I miss the open worlds too. Exploration seems infinitely more interesting when you have a large world, and the load screens of instanced games breaks immersion for me.
Set in World War II Western Europe, WWII Online: Battleground Europe is a realistic MMO featuring a zone-less map (a ½ scale map of Western Europe with 30000 km2 or 11583 sq mi ). where battles rage for days and campaigns for weeks. Over 100 weapons and vehicles accurately modeled and utilizing military-grade physics.
Not another arcade-style WWII shooter. The advanced physics and ballistics systems create a military-grade WWII simulation.
A proprietary physics engine powers an advanced, component-based damage model for vehicles that simulates the actual components found in WWII units. In addition, we accurately model armor thickness down to the millimeter and flight models for aircraft down to every surface and control for a true-to-life simulation. Even the ballistics are precisely and accurately modeled for each type of round in the game. All of these elements provide realism, creating a skill-based simulation where players must learn to properly employ the weapons and equipment available.
WWIIOL is ten years old. I played this for the first five years it was out.
The map is large, and your actions do make a real diffrence in the outcome of campaigns that can last for weeks or even months. It's all on one server and played 24/7 by people from all over the world.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez" Bladezz (The Guild)
I dont care about loading screens. What I miss is playing a game with a LARGE world to explore rather than one that feels like a series of playpens.
I miss walking into a cave or some ruins and actually running into other adventurers. None of this instanced monkey crap.
I miss when each area was unique and not a copy of another area's map with background items simply placed in different spots.
I miss when monsters behaved differently, or different monsters appeared during certain times of the day, and when night-time meant you'd better have a light on you or you'd be near-blind stumbling through the dark.
Vanguard is going F2P this summer. Doesn't get any more open and seamless than that. Even the dungeons and raids are non-instanced.
Same here. AC had several levels of freedom that just don't exist in MMOs today.
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 miss when MMOs were worlds and not the just the next game.
^^^^^
THIS
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT Playing: Skyrim Following: The Repopulation I want a Virtual World, not just a Game. ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
Regarding dungeons - honestly, I can't see how non-instanced dungeons could work. Wouldn't there be piles of players/parties standing around waiting for the boss to spawn, everyone's fingers on the targetting key so their group would be the first to tag him?
The MMORPG Genre has had to evolve rather quickly to accomodate the various play styles of 'gamers' coming to massively multiplayer online games.
Unfortunately, I think elements like non-instanced dungeons are a thing of the past mainly due to several key elements:
Element One: Currency sellers camp open-world bosses waiting for a raid party to form nearby, then they assign a member with low latency to watch the raid party and tag the boss just before the raid party launches a full-scale attack.
Thanks to poor game mechanics (depending on the game), once the boss has been tagged by one of these currency seller guilds, even if the raid party stops attacking, the currency sellers leave someone nearby to keep the creature tagged for their team. They will also quickly sabotage a legitimate raiding party's attempt on a boss in order to "wipe" the raid.
Currency sellers are a plague on the MMO community, and have basically ruined the genre for any game developer looking to create a game that allows for realism and open world enviroments.
Element Two: A growing problem in massively multiplayer games is a form of sociopath known as 'griefers'. They are a major problem in any MMO game with "open world" elements. They seem to flock to these types of games (and free betas) like ants to a picnic. 'Griefers' tend to be miserable, embittered individuals that have absolutely nothing better to do than to spread their personal misery around like herpes.
Lurking around with some newly acquired gear and weapons, bored with the usual activites that the game offers OR (more than likely)--- playing solo because their personalities are so foul that no one on the server wants anything to do with them, and they were kicked from their last guild for being thankless 'loot whores' and 'ninja looters'--- 'griefers' gravitate to any sort of activity that can give them some sick measure of contentment between bouts of masturbating, So...
...they find a way to hover around difficult Open World encounters, usually around prime playing hours, hoping that some guild or raid group will make an attempt on the encounter so the 'griefer' can sabotage the attempt by using a taunt ability to alter the fight in an undesired direction, throwing the raid group off-balance, and "wiping" them.
The 'griefer' isn't upset by the public beratement and negative feedback they receive on forums and public chat channels, because they are finally getting the sociopathic form of attention that they want, largely due to being neglected "latch-key kids" in dire need of proper discipline and nurturing as children, neither of which they received.
Sadly, this widespread, cancerous problem is growing at an alarming rate, and doesn't seem to be slowing down, especially in games with multiple factions, where they are mistakenly lauded by other sociopaths of the same faction as some sort of heroic figure. Even worse, some companies thrive on encouraging this sort of behavior as an intended game mechanic, most likely due to the mentality of the developers working for the company that made said game.
Element Three: Poor game design can be a major factor in ruining the experience for players, which is obvious, BUT---so can greedy, disrepectful, so-called "competitive" raiding guilds vying for the same open world target at approximately the same time. This can sometimes be entirely untrue, as old EverQuest raiding would reveal.
In EverQuest, with the slow spawn times and rarity of some raid bosses, some guilds would leave one or two player's characters parked nearby a known spawn point, and log in from time to time to detect whether or not the boss was active. Some would do this for the sake of completing a long quest, but others would do this merely for the sake of hoarding whatever items the particular raid boss might drop.
The slow spawn times, the unsavory character of some players, and the need to keep some level of difficulty in that particular zone to make reaching the boss a "fun" and challenging element of the game, making the race to the boss an unpleasant and problematic experience.
Thus, this all combined into a need for a new solution to raiding and dungeon bosses; namely, instanced dungeons.
So, to your point, I'd agree. There is no successful way to return to the days of an Open World dungeon or raid environment without these elements ruining the experience.
Regarding dungeons - honestly, I can't see how non-instanced dungeons could work. Wouldn't there be piles of players/parties standing around waiting for the boss to spawn, everyone's fingers on the targetting key so their group would be the first to tag him?
Stop thinking in terms of WOW. That's not the only way to make MMO content.
Log into L2, UO or AC and you can see players picking a section of the dungeon and doing their own thing - plenty of dungeon to go around with plenty of different levels of content so you can throttle your challenge and adjust for group size even within the same dungeon.
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
Regarding dungeons - honestly, I can't see how non-instanced dungeons could work. Wouldn't there be piles of players/parties standing around waiting for the boss to spawn, everyone's fingers on the targetting key so their group would be the first to tag him?
Stop thinking in terms of WOW. That's not the only way to make MMO content.
Log into L2, UO or AC and you can see players picking a section of the dungeon and doing their own thing - plenty of dungeon to go around with plenty of different levels of content so you can throttle your challenge and adjust for group size even within the same dungeon.
Given that many games only have 5000 players on a server, if everyone is in the same dungeon that is a failure of game design. I agree that some people haven't played enough non WoW MMOs to understand how things can be different. Although I would be interested to see a dungeon which could intentionally host 5000 players. Well, maybe less because lag.
The MMORPG Genre has had to evolve rather quickly to accomodate the various play styles of 'gamers' coming to massively multiplayer online games.
Unfortunately, I think elements like non-instanced dungeons are a thing of the past mainly due to several key elements:
Element One: Currency sellers camp open-world bosses waiting for a raid party to form nearby, then they assign a member with low latency to watch the raid party and tag the boss just before the raid party launches a full-scale attack.
Thanks to poor game mechanics (depending on the game), once the boss has been tagged by one of these currency seller guilds, even if the raid party stops attacking, the currency sellers leave someone nearby to keep the creature tagged for their team. They will also quickly sabotage a legitimate raiding party's attempt on a boss in order to "wipe" the raid.
Currency sellers are a plague on the MMO community, and have basically ruined the genre for any game developer looking to create a game that allows for realism and open world enviroments.
Element Two: A growing problem in massively multiplayer games is a form of sociopath known as 'griefers'. They are a major problem in any MMO game with "open world" elements. They seem to flock to these types of games (and free betas) like ants to a picnic. 'Griefers' tend to be miserable, embittered individuals that have absolutely nothing better to do than to spread their personal misery around like herpes.
Lurking around with some newly acquired gear and weapons, bored with the usual activites that the game offers OR (more than likely)--- playing solo because their personalities are so foul that no one on the server wants anything to do with them, and they were kicked from their last guild for being thankless 'loot whores' and 'ninja looters'--- 'griefers' gravitate to any sort of activity that can give them some sick measure of contentment between bouts of masturbating, So...
...they find a way to hover around difficult Open World encounters, usually around prime playing hours, hoping that some guild or raid group will make an attempt on the encounter so the 'griefer' can sabotage the attempt by using a taunt ability to alter the fight in an undesired direction, throwing the raid group off-balance, and "wiping" them.
The 'griefer' isn't upset by the public beratement and negative feedback they receive on forums and public chat channels, because they are finally getting the sociopathic form of attention that they want, largely due to being neglected "latch-key kids" in dire need of proper discipline and nurturing as children, neither of which they received.
Sadly, this widespread, cancerous problem is growing at an alarming rate, and doesn't seem to be slowing down, especially in games with multiple factions, where they are mistakenly lauded by other sociopaths of the same faction as some sort of heroic figure. Even worse, some companies thrive on encouraging this sort of behavior as an intended game mechanic, most likely due to the mentality of the developers working for the company that made said game.
Element Three: Poor game design can be a major factor in ruining the experience for players, which is obvious, BUT---so can greedy, disrepectful, so-called "competitive" raiding guilds vying for the same open world target at approximately the same time. This can sometimes be entirely untrue, as old EverQuest raiding would reveal.
In EverQuest, with the slow spawn times and rarity of some raid bosses, some guilds would leave one or two player's characters parked nearby a known spawn point, and log in from time to time to detect whether or not the boss was active. Some would do this for the sake of completing a long quest, but others would do this merely for the sake of hoarding whatever items the particular raid boss might drop.
The slow spawn times, the unsavory character of some players, and the need to keep some level of difficulty in that particular zone to make reaching the boss a "fun" and challenging element of the game, making the race to the boss an unpleasant and problematic experience.
Thus, this all combined into a need for a new solution to raiding and dungeon bosses; namely, instanced dungeons.
So, to your point, I'd agree. There is no successful way to return to the days of an Open World dungeon or raid environment without these elements ruining the experience.
FFA pvp with guild alliances, penalties for death (that involve more than respawning at basically the same location), and a player system of policing the social deviants.
These "key elements" were solved way back in EQ on Rallos Zek 10 years ago.
Regarding dungeons - honestly, I can't see how non-instanced dungeons could work. Wouldn't there be piles of players/parties standing around waiting for the boss to spawn, everyone's fingers on the targetting key so their group would be the first to tag him?
Stop thinking in terms of WOW. That's not the only way to make MMO content.
Log into L2, UO or AC and you can see players picking a section of the dungeon and doing their own thing - plenty of dungeon to go around with plenty of different levels of content so you can throttle your challenge and adjust for group size even within the same dungeon.
Given that many games only have 5000 players on a server, if everyone is in the same dungeon that is a failure of game design. I agree that some people haven't played enough non WoW MMOs to understand how things can be different. Although I would be interested to see a dungeon which could intentionally host 5000 players. Well, maybe less because lag.
That's a rather extreme situation you present and I'm not even sure there is more than maybe one or two MMOs that would apply to.
Most MMO servers only hold about 2,500 and few come near that cap after the first month. Even then, if a developer has 2.5k players logged into their server and everyone on the server is all piled into one dungeon, then I'd say something went horribly wrong in either game design or world building.
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
Isn't a good chunk of Vanguard Saga of Heroes open world? Don't they also have world dungeons? I never really got to immerse myself in the game as by the time I got to it the population was gone.
Isn't a good chunk of Vanguard Saga of Heroes open world? Don't they also have world dungeons? I never really got to immerse myself in the game as by the time I got to it the population was gone.
All of vanguard is pretty much open world. I guess you could "almost" call the "Ancient Port Warehouse" an instanced zone (but it really isn't instanced as it is big enough for several raids at a time & there are 4 copies of it (basically 4 zones which are exact copies of eachother but no restrictions on entering them aside from having one leveling sphere at 50+ and having completed an open world roaming boss mob quest)
The only times you really see loading screens in vanguard is if you teleport, goto a different continent or go into the "Ancient Port Warehouse" (as it puts you into one of the 4 but you can always zone out and back in to get into a different one)
I understand the points you raise about open world content, but I think the "problems" were what made the game fun. The risk of a ninja looter coming and stealing your mob might have made you mad, but they made it EXCITING and kept you on your guard. ( A solution to this it to have open pvp and kill that ******). I've camped mobs for days on end and it's been some of the most memorable experiences I've ever had in a game.
The long and arduous corpse runs associated with non instanced dungeons meant that you had better not mess up because if you do, it's probably going to break up the group. These unpleasantries gave the game consequences. They gave more depth to the game, giving people more to do than just zone into a dungeon and clear it. You had to think and plan and work together. It was more about the dungeon running experience than quickly getting to the loot at the end. Most of the times in an EQ dungeon you wouldn't get any loot at all and you were just there for the experience because reaching max level took YEARS.
It's just a different type of experience. If people want a regulated, controlled experience free from struggle and conflict with other players then they will get a game that is instanced and safe but it definetly won't feel alive and dynamic.
Well maybe with the release of stronger servers this will become possible again but the issue was that graphics wer ebeing pushed farther then servers could take the load. Thus causing them to run instances aka a way to be able to put the load on a seperate server to help with the strain. We know this is the case cause sometimes games liek wow a side of the world goes down but not the entire game.
Like the old WoW.. No loading screens for the inn's or zone changes. Just a change of weather and music.
Really Vanilla WoW had no loading screens? There has never been a MMO without some kind of loading screen but WoW had a lot of loading screens at launch. I thought you would have atleast mentioned AC, EQ, Shadowbane or something with very minor loading screens.
Regarding dungeons - honestly, I can't see how non-instanced dungeons could work. Wouldn't there be piles of players/parties standing around waiting for the boss to spawn, everyone's fingers on the targetting key so their group would be the first to tag him?
Stop thinking in terms of WOW. That's not the only way to make MMO content.
Log into L2, UO or AC and you can see players picking a section of the dungeon and doing their own thing - plenty of dungeon to go around with plenty of different levels of content so you can throttle your challenge and adjust for group size even within the same dungeon.
Given that many games only have 5000 players on a server, if everyone is in the same dungeon that is a failure of game design. I agree that some people haven't played enough non WoW MMOs to understand how things can be different. Although I would be interested to see a dungeon which could intentionally host 5000 players. Well, maybe less because lag.
That's a rather extreme situation you present and I'm not even sure there is more than maybe one or two MMOs that would apply to.
Most MMO servers only hold about 2,500 and few come near that cap after the first month. Even then, if a developer has 2.5k players logged into their server and everyone on the server is all piled into one dungeon, then I'd say something went horribly wrong in either game design or world building.
You know I said intentionally host that many players right? EvE has some 3000 person battles.
Maybe a Hell Gate spawned in a cavern system from a random event and all the players have to go there to fight off the demon hordes.
Yeah, I miss that as well. One of the reasons SWTOR didn't stuck with me. Every loading screen is like a pair of scissors snipping your umbilical cord of immersion. V_V
Do you think of elevators as loading screens in the real world?
j/k.
No At least elevators move physically and actually save you time from walking stairs.
Long queues at grocery stores or traffic jams are much worse V_V
Just want to say Pony thanks for helping me shoot beer out of my nose. i allways loved your sigs and this is the first time i have seen this one. made me lol
Maybe a Hell Gate spawned in a cavern system from a random event and all the players have to go there to fight off the demon hordes.
In a scenario such as that - Hellgate opens and, well, all hell breaks loose - it is far better to have multiple staging points for the event as the goal would be to balance 'epic' with the ability to participate. Resource issues aside, when there are too many mobs and players it often becomes to chaotic for the players to meaningfully participate or to feel genuinely engaged.
I don't know how many games have tried it, but it seems that having dev characters either leading or aiding the leaders of the players would bring more structure to the experience, at which point events or occurrences where you have 1k or more players together would probably be a lot more engaging and fun.
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
Maybe a Hell Gate spawned in a cavern system from a random event and all the players have to go there to fight off the demon hordes.
In a scenario such as that - Hellgate opens and, well, all hell breaks loose - it is far better to have multiple staging points for the event as the goal would be to balance 'epic' with the ability to participate. Resource issues aside, when there are too many mobs and players it often becomes to chaotic for the players to meaningfully participate or to feel genuinely engaged.
I don't know how many games have tried it, but it seems that having dev characters either leading or aiding the leaders of the players would bring more structure to the experience, at which point events or occurrences where you have 1k or more players together would probably be a lot more engaging and fun.
Reminds me of the giant Xmas treant from FFXI. Wandered around different zones, and anyone could attack it at any time. Every server that managed to kill one unlocked something...I forget what. Some kind of teleports I think.
Set in World War II Western Europe, WWII Online: Battleground Europe is a realistic MMO featuring a zone-less map (a ½ scale map of Western Europe with 30000 km2 or 11583 sq mi ). where battles rage for days and campaigns for weeks. Over 100 weapons and vehicles accurately modeled and utilizing military-grade physics.
Not another arcade-style WWII shooter. The advanced physics and ballistics systems create a military-grade WWII simulation.
A proprietary physics engine powers an advanced, component-based damage model for vehicles that simulates the actual components found in WWII units. In addition, we accurately model armor thickness down to the millimeter and flight models for aircraft down to every surface and control for a true-to-life simulation. Even the ballistics are precisely and accurately modeled for each type of round in the game. All of these elements provide realism, creating a skill-based simulation where players must learn to properly employ the weapons and equipment available.
WWIIOL is ten years old. I played this for the first five years it was out.
The map is large, and your actions do make a real diffrence in the outcome of campaigns that can last for weeks or even months. It's all on one server and played 24/7 by people from all over the world.
The game was too glitchy and the company that owns it is terrible. I'll be trying planetside 2 though exactly the same but set in the future 6-^
Maybe a Hell Gate spawned in a cavern system from a random event and all the players have to go there to fight off the demon hordes.
In a scenario such as that - Hellgate opens and, well, all hell breaks loose - it is far better to have multiple staging points for the event as the goal would be to balance 'epic' with the ability to participate. Resource issues aside, when there are too many mobs and players it often becomes to chaotic for the players to meaningfully participate or to feel genuinely engaged.
I don't know how many games have tried it, but it seems that having dev characters either leading or aiding the leaders of the players would bring more structure to the experience, at which point events or occurrences where you have 1k or more players together would probably be a lot more engaging and fun.
Reminds me of the giant Xmas treant from FFXI. Wandered around different zones, and anyone could attack it at any time. Every server that managed to kill one unlocked something...I forget what. Some kind of teleports I think.
Well I said a cavern system didn't I? That could allow for say a surface to center, multiple underground chokepoints, reserves and so forth.
Functioning as an army defending the world from hell it would be pretty good to have a political structure formed during less instense parts of the game. Guild leaders and kingdom leaders would organize a hierarchy after early reports of demons, then you might assign various guilds or kingdoms to various tasks.
Lineage 2 still has the best I have seen. Just recently went back and started over from scratch. Its a grind type game so if you into those try it.
Well.. maybe my memories betray me here, but if i remember right, you got a loading screen for any city/dungeon, it wasnt really any different as the most mmorpg at this time, and not really better or even outstanding. But hell, it is a long time ago i played that.. and i am not 100% sure of it.
I think you probaly talking about the wrong game. Cities, towns and dungeons never had loading screens in Lineage 2. They are free for anybody on the server to come and go as they wish.
Vanguard saga of heros and AC are the only two i can think of that is not insta*or heavy insta* i tell ya i was in a cave in vanguard today and it felt so real and alive. It was awesome. The exit of the cave going into thhe world just made it feel so real and the fact that the cave monsters kept running after me when i was out was funny to lol.
Comments
I miss the open worlds too. Exploration seems infinitely more interesting when you have a large world, and the load screens of instanced games breaks immersion for me.
If you are serious about a large zone-less MMO, and can pull yourselves away from lighting bolts, dragons and elves for a moment, go look at WWIIOL.
http://www.battlegroundeurope.com/
Set in World War II Western Europe, WWII Online: Battleground Europe is a realistic MMO featuring a zone-less map (a ½ scale map of Western Europe with 30000 km2 or 11583 sq mi ). where battles rage for days and campaigns for weeks. Over 100 weapons and vehicles accurately modeled and utilizing military-grade physics.
Not another arcade-style WWII shooter. The advanced physics and ballistics systems create a military-grade WWII simulation.
A proprietary physics engine powers an advanced, component-based damage model for vehicles that simulates the actual components found in WWII units. In addition, we accurately model armor thickness down to the millimeter and flight models for aircraft down to every surface and control for a true-to-life simulation. Even the ballistics are precisely and accurately modeled for each type of round in the game. All of these elements provide realism, creating a skill-based simulation where players must learn to properly employ the weapons and equipment available.
WWIIOL is ten years old. I played this for the first five years it was out.
The map is large, and your actions do make a real diffrence in the outcome of campaigns that can last for weeks or even months. It's all on one server and played 24/7 by people from all over the world.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez"
Bladezz (The Guild)
I dont care about loading screens. What I miss is playing a game with a LARGE world to explore rather than one that feels like a series of playpens.
I miss walking into a cave or some ruins and actually running into other adventurers. None of this instanced monkey crap.
I miss when each area was unique and not a copy of another area's map with background items simply placed in different spots.
I miss when monsters behaved differently, or different monsters appeared during certain times of the day, and when night-time meant you'd better have a light on you or you'd be near-blind stumbling through the dark.
Those were the days.
Same here. AC had several levels of freedom that just don't exist in MMOs today.
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
^^^^^
THIS
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT
Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
The MMORPG Genre has had to evolve rather quickly to accomodate the various play styles of 'gamers' coming to massively multiplayer online games.
Unfortunately, I think elements like non-instanced dungeons are a thing of the past mainly due to several key elements:
Element One: Currency sellers camp open-world bosses waiting for a raid party to form nearby, then they assign a member with low latency to watch the raid party and tag the boss just before the raid party launches a full-scale attack.
Thanks to poor game mechanics (depending on the game), once the boss has been tagged by one of these currency seller guilds, even if the raid party stops attacking, the currency sellers leave someone nearby to keep the creature tagged for their team. They will also quickly sabotage a legitimate raiding party's attempt on a boss in order to "wipe" the raid.
Currency sellers are a plague on the MMO community, and have basically ruined the genre for any game developer looking to create a game that allows for realism and open world enviroments.
Element Two: A growing problem in massively multiplayer games is a form of sociopath known as 'griefers'. They are a major problem in any MMO game with "open world" elements. They seem to flock to these types of games (and free betas) like ants to a picnic. 'Griefers' tend to be miserable, embittered individuals that have absolutely nothing better to do than to spread their personal misery around like herpes.
Lurking around with some newly acquired gear and weapons, bored with the usual activites that the game offers OR (more than likely)--- playing solo because their personalities are so foul that no one on the server wants anything to do with them, and they were kicked from their last guild for being thankless 'loot whores' and 'ninja looters'--- 'griefers' gravitate to any sort of activity that can give them some sick measure of contentment between bouts of masturbating, So...
...they find a way to hover around difficult Open World encounters, usually around prime playing hours, hoping that some guild or raid group will make an attempt on the encounter so the 'griefer' can sabotage the attempt by using a taunt ability to alter the fight in an undesired direction, throwing the raid group off-balance, and "wiping" them.
The 'griefer' isn't upset by the public beratement and negative feedback they receive on forums and public chat channels, because they are finally getting the sociopathic form of attention that they want, largely due to being neglected "latch-key kids" in dire need of proper discipline and nurturing as children, neither of which they received.
Sadly, this widespread, cancerous problem is growing at an alarming rate, and doesn't seem to be slowing down, especially in games with multiple factions, where they are mistakenly lauded by other sociopaths of the same faction as some sort of heroic figure. Even worse, some companies thrive on encouraging this sort of behavior as an intended game mechanic, most likely due to the mentality of the developers working for the company that made said game.
Element Three: Poor game design can be a major factor in ruining the experience for players, which is obvious, BUT---so can greedy, disrepectful, so-called "competitive" raiding guilds vying for the same open world target at approximately the same time. This can sometimes be entirely untrue, as old EverQuest raiding would reveal.
In EverQuest, with the slow spawn times and rarity of some raid bosses, some guilds would leave one or two player's characters parked nearby a known spawn point, and log in from time to time to detect whether or not the boss was active. Some would do this for the sake of completing a long quest, but others would do this merely for the sake of hoarding whatever items the particular raid boss might drop.
The slow spawn times, the unsavory character of some players, and the need to keep some level of difficulty in that particular zone to make reaching the boss a "fun" and challenging element of the game, making the race to the boss an unpleasant and problematic experience.
Thus, this all combined into a need for a new solution to raiding and dungeon bosses; namely, instanced dungeons.
So, to your point, I'd agree. There is no successful way to return to the days of an Open World dungeon or raid environment without these elements ruining the experience.
Stop thinking in terms of WOW. That's not the only way to make MMO content.
Log into L2, UO or AC and you can see players picking a section of the dungeon and doing their own thing - plenty of dungeon to go around with plenty of different levels of content so you can throttle your challenge and adjust for group size even within the same dungeon.
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
Given that many games only have 5000 players on a server, if everyone is in the same dungeon that is a failure of game design. I agree that some people haven't played enough non WoW MMOs to understand how things can be different. Although I would be interested to see a dungeon which could intentionally host 5000 players. Well, maybe less because lag.
FFA pvp with guild alliances, penalties for death (that involve more than respawning at basically the same location), and a player system of policing the social deviants.
These "key elements" were solved way back in EQ on Rallos Zek 10 years ago.
That's a rather extreme situation you present and I'm not even sure there is more than maybe one or two MMOs that would apply to.
Most MMO servers only hold about 2,500 and few come near that cap after the first month. Even then, if a developer has 2.5k players logged into their server and everyone on the server is all piled into one dungeon, then I'd say something went horribly wrong in either game design or world building.
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
Isn't a good chunk of Vanguard Saga of Heroes open world? Don't they also have world dungeons? I never really got to immerse myself in the game as by the time I got to it the population was gone.
All of vanguard is pretty much open world. I guess you could "almost" call the "Ancient Port Warehouse" an instanced zone (but it really isn't instanced as it is big enough for several raids at a time & there are 4 copies of it (basically 4 zones which are exact copies of eachother but no restrictions on entering them aside from having one leveling sphere at 50+ and having completed an open world roaming boss mob quest)
The only times you really see loading screens in vanguard is if you teleport, goto a different continent or go into the "Ancient Port Warehouse" (as it puts you into one of the 4 but you can always zone out and back in to get into a different one)
@ BartDaCat
I understand the points you raise about open world content, but I think the "problems" were what made the game fun. The risk of a ninja looter coming and stealing your mob might have made you mad, but they made it EXCITING and kept you on your guard. ( A solution to this it to have open pvp and kill that ******). I've camped mobs for days on end and it's been some of the most memorable experiences I've ever had in a game.
The long and arduous corpse runs associated with non instanced dungeons meant that you had better not mess up because if you do, it's probably going to break up the group. These unpleasantries gave the game consequences. They gave more depth to the game, giving people more to do than just zone into a dungeon and clear it. You had to think and plan and work together. It was more about the dungeon running experience than quickly getting to the loot at the end. Most of the times in an EQ dungeon you wouldn't get any loot at all and you were just there for the experience because reaching max level took YEARS.
It's just a different type of experience. If people want a regulated, controlled experience free from struggle and conflict with other players then they will get a game that is instanced and safe but it definetly won't feel alive and dynamic.
Well maybe with the release of stronger servers this will become possible again but the issue was that graphics wer ebeing pushed farther then servers could take the load. Thus causing them to run instances aka a way to be able to put the load on a seperate server to help with the strain. We know this is the case cause sometimes games liek wow a side of the world goes down but not the entire game.
I could be wrong but I believe Vanguard Saga of Heroes (SIgil, Sony) had a seamless world.
Really Vanilla WoW had no loading screens? There has never been a MMO without some kind of loading screen but WoW had a lot of loading screens at launch. I thought you would have atleast mentioned AC, EQ, Shadowbane or something with very minor loading screens.
You know I said intentionally host that many players right? EvE has some 3000 person battles.
Maybe a Hell Gate spawned in a cavern system from a random event and all the players have to go there to fight off the demon hordes.
Just want to say Pony thanks for helping me shoot beer out of my nose. i allways loved your sigs and this is the first time i have seen this one. made me lol
In a scenario such as that - Hellgate opens and, well, all hell breaks loose - it is far better to have multiple staging points for the event as the goal would be to balance 'epic' with the ability to participate. Resource issues aside, when there are too many mobs and players it often becomes to chaotic for the players to meaningfully participate or to feel genuinely engaged.
I don't know how many games have tried it, but it seems that having dev characters either leading or aiding the leaders of the players would bring more structure to the experience, at which point events or occurrences where you have 1k or more players together would probably be a lot more engaging and fun.
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
Reminds me of the giant Xmas treant from FFXI. Wandered around different zones, and anyone could attack it at any time. Every server that managed to kill one unlocked something...I forget what. Some kind of teleports I think.
The game was too glitchy and the company that owns it is terrible. I'll be trying planetside 2 though
exactly the same but set in the future 6-^
Well I said a cavern system didn't I? That could allow for say a surface to center, multiple underground chokepoints, reserves and so forth.
Functioning as an army defending the world from hell it would be pretty good to have a political structure formed during less instense parts of the game. Guild leaders and kingdom leaders would organize a hierarchy after early reports of demons, then you might assign various guilds or kingdoms to various tasks.
I think you probaly talking about the wrong game. Cities, towns and dungeons never had loading screens in Lineage 2. They are free for anybody on the server to come and go as they wish.
I agree completely with you!
What cave were you in or dungeon?