to quality immersive games. Now they squabble to follow mainstream market trends and copy previous successes to a T.
Heres something interesting that reveals some of Raph's feelings about the direction his industry has gone in:
I mourn. I mourn the gradual loss of deep immersion and the trappings of geekery that I love. I see the ways in which the worlds I once dove into headlong have become incredibly expensive endeavors, movies-with-button-presses far more invested in telling me their story, rather than letting me tell my own.
I really feel sorry for him... I have always been a game designer at heart and now I am very glad that I am going to optometry school instead of attempting to participate in the game industry. I often wonder why it has been so long since Raph has worked on a AAA mmorpg; he could probably get a decent job as a designer; he has a ton of experience. And I think I understand now that he is unwilling to sell out the way other MUD/game designers have.
UPDATE: Koster has added another article on his site on the same topic:
I want to build ships, castles, walls, fortifications, towers, etc.
I want to affect the land and make real change in the mmorpg environment I play in.
I want my enemies to not be mirrors of my character.
I want to see enemies on a battlefield that look different than I do. If I'm an elf I don't want to fight elves I want to fight orcs, trolls, goblins.
I don't just want one enemy realm I want 2, so that if one gets too big the third realm can act as a wild card and make everyone look over their shoulders.
I don't want pvp to be instanced zones by which people just sit around a major city and spam a LF BG key.
I want more mob grind than questing so it forces players to group to wipe out packs of mobs.
I want territory to defend and take, and I want my guild's victories to be seen in my realm. No ladder rankings, no arena teams - just good old fashioned medieval warfare.
/dream on
If this doesn't soundly mostly like what ArcheAge has and is bringing to the table, then I don't know what else does.
I don't play Wow either but you can't get that many players with a badly made game.
Yes you can. Make it easy enough so every player feels powerful and like a hero...then throw tons of shiney overpowered and visually ridiculous glowy weapons and armor at them and presto! Every person with ADD and a pulse will flock.
Just because a lot of people play WoW does not mean it is a good game. The vast majority of WoW players have never encountered a game with so much gamification- reward systems based on operant psychological conditioning, and therefore they fall prey to it easily. One reason why they might not migrate to another WoW-like game is because they are starting to see through the mundane meaningless conditioning system that WoW used on them and they are unwilling to fall prey to another game in that same way.
That combined with WoW's marketing which was astronomical. I have not seen as many commercials for every game combined as I did for WoW in the years after its release. It was an investment that popped WoW into popular culture status. Once 2 or more of your friends are playing it, you feel more obligated to try a social game. That is why facebook is popular, because the more people that join the harder it becomes to avoid it.
Originally posted by NBlitz
If this doesn't soundly mostly like what ArcheAge has and is bringing to the table, then I don't know what else does.
Although, you can't really quote Immersion, Skyrim, AND MMO in the same sentence. If a single player game had no immersion, ESPECIALLY as an RPG - then it wouldnt ever sell.
In terms of MMO's, the old school original games were the king of immersion. Nowadays, its all about grinding out as many quests as you can before you log out. Back in the day, you actually changed things, because developers actually had a team of people willing to adjust the world depending on player actions. As it stands now.. the most immersion in any MMO I have played in the last decade falls to SW:TOR's storyline quests.. you actually feel awesome doing thigns in it. BUT, there is no change in anythign else, other then jsut beating the storyline. I miss game changing massive global quests.. :-(
Those games where the first of it's kind, so it makes sense. It's like someone saying you prefer the Beattles over Oasis, or The Rolling Stones over Guns n Roses.
I agree with a lot of what Raph has said about gaming, but here's something that nags at me, and over the years, I've gotten the impression that it might be somewhat common to developers. They often seem out of touch with gamers, and like they're not really gamers themselves. Or maybe more accurately, they're surprisingly casual?
"The post was prompted in part by hearing someone talk about Skyrim and how they stopped playing because they figured out how to max out some aspect of crafting and stacking bonuses or something."
I mean, what? He hasn't even played Skyrim? Or if he has, doesn't even know about the crafting issue? Whether you play the game, or spend a minute or two in a Skyrim forum, it's kind of hard to miss, isn't it? And what sort of gamer hasn't played Skyrim?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I don't play Wow either but you can't get that many players with a badly made game.
Yes you can. Make it easy enough so every player feels powerful and like a hero...then throw tons of shiney overpowered and visually ridiculous glowy weapons and armor at them and presto! Every person with ADD and a pulse will flock.
Just because a lot of people play WoW does not mean it is a good game. The vast majority of WoW players have never encountered a game with so much gamification- reward systems based on operant psychological conditioning, and therefore they fall prey to it easily. One reason why they might not migrate to another WoW-like game is because they are starting to see through the mundane meaningless conditioning system that WoW used on them and they are unwilling to fall prey to another game in that same way.
That combined with WoW's marketing which was astronomical. I have not seen as many commercials for every game combined as I did for WoW in the years after its release. It was an investment that popped WoW into popular culture status. Once 2 or more of your friends are playing it, you feel more obligated to try a social game. That is why facebook is popular, because the more people that join the harder it becomes to avoid it.
Originally posted by NBlitz
If this doesn't soundly mostly like what ArcheAge has and is bringing to the table, then I don't know what else does.
+1
Good or bad it really doesn't matter, Blizzard has been doing something right.
I believe TOR brought in another group of players that have never played an MMO. I've experiance this on several Heroic group quest using terms like CC, LOS, or Focus Fire. a lot of them seemed bemused completly unaware of what I was talking about.
I agree with a lot of what Raph has said about gaming, but here's something that nags at me, and over the years, I've gotten the impression that it might be somewhat common to developers. They often seem out of touch with gamers, and like they're not really gamers themselves. Or maybe more accurately, they're surprisingly casual?
"The post was prompted in part by hearing someone talk about Skyrim and how they stopped playing because they figured out how to max out some aspect of crafting and stacking bonuses or something."
I mean, what? He hasn't even played Skyrim? Or if he has, doesn't even know about the crafting issue? Whether you play the game, or spend a minute or two in a Skyrim forum, it's kind of hard to miss, isn't it? And what sort of gamer hasn't played Skyrim?
I've played Skyrim more than I have any other game in a few years now and I haven't noticed it. I am not super into crafting, but I have spent a lot of times on the forums at the Skyrim Nexus website (mostly discussing mods). What is the crafting issue?
Good or bad it really doesn't matter, Blizzard has been doing something right.
<snip>
By that logic, "games" like Farmville are the ultimate success then, given that they have 4 or 5 times more "regular players" than WoW, and make more profit than WoW...
Mass appeal does not translate into "high quality" automatically. If more than half of the people you know are playing WoW at any given moment, it becomes very hard to avoid constantly "going back", even if you don't really enjoy the game all that much anymore. For a great many people, WoW has become the default MMO, the go-to game when there's nothing better to do.
I've played Skyrim more than I have any other game in a few years now and I haven't noticed it. I am not super into crafting, but I have spent a lot of times on the forums at the Skyrim Nexus website (mostly discussing mods). What is the crafting issue?
Are you just asking to make a point?
Basically, its just seriously OP, and you don't even need to pay attention to the numbers. You can simply be immersed in the game, doing smithing and enchanting. They level up more easily than pretty much anything else, and end up being more effective than anything else, by a huge margin. If you use enchanting to stack your crafting skills, you can end up one-shotting dragons.
I can see why it might not get discussed on the nexus forums, but it was all over Bethesda's forums for a while - haven't been there in a long time, or kept up do date on whether they've patched it or anything, though.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Thats depressing. I have no intention of doing the enchanting/smithing anytime soon but I have to admit I sorta wish I didn't know because I feel like it cheapens the game when I know the easy way out.
Thats depressing. I have no intention of doing the enchanting/smithing anytime soon but I have to admit I sorta wish I didn't know because I feel like it cheapens the game when I know the easy way out.
It's a design failing in Skyrim, sadly.
Once you have Enchanting at 100, you can enchant 4 pieces of armour with -25% mana usage each, which effectively means you can cast spells from 1 school of magic for zero mana. And the enchanting perk at 100 allows you to place 2 enchantments on each item, so you could have 2 magic schools at zero mana usage. Endless spells.
Combine that with the dual-cast stun perk from Destruction, and you can chain-stun any opponent to death by casting endless dual-cast fireballs at them. Doesn't matter how long it takes, you can never run out of mana...
A fine example of why MMO developers avoid "open" skill systems, the more complex they are, the greater the likelihood that some player will find an "unintended" outcome. And if it exists, somebody WILL find it
Originally posted by SpottyGekko A fine example of why MMO developers avoid "open" skill systems, the more complex they are, the greater the likelihood that some player will find an "unintended" outcome. And if it exists, somebody WILL find it
Nah, developers no longer make complex skill systems because people simply do not want them.
Skyrim is a prime example of that - they dumbed down/simplified everything they could.
It is just Bethesda is that bad when it comes to polish and "quality"... :-P
A fine example of why MMO developers avoid "open" skill systems, the more complex they are, the greater the likelihood that some player will find an "unintended" outcome. And if it exists, somebody WILL find it
Nah, developers no longer make complex skill systems because people simply do not want them.
Skyrim is a prime example of that - they dumbed down/simplified everything they could.
It is just Bethesda is that bad when it comes to polish and "quality"... :-P
I had to rethink my phrasing... lol.. My "opinion" would be that is not entirely true.
Complex systems .. what you say is relative but I don't think its because people do not want them. I think the perception is mass market does not want "complex" and that I agree with.
Who exactly do you see developing an MMO and saying "we have a target player base of 250,000 players." As opposed to "we will make a profit of 500,000 but expect 2.5 million".
Actually on top of that... if you look at how certain "challenge" mechanics have changed from EQ to now. I think at times I begin to feel like I'm playing a game intended for a console market.
MMO's the challenge at times was watching your aggro... understanding CC etc
Now its like... when this happens jump on that... run here... Its like Mario Brothers and why I had a computer instead of a nintendo... (thinking back to the 80's). I am not saying people who play these games and like them are bad or inferior. I am simply saying the games *I* did play were changed to widen the market. The change is what is driving me out of the market and relates (in my opinion) as to why complex systems went out as well.
Did I have an omega race cartridge for my C64? sure... but that's not the main game type I was buying.
I always attributed a lot of WoW's success to it having a degree of immersion. When you ride a Griffin and look down and see MOBs and players moving in what seems like a huge world below, when you dive under water and count down your breath timer and find stuff down there, when you stealth around something, when you plop the fishing line into the water, when you go out on a dock and wait for the ship and jump on and wait for it to start moving, lots of little things, it does feel immersive. But it was limited by the game's design to that degree only. And the second time through is when the quest system slaps you in the face that everything you've done, everyone else has repeated too, like an act in a play that you have no choice in the matter. And when nothing changes, and you aren't even able to change what you do (mostly), and the world story is scripted and you as much as the world, well, that just kills the immersion.
The point is that some immersion is good but it should not be too inconvenient and distracting from the game. Blizz is genius blending the two.
Good or bad it really doesn't matter, Blizzard has been doing something right.
By that logic, "games" like Farmville are the ultimate success then, given that they have 4 or 5 times more "regular players" than WoW, and make more profit than WoW...
Mass appeal does not translate into "high quality" automatically. If more than half of the people you know are playing WoW at any given moment, it becomes very hard to avoid constantly "going back", even if you don't really enjoy the game all that much anymore. For a great many people, WoW has become the default MMO, the go-to game when there's nothing better to do.
I always attributed a lot of WoW's success to it having a degree of immersion.
When you ride a Griffin and look down and see MOBs and players moving in what seems like a huge world below, when you dive under water and count down your breath timer and find stuff down there, when you stealth around something, when you plop the fishing line into the water, when you go out on a dock and wait for the ship and jump on and wait for it to start moving, lots of little things, it does feel immersive. But it was limited by the game's design to that degree only. And the second time through is when the quest system slaps you in the face that everything you've done, everyone else has repeated too, like an act in a play that you have no choice in the matter.
And when nothing changes, and you aren't even able to change what you do (mostly), and the world story is scripted and you as much as the world, well, that just kills the immersion.
The point is that some immersion is good but it should not be too inconvenient and distracting from the game. Blizz is genius blending the two.
Blizzard was genius for it's time. There was this huge influx of new gamers who didn't have any real expectations. Now they are experienced and wanting "more".
Immersion can never be done too much. It's immersion that led to the success of the big sellers in single player games like GTA and Skyrim's series.
Comments
Diablo and Diablo 2 combined have sold 17 million copies so it is absolutely comparable to MMO numbers. The Battlechest was seen in top10 lists as late as 2008. They still keep selling.
You know, if people were to actually pay attention to history, not just history of countries or of a people but the history of our relationship to what we create, none of this would be news.
This is a dance that has already been done too many times to count.
things get created, things get attention and adopted, if it's good then more people become interested and that thing then evolves to reach more people.
Then you have a popular version of the thing and some niche version of the thing.
As my mother said of the first time she heard a rock album "I thought it was a joke record. Then I listened a bit and realized I liked it".
Bam! Rock N' Roll started having a following. Don't you think that there were people who were horrified at the bastardization of music with the new rock craze? How musicians were "selling out"?
This has happened before, it happens now and it will continue to 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
Interesting read. I think immersion is still around (Skyrim is great for this), but I don't get immersion in modern MMOs. When was the last AAA MMO to be designed as a living world? It's not an emphasis when they're making themeparks that lead you by the nose from quest hub to quest hub. I'm still looking for an MMO that allows the freedom to make the character I want instead of making the character the dev wants.
___________________________
Have flask; will travel.
Immersion... it still exists for me, just harder to find in games than it used to be. Being able to impact the world in most games is rare. Without the ability to direct the game in some way, it is really hard to find that connection to it and get that feeling.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Although, you can't really quote Immersion, Skyrim, AND MMO in the same sentence. If a single player game had no immersion, ESPECIALLY as an RPG - then it wouldnt ever sell.
In terms of MMO's, the old school original games were the king of immersion. Nowadays, its all about grinding out as many quests as you can before you log out. Back in the day, you actually changed things, because developers actually had a team of people willing to adjust the world depending on player actions. As it stands now.. the most immersion in any MMO I have played in the last decade falls to SW:TOR's storyline quests.. you actually feel awesome doing thigns in it. BUT, there is no change in anythign else, other then jsut beating the storyline. I miss game changing massive global quests.. :-(
I haven't been able to read the newer comments on this thread or this new article by Koster, but I thought I'd put a link to it up:
http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/01/14/faq-on-the-immersion-post/#more-4027
Looks like he added another article to respond to some questions being brought up about his first... Including the comment about Skyrim that someone had on this thread. :-) Here is a bit of it:
Maybe I am too much of a Koster fanboy, because I was predicting in my head his responses to each FAQ as I read them.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I could not possibly and respectfully disagree more. You do make excellent points on what the core values of an entertaining product are, but to Raph games have devolved into entertainment products. In his golden years of development they were works of art, and it is this loss of the appreciation and necessity of the art of immersion that he mourns. He, and others of his kind, are artists in the game development arena. When they set out to make games, what they have in mind isn't driven whatsoever by commercialism but rather by the innately human tendency to create. Living, breathing, vibrant worlds are birthed by their minds and written into code as best as technologically possible. They did not trail blaze in the gaming industry for the money. In the beginning there was no money. They did it for the love of what they were doing, for the ability to create what was art to them (and is to so many of us).
It is exactly the same as a novelist. You have your cheap thrills mystery, sci-fi, romance/smut and horror books that are penned and shipped out by the truck load in very rapid order. Their sole value lies in the quick "fix" they provide the consumer. 99% of what they contain will never, ever be read a second time. This is not art, this is entertainment and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It serves its purpose admirably, and this type of entertainment is common across all media types.
The flip side of this coin is a product of such depth, purpose and desire that only a true artist that has dared to begin to dream can ever hope to bring this dream to life and make it a reality. Shakespeare was an artist. Michaelangelo was an artist. To this day we still can lose ourselves in their works, and that is why immersion is a virtue of art, even within the gaming industry. Immersion has no place in most games nowadays because it does not add zeroes to the bottom line of a product's profit potential.
Right now the majority of people in technologically advanced countries are still very immature in their selection of games because they've only just begun to expose themselves to the online world that we, the mature old school gamers, have been a part of for the past 20+ years. Bored mid-30's housewives are now farmville champions. They are getting their fix. When the now 10 year olds that are growing up with Wi and XBOX Live mature into young adults, their taste in games will also mature. They will start looking for games with greater substance and longevity. And when that happens, the market will shift with them and immersion will be one of the necessary building blocks of any successful game.
The industry will have to get worse before it gets better. Strap in for the long haul and keep looking for that light at the end of the tunnel.
I has a crayon
I miss player and guild housing.
I want to build ships, castles, walls, fortifications, towers, etc.
I want to affect the land and make real change in the mmorpg environment I play in.
I want my enemies to not be mirrors of my character.
I want to see enemies on a battlefield that look different than I do. If I'm an elf I don't want to fight elves I want to fight orcs, trolls, goblins.
I don't just want one enemy realm I want 2, so that if one gets too big the third realm can act as a wild card and make everyone look over their shoulders.
I don't want pvp to be instanced zones by which people just sit around a major city and spam a LF BG key.
I want more mob grind than questing so it forces players to group to wipe out packs of mobs.
I want territory to defend and take, and I want my guild's victories to be seen in my realm. No ladder rankings, no arena teams - just good old fashioned medieval warfare.
/dream on
Yes you can. Make it easy enough so every player feels powerful and like a hero...then throw tons of shiney overpowered and visually ridiculous glowy weapons and armor at them and presto! Every person with ADD and a pulse will flock.
I have been playing Stronghold Kingdoms for 3 months now, which is a F2P MMO (So it calls itself)...and sadly...it is far more engaging than any MMO in the past 10 years. I mean, it has more of an MMO feel to it than these supposed MMO's do. Player interaction is critical, politics, strategy...and it doesn't give you big shiney rewards. About the only reward is retaining your lands and titles. But I keep playing. Why? It is engaging and isn't just an obvious hamster wheel bent on keeping me playing on a linear path. The gameplay can go in MANY directions based on other players actions. That keeps it interesting to me. This just doesn't exist in MMO's...but needs to for them to survive IMO.
If this doesn't soundly mostly like what ArcheAge has and is bringing to the table, then I don't know what else does.
RIchard Bartle would agree:
http://gamification-research.org/2011/05/richard-bartle-on-gamification-too-much-of-a-good-thing/
Just because a lot of people play WoW does not mean it is a good game. The vast majority of WoW players have never encountered a game with so much gamification- reward systems based on operant psychological conditioning, and therefore they fall prey to it easily. One reason why they might not migrate to another WoW-like game is because they are starting to see through the mundane meaningless conditioning system that WoW used on them and they are unwilling to fall prey to another game in that same way.
That combined with WoW's marketing which was astronomical. I have not seen as many commercials for every game combined as I did for WoW in the years after its release. It was an investment that popped WoW into popular culture status. Once 2 or more of your friends are playing it, you feel more obligated to try a social game. That is why facebook is popular, because the more people that join the harder it becomes to avoid it.
+1
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Those games where the first of it's kind, so it makes sense. It's like someone saying you prefer the Beattles over Oasis, or The Rolling Stones over Guns n Roses.
I agree with a lot of what Raph has said about gaming, but here's something that nags at me, and over the years, I've gotten the impression that it might be somewhat common to developers. They often seem out of touch with gamers, and like they're not really gamers themselves. Or maybe more accurately, they're surprisingly casual?
"The post was prompted in part by hearing someone talk about Skyrim and how they stopped playing because they figured out how to max out some aspect of crafting and stacking bonuses or something."
I mean, what? He hasn't even played Skyrim? Or if he has, doesn't even know about the crafting issue? Whether you play the game, or spend a minute or two in a Skyrim forum, it's kind of hard to miss, isn't it? And what sort of gamer hasn't played Skyrim?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Good or bad it really doesn't matter, Blizzard has been doing something right.
I believe TOR brought in another group of players that have never played an MMO. I've experiance this on several Heroic group quest using terms like CC, LOS, or Focus Fire. a lot of them seemed bemused completly unaware of what I was talking about.
I've played Skyrim more than I have any other game in a few years now and I haven't noticed it. I am not super into crafting, but I have spent a lot of times on the forums at the Skyrim Nexus website (mostly discussing mods). What is the crafting issue?
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
By that logic, "games" like Farmville are the ultimate success then, given that they have 4 or 5 times more "regular players" than WoW, and make more profit than WoW...
Mass appeal does not translate into "high quality" automatically. If more than half of the people you know are playing WoW at any given moment, it becomes very hard to avoid constantly "going back", even if you don't really enjoy the game all that much anymore. For a great many people, WoW has become the default MMO, the go-to game when there's nothing better to do.
Are you just asking to make a point?
Basically, its just seriously OP, and you don't even need to pay attention to the numbers. You can simply be immersed in the game, doing smithing and enchanting. They level up more easily than pretty much anything else, and end up being more effective than anything else, by a huge margin. If you use enchanting to stack your crafting skills, you can end up one-shotting dragons.
I can see why it might not get discussed on the nexus forums, but it was all over Bethesda's forums for a while - haven't been there in a long time, or kept up do date on whether they've patched it or anything, though.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
It just takes one decent, not greedy and talented company to bring the dream back. It will happen sooner or later.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Thats depressing. I have no intention of doing the enchanting/smithing anytime soon but I have to admit I sorta wish I didn't know because I feel like it cheapens the game when I know the easy way out.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
It's a design failing in Skyrim, sadly.
Once you have Enchanting at 100, you can enchant 4 pieces of armour with -25% mana usage each, which effectively means you can cast spells from 1 school of magic for zero mana. And the enchanting perk at 100 allows you to place 2 enchantments on each item, so you could have 2 magic schools at zero mana usage. Endless spells.
Combine that with the dual-cast stun perk from Destruction, and you can chain-stun any opponent to death by casting endless dual-cast fireballs at them. Doesn't matter how long it takes, you can never run out of mana...
A fine example of why MMO developers avoid "open" skill systems, the more complex they are, the greater the likelihood that some player will find an "unintended" outcome. And if it exists, somebody WILL find it
Nah, developers no longer make complex skill systems because people simply do not want them.
Skyrim is a prime example of that - they dumbed down/simplified everything they could.
It is just Bethesda is that bad when it comes to polish and "quality"... :-P
I had to rethink my phrasing... lol.. My "opinion" would be that is not entirely true.
Complex systems .. what you say is relative but I don't think its because people do not want them. I think the perception is mass market does not want "complex" and that I agree with.
Who exactly do you see developing an MMO and saying "we have a target player base of 250,000 players." As opposed to "we will make a profit of 500,000 but expect 2.5 million".
Actually on top of that... if you look at how certain "challenge" mechanics have changed from EQ to now. I think at times I begin to feel like I'm playing a game intended for a console market.
MMO's the challenge at times was watching your aggro... understanding CC etc
Now its like... when this happens jump on that... run here... Its like Mario Brothers and why I had a computer instead of a nintendo... (thinking back to the 80's). I am not saying people who play these games and like them are bad or inferior. I am simply saying the games *I* did play were changed to widen the market. The change is what is driving me out of the market and relates (in my opinion) as to why complex systems went out as well.
Did I have an omega race cartridge for my C64? sure... but that's not the main game type I was buying.
The point is that some immersion is good but it should not be too inconvenient and distracting from the game. Blizz is genius blending the two.Good or bad it really doesn't matter, Blizzard has been doing something right.
By that logic, "games" like Farmville are the ultimate success then, given that they have 4 or 5 times more "regular players" than WoW, and make more profit than WoW...
Mass appeal does not translate into "high quality" automatically. If more than half of the people you know are playing WoW at any given moment, it becomes very hard to avoid constantly "going back", even if you don't really enjoy the game all that much anymore. For a great many people, WoW has become the default MMO, the go-to game when there's nothing better to do.
Farmville is making more than wow? Reference?Blizzard was genius for it's time. There was this huge influx of new gamers who didn't have any real expectations. Now they are experienced and wanting "more".
Immersion can never be done too much. It's immersion that led to the success of the big sellers in single player games like GTA and Skyrim's series.
Once upon a time....