How can people not see their own hypocrisy when they post ironic crap like that? So YOU are "too impatient" to not just CAMP like you claim to love doing (all of the like minded can ban together) and take an extra 8 days to hit max level (where you then sit for 6 months until next expansion anyway), but that is OK. What ISNT OK is all of the OTHER folks who are "too impatient" to camp.
Well said. This is the crux of the matter.
They can still camp in any MMO. iti s not like you cannot wait for respawn in WOW. If they really claim they like camping that much .. then go to wow, or whatever new MMO and do so.
So as great as camping supposedly was, and despite how much you supposedly miss it, it is SECONDARY to the fastest possible leveling.
Camping was actually the fastest way to level in the OP's example, EQ.
When the mob density is high and the respawn is fast, your group can focus on killing over running around like a headless chicken. Good pullers would keep mobs in the camp non-stop.
Good groups were extremely fast at killing mobs, much faster than today's rush method.
There is really no benefit in 6 people running around like headless chickens, it doesn't add anything substantial to the gameplay, it just prevents socialising, that's all it does.
Camping mobs is pretty ordered, everyone has a specific task, compared to rushing mobs where half of the players are behind, don't engage properly, CC is usually not used, etc. It's usually a complete mess.
So as great as camping supposedly was, and despite how much you supposedly miss it, it is SECONDARY to the fastest possible leveling.
Camping was actually the fastest way to level in the OP's example, EQ.
When the mob density is high and the respawn is fast, your group can focus on killing over running around like a headless chicken. Good pullers would keep mobs in the camp non-stop.
Good groups were extremely fast at killing mobs, much faster than today's rush method.
There is really no benefit in 6 people running around like headless chickens, it doesn't add anything substantial to the gameplay, it just prevents socialising, that's all it does.
Camping mobs is pretty ordered, everyone has a specific task, compared to rushing mobs where half of the players are behind, don't engage properly, CC is usually not used, etc. It's usually a complete mess.
What will you do if there is no camping in EQN? Is that a deal breaker for you?
So as great as camping supposedly was, and despite how much you supposedly miss it, it is SECONDARY to the fastest possible leveling.
Camping was actually the fastest way to level in the OP's example, EQ.
When the mob density is high and the respawn is fast, your group can focus on killing over running around like a headless chicken. Good pullers would keep mobs in the camp non-stop.
Good groups were extremely fast at killing mobs, much faster than today's rush method.
There is really no benefit in 6 people running around like headless chickens, it doesn't add anything substantial to the gameplay, it just prevents socialising, that's all it does.
Camping mobs is pretty ordered, everyone has a specific task, compared to rushing mobs where half of the players are behind, don't engage properly, CC is usually not used, etc. It's usually a complete mess.
What will you do if there is no camping in EQN? Is that a deal breaker for you?
Kind of depends, if it's combined with action combat, and it results in a complete lack of community, yes it would be.
I play MMO to socialise, I might as well be playing a single player game if no one finds the time to talk to others.
I have way better games on our PS3 to play single player action combat than MMO can offer.
MMO worlds are usually quite large, I'd not have a problem with certain areas being designed to cater to people who enjoy camping - provided it was never required, but more of an off to the side option. It's not like such a basic mechanic would consume a vast amount of development resources. It seems easy enough to accommodate the camping crowd with out stepping on anyone else's toes. I'm not sure I could go for a game that only offered camping, but it'd be nice to have the option once in awhile.
Open world dungeons/camping spawns achieved its dynamic appeal through primarily basic components: respawn timers, other groups passing through and interacting with those timers, and group resource management, as far as I remember. A simple recipe, but it worked for some of us. Though I don't think it'd work so well with out the risk and sense of danger, where a loose mob is a terrifying problem. These days dying outside of a raid scenario is more like a 10 second penalty.
Here's the scenario I remember most (which could be fairly edge of your seat exciting as wiping could mean a long recovery): *Ranger sees a named mob on track but the clerics low on mana. How long until the hall respawns? Dunno, some group passed through awhile ago. Monk starts flopping the mob back towards your camp, hesitantly. Incoming - he decides we have to pull now and risk it, there's another group coming for the named. Will the room respawn on us mid fight? Guess we'll find out - this guy drops Silver-Plated Leggings, plate look legs for my ranger? Worth the risk* That plus a night of conversation between bouts of chaos.
Good stuff, but I couldn't just camp, it'd have to be an option in an otherwise well rounded game.
After reading this thread, I'm starting to think people who like exploration and a sense of adventure in their games like me are a rare or dying breed.
A developer handcrafts an entire huge virtual world for us, where no matter where you go, there will be new things to see and find...and people want to sit tucked away in 1 little corner (maybe a specific 4-5 corners through the entire leveling process as the case may be - always the same 4-5 because the community has designated those the most efficient xp camps).
'Hunting' named mobs is one thing, if done in a certain way that actually makes it a 'hunt', not a 'camp' - but as a major or the main source of xp by design?
Hmm well this is my experience from Eq only. Camping took me all over the world, camping allowed me to see places I would never have gone, and sitting still in one place was like a safe spot from which to experience the world. Often the search for a camp spot would take me places, often I/we would move camp spots. Camping allowed the mind to settle instead of constantly be on the move, and therefore to better experience the world.
Sure there were a bunch of popular spots for xp, but talk with someone who played on a different server and they often have other spots.. playing progression opened my eyes to many new places and I am sure I opened others eyes aswell. The vague quest descriptions and errors was a kind of exploring, trying to set up camp to get a drop from a mob, fail and try a new spot, all exploration. Invissing and "looking around" was much used aswell. I beleive You need to remember the camps that weren't just xp grind places, but the many quest drop camps aswell as getting to those camps made You explore... well again this is all eq specific.
Camping was fun, makes the reward rare and increase the sense of achievement. Player can always group in a camp in order to all campers get the credit. Way better than the giveaway instant reward system that brings no sense of achievement to the game.
I do like when the camp is out of reach for exemple, camping a full raid (24 players) boss mob is an extreme. But any soloable or group mob camp is fun because any casual player can achieve it like anyone by investing the time necessary.
After reading this thread, I'm starting to think people who like exploration and a sense of adventure in their games like me are a rare or dying breed.
A developer handcrafts an entire huge virtual world for us, where no matter where you go, there will be new things to see and find...and people want to sit tucked away in 1 little corner (maybe a specific 4-5 corners through the entire leveling process as the case may be - always the same 4-5 because the community has designated those the most efficient xp camps).
'Hunting' named mobs is one thing, if done in a certain way that actually makes it a 'hunt', not a 'camp' - but as a major or the main source of xp by design?
Hmm well this is my experience from Eq only. Camping took me all over the world, camping allowed me to see places I would never have gone, and sitting still in one place was like a safe spot from which to experience the world. Often the search for a camp spot would take me places, often I/we would move camp spots. Camping allowed the mind to settle instead of constantly be on the move, and therefore to better experience the world.
Sure there were a bunch of popular spots for xp, but talk with someone who played on a different server and they often have other spots.. playing progression opened my eyes to many new places and I am sure I opened others eyes aswell. The vague quest descriptions and errors was a kind of exploring, trying to set up camp to get a drop from a mob, fail and try a new spot, all exploration. Invissing and "looking around" was much used aswell. I beleive You need to remember the camps that weren't just xp grind places, but the many quest drop camps aswell as getting to those camps made You explore... well again this is all eq specific.
You don't want to feel forced to do what a questgiver says for a couple of minutes but it's okay to be forced to camp a particular mob for hours or days in hopes of getting that one special drop?
Seriously?
The only way to 'force' someone to camp is to remove all other experience-earning options (ala MUD).
Now you could do the XP Force ("camping is better xp than everything else'), that works almost equally well.
How likely is either of those ^ to happen?
Mmm, forgot one, 'the only way to get desirable loot x is to camp y'.
Ok, there are some soft 'forces' you can do. About the same as Forced Grouping.
Sure you can. Make only one mob in the entire game drop a major piece of loot and you are going to be forced to camp it in order to have any chance whatsoever to get that loot. Lots of camping games did exactly that.
What a nightmare. Who in their right mind would play such a game? Especially if that item was REQUIRED to progress.
Lots of people. There was a boss in Anarchy Online that lived in a junkyard that only respawned once per day and killing him was the finale for a major questline. There are plenty of examples of this.
Now THAT is a really bad design. Sure, 1 person a day my be happy they completed their quest, but the REST of the population is screwed.
Yeah. And that is why no modern game will have that bone headed design.
Think about it. Once a day = 365 a year. Can you imagine how long one has to wait if the server has 30k players (which is a tiny number)?
80+ years. But at least we could chit-chat for the rest of our lives until it was our turn to kill the mob...
Everyone grouped will get credit for the kill. The quest reward is for the player who would like to pay the price, not the entire server. If so, why just send the quest reward by mail to the entire player base?
It should be noted that camping was never an intended feature of EQ either....it sort of happened....camps were never built into EQ....you just found where you could camp....the community started giving names to those places...etc
People realised that they could set up camp somewhere and just pull mobs towards them...it seemed to work.
Why would you run towards mobs if you could make the mobs come towards you....pulling them worked better.
SoE has actually never recognised camps, they still don't, even though EQ is all about camping.
A lot of the awesome things in EQ just sort of happened by accident.
Even abilities that allowed for pulling were never meant as pulling tools, monk Feign Death, never meant to split mobs with, even though it became the defining feature of the monk class...so SoE never "fixed" it.
After reading this thread, I'm starting to think people who like exploration and a sense of adventure in their games like me are a rare or dying breed.
A developer handcrafts an entire huge virtual world for us, where no matter where you go, there will be new things to see and find...and people want to sit tucked away in 1 little corner (maybe a specific 4-5 corners through the entire leveling process as the case may be - always the same 4-5 because the community has designated those the most efficient xp camps).
'Hunting' named mobs is one thing, if done in a certain way that actually makes it a 'hunt', not a 'camp' - but as a major or the main source of xp by design?
Hmm well this is my experience from Eq only. Camping took me all over the world, camping allowed me to see places I would never have gone, and sitting still in one place was like a safe spot from which to experience the world. Often the search for a camp spot would take me places, often I/we would move camp spots. Camping allowed the mind to settle instead of constantly be on the move, and therefore to better experience the world.
Sure there were a bunch of popular spots for xp, but talk with someone who played on a different server and they often have other spots.. playing progression opened my eyes to many new places and I am sure I opened others eyes aswell. The vague quest descriptions and errors was a kind of exploring, trying to set up camp to get a drop from a mob, fail and try a new spot, all exploration. Invissing and "looking around" was much used aswell. I beleive You need to remember the camps that weren't just xp grind places, but the many quest drop camps aswell as getting to those camps made You explore... well again this is all eq specific.
This. Camping wasnt just sitting there and chainpull mobs. That is the defenition of camping yes but it also was exploring. moving from campspot to campspot you came across structures and intresting mobs (rare spawns spawned on iregular timers on normal mob spots) wich otherwise you would not have seen. And being adventurous speccialy when spots where filled you created new spots. By exploring in regions few have visited.
honestly people who not ever have done this are missing out of a good social/entertainment experience.
People like Narius think that this issnt populair because the market would have created it. But that is a lie. The entire new playerbase and im talking about the WoW kiddies wich is 80% or more of our current mmo population have never played a game wich gave this deep social interactive gameplay. How can anyone say that people would not like it?
It's like someone claiming that they don't like mcdonalds despite not ever having set a foot inside the place.
Camping is a way to force people to interact, but it is not "nice" because i don't think it is fun gameplay for many. Otherwise, it won't be eliminate from the market such a long time ago.
Forced camping, like forced grouping, doesn't force anyone to interact. Most PUGs never say a word to each other. It only forces people into close proximity, it doesn't force people to do anything together. I could join a camp, know I have an hour until respawn, and go watch TV until then. I could multitask in the background. I could read a book. There's nothing that says I have to actually talk to anyone in the game. Heck, I could chat with a friend elsewhere in the game if I wanted to.
It's just an absurd idea that putting you next to someone by force is going to make you want to interact with them.
I agree, most of the camping in MMOs that I have done was with people I already socialized with. I might get to know some of them better, but I hardly made new friends there.
That said. I think it is a nice feature that added something to do. MMOs need to have a variety of things to do and this was a fun feature.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Alright I think I understand what some people are thinking.
If you were a LOOT WHORE in Everquest then yeah, I'm sure you don't want camping back becuase you were willing to sit on your ass for 8 hours wating for a negligible gear drop.
So no, this definitely isn't about adding rare loot drops to bait some idiots into staying in one spot for marathon sessions.
I'm talking about actual gameplay, just setting up in one spot and gaining decent exp in a group instead of blowing through dungeons or doing easy solo quests. There should be reasonable loot drops but no, I'm not advocating rare spawns for people to fight over. It most definitely does not need to be done that way ever again.
Most MMORPG players don't play for more than 2 hours a day on average. Having any sort of camping system almost completely shuts them out from even getting gear from a camped mob.
I don't know how many camped exp based games you've played, but in the ones I played, the situation often went a lot like this:
You get a group set up, you head to primo spot A. It's completely filled
You then head to primo spot B which is not as good as A. It's also completely filled.
You then head to primo spot C which is worse than A and B. It's filled.
You then head to spot D and find that the exp is pretty terrible and the party disbands.
Camp EXP is fun ONLY in the off chance that you are in the prime locations at a time when no other people are exping. The rest of the time its like a bunch of hungry dogs just searching for scraps before giving up.
And Since you are using camping as a GROUP activity, how many group activities exist in WoW , Rift or other games at any particular level between 1 to max..... There are never more then 1 or 2 dungeons you can instance that is worth a shit... So are you telling us that repeating those same 2 dungeons is exciting? Really? Just asking.. When was the last time you played an alt, used the LFG finder and found one in short order NOT being end game.. I never found a game where the queue to get into a group wasn't an HOUR long or more.. END GAME dungeon grinds don't count..
What a nightmare. Who in their right mind would play such a game? Especially if that item was REQUIRED to progress.
People who like interacting.
It's a simple mechanical problem, pressing your forward button non-stop doesn't allow you to type.
A camp does, because it's static. It's one of the reasons EQ was such a social game.
Everything in EQ consisted out of camps except for the instances.
There's no big difference between running to mobs or letting a puller bring the mobs to you, but it allows 5 out of 6 people to talk who would otherwise be pressing their forward button non-stop.
You could argue that doing that is actually a nightmare, camping is a more sane approach.
Exactly Lilly.. having 6 people all pressing the forward button is insane to me when in EQ, only 1 puller had to be active, and bring the mobs back to the static camp..... EQ was more effective in my opinion
So are you telling us that repeating those same 2 dungeons is exciting?
Way MORE exciting than pulling the same mob again and again (ie. camping) in the same room.
At least you get to see different rooms and different mobs. I am surprised you will think that pulling the same mob in the same room more exciting than pulling from TWO dungeons (which probably have 10x the rooms, and 10x different variety of mobs).
This. Camping wasnt just sitting there and chainpull mobs. That is the defenition of camping yes but it also was exploring. moving from campspot to campspot you came across structures and intresting mobs (rare spawns spawned on iregular timers on normal mob spots) wich otherwise you would not have seen. And being adventurous speccialy when spots where filled you created new spots. By exploring in regions few have visited.
Sitting not moving is the definition of camping. If you move from spot to spot, you may as well be running a wow dungeon. It is exactly like that.
honestly people who not ever have done this are missing out of a good social/entertainment experience.
People like Narius think that this issnt populair because the market would have created it. But that is a lie. The entire new playerbase and im talking about the WoW kiddies wich is 80% or more of our current mmo population have never played a game wich gave this deep social interactive gameplay. How can anyone say that people would not like it?
But EQ players have experienced the "magic" of camping and a large number jump ship to WOW. Heck, people complained about it even BEFORE other alternatives appeared.
Forced camping, like forced grouping, doesn't force anyone to interact. Most PUGs never say a word to each other. It only forces people into close proximity, it doesn't force people to do anything together. I could join a camp, know I have an hour until respawn, and go watch TV until then. I could multitask in the background. I could read a book. There's nothing that says I have to actually talk to anyone in the game. Heck, I could chat with a friend elsewhere in the game if I wanted to.
It's just an absurd idea that putting you next to someone by force is going to make you want to interact with them.
I agree, most of the camping in MMOs that I have done was with people I already socialized with. I might get to know some of them better, but I hardly made new friends there.
That said. I think it is a nice feature that added something to do. MMOs need to have a variety of things to do and this was a fun feature.
Depends on how you're camping, I guess. In AO, groups would "camp" in Shadowlands and run up and down in a line, wiping everything out, then running back to the beginning. It's constant action, but that's more farming than camping. Camping is sitting around waiting for a particular mob or group of mobs to respawn so you can kill them and get back to waiting. This was especially true for high level mobs that had a long respawn time. Camping didn't give you anything to do, it gave you a lot of time to do nothing. You couldn't leave, you couldn't go play the game elsewhere, you had to sit there and do nothing, waiting for that moment when there was something to do. I see no reason to think that I'd talk to anyone who was also sitting around waiting unless I knew them already and had something in common with them, which rarely happens in MMOs anymore. I'd much rather put the game in the background and do something else worthwhile.
I really enjoyed camping. At the end of my ffxi days, I played a bard. It was so much fun in xp parties. I got to cast mages balled on the mages in the back, then nights minne and that other song for the front line, forgot the name. Then I'd go out and pull back a mob. While using some other songs on certain party members individually. Yep loved that job, I was constantly on the move and doing something. But I was also only in a general area and new were my other people were the whole time.
In these newer mmo's I played i'd get lost from my group and I hate that.
To bad I don't get to experience that anymore, and yes I definatly enjoyed camping. I loved hanging out in an area for hours with people ingame. I hate new games were im running around by myself just doing quest and killing stuff, its so boring and lonely to me when im doing everything alone some days.
To bad I don't get to experience that anymore, and yes I definatly enjoyed camping. I loved hanging out in an area for hours with people ingame. I hate new games were im running around by myself just doing quest and killing stuff, its so boring and lonely to me when im doing everything alone some days.
Then why do you do it? It is not like you cannot group in MMOs. It seems very odd that you are constantly doing stuff you do not like. The solo option is there for people who like solo, not for you.
In WOW, it is easy to just hit LFD, and group up and run dungeons. It is in fact, the faster way to level than just solo questing.
So are you telling us that repeating those same 2 dungeons is exciting?
Way MORE exciting than pulling the same mob again and again (ie. camping) in the same room.
At least you get to see different rooms and different mobs. I am surprised you will think that pulling the same mob in the same room more exciting than pulling from TWO dungeons (which probably have 10x the rooms, and 10x different variety of mobs).
Haha. The logic and reasoning card has finally been played in this thread!!!
So are you telling us that repeating those same 2 dungeons is exciting?
Way MORE exciting than pulling the same mob again and again (ie. camping) in the same room.
At least you get to see different rooms and different mobs. I am surprised you will think that pulling the same mob in the same room more exciting than pulling from TWO dungeons (which probably have 10x the rooms, and 10x different variety of mobs).
WOW.. really? Let me know when a roaming Sand Giant can spawn in those static dungeons and cause havoc to you group.. That is one thing you have to love about instances.. They are so predictable that even Stevie Wonder can go thru them.. Have a nice day..
Originally posted by Waterlily You're far more likely to talk to others if you aren't busy pressing your forward key.
Yes it all boils down to that. Well said, and thanks for the visual aid!
Originally posted by Rydeson .. That is one thing you have to love about instances.. They are so predictable that even Stevie Wonder can go thru them.. Have a nice day..
ROFL so true.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Originally posted by Waterlily You're far more likely to talk to others if you aren't busy pressing your forward key.
Yes it all boils down to that. Well said, and thanks for the visual aid!
Except a lot, an awful lot of the talking these days is on vent. I don't need to press a key for that.
That, in my opinion, is at least partially responsible for the seeming quietness of groups today. Your not talking with them because they are on vent or something else and your not.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Alright I think I understand what some people are thinking.
If you were a LOOT WHORE in Everquest then yeah, I'm sure you don't want camping back becuase you were willing to sit on your ass for 8 hours wating for a negligible gear drop.
So no, this definitely isn't about adding rare loot drops to bait some idiots into staying in one spot for marathon sessions.
I'm talking about actual gameplay, just setting up in one spot and gaining decent exp in a group instead of blowing through dungeons or doing easy solo quests. There should be reasonable loot drops but no, I'm not advocating rare spawns for people to fight over. It most definitely does not need to be done that way ever again.
Most MMORPG players don't play for more than 2 hours a day on average. Having any sort of camping system almost completely shuts them out from even getting gear from a camped mob.
I don't know how many camped exp based games you've played, but in the ones I played, the situation often went a lot like this:
You get a group set up, you head to primo spot A. It's completely filled
You then head to primo spot B which is not as good as A. It's also completely filled.
You then head to primo spot C which is worse than A and B. It's filled.
You then head to spot D and find that the exp is pretty terrible and the party disbands.
Camp EXP is fun ONLY in the off chance that you are in the prime locations at a time when no other people are exping. The rest of the time its like a bunch of hungry dogs just searching for scraps before giving up.
And Since you are using camping as a GROUP activity, how many group activities exist in WoW , Rift or other games at any particular level between 1 to max..... There are never more then 1 or 2 dungeons you can instance that is worth a shit... So are you telling us that repeating those same 2 dungeons is exciting? Really? Just asking.. When was the last time you played an alt, used the LFG finder and found one in short order NOT being end game.. I never found a game where the queue to get into a group wasn't an HOUR long or more.. END GAME dungeon grinds don't count..
So WoW's inability to have scaling dungeons is reasons to say that instances are inherently faulty?
Having a camping game doesn't somehow equal more group activity. Being a camp or instance game still amounts to the same amount of activity: EXP groups and farm groups. Being a camp game or an instance game doesn't add or subtract from that. Being solo centric or group centric will, however.
I don't know if you have played WoW recently but getting into pre endgame dungeons takes absolutely no time at all. Getting into a LFG takes me 5 minutes, as opposed to endgame as a pure dps where it takes me up to almost an hour. While the latter point doesn't refute your overall statement, the former point does.
Those are completely irrelevant arguments though, because I could just as easily say "How long does it take you to get a camp group for anything pre endgame in such and such a game?" Thats obviously not a fault of instances or camping, but the natural community decay from low/mid level to end game.
Comments
Well said. This is the crux of the matter.
They can still camp in any MMO. iti s not like you cannot wait for respawn in WOW. If they really claim they like camping that much .. then go to wow, or whatever new MMO and do so.
Just don't force it on others.
Camping was actually the fastest way to level in the OP's example, EQ.
When the mob density is high and the respawn is fast, your group can focus on killing over running around like a headless chicken. Good pullers would keep mobs in the camp non-stop.
Good groups were extremely fast at killing mobs, much faster than today's rush method.
There is really no benefit in 6 people running around like headless chickens, it doesn't add anything substantial to the gameplay, it just prevents socialising, that's all it does.
Camping mobs is pretty ordered, everyone has a specific task, compared to rushing mobs where half of the players are behind, don't engage properly, CC is usually not used, etc. It's usually a complete mess.
What will you do if there is no camping in EQN? Is that a deal breaker for you?
Kind of depends, if it's combined with action combat, and it results in a complete lack of community, yes it would be.
I play MMO to socialise, I might as well be playing a single player game if no one finds the time to talk to others.
I have way better games on our PS3 to play single player action combat than MMO can offer.
MMO worlds are usually quite large, I'd not have a problem with certain areas being designed to cater to people who enjoy camping - provided it was never required, but more of an off to the side option. It's not like such a basic mechanic would consume a vast amount of development resources. It seems easy enough to accommodate the camping crowd with out stepping on anyone else's toes. I'm not sure I could go for a game that only offered camping, but it'd be nice to have the option once in awhile.
Open world dungeons/camping spawns achieved its dynamic appeal through primarily basic components: respawn timers, other groups passing through and interacting with those timers, and group resource management, as far as I remember. A simple recipe, but it worked for some of us. Though I don't think it'd work so well with out the risk and sense of danger, where a loose mob is a terrifying problem. These days dying outside of a raid scenario is more like a 10 second penalty.
Here's the scenario I remember most (which could be fairly edge of your seat exciting as wiping could mean a long recovery): *Ranger sees a named mob on track but the clerics low on mana. How long until the hall respawns? Dunno, some group passed through awhile ago. Monk starts flopping the mob back towards your camp, hesitantly. Incoming - he decides we have to pull now and risk it, there's another group coming for the named. Will the room respawn on us mid fight? Guess we'll find out - this guy drops Silver-Plated Leggings, plate look legs for my ranger? Worth the risk* That plus a night of conversation between bouts of chaos.
Good stuff, but I couldn't just camp, it'd have to be an option in an otherwise well rounded game.
Hmm well this is my experience from Eq only. Camping took me all over the world, camping allowed me to see places I would never have gone, and sitting still in one place was like a safe spot from which to experience the world. Often the search for a camp spot would take me places, often I/we would move camp spots. Camping allowed the mind to settle instead of constantly be on the move, and therefore to better experience the world.
Sure there were a bunch of popular spots for xp, but talk with someone who played on a different server and they often have other spots.. playing progression opened my eyes to many new places and I am sure I opened others eyes aswell. The vague quest descriptions and errors was a kind of exploring, trying to set up camp to get a drop from a mob, fail and try a new spot, all exploration. Invissing and "looking around" was much used aswell. I beleive You need to remember the camps that weren't just xp grind places, but the many quest drop camps aswell as getting to those camps made You explore... well again this is all eq specific.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Camping was fun, makes the reward rare and increase the sense of achievement. Player can always group in a camp in order to all campers get the credit. Way better than the giveaway instant reward system that brings no sense of achievement to the game.
I do like when the camp is out of reach for exemple, camping a full raid (24 players) boss mob is an extreme. But any soloable or group mob camp is fun because any casual player can achieve it like anyone by investing the time necessary.
Hmm well this is my experience from Eq only. Camping took me all over the world, camping allowed me to see places I would never have gone, and sitting still in one place was like a safe spot from which to experience the world. Often the search for a camp spot would take me places, often I/we would move camp spots. Camping allowed the mind to settle instead of constantly be on the move, and therefore to better experience the world.
Sure there were a bunch of popular spots for xp, but talk with someone who played on a different server and they often have other spots.. playing progression opened my eyes to many new places and I am sure I opened others eyes aswell. The vague quest descriptions and errors was a kind of exploring, trying to set up camp to get a drop from a mob, fail and try a new spot, all exploration. Invissing and "looking around" was much used aswell. I beleive You need to remember the camps that weren't just xp grind places, but the many quest drop camps aswell as getting to those camps made You explore... well again this is all eq specific.
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Amen to your post!
80+ years. But at least we could chit-chat for the rest of our lives until it was our turn to kill the mob...
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Everyone grouped will get credit for the kill. The quest reward is for the player who would like to pay the price, not the entire server. If so, why just send the quest reward by mail to the entire player base?
It should be noted that camping was never an intended feature of EQ either....it sort of happened....camps were never built into EQ....you just found where you could camp....the community started giving names to those places...etc
People realised that they could set up camp somewhere and just pull mobs towards them...it seemed to work.
Why would you run towards mobs if you could make the mobs come towards you....pulling them worked better.
SoE has actually never recognised camps, they still don't, even though EQ is all about camping.
A lot of the awesome things in EQ just sort of happened by accident.
Even abilities that allowed for pulling were never meant as pulling tools, monk Feign Death, never meant to split mobs with, even though it became the defining feature of the monk class...so SoE never "fixed" it.
This. Camping wasnt just sitting there and chainpull mobs. That is the defenition of camping yes but it also was exploring. moving from campspot to campspot you came across structures and intresting mobs (rare spawns spawned on iregular timers on normal mob spots) wich otherwise you would not have seen. And being adventurous speccialy when spots where filled you created new spots. By exploring in regions few have visited.
honestly people who not ever have done this are missing out of a good social/entertainment experience.
People like Narius think that this issnt populair because the market would have created it. But that is a lie. The entire new playerbase and im talking about the WoW kiddies wich is 80% or more of our current mmo population have never played a game wich gave this deep social interactive gameplay. How can anyone say that people would not like it?
It's like someone claiming that they don't like mcdonalds despite not ever having set a foot inside the place.
rediculous
I agree, most of the camping in MMOs that I have done was with people I already socialized with. I might get to know some of them better, but I hardly made new friends there.
That said. I think it is a nice feature that added something to do. MMOs need to have a variety of things to do and this was a fun feature.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
And Since you are using camping as a GROUP activity, how many group activities exist in WoW , Rift or other games at any particular level between 1 to max..... There are never more then 1 or 2 dungeons you can instance that is worth a shit... So are you telling us that repeating those same 2 dungeons is exciting? Really? Just asking.. When was the last time you played an alt, used the LFG finder and found one in short order NOT being end game.. I never found a game where the queue to get into a group wasn't an HOUR long or more.. END GAME dungeon grinds don't count..
Who says anything about running towards mobs. You can pull and move, pull and move. Why stay in only one room to pull? That is boring (to me).
Exactly Lilly.. having 6 people all pressing the forward button is insane to me when in EQ, only 1 puller had to be active, and bring the mobs back to the static camp..... EQ was more effective in my opinion
Way MORE exciting than pulling the same mob again and again (ie. camping) in the same room.
At least you get to see different rooms and different mobs. I am surprised you will think that pulling the same mob in the same room more exciting than pulling from TWO dungeons (which probably have 10x the rooms, and 10x different variety of mobs).
Depends on how you're camping, I guess. In AO, groups would "camp" in Shadowlands and run up and down in a line, wiping everything out, then running back to the beginning. It's constant action, but that's more farming than camping. Camping is sitting around waiting for a particular mob or group of mobs to respawn so you can kill them and get back to waiting. This was especially true for high level mobs that had a long respawn time. Camping didn't give you anything to do, it gave you a lot of time to do nothing. You couldn't leave, you couldn't go play the game elsewhere, you had to sit there and do nothing, waiting for that moment when there was something to do. I see no reason to think that I'd talk to anyone who was also sitting around waiting unless I knew them already and had something in common with them, which rarely happens in MMOs anymore. I'd much rather put the game in the background and do something else worthwhile.
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I really enjoyed camping. At the end of my ffxi days, I played a bard. It was so much fun in xp parties. I got to cast mages balled on the mages in the back, then nights minne and that other song for the front line, forgot the name. Then I'd go out and pull back a mob. While using some other songs on certain party members individually. Yep loved that job, I was constantly on the move and doing something. But I was also only in a general area and new were my other people were the whole time.
In these newer mmo's I played i'd get lost from my group and I hate that.
To bad I don't get to experience that anymore, and yes I definatly enjoyed camping. I loved hanging out in an area for hours with people ingame. I hate new games were im running around by myself just doing quest and killing stuff, its so boring and lonely to me when im doing everything alone some days.
Then why do you do it? It is not like you cannot group in MMOs. It seems very odd that you are constantly doing stuff you do not like. The solo option is there for people who like solo, not for you.
In WOW, it is easy to just hit LFD, and group up and run dungeons. It is in fact, the faster way to level than just solo questing.
Haha. The logic and reasoning card has finally been played in this thread!!!
WOW.. really? Let me know when a roaming Sand Giant can spawn in those static dungeons and cause havoc to you group.. That is one thing you have to love about instances.. They are so predictable that even Stevie Wonder can go thru them.. Have a nice day..
Yes it all boils down to that. Well said, and thanks for the visual aid!
ROFL so true.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Except a lot, an awful lot of the talking these days is on vent. I don't need to press a key for that.
That, in my opinion, is at least partially responsible for the seeming quietness of groups today. Your not talking with them because they are on vent or something else and your not.
So WoW's inability to have scaling dungeons is reasons to say that instances are inherently faulty?
Having a camping game doesn't somehow equal more group activity. Being a camp or instance game still amounts to the same amount of activity: EXP groups and farm groups. Being a camp game or an instance game doesn't add or subtract from that. Being solo centric or group centric will, however.
I don't know if you have played WoW recently but getting into pre endgame dungeons takes absolutely no time at all. Getting into a LFG takes me 5 minutes, as opposed to endgame as a pure dps where it takes me up to almost an hour. While the latter point doesn't refute your overall statement, the former point does.
Those are completely irrelevant arguments though, because I could just as easily say "How long does it take you to get a camp group for anything pre endgame in such and such a game?" Thats obviously not a fault of instances or camping, but the natural community decay from low/mid level to end game.