Yes, because it's "deeper" and "meaningful" PvP when you go around killing PvE players that want nothing to do with PvP. Super "deep" and "meaningful."
I'm not going to fault you for being so uninformed about the subject of ow pvp games, but try not to be so arrogant about something you don't understand.
It is very easy to understand the meaningfullness of pvp in fantasy games when you are peasfully collecting som herbs and a horde of pvp'ers come and kill you over and over, must feel very meaningfull for them to se Another player leav the game.
Congratulations. You've just joined the ranks of non-pvp players that have arrogantly asserted their claim while not understanding the ow pvp's claim. For as much as you guys claim about pvp'ers being unreasonable, you guys sure can be unreasonable.
The possibility of losing your things, makes keeping those things more interesting to me. It makes for a deeper game if there's risk/reward.
I'm starting to see a pattern here... Anyone who doesn't agree with you is "arrogant."
NO. I mainly respond to people being arrogant. That's WHY I'm responding. I wouldn't respond to somebody simply saying "I prefer my games to not have ow pvp." I'm responding to the people who say things like "people only want ow pvp because they're psychopaths."
Weird because I never said anything slightly arrogant and yet you called me arrogant.
"Yes, because it's "deeper" and "meaningful" PvP when you go around killing PvE players that want nothing to do with PvP. Super "deep" and "meaningful."
That's not arrogant? It's arrogant because you're asserting that the depth that pvp adds is just around "killing pve players that want nothing to do with pvp." That doesn't even scratch the surface of why we prefer ow pvp games. You're arrogantly boiling down the subject to one inaccurate sarcastic statement that ALSO has the added benefit of insulting people who pvp.
You clearly have no clue what the term arrogant means. I was literally quoting your words! Since when was quoting considered arrogant? And I never insulted PvPers. Why you insist on seeing attacks on you when there are literally none is beyond me.
You were quoting my words in a sarcastic way. And I've already explained in detail why it was arrogant. Do you care to refute it in any kind of objective way? Or are you just going to drag this out for no reason?
It's insulting to suggest that the only thing about ow pvp games is people "going around killing pve players that want nothing to do with pvp" That's what you said, and it's arrogant and insulting. Are you SERIOUSLY trying to argue that? Really?
I actually never said that was the only thing that happened. I said that was a major thing that happened. I find it insulting that you put words in people's mouths and tell them that they are attacking you when they've already said they in fact weren't. If I were attacking you I would make it sure as hell clear that you knew it and would tell you I'm insulting you. Since this isn't the case you're completely overreacting and finding attacks on your character where there are none.
Maybe try to read a little harder... to my words and yours.
I said *suggested* it. I deliberately used the word suggested because I knew you were going to pull some preschool level debating and say "I never TECHNICALLY said that's all there was to it."
When I say ow pvp adds depth, and you say how does X add depth, that is suggesting that the only thing about ow pvp is X. If it wasn't, then why wouldn't you name the other aspects of ow pvp? Because you were in fact saying that the only thing about ow pvp is pvp players killing pve players who want nothing to do with pvp. That's what your words mean. I'm not about to start telling you how basic deductive reasoning works. Goodness, this isn't hard stuff.
Please do continue telling people what they are thinking and actually mean. Seriously and you're calling others arrogant? I am frankly done with even bothering to reply to you because you're nothing but rude, you twist everyone's words, and think everyone is out to get you when they're not.
Here's the difference. I'm responding and laying out in detail why I've said the things I've said. You're just wasting time by responding and declaring yourself to be right. I never said anything about what you're thinking or what you "actually mean." It's very possible you meant to say something else, I'm just commenting on what you actually said.
I've explained why what you said was both arrogant and insulting. Either offer some REASONING as to why it's not, or please stop wasting my time and ruining this thread.
Yes, because it's "deeper" and "meaningful" PvP when you go around killing PvE players that want nothing to do with PvP. Super "deep" and "meaningful."
I'm not going to fault you for being so uninformed about the subject of ow pvp games, but try not to be so arrogant about something you don't understand.
It is very easy to understand the meaningfullness of pvp in fantasy games when you are peasfully collecting som herbs and a horde of pvp'ers come and kill you over and over, must feel very meaningfull for them to se Another player leav the game.
Congratulations. You've just joined the ranks of non-pvp players that have arrogantly asserted their claim while not understanding the ow pvp's claim. For as much as you guys claim about pvp'ers being unreasonable, you guys sure can be unreasonable.
The possibility of losing your things, makes keeping those things more interesting to me. It makes for a deeper game if there's risk/reward.
I'm starting to see a pattern here... Anyone who doesn't agree with you is "arrogant."
NO. I mainly respond to people being arrogant. That's WHY I'm responding. I wouldn't respond to somebody simply saying "I prefer my games to not have ow pvp." I'm responding to the people who say things like "people only want ow pvp because they're psychopaths."
Weird because I never said anything slightly arrogant and yet you called me arrogant.
"Yes, because it's "deeper" and "meaningful" PvP when you go around killing PvE players that want nothing to do with PvP. Super "deep" and "meaningful."
That's not arrogant? It's arrogant because you're asserting that the depth that pvp adds is just around "killing pve players that want nothing to do with pvp." That doesn't even scratch the surface of why we prefer ow pvp games. You're arrogantly boiling down the subject to one inaccurate sarcastic statement that ALSO has the added benefit of insulting people who pvp.
You clearly have no clue what the term arrogant means. I was literally quoting your words! Since when was quoting considered arrogant? And I never insulted PvPers. Why you insist on seeing attacks on you when there are literally none is beyond me.
You were quoting my words in a sarcastic way. And I've already explained in detail why it was arrogant. Do you care to refute it in any kind of objective way? Or are you just going to drag this out for no reason?
It's insulting to suggest that the only thing about ow pvp games is people "going around killing pve players that want nothing to do with pvp" That's what you said, and it's arrogant and insulting. Are you SERIOUSLY trying to argue that? Really?
I actually never said that was the only thing that happened. I said that was a major thing that happened. I find it insulting that you put words in people's mouths and tell them that they are attacking you when they've already said they in fact weren't. If I were attacking you I would make it sure as hell clear that you knew it and would tell you I'm insulting you. Since this isn't the case you're completely overreacting and finding attacks on your character where there are none.
Maybe try to read a little harder... to my words and yours.
I said *suggested* it. I deliberately used the word suggested because I knew you were going to pull some preschool level debating and say "I never TECHNICALLY said that's all there was to it."
When I say ow pvp adds depth, and you say how does X add depth, that is suggesting that the only thing about ow pvp is X. If it wasn't, then why wouldn't you name the other aspects of ow pvp? Because you were in fact saying that the only thing about ow pvp is pvp players killing pve players who want nothing to do with pvp. That's what your words mean. I'm not about to start telling you how basic deductive reasoning works. Goodness, this isn't hard stuff.
Please do continue telling people what they are thinking and actually mean. Seriously and you're calling others arrogant? I am frankly done with even bothering to reply to you because you're nothing but rude, you twist everyone's words, and think everyone is out to get you when they're not.
Here's the difference. I'm responding and laying out in detail why I've said the things I've said. You're just wasting time by responding and declaring yourself to be right. I never said anything about what you're thinking or what you "actually mean." It's very possible you meant to say something else, I'm just commenting on what you actually said.
I've explained why what you said was both arrogant and insulting. Either offer some REASONING as to why it's not, or please stop wasting my time and ruining this thread.
I never declared myself to be right! I have said I wasn't insulting you, which I wasn't! I really don't understand what the heck your problem is. It's like you want to do nothing but argue and be rude to others! Seriously, YOU are the one who has caused all the arguing by not just going, "Oh, okay I guess he wasn't insulting me." If I were insulting you I would have told you I was insulting you! In fact, where the heck did I insult you?! NO WHERE! You're just making crap up that isn't even there!
And I'mwasting your time?! I have explained to you that I wasn't insulting you and then you proceeded to take some words and "read them" as insulting when there was zero proof that my words were insulting. You're the one who has derailed this thread by continuing to accuse me of untrue things when I have explained over and over that is not what I was doing.
You're not in my mind. You have no clue what it is my words were meant to express. For you to state that you know is arrogant in itself.
Originally posted by maccarthur2004 Originally posted by LoktofeitYou are basing that on the absence of open world PVP without some other system to create community involvement in its place. We have already seen in other games that not only do other systems work, but they promote high community involvement. Additionally, we've seen that they can result in very high retention rates, as shown by the fact that most players of ATITD have been playing since the First or Second Telling.
I would like to know good and realiable substitutes for OW PVP and its consequences that can be placed in a AAA sandbox mmo, allowing it stilly dispense the ow pvp system, without fear of losing money in a big budget mmo.
Okay moving on, I think your question is too framed to keep out lower budget sandbox games which is a bit unfair when I see Loktofeit's arguments as completely valid and he has already laid out "alternatives to OW PvP" in a game that uses none of it.
I don't believe sandboxes are purely defined by OW PvP and it appears to be a terrible misconception. I think when everyone thinks sandbox, everyone attaches their own version of what THEY themselves think should constitute a sandbox where I believe how a sandbox is defined is much looser than that.
Ultimately, OW PvP is definitely not a requirement for a sandbox game and from what we seen so far from current sandbox games that go the PvP route, it's entirely niche. When Ultima Online came out with Felucca and Trammel, which world was more populated? In Eve, I seen more people in Hi Sec than Low Sec. OW PvP isn't exactly what everyone is looking for in an MMO.
I think your argument about a sandbox "needing" an OW PvP to be successful is a bit baseless and relies too heavily on your own experiences (which reflect personal opinions). IMO I think a more important feature to a sandbox is the economy and I feel combat tends to take a bit of a backseat in a sandbox MMO compared to conventional MMOs.
PS If you are expecting a "triple AAA sandbox MMO" example that would support argument against your argument, then I would like to ask you to list a "triple AAA sandbox MMO" that actually supports your argument in regards to OW PvP being absolutely essential to an MMO's overall design.
Originally posted by bcbully People who say otherwise just don't understand how a sandbox works. What would it really be? A sandbox quester? How the hell do you do that?
How do we explain single-player sandboxes then?
What would the elements be? Questing, dungeons, crafting and building houses? Really?
Plenty of people did nothing but sit around dancing and playing music in SWG. Plenty of people spent hours a day in their shops making anything from housing supplies to robots. Plenty of people did nothing but make weapons and armor and gather materials.Plenty spent hours a night hunting for legendary items or hunting down rare resources (like krayt scales), The best part, every single one of them were supporting the sandbox that made up the game, by doing what was fun to them. Dancers/musicians healing players, crafters supplying everything a player needed. Doctors healing battle fatigue and buffing players, dancers buffing players. SLicers improving weapons, droid engineers supplying pets, creature handlers training pets...etc. etc.. etc...
Those of us that did nothing but PVP were probably in the smallest demographic of the game.
Then the holo-grind came along and screwed that up. The best weaponsmiths were now dancing and the best dancers were grinding housing parts. I'm not arguing with you, I'm just still bitter about the holo-grind fiasco which was almost on par with the NGE as far as I'm concerned.
Originally posted by lizardbones If it adds "something", what is that "something"? We're not talking about deep secrets of the universe here, we're talking about a man made thing, using man made concepts that have been around for about twenty years. If OW PvP adds some sort of intrinsic value, it should be fairly easy to name, or at least describe. If you can't name it or even describe it, then it probably doesn't exist as an intrinsic value of OW PvP, but rather it exists as something that satisfied your preferences.
If done right, it adds a great deal of depth and quality to the game by providing opportunities for additional systems and rp opportunities to be added. A lot of EVE players despise pvp,but thrive on the industrial and market systems that are made possible because of it. As an end goal, it may not have intrinsic value, but as an enabler for making the game better overall, it has a great deal of intrinsic value. It's not just a preference, but something that the current market shows even casual players notice to some degree. Shallow games have almost no retention, and deep games need some kind of underlying purpose to drive them; pvp is not the only such purpose, but without it, its very hard to sustain any other purpose for any length of time. I say this as someone who largely avoids actual pvp even in games that allow it unless I have a specific goal to accomplish that utilizes it. It's intrinsic value is as a tool that supports and enables a great many other useful systems and opportunities. Nothing else can come even close to matching pvp in doing this, especially in a sandbox. PvP is a natural reaction, and a comparatively easy one for devs to deal with; other motivations simply don't work nearly as well in this kind of environment, as they tend to be more niche in preference and even harder to properly implement than pvp.
Eve is an aberration in a few ways. Providing value to players for not participating in OW PvP is one of them. I can't think of an alternative that would do the same thing. Raiding wouldn't make sense, maybe some sort of raiding based around land control, but that would be kind of a weird system. It might work, but I'm not sure if it would work well.
The only caveat I would weasel in there is that it's Eve's specific implementation of OW PvP, not OW PvP itself that provides the value. So long as an OW PvP implementation provides some way for players to not engage in the OW PvP that they don't like, and give them something to do because of the OW PvP, then it would help player retention.
Hence the need for an effective implementation. In EVE, it's easy enough for anyone who wants to avoid it to do so, but it's also not an automatic assumption that you'll never have to pvp and you're also not barred from doing it voluntary if you feel the need arise at some point in the future. You can still get war decced, and or get a bounty if you play stupid, or even occasionally randomly ganked from time to time, but for most people, it's take the necessary steps to avoid it once, and the rest usually takes care of itself aside from random chance and deliberate actions on the parts of those who want to participate. That kind of implementation is necessary for a sandbox to truly thrive. The risk of pvp and loss must always be there as long as the steps to avoid it are equally easy to carry out. Without that chance, the game really does lose a lot. You can replicate certain aspects of what pvp does for a game, but that situational awareness and the resulting interest in the game as a whole is near impossible to replicate effectively through other means.
What a sandbox needs to be a successful sandbox has nothing to do with PvP, OW or not. You can have a PvE sandbox MMO and it could do just as well as an OW PvP sandbox MMO.
Sandbox MMO's are sought after for key elements in gameplay:
1) A world that can be altered either directly by players ( player constructed housing and cities ), indirectly ( quests/missions that permanently affect the environment ) or both.
2) Player driven economy ( item degradation, resource gathering and in depth crafting ).
3) A truly persistent world with AI that actually adapts to player choices ( mobs with social aspects and desires such as creatures that build enemy / friendly villages or cities with which to trade or fight nearby player territories ).
4) Unique quests/missions that are not repeatable with respectable rewards based on difficulty. This would allow people to either play lone wolf or band together.
5) Meaningful PvP that involves territorial / resource control. This doesn't require open world or full looting PvP. Basically the drive for control of something that provides an in-game advantage is all that is needed. Thus allowing players who don't feel the need to have said territories or resources can do whatever they desire to include being mercenaries for hire yet allow them to roam freely unharmed as long as they are in a neutral state.
6) And last but not least, no classes, just skills.
However, as this and many MMO sites have dictated. What everyone feels a sandbox MMO should be is always going to be different. This is what I feel a sandbox MMO needs if it wants to be successful.
Good post, and while OW PVP is not needed in and of itself, it is, and has been proven to be, still the most effective way of implementing many, if not most, of those features. Of the non-pvp sandboxes that have tried, Horizons and Ryzom do really good for some of those points, but they lack the necessary features that would truly sustain their primary features on a large scale for a long period of time. A Tale in the Desert has many of the same longivity issues, and has to do periodic resets whenever the world gets far enough along that room for further advancement is limited to nill, not a way to win more than a niche of a niche fanbase. Wurm goes to a level of complexity that turns off many of those who want both non-pvp and a reasonably accessible game. Fallen Earth's implementation of most things limited the reasons for developing a community, at least when I played, giving it a rather big strike as an effective model. These are all good games in their own ways, but in the end, they can't come even close to matching what even some of the more poorly implemented pvp tolerant games have achieved. All of the above games have problems at least as large, and often larger, as anything that games with ow pvp have to deal with. There may well be a substitute that works as effectively as pvp, and especially ow pvp, without introducing its own massive sets of problems, but no one has found it yet, and until they do, ow pvp must remain an option when looking at how to develop future sandboxes.
You seem to be setting up some kind of word landmine so I'll try to traverse it carefully. I'm not sure if you consider it to be "intrinsic value" but ow pvp adds more community involvement than restricting ow pvp does. It makes for more personal story lines and histories between players and guilds than a game without it. There's value in a PLAYER capturing and punishing another player than an NPC doing it. People seem to enjoy organic story lines, rather than rushing through walls of dialogue just to accept a quest.
Where do you get that?
Lots of big video game sellers are canned, and professional created story lines. It seems people are voting for their wallet for "non-organic" story lines.
unfortunatelly i have to agree with nariusseldon on this one. most people really seems to want just another "you are the hero of this world!" premade story, which is something i dont get in mmorpg, but they really seems to want it. thats why we have a lot more themepark mmorpg then sandbox ones, pvp ones or not.
And yet the vast majority of people who play these games don't even skim the story. Just because people are choosing games that have pre-packaged boring story lines doesn't mean they prefer pre-packaged story lines to organic ones. That's just a logical fallacy.
well sorry, but it is still a lot more proof than "people seem to enjoy organic story lines"
what proof do you have of that statement?
Well first of all you mean evidence, not proof.
Second, my evidence is how vocal people are about how much they dislike the stories in the quests in the very games you're using as evidence for people liking those stories. It's pretty basic stuff that most people breeze through the text just to get to the screen that says "Accept" on it. If you want to argue that point, well then I guess gg? Because as far as I know nobody has done an academic study on how much people care about written story quests in mmo's.
The other piece of evidence is a different side of the same coin. In my experience people get EMOTIONALLY INVESTED in their own personal story lines and histories with other players. In Darkfall there's an entire political aspect of the game that takes place almost completely on the forums and is based on their in-game experiences. Clans backstabbing other clans. Clans being hired by their old nemesis clan to help defend against a common enemy.
Can you point me towards a community that has such an interest in why exactly I have to go kill 10 boars to retrieve their tusks or something?
sorry but neither is evidence - people who are vocal about anything in mmorpgs are just really small (i think according to some research it was like 5% or somethign like that, not really sure but some really small number)
people who play darkfall (or all sandbox mmorpgs together) are just small part of mmorpg player base.
any other evidence?
So I can point towards people who are enthusiastic about the player made stories in a game. Can you point me towards a community that is as active in and enthralled by the developer-written story in a game?
i did see quite a lot of posts saying that they love and want "personal" type of storyline in mmorpg, but no i cannt, because i dont share that sentiment, so i dont follow such posts/communities.
The problem with the "freedom" deabte is that the argument is not about freedom, it's about projecting power and the concept that "might is right". Should the strong be able to impose their will upon the weak?
To some people, that is elemental to their fantasy.
To some people, it is the antithesis of their fantasy.
The question is whether each of us wants "might is right" to define conflicts of interest all the time, part of the time or none of the time. The answer is not the same for everyone. No matter what rhetorical flourishes we use to explain our own preference, that isn't going to change anyone else's preference. So there's no point in arguing preferences, it's just a question of whether different preferences can comfortably coexist in a single game.
Pretty much this. FFA open world PVP is just one of the possible features a sandbox MMO can have. Everyone has their own preference of what features they want to see in a sandbox MMO. And any feature, if badly designed can be used to grief. The designers will have to chose whether they want that. If they want a large playerbase, they probably don't want that. If EVE didn;t have the high security areas, it wouldn't be half as popular.
Another example is Minecraft. This game gives server admins the choice to turn on or off pvp completely. Or with certain bukkit plugins it is possible to finetune the pvp possibilities. Whatever ruleset for survival the admins chose, the game will still be a sandbox.
The problem with the "freedom" deabte is that the argument is not about freedom, it's about projecting power and the concept that "might is right". Should the strong be able to impose their will upon the weak?
To some people, that is elemental to their fantasy.
To some people, it is the antithesis of their fantasy.
The question is whether each of us wants "might is right" to define conflicts of interest all the time, part of the time or none of the time. The answer is not the same for everyone. No matter what rhetorical flourishes we use to explain our own preference, that isn't going to change anyone else's preference. So there's no point in arguing preferences, it's just a question of whether different preferences can comfortably coexist in a single game.
Pretty much this. FFA open world PVP is just one of the possible features a sandbox MMO can have. Everyone has their own preference of what features they want to see in a sandbox MMO. And any feature, if badly designed can be used to grief. The designers will have to chose whether they want that. If they want a large playerbase, they probably don't want that. If EVE didn;t have the high security areas, it wouldn't be half as popular.
Another example is Minecraft. This game gives server admins the choice to turn on or off pvp completely. Or with certain bukkit plugins it is possible to finetune the pvp possibilities. Whatever ruleset for survival the admins chose, the game will still be a sandbox.
So make OW PVP that isn't all automatically FFA PVP. EVE does it quite well, while still retaining the potential of ow pvp even in high sec. Minecraft is a more difficult example because like A Tale in the Desert, you eventually have to reset it completely and start over, whereas EVE renews its content automatically with every ship kill without having to reset the entire game. When someone can show a non-pvp system capable of renewing itself in the course of normal gameplay that doesn't end up creating it's own pile of problems, I'll consider ow pvp not essential to a sandbox; until then, it's still essential to have in some form or another to provide that final critical step of destruction and loss that restarts the cycle of creation in a manner that isn't entirely metagamey.
i did see quite a lot of posts saying that they love and want "personal" type of storyline in mmorpg, but no i cannt, because i dont share that sentiment, so i dont follow such posts/communities.
Yeh, more professional made story is a good thing in my books. I have yet to see any players making anything remotely resemble a "story" in the context of game lore.
i did see quite a lot of posts saying that they love and want "personal" type of storyline in mmorpg, but no i cannt, because i dont share that sentiment, so i dont follow such posts/communities.
Yeh, more professional made story is a good thing in my books. I have yet to see any players making anything remotely resemble a "story" in the context of game lore.
Loot and guild drama do not count.
You need a mix of both. The best games I've seen have a handful of dev written stories to establish world lore and a dev supported framework in which players can make their own stories within the lore and framework provided.
i did see quite a lot of posts saying that they love and want "personal" type of storyline in mmorpg, but no i cannt, because i dont share that sentiment, so i dont follow such posts/communities.
Yeh, more professional made story is a good thing in my books. I have yet to see any players making anything remotely resemble a "story" in the context of game lore.
Loot and guild drama do not count.
That's probably because you haven't played a game that is conducive to organic player-player stories and histories. The only game I've played that sufficiently provides a mechanism for something like this is Darkfall. This is due to the HEAVY clan focus and the ability to capture, build, defend and siege cities. There deep histories among clans and players. You still hear references to things that happened YEARS ago in the first game.
Sorry but I just do not for a second buy that people prefer developer-written stories (which most people don't even read or pay attention to) over stories that involve them personally and matter to them in a real way. And as far as I can tell the only evidence or argument I've heard to the contrary is that more people play themeparks. Not the best argument.
Sorry but I just do not for a second buy that people prefer developer-written stories (which most people don't even read or pay attention to) over stories that involve them personally and matter to them in a real way. And as far as I can tell the only evidence or argument I've heard to the contrary is that more people play themeparks. Not the best argument.
YOu haven't read reviews that tout good written stories in games?
You don't think part of Bioshock Infinite's big success its story? I disagree. I doubt any clan stuff from a bunch of random players is engaging as stories in Bioshock, Dishonored, or even Deus Ex Human Evoluation.
There is a reason professional story writers are paid for their work.
Sorry but I just do not for a second buy that people prefer developer-written stories (which most people don't even read or pay attention to) over stories that involve them personally and matter to them in a real way. And as far as I can tell the only evidence or argument I've heard to the contrary is that more people play themeparks. Not the best argument.
YOu haven't read reviews that tout good written stories in games?
You don't think part of Bioshock Infinite's big success its story? I disagree. I doubt any clan stuff from a bunch of random players is engaging as stories in Bioshock, Dishonored, or even Deus Ex Human Evoluation.
There is a reason professional story writers are paid for their work.
Any dev written story is bullshit. Your always the Chosen one to save the world and shit, playing with millions of other "Chosen" ones lol... there is just no rival to player politics, I havent played Darkfall (yet) but I still remember in Shadowbane when there was a Chinease invasión and they were taking all the player cities in the server. Every western guild had to unite to take out the intruders. Massive banes (sieges)...
Sorry but I just do not for a second buy that people prefer developer-written stories (which most people don't even read or pay attention to) over stories that involve them personally and matter to them in a real way. And as far as I can tell the only evidence or argument I've heard to the contrary is that more people play themeparks. Not the best argument.
YOu haven't read reviews that tout good written stories in games?
You don't think part of Bioshock Infinite's big success its story? I disagree. I doubt any clan stuff from a bunch of random players is engaging as stories in Bioshock, Dishonored, or even Deus Ex Human Evoluation.
There is a reason professional story writers are paid for their work.
Sorry but I just do not for a second buy that people prefer developer-written stories (which most people don't even read or pay attention to) over stories that involve them personally and matter to them in a real way. And as far as I can tell the only evidence or argument I've heard to the contrary is that more people play themeparks. Not the best argument.
YOu haven't read reviews that tout good written stories in games?
You don't think part of Bioshock Infinite's big success its story? I disagree. I doubt any clan stuff from a bunch of random players is engaging as stories in Bioshock, Dishonored, or even Deus Ex Human Evoluation.
There is a reason professional story writers are paid for their work.
Any dev written story is bullshit. Your always the Chosen one to save the world and shit, playing with millions of other "Chosen" ones lol... there is just no rival to player politics, I havent played Darkfall (yet) but I still remember in Shadowbane when there was a Chinease invasión and they were taking all the player cities in the server. Every western guild had to unite to take out the intruders. Massive banes (sieges)...
I was going to give Shadowbane some lip service when talking about games that are conducive to player storylines, but it felt wrong because I haven't played it.
Originally posted by YoungCaesar Originally posted by nariusseldonOriginally posted by HolophonistSorry but I just do not for a second buy that people prefer developer-written stories (which most people don't even read or pay attention to) over stories that involve them personally and matter to them in a real way. And as far as I can tell the only evidence or argument I've heard to the contrary is that more people play themeparks. Not the best argument.
YOu haven't read reviews that tout good written stories in games?You don't think part of Bioshock Infinite's big success its story? I disagree. I doubt any clan stuff from a bunch of random players is engaging as stories in Bioshock, Dishonored, or even Deus Ex Human Evoluation.There is a reason professional story writers are paid for their work.Any dev written story is bullshit. Your always the Chosen one to save the world and shit, playing with millions of other "Chosen" ones lol... there is just no rival to player politics, I havent played Darkfall (yet) but I still remember in Shadowbane when there was a Chinease invasión and they were taking all the player cities in the server. Every western guild had to unite to take out the intruders. Massive banes (sieges)...
Naris is right. There's a reason why games like Bioshock Infinite and Deux Ex sell a bajillion copies, and continue to have strong sales years after they release and it has a lot to do with the story line that the player follows.
The problem with that line of reasoning isn't the quality of the stories, because they are objectively good, not just subjectively. The problem is that the types of stories told in single player RPGs don't work well in MMORPG.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by HolophonistSorry but I just do not for a second buy that people prefer developer-written stories (which most people don't even read or pay attention to) over stories that involve them personally and matter to them in a real way. And as far as I can tell the only evidence or argument I've heard to the contrary is that more people play themeparks. Not the best argument.
YOu haven't read reviews that tout good written stories in games?You don't think part of Bioshock Infinite's big success its story? I disagree. I doubt any clan stuff from a bunch of random players is engaging as stories in Bioshock, Dishonored, or even Deus Ex Human Evoluation.There is a reason professional story writers are paid for their work.
Any dev written story is bullshit. Your always the Chosen one to save the world and shit, playing with millions of other "Chosen" ones lol... there is just no rival to player politics, I havent played Darkfall (yet) but I still remember in Shadowbane when there was a Chinease invasión and they were taking all the player cities in the server. Every western guild had to unite to take out the intruders. Massive banes (sieges)...
Naris is right. There's a reason why games like Bioshock Infinite and Deux Ex sell a bajillion copies, and continue to have strong sales years after they release and it has a lot to do with the story line that the player follows.
The problem with that line of reasoning isn't the quality of the stories, because they are objectively good, not just subjectively. The problem is that the types of stories told in single player RPGs don't work well in MMORPG.
He is right and wrong. Why? Stories work very well for single player games. You run through them one time.. you experience the stroy for that game.. and given a good story you will have a good experience.
Open that up a little bit like Fallout 3. Now you have different stories.. but all come to and end, and you can all experience once.
And now we go multiplayer or massive multiplayer. In the usual multiplayer you do in most time not have any story at all. No story in DotA, no story in Battlefield, and so on. Because.. you can't tell the same story twice. So you have just Lore. A Background story were everything is settled, but no linear story.
And with Massive Multiplayer games? It is basicly the same. We do have stories there.. but they usually don't work, because it is just interesting the first time. And it becomes even worst when everyone expect the exact same story as the exact same participant aka Hero.
What would be needed in a Massive Multiplayer game? You would need some kind of dynamic story. This should be feeded from different stories. You have Lore, and this lore should evolve over time. This lore should be influenced by the action of all players in the World. With other words.. you need a spanning Lore evolving over time based on the actions of players, and maybe with influence of professionel story writers in the background. But this wasn't done until now, and is very hard to accomplish. And this is were PvP, but also if dynamic PvE can be part of that. EvE does have somewhat over a spanning lore story based on the player actions and war.. somewhat of chronicles of EvE so to say. But nevertheless very limited up to now.
And now we go multiplayer or massive multiplayer. In the usual multiplayer you do in most time not have any story at all. No story in DotA, no story in Battlefield, and so on. Because.. you can't tell the same story twice. So you have just Lore. A Background story were everything is settled, but no linear story.
You are wrong.
There is a story in Diablo 1, 2 and 3. There is a story in Borderland 2. All multiplayer. Granted these stories are nothing like those in Dishonored or Bioshock Infinite (which btw, can be played co-op), but there are still linear stories.
And no one say you cannot do the same in MMORPGs. In fact, it is done in MMORPGs. The story for leveling is always played through only ONCE.
The only issue is that they are not told very well. They should learn from SP games, and do good stories in instances.
Comments
Here's the difference. I'm responding and laying out in detail why I've said the things I've said. You're just wasting time by responding and declaring yourself to be right. I never said anything about what you're thinking or what you "actually mean." It's very possible you meant to say something else, I'm just commenting on what you actually said.
I've explained why what you said was both arrogant and insulting. Either offer some REASONING as to why it's not, or please stop wasting my time and ruining this thread.
I never declared myself to be right! I have said I wasn't insulting you, which I wasn't! I really don't understand what the heck your problem is. It's like you want to do nothing but argue and be rude to others! Seriously, YOU are the one who has caused all the arguing by not just going, "Oh, okay I guess he wasn't insulting me." If I were insulting you I would have told you I was insulting you! In fact, where the heck did I insult you?! NO WHERE! You're just making crap up that isn't even there!
And I'm wasting your time?! I have explained to you that I wasn't insulting you and then you proceeded to take some words and "read them" as insulting when there was zero proof that my words were insulting. You're the one who has derailed this thread by continuing to accuse me of untrue things when I have explained over and over that is not what I was doing.
You're not in my mind. You have no clue what it is my words were meant to express. For you to state that you know is arrogant in itself.
Smile
Okay moving on, I think your question is too framed to keep out lower budget sandbox games which is a bit unfair when I see Loktofeit's arguments as completely valid and he has already laid out "alternatives to OW PvP" in a game that uses none of it.
I don't believe sandboxes are purely defined by OW PvP and it appears to be a terrible misconception. I think when everyone thinks sandbox, everyone attaches their own version of what THEY themselves think should constitute a sandbox where I believe how a sandbox is defined is much looser than that.
Ultimately, OW PvP is definitely not a requirement for a sandbox game and from what we seen so far from current sandbox games that go the PvP route, it's entirely niche. When Ultima Online came out with Felucca and Trammel, which world was more populated? In Eve, I seen more people in Hi Sec than Low Sec. OW PvP isn't exactly what everyone is looking for in an MMO.
I think your argument about a sandbox "needing" an OW PvP to be successful is a bit baseless and relies too heavily on your own experiences (which reflect personal opinions). IMO I think a more important feature to a sandbox is the economy and I feel combat tends to take a bit of a backseat in a sandbox MMO compared to conventional MMOs.
PS If you are expecting a "triple AAA sandbox MMO" example that would support argument against your argument, then I would like to ask you to list a "triple AAA sandbox MMO" that actually supports your argument in regards to OW PvP being absolutely essential to an MMO's overall design.
Then the holo-grind came along and screwed that up. The best weaponsmiths were now dancing and the best dancers were grinding housing parts. I'm not arguing with you, I'm just still bitter about the holo-grind fiasco which was almost on par with the NGE as far as I'm concerned.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Hence the need for an effective implementation. In EVE, it's easy enough for anyone who wants to avoid it to do so, but it's also not an automatic assumption that you'll never have to pvp and you're also not barred from doing it voluntary if you feel the need arise at some point in the future. You can still get war decced, and or get a bounty if you play stupid, or even occasionally randomly ganked from time to time, but for most people, it's take the necessary steps to avoid it once, and the rest usually takes care of itself aside from random chance and deliberate actions on the parts of those who want to participate. That kind of implementation is necessary for a sandbox to truly thrive. The risk of pvp and loss must always be there as long as the steps to avoid it are equally easy to carry out. Without that chance, the game really does lose a lot. You can replicate certain aspects of what pvp does for a game, but that situational awareness and the resulting interest in the game as a whole is near impossible to replicate effectively through other means.
Good post, and while OW PVP is not needed in and of itself, it is, and has been proven to be, still the most effective way of implementing many, if not most, of those features. Of the non-pvp sandboxes that have tried, Horizons and Ryzom do really good for some of those points, but they lack the necessary features that would truly sustain their primary features on a large scale for a long period of time. A Tale in the Desert has many of the same longivity issues, and has to do periodic resets whenever the world gets far enough along that room for further advancement is limited to nill, not a way to win more than a niche of a niche fanbase. Wurm goes to a level of complexity that turns off many of those who want both non-pvp and a reasonably accessible game. Fallen Earth's implementation of most things limited the reasons for developing a community, at least when I played, giving it a rather big strike as an effective model. These are all good games in their own ways, but in the end, they can't come even close to matching what even some of the more poorly implemented pvp tolerant games have achieved. All of the above games have problems at least as large, and often larger, as anything that games with ow pvp have to deal with. There may well be a substitute that works as effectively as pvp, and especially ow pvp, without introducing its own massive sets of problems, but no one has found it yet, and until they do, ow pvp must remain an option when looking at how to develop future sandboxes.
i did see quite a lot of posts saying that they love and want "personal" type of storyline in mmorpg, but no i cannt, because i dont share that sentiment, so i dont follow such posts/communities.
Pretty much this. FFA open world PVP is just one of the possible features a sandbox MMO can have. Everyone has their own preference of what features they want to see in a sandbox MMO. And any feature, if badly designed can be used to grief. The designers will have to chose whether they want that. If they want a large playerbase, they probably don't want that. If EVE didn;t have the high security areas, it wouldn't be half as popular.
Another example is Minecraft. This game gives server admins the choice to turn on or off pvp completely. Or with certain bukkit plugins it is possible to finetune the pvp possibilities. Whatever ruleset for survival the admins chose, the game will still be a sandbox.
So make OW PVP that isn't all automatically FFA PVP. EVE does it quite well, while still retaining the potential of ow pvp even in high sec. Minecraft is a more difficult example because like A Tale in the Desert, you eventually have to reset it completely and start over, whereas EVE renews its content automatically with every ship kill without having to reset the entire game. When someone can show a non-pvp system capable of renewing itself in the course of normal gameplay that doesn't end up creating it's own pile of problems, I'll consider ow pvp not essential to a sandbox; until then, it's still essential to have in some form or another to provide that final critical step of destruction and loss that restarts the cycle of creation in a manner that isn't entirely metagamey.
Yeh, more professional made story is a good thing in my books. I have yet to see any players making anything remotely resemble a "story" in the context of game lore.
Loot and guild drama do not count.
You need a mix of both. The best games I've seen have a handful of dev written stories to establish world lore and a dev supported framework in which players can make their own stories within the lore and framework provided.
That's probably because you haven't played a game that is conducive to organic player-player stories and histories. The only game I've played that sufficiently provides a mechanism for something like this is Darkfall. This is due to the HEAVY clan focus and the ability to capture, build, defend and siege cities. There deep histories among clans and players. You still hear references to things that happened YEARS ago in the first game.
Sorry but I just do not for a second buy that people prefer developer-written stories (which most people don't even read or pay attention to) over stories that involve them personally and matter to them in a real way. And as far as I can tell the only evidence or argument I've heard to the contrary is that more people play themeparks. Not the best argument.
YOu haven't read reviews that tout good written stories in games?
You don't think part of Bioshock Infinite's big success its story? I disagree. I doubt any clan stuff from a bunch of random players is engaging as stories in Bioshock, Dishonored, or even Deus Ex Human Evoluation.
There is a reason professional story writers are paid for their work.
Any dev written story is bullshit. Your always the Chosen one to save the world and shit, playing with millions of other "Chosen" ones lol... there is just no rival to player politics, I havent played Darkfall (yet) but I still remember in Shadowbane when there was a Chinease invasión and they were taking all the player cities in the server. Every western guild had to unite to take out the intruders. Massive banes (sieges)...
I'm talking about MMO's.
I was going to give Shadowbane some lip service when talking about games that are conducive to player storylines, but it felt wrong because I haven't played it.
Any dev written story is bullshit. Your always the Chosen one to save the world and shit, playing with millions of other "Chosen" ones lol... there is just no rival to player politics, I havent played Darkfall (yet) but I still remember in Shadowbane when there was a Chinease invasión and they were taking all the player cities in the server. Every western guild had to unite to take out the intruders. Massive banes (sieges)...
Naris is right. There's a reason why games like Bioshock Infinite and Deux Ex sell a bajillion copies, and continue to have strong sales years after they release and it has a lot to do with the story line that the player follows.
The problem with that line of reasoning isn't the quality of the stories, because they are objectively good, not just subjectively. The problem is that the types of stories told in single player RPGs don't work well in MMORPG.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
He is right and wrong. Why? Stories work very well for single player games. You run through them one time.. you experience the stroy for that game.. and given a good story you will have a good experience.
Open that up a little bit like Fallout 3. Now you have different stories.. but all come to and end, and you can all experience once.
And now we go multiplayer or massive multiplayer. In the usual multiplayer you do in most time not have any story at all. No story in DotA, no story in Battlefield, and so on. Because.. you can't tell the same story twice. So you have just Lore. A Background story were everything is settled, but no linear story.
And with Massive Multiplayer games? It is basicly the same. We do have stories there.. but they usually don't work, because it is just interesting the first time. And it becomes even worst when everyone expect the exact same story as the exact same participant aka Hero.
What would be needed in a Massive Multiplayer game? You would need some kind of dynamic story. This should be feeded from different stories. You have Lore, and this lore should evolve over time. This lore should be influenced by the action of all players in the World. With other words.. you need a spanning Lore evolving over time based on the actions of players, and maybe with influence of professionel story writers in the background. But this wasn't done until now, and is very hard to accomplish. And this is were PvP, but also if dynamic PvE can be part of that. EvE does have somewhat over a spanning lore story based on the player actions and war.. somewhat of chronicles of EvE so to say. But nevertheless very limited up to now.
You are wrong.
There is a story in Diablo 1, 2 and 3. There is a story in Borderland 2. All multiplayer. Granted these stories are nothing like those in Dishonored or Bioshock Infinite (which btw, can be played co-op), but there are still linear stories.
And no one say you cannot do the same in MMORPGs. In fact, it is done in MMORPGs. The story for leveling is always played through only ONCE.
The only issue is that they are not told very well. They should learn from SP games, and do good stories in instances.