To be certain, slow travel must be supported by making it an opportunity for new experiences in the world, and not just a purpose unto itself. But that does not make it obsolete or shallow; properly supported by a rich developed world, it can be a very useful and powerful tool.
Yeah, but you've described a game with fast travel.
GW2 is a perfect example.
Travel exists. it's fun every time you do it, because you only do it when you're traveling someplace new! It's always a new experience!
But once you've traveled to a place, you have the waypoint and you can fast-travel there in the future (except if the waypoint is contested.)
That's exactly how travel should be. But we sum that up as "instant travel" even though there's a lot of non-instant travel happening.
The trick to making travel interesting isn't to limit it to new places, its in making the old roads equally interesting. I agree that in most current MMOs, fast travel is basically needed because the world as a whole is stale and static. The whole idea of bringing slow travel back inherently means bringing back a world that throw surprises at you even in familiar territory that you've been over thousands of times. When you do the latter, the former makes considerably more sense, but that requires breaking the focus away from instances and dungeons and putting it back on the world, which many of the current generation will find very painful because they've never dealt with anything but heavy instancing and dungeons having the vast majority of meaningful content.
meh... If you want to be immersed in the world at that level, you might as well include a locked first-person camera angle so you really feel like your "in character". Why, then you should start thinking about implementing those pesky features that are less game-like and add in a food/drink requirement and perma-death.
Hell, at this point you might as well jack yourself into the game somehow to prevent you from logging out instantly. You know, so it's more "realistic". Suuuuure, such a game would only attract a tiny niche audience of hardcore introverts, but at least YOU'D be happy.
...Oh, what's that? You don't think that'd be very fun? Well, welcome to the other side. Take a seat over there next to those gamers waiting for their dungeon queue to pop.
meh... If you want to be immersed in the world at that level, you might as well include a locked first-person camera angle so you really feel like your "in character". Why, then you should start thinking about implementing those pesky features that are less game-like and add in a food/drink requirement and perma-death.
Hell, at this point you might as well jack yourself into the game somehow to prevent you from logging out instantly. You know, so it's more "realistic". Suuuuure, such a game would only attract a tiny niche audience of hardcore introverts, but at least YOU'D be happy.
...Oh, what's that? You don't think that'd be very fun? Well, welcome to the other side. Take a seat over there next to those gamers waiting for their dungeon queue to pop.
Some of those ideas are actually good despite your obvious sarcasm; aside from the plugging yourself into a game, they are all concepts worth considering, even if they don't need to be implemented in every game. Permadeath would be difficult with current tech limits, but 1st person and food and drink are ideas that definitely could fit in the right game. Even the"plug yourself in" idea isn't all that far off of what some people want to do with 3D. As for the waiting, you're assuming that the end focus of the players would remain the same even if everything else changed; obviously, if you're going to shift the focus back on the world, you would need to find some kind of substitute for what people currently find in dungeons. You could still probably have your big bosses at the end of a dungeon for those who really, really, really want to raid, but with that not being the focus, it'd be a lot easier to pull off without relying on heavy instancing all the time because you wouldn't have the entire player base trying to kill the same monster over and over and over. You would still probably need some instancing, but nearly to the same degree that games do now.
The trick to making travel interesting isn't to limit it to new places, its in making the old roads equally interesting. I agree that in most current MMOs, fast travel is basically needed because the world as a whole is stale and static. The whole idea of bringing slow travel back inherently means bringing back a world that throw surprises at you even in familiar territory that you've been over thousands of times. When you do the latter, the former makes considerably more sense, but that requires breaking the focus away from instances and dungeons and putting it back on the world, which many of the current generation will find very painful because they've never dealt with anything but heavy instancing and dungeons having the vast majority of meaningful content.
Well those types of systems aren't a bad method, and are worth trying. Arguably they're already in GW2, whose abundant world events cause areas to have a fair bit of gameplay variety.
But that's gameplay variety, while one of the most compelling reasons to travel is visual variety. Unless level design is the limiting factor (and it might be) then instead of doing a dynamic gameplay-variety system you could simply spend that time creating new areas and now you have a game (with fast travel) with tons of variety along both axis.
The dynamic travel event content will also get used up pretty fast, and at some point will probably feel a bit like having to replay the newbie zone in an MMORPG (repeatedly; every time you want to travel somewhere.) This is less a problem if all content is only found in dynamic travel events (although at that point why would you have a world to travel in anyway?) It would be even less a problem if you had control over which travel event occurs.
But again...seems like a lot of work just to get around the fact that fast travel and new world content will have all the advantages, and none of the disadvantages.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by YoungCaesar Who would like an MMORPG with these characteristics? It would help tons with immersion and making it a real world, an unnescesary hassle for others... No ingame map with a marker for your toon so you can actually get lost, altho you would get a compass or something and a regular map
Me,
I don't need either, to play a game. Those who need such things are those who are rookies & noobs. Or those who are simple-minded and doodle at MMORPG as a form of social club.
Anyone else, who wants an adventure & a challenge would also opt for nixing maps and other newbie crutches.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
Originally posted by YoungCaesar Who would like an MMORPG with these characteristics? It would help tons with immersion and making it a real world, an unnescesary hassle for others... No ingame map with a marker for your toon so you can actually get lost, altho you would get a compass or something and a regular map
Not me.
I don't play games for a real world. i play games to escape from one.
Reading a map is trivial, easy, no challenge, and not my idea of fun gameplay. Heck, back in the Might & Magic days, i had to draw my own map. That does not really make the game more fun.
I would much rather jump to deep combat.
Do you really believe that these games are trying to simulate your real life ? do you believe that you are Conan or Gimli in real life?
I hope that the answer is no.
These games tries to give the impression of fantasy worlds ...
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014. **On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Let's be realistic now. Let's say you get your slow travel. Do you really think you'll get players to buy into the idea of regional banking again? If not, doesn't that completely break all your other systems that depend on slow travel? Now take into consideration bind spots and player grouping, because you do want your players to be able to meet up and do their whole group thing, right?
If done right, yes, regional based economies would still work; there is still a player base that would jump to that particular aspect if done well and right. Insta travel does need to be in the game in some form, but outside of getting between major cities, insta travel needs to be in, and stay in, the realm of the players themselves. If enough players want it, it will be widely available; if not, its not in the way causing hidden problems elsewhere in the game's development.
"If done right" isn't an answer. It's a cop out for when you have no answer and want to blindly ignore history, fact and reality. The second half of your post does acknowledge reality, though, in its admission that players don't want to waste time with long travel times, thus the change we've seen in travel in most MMOs over the past ten years.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The only reason i am on this forum is that MMOs have been becoming better games over the year. I wouldn't waste my time if they are all like UO and EQ.
That's great, but you seem to fail to understand that some people still want worlds, not just multi player optional games. Just like you wouldnt waste your time with UO or EQ, many people are getting frustrated that no one is making a UO or EQ, and so they no longer have a place they can enjoy.
But you fail to understand that just because you want something doesn't mean you're going to get it. MMOs exist to make money, not to make you happy. If you want an MMO that caters to your tastes, there has to be a significant number of paying players who want the same thing. They're not going to make a game because you want them to, but because you represent a significant demographic and monetary source for developers.
So while I'm happy that you want a game like that, what you want means exactly jack squat. Come on back when you can prove you represent a couple of hundred thousand players willing to pay for such a game.
This ^^^
I also love old radio dramas like Dimension X, or X minus one, which are no longer produced. So what? No one owes me a new radio show, just like no one owes sunshadow21 a UO like game.
I am not going to apologize just because devs make games i like. I intend to enjoy them as long as it lasts.
And if you don't get your game, vote with your wallet more, or complains to the devs. Talking to me is barking up the wrong tree.
Originally posted by YoungCaesar Who would like an MMORPG with these characteristics? It would help tons with immersion and making it a real world, an unnescesary hassle for others... No ingame map with a marker for your toon so you can actually get lost, altho you would get a compass or something and a regular map
Not me.
I don't play games for a real world. i play games to escape from one.
Reading a map is trivial, easy, no challenge, and not my idea of fun gameplay. Heck, back in the Might & Magic days, i had to draw my own map. That does not really make the game more fun.
I would much rather jump to deep combat.
Do you really believe that these games are trying to simulate your real life ? do you believe that you are Conan or Gimli in real life?
I hope that the answer is no.
These games tries to give the impression of fantasy worlds ...
And more importantly, these games need to be fun. Again, did you miss the part about map making is easy mode gameplay, and without challenge, and no fun for me?
Originally posted by YoungCaesar Who would like an MMORPG with these characteristics? It would help tons with immersion and making it a real world, an unnescesary hassle for others... No ingame map with a marker for your toon so you can actually get lost, altho you would get a compass or something and a regular map
Not me.
I don't play games for a real world. i play games to escape from one.
Reading a map is trivial, easy, no challenge, and not my idea of fun gameplay. Heck, back in the Might & Magic days, i had to draw my own map. That does not really make the game more fun.
I would much rather jump to deep combat.
Do you really believe that these games are trying to simulate your real life ? do you believe that you are Conan or Gimli in real life?
I hope that the answer is no.
These games tries to give the impression of fantasy worlds ...
And more importantly, these games need to be fun. Again, did you miss the part about map making is easy mode gameplay, and without challenge, and no fun for me?
Fun card,the way you put it.
And more importantly,these games need to be fantasy worlds(fun).
i do agree.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014. **On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Originally posted by YoungCaesar Who would like an MMORPG with these characteristics? It would help tons with immersion and making it a real world, an unnescesary hassle for others... No ingame map with a marker for your toon so you can actually get lost, altho you would get a compass or something and a regular map
Not me.
I don't play games for a real world. i play games to escape from one.
Reading a map is trivial, easy, no challenge, and not my idea of fun gameplay. Heck, back in the Might & Magic days, i had to draw my own map. That does not really make the game more fun.
I would much rather jump to deep combat.
Do you really believe that these games are trying to simulate your real life ? do you believe that you are Conan or Gimli in real life?
I hope that the answer is no.
These games tries to give the impression of fantasy worlds ...
And more importantly, these games need to be fun. Again, did you miss the part about map making is easy mode gameplay, and without challenge, and no fun for me?
Fun card,the way you put it.
And more importantly,these games need to be fantasy worlds(fun).
i do agree.
"Fun card" is the only card that matters since we are talking about entertainment products.
And some may say a fantasy GAME is more fun than a fantasy world, depending of course, where non-fun elements/features are retained in the "world".
Originally posted by YoungCaesar Who would like an MMORPG with these characteristics? It would help tons with immersion and making it a real world, an unnescesary hassle for others... No ingame map with a marker for your toon so you can actually get lost, altho you would get a compass or something and a regular map
I could probably live without a minimap, but I'd have to have a compass and a regular 'M' key map. I've never really had fun in any game getting lost.
There's usually enough land marks, roads, terrain differences and zone boundaries to make getting lost difficult.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Originally posted by YoungCaesar Who would like an MMORPG with these characteristics? It would help tons with immersion and making it a real world, an unnescesary hassle for others... No ingame map with a marker for your toon so you can actually get lost, altho you would get a compass or something and a regular map
I could probably live without a minimap, but I'd have to have a compass and a regular 'M' key map. I've never really had fun in any game getting lost.
There's usually enough land marks, roads, terrain differences and zone boundaries to make getting lost difficult.
That's why they need to stop giving everyone 20/20 vision. Why isn't there a near sighted gnome?
Originally posted by dave6660 Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by YoungCaesarWho would like an MMORPG with these characteristics? It would help tons with immersion and making it a real world, an unnescesary hassle for others... No ingame map with a marker for your toon so you can actually get lost, altho you would get a compass or something and a regular map
I could probably live without a minimap, but I'd have to have a compass and a regular 'M' key map. I've never really had fun in any game getting lost.There's usually enough land marks, roads, terrain differences and zone boundaries to make getting lost difficult.
I have no desire to try and figure out where I am in a game world without any sort of navigation system in place. Even if I didn't get lost, I like maps, compasses and even coordinate systems.
Now, a player driven cartography system sounds cool, but I would still want the compass and the ability to pull out a large scale map 'M' key style with a marker for where I am. I would be fine with buying maps from other players or updating maps on my own though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The trick to making travel interesting isn't to limit it to new places, its in making the old roads equally interesting. I agree that in most current MMOs, fast travel is basically needed because the world as a whole is stale and static. The whole idea of bringing slow travel back inherently means bringing back a world that throw surprises at you even in familiar territory that you've been over thousands of times. When you do the latter, the former makes considerably more sense, but that requires breaking the focus away from instances and dungeons and putting it back on the world, which many of the current generation will find very painful because they've never dealt with anything but heavy instancing and dungeons having the vast majority of meaningful content.
Well those types of systems aren't a bad method, and are worth trying. Arguably they're already in GW2, whose abundant world events cause areas to have a fair bit of gameplay variety.
But that's gameplay variety, while one of the most compelling reasons to travel is visual variety. Unless level design is the limiting factor (and it might be) then instead of doing a dynamic gameplay-variety system you could simply spend that time creating new areas and now you have a game (with fast travel) with tons of variety along both axis.
The dynamic travel event content will also get used up pretty fast, and at some point will probably feel a bit like having to replay the newbie zone in an MMORPG (repeatedly; every time you want to travel somewhere.) This is less a problem if all content is only found in dynamic travel events (although at that point why would you have a world to travel in anyway?) It would be even less a problem if you had control over which travel event occurs.
But again...seems like a lot of work just to get around the fact that fast travel and new world content will have all the advantages, and none of the disadvantages.
It's actually not all that hard. It does mean jettisoning level based zones. FFXI remains a very good example of how to do this. In the course of playing it, you see mostly the same zones over and over and over but each time you go there, you are going to a different corner or a different marker and seeing other people going to the different places each time. You don't need specific dynamic content if you design the zones so that the different activities that engage a variety people at different levels blend together to create that kind of feeling. If you did that and still wanted to use dynamic content, you could, but really the key to a good world isn't dynamic content, it's a good zone design.
The only reason i am on this forum is that MMOs have been becoming better games over the year. I wouldn't waste my time if they are all like UO and EQ.
That's great, but you seem to fail to understand that some people still want worlds, not just multi player optional games. Just like you wouldnt waste your time with UO or EQ, many people are getting frustrated that no one is making a UO or EQ, and so they no longer have a place they can enjoy.
But you fail to understand that just because you want something doesn't mean you're going to get it. MMOs exist to make money, not to make you happy. If you want an MMO that caters to your tastes, there has to be a significant number of paying players who want the same thing. They're not going to make a game because you want them to, but because you represent a significant demographic and monetary source for developers.
So while I'm happy that you want a game like that, what you want means exactly jack squat. Come on back when you can prove you represent a couple of hundred thousand players willing to pay for such a game.
This ^^^
I also love old radio dramas like Dimension X, or X minus one, which are no longer produced. So what? No one owes me a new radio show, just like no one owes sunshadow21 a UO like game.
I am not going to apologize just because devs make games i like. I intend to enjoy them as long as it lasts.
And if you don't get your game, vote with your wallet more, or complains to the devs. Talking to me is barking up the wrong tree.
It's actually not all that hard. It does mean jettisoning level based zones. FFXI remains a very good example of how to do this. In the course of playing it, you see mostly the same zones over and over and over but each time you go there, you are going to a different corner or a different marker and seeing other people going to the different places each time. You don't need specific dynamic content if you design the zones so that the different activities that engage a variety people at different levels blend together to create that kind of feeling. If you did that and still wanted to use dynamic content, you could, but really the key to a good world isn't dynamic content, it's a good zone design.
Well that sounds like the exact problem I'm describing though, if you're tasked with visiting specific points for new content:
For Quest #1 you travel somewhere and experience a Dynamic Travel Event (DTE). Both are fresh, new, and fun.
For Quest #200 you travel and experience a DTE. Like most DTEs of your last 100 quests, it's a repeat DTE, so the travel portion of your experience is old and actually feels like a barrier to reaching the fresh new content you'll experience when you reach the location for Quest #200.
That's why it pairs up badly with discrete world content, because the content doesn't "age" at the same rate.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's actually not all that hard. It does mean jettisoning level based zones. FFXI remains a very good example of how to do this. In the course of playing it, you see mostly the same zones over and over and over but each time you go there, you are going to a different corner or a different marker and seeing other people going to the different places each time. You don't need specific dynamic content if you design the zones so that the different activities that engage a variety people at different levels blend together to create that kind of feeling. If you did that and still wanted to use dynamic content, you could, but really the key to a good world isn't dynamic content, it's a good zone design.
Well that sounds like the exact problem I'm describing though, if you're tasked with visiting specific points for new content:
For Quest #1 you travel somewhere and experience a Dynamic Travel Event (DTE). Both are fresh, new, and fun.
For Quest #200 you travel and experience a DTE. Like most DTEs of your last 100 quests, it's a repeat DTE, so the travel portion of your experience is old and actually feels like a barrier to reaching the fresh new content you'll experience when you reach the location for Quest #200.
That's why it pairs up badly with discrete world content, because the content doesn't "age" at the same rate.
And yet, FFXI worked fine. Travel was changed by coming across someone needing help or someone spawning something they couldn't handle, and pulling it across the paths of other players, or similar things. A well designed zone lets the different players create the interesting things that can happen while traveling.
And yet, FFXI worked fine. Travel was changed by coming across someone needing help or someone spawning something they couldn't handle, and pulling it across the paths of other players, or similar things. A well designed zone lets the different players create the interesting things that can happen while traveling.
Er, this discussion is built upon players disliking slow travel. They dislike it in games where you can stumble across other players in the same way you seem to be describing FFXI, so obviously stumbling upon others completely fails to make slow travel worth it.
I imagine the following things were true of FFXI travel:
You didn't stumble upon another player 100% of the time. So all of your travel was boring during those times.
The times you did stumble upon another player, you still had to travel the full remaining distance after helping them.
So it just seems to take us back to the original argument: slow travel is an overwhelming waste of players time.
Really to fix the problem with dynamic gameplay it's much more than simply having dynamic content in between locations. It's about having that content replace travel.
If someone filmed the ultra-boring "Lord of the Rings, in Real-Time" movie, it would last 1 year and be composed 99% of uneventful scenes (characters traveling or sleeping or eating.) Adding 30 days of eventful new scenes to the movie would help, but it wouldn't overcome the fact that the movie is still like 11.5 months worth of utterly boring content.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And yet, FFXI worked fine. Travel was changed by coming across someone needing help or someone spawning something they couldn't handle, and pulling it across the paths of other players, or similar things. A well designed zone lets the different players create the interesting things that can happen while traveling.
Er, this discussion is built upon players disliking slow travel. They dislike it in games where you can stumble across other players in the same way you seem to be describing FFXI, so obviously stumbling upon others completely fails to make slow travel worth it.
I imagine the following things were true of FFXI travel:
You didn't stumble upon another player 100% of the time. So all of your travel was boring during those times.
The times you did stumble upon another player, you still had to travel the full remaining distance after helping them.
So it just seems to take us back to the original argument: slow travel is an overwhelming waste of players time.
Really to fix the problem with dynamic gameplay it's much more than simply having dynamic content in between locations. It's about having that content replace travel.
If someone filmed the ultra-boring "Lord of the Rings, in Real-Time" movie, it would last 1 year and be composed 99% of uneventful scenes (characters traveling or sleeping or eating.) Adding 30 days of eventful new scenes to the movie would help, but it wouldn't overcome the fact that the movie is still like 11.5 months worth of utterly boring content.
You seem to be arguing that the devs have to hand you fun every moment in the game or its a waste of time, and that's a gulf we'll never bridge. It's not the dev's responsibility to make everything fun 100% of the time, it's the dev's responsibility to give the players the tools they need to have an overall fun experience. If the players don't use those tools, or think that the game isn't going to have at least some kind of downtime or repetitive content, no MMO will ever be able to satisfy them. Unlike other genres where devs create the content, push it out there, and move on to the next project, the environment that MMOs operate in require an investment of time and effort from both devs and players that isn't present in other genres. Slow travel is part of that.
Comments
The trick to making travel interesting isn't to limit it to new places, its in making the old roads equally interesting. I agree that in most current MMOs, fast travel is basically needed because the world as a whole is stale and static. The whole idea of bringing slow travel back inherently means bringing back a world that throw surprises at you even in familiar territory that you've been over thousands of times. When you do the latter, the former makes considerably more sense, but that requires breaking the focus away from instances and dungeons and putting it back on the world, which many of the current generation will find very painful because they've never dealt with anything but heavy instancing and dungeons having the vast majority of meaningful content.
meh... If you want to be immersed in the world at that level, you might as well include a locked first-person camera angle so you really feel like your "in character". Why, then you should start thinking about implementing those pesky features that are less game-like and add in a food/drink requirement and perma-death.
Hell, at this point you might as well jack yourself into the game somehow to prevent you from logging out instantly. You know, so it's more "realistic". Suuuuure, such a game would only attract a tiny niche audience of hardcore introverts, but at least YOU'D be happy.
...Oh, what's that? You don't think that'd be very fun? Well, welcome to the other side. Take a seat over there next to those gamers waiting for their dungeon queue to pop.
Some of those ideas are actually good despite your obvious sarcasm; aside from the plugging yourself into a game, they are all concepts worth considering, even if they don't need to be implemented in every game. Permadeath would be difficult with current tech limits, but 1st person and food and drink are ideas that definitely could fit in the right game. Even the"plug yourself in" idea isn't all that far off of what some people want to do with 3D. As for the waiting, you're assuming that the end focus of the players would remain the same even if everything else changed; obviously, if you're going to shift the focus back on the world, you would need to find some kind of substitute for what people currently find in dungeons. You could still probably have your big bosses at the end of a dungeon for those who really, really, really want to raid, but with that not being the focus, it'd be a lot easier to pull off without relying on heavy instancing all the time because you wouldn't have the entire player base trying to kill the same monster over and over and over. You would still probably need some instancing, but nearly to the same degree that games do now.
Well those types of systems aren't a bad method, and are worth trying. Arguably they're already in GW2, whose abundant world events cause areas to have a fair bit of gameplay variety.
But that's gameplay variety, while one of the most compelling reasons to travel is visual variety. Unless level design is the limiting factor (and it might be) then instead of doing a dynamic gameplay-variety system you could simply spend that time creating new areas and now you have a game (with fast travel) with tons of variety along both axis.
The dynamic travel event content will also get used up pretty fast, and at some point will probably feel a bit like having to replay the newbie zone in an MMORPG (repeatedly; every time you want to travel somewhere.) This is less a problem if all content is only found in dynamic travel events (although at that point why would you have a world to travel in anyway?) It would be even less a problem if you had control over which travel event occurs.
But again...seems like a lot of work just to get around the fact that fast travel and new world content will have all the advantages, and none of the disadvantages.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Me,
I don't need either, to play a game. Those who need such things are those who are rookies & noobs. Or those who are simple-minded and doodle at MMORPG as a form of social club.
Anyone else, who wants an adventure & a challenge would also opt for nixing maps and other newbie crutches.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
Do you really believe that these games are trying to simulate your real life ? do you believe that you are Conan or Gimli in real life?
I hope that the answer is no.
These games tries to give the impression of fantasy worlds ...
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
No mini map and instant travel will created a lots interest things like traveling merchants and bandits or large scale war.
It wasn't bad idea like some people say if use it wise
But it need a reason to add in game , instances themepark like WOW need mini map and instant travel.
I think "no mini map and instant travel" fix well with open world MMORPGs , it add more adventure element which need in open world.
"If done right" isn't an answer. It's a cop out for when you have no answer and want to blindly ignore history, fact and reality. The second half of your post does acknowledge reality, though, in its admission that players don't want to waste time with long travel times, thus the change we've seen in travel in most MMOs over the past ten years.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This ^^^
I also love old radio dramas like Dimension X, or X minus one, which are no longer produced. So what? No one owes me a new radio show, just like no one owes sunshadow21 a UO like game.
I am not going to apologize just because devs make games i like. I intend to enjoy them as long as it lasts.
And if you don't get your game, vote with your wallet more, or complains to the devs. Talking to me is barking up the wrong tree.
And more importantly, these games need to be fun. Again, did you miss the part about map making is easy mode gameplay, and without challenge, and no fun for me?
Fun card,the way you put it.
And more importantly,these games need to be fantasy worlds(fun).
i do agree.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
"Fun card" is the only card that matters since we are talking about entertainment products.
And some may say a fantasy GAME is more fun than a fantasy world, depending of course, where non-fun elements/features are retained in the "world".
There's usually enough land marks, roads, terrain differences and zone boundaries to make getting lost difficult.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
That's why they need to stop giving everyone 20/20 vision. Why isn't there a near sighted gnome?
There's usually enough land marks, roads, terrain differences and zone boundaries to make getting lost difficult.
I have no desire to try and figure out where I am in a game world without any sort of navigation system in place. Even if I didn't get lost, I like maps, compasses and even coordinate systems.
Now, a player driven cartography system sounds cool, but I would still want the compass and the ability to pull out a large scale map 'M' key style with a marker for where I am. I would be fine with buying maps from other players or updating maps on my own though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Because no one will play a VIDEO game when they cannot see the video?
It's actually not all that hard. It does mean jettisoning level based zones. FFXI remains a very good example of how to do this. In the course of playing it, you see mostly the same zones over and over and over but each time you go there, you are going to a different corner or a different marker and seeing other people going to the different places each time. You don't need specific dynamic content if you design the zones so that the different activities that engage a variety people at different levels blend together to create that kind of feeling. If you did that and still wanted to use dynamic content, you could, but really the key to a good world isn't dynamic content, it's a good zone design.
But it'd be more IMMERSIVE and REALISTIC!!
I was trying to be sarcastic. Tho toying with vision could be something done. Like being able to see far away or in the darkness without a torch.
The highlighted portion, in general, is correct.
hahah i got that.
It is funny that people think that games should be immersive and realistic as opposed to be fun.
Well that sounds like the exact problem I'm describing though, if you're tasked with visiting specific points for new content:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And yet, FFXI worked fine. Travel was changed by coming across someone needing help or someone spawning something they couldn't handle, and pulling it across the paths of other players, or similar things. A well designed zone lets the different players create the interesting things that can happen while traveling.
Not really; some people dare to think that a game could be both at the same time.
Er, this discussion is built upon players disliking slow travel. They dislike it in games where you can stumble across other players in the same way you seem to be describing FFXI, so obviously stumbling upon others completely fails to make slow travel worth it.
I imagine the following things were true of FFXI travel:
So it just seems to take us back to the original argument: slow travel is an overwhelming waste of players time.
Really to fix the problem with dynamic gameplay it's much more than simply having dynamic content in between locations. It's about having that content replace travel.
If someone filmed the ultra-boring "Lord of the Rings, in Real-Time" movie, it would last 1 year and be composed 99% of uneventful scenes (characters traveling or sleeping or eating.) Adding 30 days of eventful new scenes to the movie would help, but it wouldn't overcome the fact that the movie is still like 11.5 months worth of utterly boring content.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You seem to be arguing that the devs have to hand you fun every moment in the game or its a waste of time, and that's a gulf we'll never bridge. It's not the dev's responsibility to make everything fun 100% of the time, it's the dev's responsibility to give the players the tools they need to have an overall fun experience. If the players don't use those tools, or think that the game isn't going to have at least some kind of downtime or repetitive content, no MMO will ever be able to satisfy them. Unlike other genres where devs create the content, push it out there, and move on to the next project, the environment that MMOs operate in require an investment of time and effort from both devs and players that isn't present in other genres. Slow travel is part of that.