In the light of the topic of MMOs that feel like singplayer games. What features do you feel are unproductive or even detrimental to making an MMO or MMORPG what it is or should be in your opinion? MMO design seems to have gotten off track somewhat and I wish devs would take notice to what they are doing compared to what players want (or based on what they don't want?). What is happening can't possibly be the result of not knowing what players want.
I'm not explicitly speaking to just your layman dev but mostly to those responsible for the direction of it's entirety.
I don't think any feature that already exists in video games qualifies as "having no place in an mmorpg" it's called evolution. I mean aren't we already dissing every game for being too much like one particular game?
and now we want to try and tell the devs that they should be restricted from trying other things. I agree with you that "what is happening can't possibly bee the result of not knowing what players want" because as BW has already stated in the research they did many fans told them that they wanted the game designed much the way it has been and who;s to say most of those people aren't still playing the game?
What we know so far is that SWTOR is not meeting the highest expectations of the devs beyond that we don't know anything other than people who frequent forums especially this one complain about this game as they do every single game that comes out that doesn't seem to cater to their desires so is there really a lesson to be learned? I don't know maybe when we get confirmation that SWTOR is losing BW/EA money but until then all we know is that people who have grown used to complaining for the last eight plus years are still very comfortable complaining.
Get rid of instances, zoned worlds, group finders, tokens, achievements, instant travelling, no penalty death etc.... Basically get rid of all the "ease of use" features that have been killing the genre's soul since WoW released and bring back a little sweat, blood and tears.
In the light of the topic of MMOs that feel like singplayer games. What features do you feel are unproductive or even detrimental to making an MMO or MMORPG what it is or should be in your opinion? MMO design seems to have gotten off track somewhat and I wish devs would take notice to what they are doing compared to what players want (or based on what they don't want?). What is happening can't possibly be the result of not knowing what players want.
I'm not explicitly speaking to just your layman dev but mostly to those responsible for the direction of it's entirety.
So what is the right track? And why hasn't anyone hired you yet?
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Immersion is the synchronization between expectations and experiences.
Players might have two types of expectations about a cave. One is reflected in novels or movies, and involves exploring a dangerous place. The other is visiting a tourist cave alongside 100 other tourists.
The first one sounds way more interesting, and way more immersive.
Even as a sweeping generalization you could come up with examples to counter both of those simulation claims.
Making up a definition for immersion doesn't mean that's what it is for other people. Immersion is engrossment, absorption, drawing the player in and grabbing thier attention.
Never once have I ever felt like a tourist in a dungeon/cave. I was an adventurer meeting other adventures or adventuring by myself. Meeting other people in dungeons makes the game much more immersive and interesting for me. The reason being I would rather play a game that tried to be a world not a lobby game giving everyone thier own private cave.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Immersion is the synchronization between expectations and experiences.
Players might have two types of expectations about a cave. One is reflected in novels or movies, and involves exploring a dangerous place. The other is visiting a tourist cave alongside 100 other tourists.
The first one sounds way more interesting, and way more immersive.
Even as a sweeping generalization you could come up with examples to counter both of those simulation claims.
Making up a definition for immersion doesn't mean that's what it is for other people. Immersion is engrossment, absorption, drawing the player in and grabbing thier attention.
Never once have I ever felt like a tourist in a dungeon/cave. I was an adventurer meeting other adventures or adventuring by myself. Meeting other people in dungeons makes the game much more immersive and interesting for me. The reason being I would rather play a game that tried to be a world not a lobby game giving everyone thier own private cave.
Very well stated my friend.
Let me expand on your point a bit, in the thread that got the op thinking about this point one poster made me lol because he stated that he hated SWTOR because everytime he grouped with people in that game and reached a point where a cutscene came up it pissed him off because he had never seen the teamspeak servers go so quiet in his life. So basically because people were so engrossed in the game they didn't spend the entire time chatting away it took away what he thought of as immersion and as I'm reading it I'm thinking "wow I do the same thing when I'm in a group in TOR i become so engrossed in the dynamics of seeing what other people will pick,will I win the roll etc. that it made the game that much more immersive and better for me".
And while me and you obviously have different priorities in immersion we can certainly agree that different people find immersion for different reasons.
Immersion is the synchronization between expectations and experiences.
Players might have two types of expectations about a cave. One is reflected in novels or movies, and involves exploring a dangerous place. The other is visiting a tourist cave alongside 100 other tourists.
The first one sounds way more interesting, and way more immersive.
Even as a sweeping generalization you could come up with examples to counter both of those simulation claims.
Making up a definition for immersion doesn't mean that's what it is for other people. Immersion is engrossment, absorption, drawing the player in and grabbing thier attention.
Never once have I ever felt like a tourist in a dungeon/cave. I was an adventurer meeting other adventures or adventuring by myself. Meeting other people in dungeons makes the game much more immersive and interesting for me. The reason being I would rather play a game that tried to be a world not a lobby game giving everyone thier own private cave.
You can't really make up a definition for something that is not really define. Immersion is just a word use when people are too afraid to say they hate or like something. It has no real meaning, since the meaning changes depending on the individual.
Why is it that you feel the multiplayer dungeon experience can only be a 'tourist' event, rather than cooperative or competitve gameplay?
It certainly doesn't have to be but we're talking about immersion, and certainly there's nothing immersion-breaking about going into a dungeon alone or with a group.
Whereas you're more likely to have your immersion broken if you pass "XxXLegolasXxX" heading out of the dungeon after killing your boss mob and you have to wait for a dead boss to respawn.
I played a lot of pre-WOW MMORPG dungeons and "immersion" doesn't spring to mind regarding how they played out.
Really just having respawns in the dungeon at all is a strike against immersion. Not a big enough reduction for me to really care, because the gameplay justification might be there, but from pure immersion standpoint it's pretty jarring to have monsters attack you because they materialized out of thin air nearby.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Immersion is the synchronization between expectations and experiences.
Players might have two types of expectations about a cave. One is reflected in novels or movies, and involves exploring a dangerous place. The other is visiting a tourist cave alongside 100 other tourists.
The first one sounds way more interesting, and way more immersive.
Even as a sweeping generalization you could come up with examples to counter both of those simulation claims.
Making up a definition for immersion doesn't mean that's what it is for other people. Immersion is engrossment, absorption, drawing the player in and grabbing thier attention.
Never once have I ever felt like a tourist in a dungeon/cave. I was an adventurer meeting other adventures or adventuring by myself. Meeting other people in dungeons makes the game much more immersive and interesting for me. The reason being I would rather play a game that tried to be a world not a lobby game giving everyone thier own private cave.
You can't really make up a definition for something that is not really define. Immersion is just a word use when people are too afraid to say they hate or like something. It has no real meaning, since the meaning changes depending on the individual.
Really, because I can look it up on dictionary sites and I'm going with...
attention - the faculty or power of mental concentration; "keeping track of all the details requires your complete attention"
centering, focus, focusing, focussing, focal point, direction - the concentration of attention or energy on something; "the focus of activity shifted to molecular biology"; "he had no direction in his life"
specialism - the concentration of your efforts on a particular field of study or occupation
study - a state of deep mental absorption; "she is in a deep study"
Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersant's awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment; often artificial.[1] This mental state is frequently accompanied with spatial excess, intense focus, a distorted sense of time, and effortless action.[2]
Uh, what data points to the opposite? Older MMOs grew over the long term, increase number of servers and subs. Modern MMOs collapse and die almost right after launch. Hardcore MMOs are built around communities. Communities help games last. Data? See all the hardcore MMOs still going with stable subs, while modern MMOs die off left right and center?
Its hard to argue against this statement.
One can also look at games like Darkfall, Mortal,Eve and yes even SWG,SB,and UO private servers to see that there is still interest in "hardcore" MMOs, even if the games themselves didn't turn out so well, the interest was still there
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
- fully automatic LFG systems = changing game into lobby
Great feature. I won't play a MP game without it. In fact, the only reason i came back to WOW is because of LFR.
Clicking a button while standing in town waiting for a queue to pop. Horrible feature that removes player interaction and socialization for convience.
So .... i don't need more socialization. You can chat in guild chat, you can chat in trade .. you can see all the players in town. How does making people spam trade channel "LFG" make it better?
- cross-server tools and making world / zones channels / duplicates= no separate world feel anymore
Even better. I want to play with my friends no matter where they are. I don't care about server boundaries.
While being able to play with freinds is great sacrificing server community isn't.
I don't cares about server community? As long as i have friends to play with, and i am having fun, why would i care?
- cash shop or rmah = ruining immersion totally + destrying barrier between mmorpg and real world - thus making it feel like strictly a game and not mmorpg. Worst offender.
Selling stuff for RM is fun. mmorpG .. the G stands for GAME. It should be a game first.
Cash shops and RMAH are horrible for the game economy, immersion, and promote pay to win.
Not. RMAH solves the gold inflation problem because now the currency is tied to real value. So what if it is pay to win? If someone wants to p2w in a PvE game, and buy my stuff, so much the better.
- single player instances and overall too much instancing = the more things like that the more game feel like single player or co-op game.
MOre the better. A controlled scripted 5 man dungeon is much better than a 100 zerg dungeon. Take the good part of SP games and put them in MMOs.
Yes let's make a MMO so everyone can have their own little instance. We have the systems to prevent kill stealing and ninja looting in public dungeons and open world areas.
No ... public dungeon are not tailored to the group size, beacuse the devs do not know the group size. Much prefer instances. Plus, dungeon adventures are supposed for SMALL groups. Sending 100 people into a dungeon ... take away from the adventure.
- Auction Houses like ebay - tunneling whole trade into one centralized person-less banalized experience. Sure more conveniant, but tbh more system like that = less mmo feel for me (very subjective I know).
Won't play a MMO without a AH. It is just no worth the while to do trading any other way.
SWG galactic market with bazzar terminals beats any AH.
Too much work. ONE central AH is always more efficient.
- teleporting without limits or with very small limits - making open world and travelling pointless. Teleporting is needed but it need to have quite a bit of limits, otherwise it banalize experience.
Nah ... in fact, I won't mind getting rid of the world and run instanced missions. Traveling to a place the first time may be fun, it becomes a chore by the 3rd time.
Get rid of the world? WTF might as well all hail the lobby MMO where you stand in town and wait for your instance que to pop /sarcasm.
Yeh ... since most are waiting for the queue anyway .. why do we need a world? Diablo 3 ... also discussesd here, is a perfect example.
UO and SWG did it best. They haven't really forced you into grouping to progress, but there were quite a bit of group only or group preferred content. Dynamic scaling NOT solve it completly. It makes it bit better, but not solve a problem.
UO has uninteresting combat mecahnics, and too much ganging pvp. Won't play a game like that again.
- end game focused in 95% at instances / arenas - speak for itself - when you couple it with cross server automatic LFG systems then playing end-game in mmorpg's is really NO DIFFRENT than playing any lobby-like games like FPS, MOBA or RTS games like CoD, LoL or Starcraft.
Yeh ... focus on the combat, co-op group mechanics. That is the way to go. It works for FPS, MOBA and ... , and no reason why this model does not work for the new MMORPG.
I wouldn't call a lobby based, instance saturated, cash shop/RMAH infested game that has a world you might as well get rid of a MMORPG.
Get rid of? More like changing. If you have not notice, many MMOs are already lobby based instance game, and many plays as such. Are you disagreeing?
I think that bold section sums up why the MMORPG is going down hill. "I want it NOW I dont want to work for it, I don't want to wait for it, I don't really even want to think about it, I just want what I feel is mine and in the easiet way possible"
Dude, what you are describing is not even close to an MMORPG, stop trolling the forum man. Anything that is lobby based is not even an MMO, its a fricking wanna be half-asse attempt, but somewhere along the way they lost the whole fact that MMO stands for MASSIVELY multiplayer RPG, where is the massive part of a lobby based game where at any given time you only interact with a few peopel randomly picked to be in your group.
What you want is a MIORPG, minimally interactive online RPG. That is a whole different website.
I think that bold section sums up why the MMORPG is going down hill. "I want it NOW I dont want to work for it, I don't want to wait for it, I don't really even want to think about it, I just want what I feel is mine and in the easiet way possible"
Dude, what you are describing is not even close to an MMORPG, stop trolling the forum man. Anything that is lobby based is not even an MMO, its a fricking wanna be half-asse attempt, but somewhere along the way they lost the whole fact that MMO stands for MASSIVELY multiplayer RPG, where is the massive part of a lobby based game where at any given time you only interact with a few peopel randomly picked to be in your group.
But players only say that about features which add little or no depth by being unwieldy/inconvenient. (Or at least those are the only complaints which matter.)
For most MMORPGs it's true that multiple AHs add no substantial depth, because those games are combat-centric and about dungeon crawling, PVPing, or questing. Economic MMORPGs can also potentially be fun, and in those games multiple AHs might make sense. But most MMORPGs aren't economic ones nowadays, so implying that it's somehow bad to use a single AH is incorrect, because multiple AHs add almost nothing to those other types of MMORPGs.
MMORPGs went downhill only because of a lack of WOW-style innovation. The true magic of WOW wasn't the skin-deep featureset, but the underlying desire to tear out all the dead branches of the genre, pruning away dead inefficient mechanics and replacing them with new ones.
GW2 is doing a reasonably good job of approaching things the same way.
In a twisted way by being less of a WOW clone than the others, GW2 has become the one true WOW clone. And since they cloned the real reason for WOW's success, they have the biggest chance for success of any MMORPG in many years. But you don't get that chance of success by letting dead branches like unnecessary timesinks (which multi-AH is, in the context of a combat-centric MMORPG) stick around.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
- fully automatic LFG systems = changing game into lobby
Great feature. I won't play a MP game without it. In fact, the only reason i came back to WOW is because of LFR.
Clicking a button while standing in town waiting for a queue to pop. Horrible feature that removes player interaction and socialization for convience.
So .... i don't need more socialization. You can chat in guild chat, you can chat in trade .. you can see all the players in town. How does making people spam trade channel "LFG" make it better?
- cross-server tools and making world / zones channels / duplicates= no separate world feel anymore
Even better. I want to play with my friends no matter where they are. I don't care about server boundaries.
While being able to play with freinds is great sacrificing server community isn't.
I don't cares about server community? As long as i have friends to play with, and i am having fun, why would i care?
- cash shop or rmah = ruining immersion totally + destrying barrier between mmorpg and real world - thus making it feel like strictly a game and not mmorpg. Worst offender.
Selling stuff for RM is fun. mmorpG .. the G stands for GAME. It should be a game first.
Cash shops and RMAH are horrible for the game economy, immersion, and promote pay to win.
Not. RMAH solves the gold inflation problem because now the currency is tied to real value. So what if it is pay to win? If someone wants to p2w in a PvE game, and buy my stuff, so much the better.
- single player instances and overall too much instancing = the more things like that the more game feel like single player or co-op game.
MOre the better. A controlled scripted 5 man dungeon is much better than a 100 zerg dungeon. Take the good part of SP games and put them in MMOs.
Yes let's make a MMO so everyone can have their own little instance. We have the systems to prevent kill stealing and ninja looting in public dungeons and open world areas.
No ... public dungeon are not tailored to the group size, beacuse the devs do not know the group size. Much prefer instances. Plus, dungeon adventures are supposed for SMALL groups. Sending 100 people into a dungeon ... take away from the adventure.
- Auction Houses like ebay - tunneling whole trade into one centralized person-less banalized experience. Sure more conveniant, but tbh more system like that = less mmo feel for me (very subjective I know).
Won't play a MMO without a AH. It is just no worth the while to do trading any other way.
SWG galactic market with bazzar terminals beats any AH.
Too much work. ONE central AH is always more efficient.
- teleporting without limits or with very small limits - making open world and travelling pointless. Teleporting is needed but it need to have quite a bit of limits, otherwise it banalize experience.
Nah ... in fact, I won't mind getting rid of the world and run instanced missions. Traveling to a place the first time may be fun, it becomes a chore by the 3rd time.
Get rid of the world? WTF might as well all hail the lobby MMO where you stand in town and wait for your instance que to pop /sarcasm.
Yeh ... since most are waiting for the queue anyway .. why do we need a world? Diablo 3 ... also discussesd here, is a perfect example.
UO and SWG did it best. They haven't really forced you into grouping to progress, but there were quite a bit of group only or group preferred content. Dynamic scaling NOT solve it completly. It makes it bit better, but not solve a problem.
UO has uninteresting combat mecahnics, and too much ganging pvp. Won't play a game like that again.
- end game focused in 95% at instances / arenas - speak for itself - when you couple it with cross server automatic LFG systems then playing end-game in mmorpg's is really NO DIFFRENT than playing any lobby-like games like FPS, MOBA or RTS games like CoD, LoL or Starcraft.
Yeh ... focus on the combat, co-op group mechanics. That is the way to go. It works for FPS, MOBA and ... , and no reason why this model does not work for the new MMORPG.
I wouldn't call a lobby based, instance saturated, cash shop/RMAH infested game that has a world you might as well get rid of a MMORPG.
Get rid of? More like changing. If you have not notice, many MMOs are already lobby based instance game, and many plays as such. Are you disagreeing?
I think that bold section sums up why the MMORPG is going down hill. "I want it NOW I dont want to work for it, I don't want to wait for it, I don't really even want to think about it, I just want what I feel is mine and in the easiet way possible"
Dude, what you are describing is not even close to an MMORPG, stop trolling the forum man. Anything that is lobby based is not even an MMO, its a fricking wanna be half-asse attempt, but somewhere along the way they lost the whole fact that MMO stands for MASSIVELY multiplayer RPG, where is the massive part of a lobby based game where at any given time you only interact with a few peopel randomly picked to be in your group.
What you want is a MIORPG, minimally interactive online RPG. That is a whole different website.
WWW.diablo3.com
So why are people even complaining about MIORPG on a MMORPG websites. Those arn't even MMORPG
and how is mmorpg going down hill? eve have like 500k players? It's not like there's that many mmorpg player 10 years ago. There are maybe 1m total mmorpg players 10 years ago, just like it is today. Actually there maybe more. Second life is prety big too.
Why is it that you feel the multiplayer dungeon experience can only be a 'tourist' event, rather than cooperative or competitve gameplay?
It certainly doesn't have to be but we're talking about immersion, and certainly there's nothing immersion-breaking about going into a dungeon alone or with a group.
Whereas you're more likely to have your immersion broken if you pass "XxXLegolasXxX" heading out of the dungeon after killing your boss mob and you have to wait for a dead boss to respawn.
I played a lot of pre-WOW MMORPG dungeons and "immersion" doesn't spring to mind regarding how they played out.
Really just having respawns in the dungeon at all is a strike against immersion. Not a big enough reduction for me to really care, because the gameplay justification might be there, but from pure immersion standpoint it's pretty jarring to have monsters attack you because they materialized out of thin air nearby.
How good is it for immersion when you see those "tourist groups" walking into the same hole in a mountain but when you go in there and pass the magic line of instance entrance you only see yourself/your group?
Did the mountain eat the others because they were not worthy or did they all take the wrong turn during the loading screen?
That's assuming you still walk to the instance entrance, not sure if that is needed still.
If that's not the case, then it's probably getting teleported there by grouping tool now, which is even worse immersion wise.
Now about your dislike of respawn in world dungeons, let's look at instanced dungeons:
Why YOU? There are thousands of heroes in the world just as talented, powerful and well geared as you are.
Why do YOU and your friends have to cleanse this ancient undiscovered place from evil?
Ok let's pretend you are just the better hero for the task.
But what's that silly talk from that random dude there at the bank?
He claims he was in the same dungeon and killed the same bosses but he wasnt with you in your group. How can that be?
Then in 24 hours or one week (whatever the reset time is) again the same?
The very same dungeon every monster every boss as if you had never been there?
The massive immersion that's caused by that is almost unbearable *cough*
I agree that in not only world dungeons but anywhere in the open world the respawns should be done more elegant than:
*pop*, here i am evil monster #383492 to bring havoc over this place!
Respawning just a few steps away from where evil monster #383491 died.
But whole instances resetting on a timer is far from being better in my opinion.
It certainly doesn't have to be but we're talking about immersion, and certainly there's nothing immersion-breaking about going into a dungeon alone or with a group.
Whereas you're more likely to have your immersion broken if you pass "XxXLegolasXxX" heading out of the dungeon after killing your boss mob and you have to wait for a dead boss to respawn.
I played a lot of pre-WOW MMORPG dungeons and "immersion" doesn't spring to mind regarding how they played out.
Really just having respawns in the dungeon at all is a strike against immersion. Not a big enough reduction for me to really care, because the gameplay justification might be there, but from pure immersion standpoint it's pretty jarring to have monsters attack you because they materialized out of thin air nearby.
Originally posted by Axehilt
But players only say that about features which add little or no depth by being unwieldy/inconvenient. (Or at least those are the only complaints which matter.)
For most MMORPGs it's true that multiple AHs add no substantial depth, because those games are combat-centric and about dungeon crawling, PVPing, or questing. Economic MMORPGs can also potentially be fun, and in those games multiple AHs might make sense. But most MMORPGs aren't economic ones nowadays, so implying that it's somehow bad to use a single AH is incorrect, because multiple AHs add almost nothing to those other types of MMORPGs.
MMORPGs went downhill only because of a lack of WOW-style innovation. The true magic of WOW wasn't the skin-deep featureset, but the underlying desire to tear out all the dead branches of the genre, pruning away dead inefficient mechanics and replacing them with new ones.
GW2 is doing a reasonably good job of approaching things the same way.
In a twisted way by being less of a WOW clone than the others, GW2 has become the one true WOW clone. And since they cloned the real reason for WOW's success, they have the biggest chance for success of any MMORPG in many years. But you don't get that chance of success by letting dead branches like unnecessary timesinks (which multi-AH is, in the context of a combat-centric MMORPG) stick around.
I agree 100%.
The single most common immersion breaker is other players. Respawning mobs is also my pet peevee. I loathed the old style spawncamps which were mindnumbingly boring and very far from "high adventure". And what about fighting for the rights to spawncamp? -No thank you. I absolutely hate the mob respawn. The feeling is so strong I'd play instances just for that one reason but as it happens instances have many other advantages in addition to mobs staying dead.
Best immersion I get is with a close group of friends or when I'm alone.
I can admire Blizzard's effort to cut all the fat and make it accessible and polished. Even if I don't play WoW myself, I know its a great game for those who play it. They did a good job.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Firstly a good MMO is not all about immersion but it plays a part. This is a game, not life, your immersion cannot be complete. Some sleight of hand is needed, both in the game and in your own mind to stay ‘in role’. I regard comments about other players as being ‘immersion breaking’ as just trying to bait those who like to group, so not biting.
I will to explain a couple of things I was short on before:
Design which makes you not need to travel. – It is balance, we have gone from taking ages to taking no time at all. Design which speeds up levelling. – Xp potions, but also teleporting, buffs which you buy etc. Design which hinders you ability to meet players again. – Cross server grouping, you can’t meet them outside a dungeon. Design which sidelines crafting. – Crafting is one of a number of types of gameplay that don’t involve levelling your toon. In modern strip down MMO’s all we do is level so anything else is made redundant or removed. That is boring, less gameplay is not more in any ones book. Design which cuts out roleplaying tools. – like being able to write in a book in game which someone else could pick up and read. RP tools favour interaction, but modern MMO’s just want us to level, so RP tools were doomed.
Design which puts graphics before gameplay and gameplay before the multiplayer experience.
– It is a design philosophy that says “if we make them go ‘Wow!’ it does not matter how bad the gameplay is”. We do have new types of gameplay like dailies, which is trite, quick, throwaway gameplay. We have lost or had dumbed down gameplay which had depth and takes time, like crafting and HQ building.
- It is a design philosophy that says “centre everything around the solo player and throw in a few scarps so we can make out it’s a MMO”.
How good is it for immersion when you see those "tourist groups" walking into the same hole in a mountain but when you go in there and pass the magic line of instance entrance you only see yourself/your group?
Did the mountain eat the others because they were not worthy or did they all take the wrong turn during the loading screen?
That's assuming you still walk to the instance entrance, not sure if that is needed still.
If that's not the case, then it's probably getting teleported there by grouping tool now, which is even worse immersion wise.
Now about your dislike of respawn in world dungeons, let's look at instanced dungeons:
Why YOU? There are thousands of heroes in the world just as talented, powerful and well geared as you are.
Why do YOU and your friends have to cleanse this ancient undiscovered place from evil?
Ok let's pretend you are just the better hero for the task.
But what's that silly talk from that random dude there at the bank?
He claims he was in the same dungeon and killed the same bosses but he wasnt with you in your group. How can that be?
Then in 24 hours or one week (whatever the reset time is) again the same?
The very same dungeon every monster every boss as if you had never been there?
The massive immersion that's caused by that is almost unbearable *cough*
I agree that in not only world dungeons but anywhere in the open world the respawns should be done more elegant than:
*pop*, here i am evil monster #383492 to bring havoc over this place!
Respawning just a few steps away from where evil monster #383491 died.
But whole instances resetting on a timer is far from being better in my opinion.
In Lord of the Rings you don't read/watch about all the times Frodo goes to the bathroom. You don't read/watch all of the hours the fellowship spends sleeping. This doesn't break immersion with the fiction, because it wouldn't have added to (and in fact would have detracted from) the overall experience.
Same deal with MMORPGs and traveling to a dungeon.
The flow state (immersion) is actually reduced or prevented if your time is spent making your character sleep, pee, or travel to a dungeon.
Instead of engaging in activities which suck you in (immersion), you engage in activities which suck.
Focusing on Frodo's failure to pee might ruin LOTR for you in the same way focusing on instancing would ruin MMORPG immersion, but at the end of the day it's your decision whether to ruin your immersion over something that trivial -- or suffer the consequences when the developer makes a piss-poor game focused on mundane drudgery.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Instancing has it's place. Because instanced actvities can do so much more than open world. Developers tend to tweak things to make instanced actvites work better. Like balancing combat derp. The good content and of coarse the rewards are instanced for their special activities.
Gee I wonder what your data will tell you what the players want more of? And then it continues from there. While the open world is ignored because the data shows the world is not important blah blah blah. So bye bye pvp.
The open world is reduced to nothing, and people claim it really isnt important.
It has it's place, but the open world is where the game is played. everyone knows what instancing does. The very thing developers promise it wont.
No. Not again please. Id rather just keep instancing out of the game then have people wondering what happened to that feeling.
Why is it that you feel the multiplayer dungeon experience can only be a 'tourist' event, rather than cooperative or competitve gameplay?
It certainly doesn't have to be but we're talking about immersion, and certainly there's nothing immersion-breaking about going into a dungeon alone or with a group.
Whereas you're more likely to have your immersion broken if you pass "XxXLegolasXxX" heading out of the dungeon after killing your boss mob and you have to wait for a dead boss to respawn.
I played a lot of pre-WOW MMORPG dungeons and "immersion" doesn't spring to mind regarding how they played out.
Really just having respawns in the dungeon at all is a strike against immersion. Not a big enough reduction for me to really care, because the gameplay justification might be there, but from pure immersion standpoint it's pretty jarring to have monsters attack you because they materialized out of thin air nearby.
So your immersion-breaking problem is not actually instancing or multi-group dungeons but bosses and static spawns, which exist everywhere else in the game world. Mankrik and I agree that you didn't think this one through, sir.
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 isn't a discussion about immersion, it's about socializing. And no, instancing is insanely immersion breaking.
In LotRO, running around, finding a cave, getting a message "You cannot enter here without the right quest." Yeah, immersion!
In a virtual world full of adventurers it makes sense for other people to be in dungeons.
It actually kinda doesn't make sense.
People in novels or movies don't just stumble upon a bunch of other tourists when they explore dungeons/ruins/caves/etc.
Novels or movies....
We are talking about MMOs, virtual worlds.
Not anymore.
Today's MMO has scripted stories, instanced boss fight, lobby like matching features ... has evolved beyond virtual worlds for a long long time. You are stuck in the past.
Get rid of instances, zoned worlds, group finders, tokens, achievements, instant travelling, no penalty death etc.... Basically get rid of all the "ease of use" features that have been killing the genre's soul since WoW released and bring back a little sweat, blood and tears.
Nope just no. These features make MMO better games. You can't fight progress. I don't want to go back to the old, more boring mmorgGAME.
- fully automatic LFG systems = changing game into lobby
Great feature. I won't play a MP game without it. In fact, the only reason i came back to WOW is because of LFR.
Clicking a button while standing in town waiting for a queue to pop. Horrible feature that removes player interaction and socialization for convience.
So .... i don't need more socialization. You can chat in guild chat, you can chat in trade .. you can see all the players in town. How does making people spam trade channel "LFG" make it better?
- cross-server tools and making world / zones channels / duplicates= no separate world feel anymore
Even better. I want to play with my friends no matter where they are. I don't care about server boundaries.
While being able to play with freinds is great sacrificing server community isn't.
I don't cares about server community? As long as i have friends to play with, and i am having fun, why would i care?
- cash shop or rmah = ruining immersion totally + destrying barrier between mmorpg and real world - thus making it feel like strictly a game and not mmorpg. Worst offender.
Selling stuff for RM is fun. mmorpG .. the G stands for GAME. It should be a game first.
Cash shops and RMAH are horrible for the game economy, immersion, and promote pay to win.
Not. RMAH solves the gold inflation problem because now the currency is tied to real value. So what if it is pay to win? If someone wants to p2w in a PvE game, and buy my stuff, so much the better.
- single player instances and overall too much instancing = the more things like that the more game feel like single player or co-op game.
MOre the better. A controlled scripted 5 man dungeon is much better than a 100 zerg dungeon. Take the good part of SP games and put them in MMOs.
Yes let's make a MMO so everyone can have their own little instance. We have the systems to prevent kill stealing and ninja looting in public dungeons and open world areas.
No ... public dungeon are not tailored to the group size, beacuse the devs do not know the group size. Much prefer instances. Plus, dungeon adventures are supposed for SMALL groups. Sending 100 people into a dungeon ... take away from the adventure.
- Auction Houses like ebay - tunneling whole trade into one centralized person-less banalized experience. Sure more conveniant, but tbh more system like that = less mmo feel for me (very subjective I know).
Won't play a MMO without a AH. It is just no worth the while to do trading any other way.
SWG galactic market with bazzar terminals beats any AH.
Too much work. ONE central AH is always more efficient.
- teleporting without limits or with very small limits - making open world and travelling pointless. Teleporting is needed but it need to have quite a bit of limits, otherwise it banalize experience.
Nah ... in fact, I won't mind getting rid of the world and run instanced missions. Traveling to a place the first time may be fun, it becomes a chore by the 3rd time.
Get rid of the world? WTF might as well all hail the lobby MMO where you stand in town and wait for your instance que to pop /sarcasm.
Yeh ... since most are waiting for the queue anyway .. why do we need a world? Diablo 3 ... also discussesd here, is a perfect example.
UO and SWG did it best. They haven't really forced you into grouping to progress, but there were quite a bit of group only or group preferred content. Dynamic scaling NOT solve it completly. It makes it bit better, but not solve a problem.
UO has uninteresting combat mecahnics, and too much ganging pvp. Won't play a game like that again.
- end game focused in 95% at instances / arenas - speak for itself - when you couple it with cross server automatic LFG systems then playing end-game in mmorpg's is really NO DIFFRENT than playing any lobby-like games like FPS, MOBA or RTS games like CoD, LoL or Starcraft.
Yeh ... focus on the combat, co-op group mechanics. That is the way to go. It works for FPS, MOBA and ... , and no reason why this model does not work for the new MMORPG.
I wouldn't call a lobby based, instance saturated, cash shop/RMAH infested game that has a world you might as well get rid of a MMORPG.
Get rid of? More like changing. If you have not notice, many MMOs are already lobby based instance game, and many plays as such. Are you disagreeing?
I think that bold section sums up why the MMORPG is going down hill. "I want it NOW I dont want to work for it, I don't want to wait for it, I don't really even want to think about it, I just want what I feel is mine and in the easiet way possible"
Dude, what you are describing is not even close to an MMORPG, stop trolling the forum man. Anything that is lobby based is not even an MMO, its a fricking wanna be half-asse attempt, but somewhere along the way they lost the whole fact that MMO stands for MASSIVELY multiplayer RPG, where is the massive part of a lobby based game where at any given time you only interact with a few peopel randomly picked to be in your group.
What you want is a MIORPG, minimally interactive online RPG. That is a whole different website.
WWW.diablo3.com
Downhill? I play games to have an adventure, not to run a store. Games are more fun today. And i do not apologize. I have limited time to play games, and of course i want it now .. what .. you want to wait 30 min doing nothing, or some boring chit-chat before you can start playing? Count me out of the non-game part.
And what give u the right to define MMORPG. MANY are more like lobby games .. and i support and play that. Who said "massive" has to mean you need to play with all of them at once. AH is massive. Matching with million people is massive. And there is also solo content in MMO too. When people play WOW, most of them play with a few at a time. Are you saying we should not talk about WOW here? Get real.
This website has section for D3, SD Gundam, WOW ... there is no reason i cannot talk about MMO that are more lobby like.
Today's MMO has scripted stories, instanced boss fight, lobby like matching features ... has evolved beyond virtual worlds for a long long time. You are stuck in the past.
They haven't evolved beyond vitrual worlds at all. They haven't streamlined, improved upon and evolved from that. Instead many AAA titles have simply tried to drop the whole virtual world thing and instead replace it with an devolution of the mechanics found in other genres of games. Hoping to tap into the larger, instant access crowd.
Which is why they have fk all longevity for the main part and also why they are finding it increasingly hard to charge sub fees.
Whether that is a good or bad thing is in eye of the beholder. But trying to turn one genre into a carbon copy of other genres, as opposed to evolving the mechanics, meta game that make the genre unique. Well that seems like a loss to me.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Comments
I don't think any feature that already exists in video games qualifies as "having no place in an mmorpg" it's called evolution. I mean aren't we already dissing every game for being too much like one particular game?
and now we want to try and tell the devs that they should be restricted from trying other things. I agree with you that "what is happening can't possibly bee the result of not knowing what players want" because as BW has already stated in the research they did many fans told them that they wanted the game designed much the way it has been and who;s to say most of those people aren't still playing the game?
What we know so far is that SWTOR is not meeting the highest expectations of the devs beyond that we don't know anything other than people who frequent forums especially this one complain about this game as they do every single game that comes out that doesn't seem to cater to their desires so is there really a lesson to be learned? I don't know maybe when we get confirmation that SWTOR is losing BW/EA money but until then all we know is that people who have grown used to complaining for the last eight plus years are still very comfortable complaining.
Get rid of instances, zoned worlds, group finders, tokens, achievements, instant travelling, no penalty death etc.... Basically get rid of all the "ease of use" features that have been killing the genre's soul since WoW released and bring back a little sweat, blood and tears.
So what is the right track? And why hasn't anyone hired you yet?
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Even as a sweeping generalization you could come up with examples to counter both of those simulation claims.
Making up a definition for immersion doesn't mean that's what it is for other people. Immersion is engrossment, absorption, drawing the player in and grabbing thier attention.
Never once have I ever felt like a tourist in a dungeon/cave. I was an adventurer meeting other adventures or adventuring by myself. Meeting other people in dungeons makes the game much more immersive and interesting for me. The reason being I would rather play a game that tried to be a world not a lobby game giving everyone thier own private cave.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Very well stated my friend.
Let me expand on your point a bit, in the thread that got the op thinking about this point one poster made me lol because he stated that he hated SWTOR because everytime he grouped with people in that game and reached a point where a cutscene came up it pissed him off because he had never seen the teamspeak servers go so quiet in his life. So basically because people were so engrossed in the game they didn't spend the entire time chatting away it took away what he thought of as immersion and as I'm reading it I'm thinking "wow I do the same thing when I'm in a group in TOR i become so engrossed in the dynamics of seeing what other people will pick,will I win the roll etc. that it made the game that much more immersive and better for me".
And while me and you obviously have different priorities in immersion we can certainly agree that different people find immersion for different reasons.
You can't really make up a definition for something that is not really define. Immersion is just a word use when people are too afraid to say they hate or like something. It has no real meaning, since the meaning changes depending on the individual.
It certainly doesn't have to be but we're talking about immersion, and certainly there's nothing immersion-breaking about going into a dungeon alone or with a group.
Whereas you're more likely to have your immersion broken if you pass "XxXLegolasXxX" heading out of the dungeon after killing your boss mob and you have to wait for a dead boss to respawn.
I played a lot of pre-WOW MMORPG dungeons and "immersion" doesn't spring to mind regarding how they played out.
Really just having respawns in the dungeon at all is a strike against immersion. Not a big enough reduction for me to really care, because the gameplay justification might be there, but from pure immersion standpoint it's pretty jarring to have monsters attack you because they materialized out of thin air nearby.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Really, because I can look it up on dictionary sites and I'm going with...
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/immersion
Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_%28virtual_reality%29
Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersant's awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment; often artificial.[1] This mental state is frequently accompanied with spatial excess, intense focus, a distorted sense of time, and effortless action.[2]
Or http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immersion
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Uh, what data points to the opposite? Older MMOs grew over the long term, increase number of servers and subs. Modern MMOs collapse and die almost right after launch. Hardcore MMOs are built around communities. Communities help games last. Data? See all the hardcore MMOs still going with stable subs, while modern MMOs die off left right and center?
Its hard to argue against this statement.
One can also look at games like Darkfall, Mortal,Eve and yes even SWG,SB,and UO private servers to see that there is still interest in "hardcore" MMOs, even if the games themselves didn't turn out so well, the interest was still there
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
I think that bold section sums up why the MMORPG is going down hill. "I want it NOW I dont want to work for it, I don't want to wait for it, I don't really even want to think about it, I just want what I feel is mine and in the easiet way possible"
Dude, what you are describing is not even close to an MMORPG, stop trolling the forum man. Anything that is lobby based is not even an MMO, its a fricking wanna be half-asse attempt, but somewhere along the way they lost the whole fact that MMO stands for MASSIVELY multiplayer RPG, where is the massive part of a lobby based game where at any given time you only interact with a few peopel randomly picked to be in your group.
What you want is a MIORPG, minimally interactive online RPG. That is a whole different website.
WWW.diablo3.com
But players only say that about features which add little or no depth by being unwieldy/inconvenient. (Or at least those are the only complaints which matter.)
For most MMORPGs it's true that multiple AHs add no substantial depth, because those games are combat-centric and about dungeon crawling, PVPing, or questing. Economic MMORPGs can also potentially be fun, and in those games multiple AHs might make sense. But most MMORPGs aren't economic ones nowadays, so implying that it's somehow bad to use a single AH is incorrect, because multiple AHs add almost nothing to those other types of MMORPGs.
MMORPGs went downhill only because of a lack of WOW-style innovation. The true magic of WOW wasn't the skin-deep featureset, but the underlying desire to tear out all the dead branches of the genre, pruning away dead inefficient mechanics and replacing them with new ones.
GW2 is doing a reasonably good job of approaching things the same way.
In a twisted way by being less of a WOW clone than the others, GW2 has become the one true WOW clone. And since they cloned the real reason for WOW's success, they have the biggest chance for success of any MMORPG in many years. But you don't get that chance of success by letting dead branches like unnecessary timesinks (which multi-AH is, in the context of a combat-centric MMORPG) stick around.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So why are people even complaining about MIORPG on a MMORPG websites. Those arn't even MMORPG
and how is mmorpg going down hill? eve have like 500k players? It's not like there's that many mmorpg player 10 years ago. There are maybe 1m total mmorpg players 10 years ago, just like it is today. Actually there maybe more. Second life is prety big too.
A story that treats the player as a hero / important one off character.
Excessive instancing.
Lack of chat/social features.
Linear / corridor world design.
Limited player-driven economy / excessive item soulbounding / simple crafting.
Everything soloable.
When an MMORPG becomes more "game" than "world", then it's not what I look for in an MMORPG.
Joined - July 2004
How good is it for immersion when you see those "tourist groups" walking into the same hole in a mountain but when you go in there and pass the magic line of instance entrance you only see yourself/your group?
Did the mountain eat the others because they were not worthy or did they all take the wrong turn during the loading screen?
That's assuming you still walk to the instance entrance, not sure if that is needed still.
If that's not the case, then it's probably getting teleported there by grouping tool now, which is even worse immersion wise.
Now about your dislike of respawn in world dungeons, let's look at instanced dungeons:
Why YOU? There are thousands of heroes in the world just as talented, powerful and well geared as you are.
Why do YOU and your friends have to cleanse this ancient undiscovered place from evil?
Ok let's pretend you are just the better hero for the task.
But what's that silly talk from that random dude there at the bank?
He claims he was in the same dungeon and killed the same bosses but he wasnt with you in your group. How can that be?
Then in 24 hours or one week (whatever the reset time is) again the same?
The very same dungeon every monster every boss as if you had never been there?
The massive immersion that's caused by that is almost unbearable *cough*
I agree that in not only world dungeons but anywhere in the open world the respawns should be done more elegant than:
*pop*, here i am evil monster #383492 to bring havoc over this place!
Respawning just a few steps away from where evil monster #383491 died.
But whole instances resetting on a timer is far from being better in my opinion.
I agree 100%.
The single most common immersion breaker is other players. Respawning mobs is also my pet peevee. I loathed the old style spawncamps which were mindnumbingly boring and very far from "high adventure". And what about fighting for the rights to spawncamp? -No thank you. I absolutely hate the mob respawn. The feeling is so strong I'd play instances just for that one reason but as it happens instances have many other advantages in addition to mobs staying dead.
Best immersion I get is with a close group of friends or when I'm alone.
I can admire Blizzard's effort to cut all the fat and make it accessible and polished. Even if I don't play WoW myself, I know its a great game for those who play it. They did a good job.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Design which speeds up levelling. – Xp potions, but also teleporting, buffs which you buy etc.
Design which hinders you ability to meet players again. – Cross server grouping, you can’t meet them outside a dungeon.
Design which sidelines crafting. – Crafting is one of a number of types of gameplay that don’t involve levelling your toon. In modern strip down MMO’s all we do is level so anything else is made redundant or removed. That is boring, less gameplay is not more in any ones book.
Design which cuts out roleplaying tools. – like being able to write in a book in game which someone else could pick up and read. RP tools favour interaction, but modern MMO’s just want us to level, so RP tools were doomed.
In Lord of the Rings you don't read/watch about all the times Frodo goes to the bathroom. You don't read/watch all of the hours the fellowship spends sleeping. This doesn't break immersion with the fiction, because it wouldn't have added to (and in fact would have detracted from) the overall experience.
Same deal with MMORPGs and traveling to a dungeon.
The flow state (immersion) is actually reduced or prevented if your time is spent making your character sleep, pee, or travel to a dungeon.
Instead of engaging in activities which suck you in (immersion), you engage in activities which suck.
Focusing on Frodo's failure to pee might ruin LOTR for you in the same way focusing on instancing would ruin MMORPG immersion, but at the end of the day it's your decision whether to ruin your immersion over something that trivial -- or suffer the consequences when the developer makes a piss-poor game focused on mundane drudgery.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Instancing has it's place. Because instanced actvities can do so much more than open world. Developers tend to tweak things to make instanced actvites work better. Like balancing combat derp. The good content and of coarse the rewards are instanced for their special activities.
Gee I wonder what your data will tell you what the players want more of? And then it continues from there. While the open world is ignored because the data shows the world is not important blah blah blah. So bye bye pvp.
The open world is reduced to nothing, and people claim it really isnt important.
It has it's place, but the open world is where the game is played. everyone knows what instancing does. The very thing developers promise it wont.
No. Not again please. Id rather just keep instancing out of the game then have people wondering what happened to that feeling.
So your immersion-breaking problem is not actually instancing or multi-group dungeons but bosses and static spawns, which exist everywhere else in the game world. Mankrik and I agree that you didn't think this one through, sir.
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
Not anymore.
Today's MMO has scripted stories, instanced boss fight, lobby like matching features ... has evolved beyond virtual worlds for a long long time. You are stuck in the past.
Nope just no. These features make MMO better games. You can't fight progress. I don't want to go back to the old, more boring mmorgGAME.
mmorgGAME ... mmorpg should be a game first (to me). The goal is to entertain, not to give a second life. I have have a life.
Downhill? I play games to have an adventure, not to run a store. Games are more fun today. And i do not apologize. I have limited time to play games, and of course i want it now .. what .. you want to wait 30 min doing nothing, or some boring chit-chat before you can start playing? Count me out of the non-game part.
And what give u the right to define MMORPG. MANY are more like lobby games .. and i support and play that. Who said "massive" has to mean you need to play with all of them at once. AH is massive. Matching with million people is massive. And there is also solo content in MMO too. When people play WOW, most of them play with a few at a time. Are you saying we should not talk about WOW here? Get real.
This website has section for D3, SD Gundam, WOW ... there is no reason i cannot talk about MMO that are more lobby like.
They haven't evolved beyond vitrual worlds at all. They haven't streamlined, improved upon and evolved from that. Instead many AAA titles have simply tried to drop the whole virtual world thing and instead replace it with an devolution of the mechanics found in other genres of games. Hoping to tap into the larger, instant access crowd.
Which is why they have fk all longevity for the main part and also why they are finding it increasingly hard to charge sub fees.
Whether that is a good or bad thing is in eye of the beholder. But trying to turn one genre into a carbon copy of other genres, as opposed to evolving the mechanics, meta game that make the genre unique. Well that seems like a loss to me.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."