But i sure think that the author can also see from another perspective :
If a person is not able to find a helping group then he looses interest in the game when he comes.... So being independent is all essential as the group... Gammers should not feel obligated to take help for every thing... as said the basic urge of a WINNER is what the gaming community offers... That said we must have periodic intervals in the gme where gamers need to come together to play side by side and build bonds.. BUT TOTAL dependence on other players guidance for ppl to play is difficult
MMO's need to work on this. Its not about forced grouping, its about putting in game dynamics that promote or encourage positive player interaction.
A great example of this was in SWG pre-nge, in addition to leveling up your skills from a skill trainer NPC, any other player who had the skill could teach it to you. Some did it for money, others just to be nice. It was such a small thing but many of the friends I'd made in SWG were from either having someone teach me, or teaching someone else.
MMO's need to work on this. Its not about forced grouping, its about putting in game dynamics that promote or encourage positive player interaction. A great example of this was in SWG pre-nge, in addition to leveling up your skills from a skill trainer NPC, any other player who had the skill could teach it to you. Some did it for money, others just to be nice. It was such a small thing but many of the friends I'd made in SWG were from either having someone teach me, or teaching someone else.
I enjoyed that part of SWG. Also crafters making house items. Thats another social aspect of MMO's I enjoy. There are many areas that can be social and interactive besides requiring group combat.
MMO's need to work on this. Its not about forced grouping, its about putting in game dynamics that promote or encourage positive player interaction. A great example of this was in SWG pre-nge, in addition to leveling up your skills from a skill trainer NPC, any other player who had the skill could teach it to you. Some did it for money, others just to be nice. It was such a small thing but many of the friends I'd made in SWG were from either having someone teach me, or teaching someone else.
I enjoyed that part of SWG. Also crafters making house items. Thats another social aspect of MMO's I enjoy. There are many areas that can be social and interactive besides requiring group combat.
Image Designers were good too. LoTRO has npc barbers if you want to change your hair color/stye. Why not make it a player skill? Anything to promote or encourage positive player interaction. So much can be done without talking about grouping for pve.
Careful shipmate, the anti-gamers will be all over you for starting a cult and the next thing you know they will bring up the Doom Deal right next to “playing Stairway to Heaven” backwards to hear Satin. Lol.
ROTFL. Your post reminded me of an interview with Robert Pant I heard years ago where the interviewer asked him about subliminal "backwards" satanic messages on Stariway to Heaven. He said [I'm paraphrasing], "No, but if we thought any of that worked, we wouldn't have wasted time with satanic messages. We would have put something on there like buy the next album"
O.k so being forced to group in a mmorpg to improve the character you are playing sucks.
That's pretty much the generalization of it. People want to choose when and how they group. Then why doesn't companies like Blizzard ect understand this ? Ccp seems to understand this philosophy.
Originally posted by Torchwood
To be blunt, If I cannot solo/duo well in a game, I will not play it.
I think we see less freeform play, classless systems and such, is, it is harder to force you into a group, if you can do more then one narrow role.
Raids seem like lazy programing. Instead of making an instance adjust to the amount of people in a group, one or more, you need mass amounts of people. Each person with limited roles. We ended up with roles that take over classes. Tanks better tank, and so on.
I work, juggle family, and play. I might be playing for an hour, or two. If I get a day off and get to play for a whole day, I don't want to waste it, searching for groups, getting into a group were my "warrior" has one task, stand there and spam hate skills.
I want to get some levels, do some mining, do some crafting. But, if the scripts for crafting come from a raid, or a componet is only found in a group instance, Well, I will not be crafting.
It comes down to, the more a game forces me into a small role, and a large group, the less I will be there. The social aspect for me, is global chats, market channel, buying and selling on a market. If someone needs some help, grouping with them to help them out, then going on my way.
I cannot be called casual, I generally have two to six accounts going at any one time. Two in one game, couple other games and such. Tend to play an hour or so at night, and most of the weekends.
I played EnB untill gate raids. I played COH untill you had to have a group to get a respec. I played SWG untill you had to raid to make BH armor. Played eq2 recently, till they started talking about making classes more dependant on each other, and getting Tanks back to being Tanks. I don't play tanks, I play fighters. So bye eq2. Lotro same problem. When conan starts nerfing solo/duo play, I will leave it as well.
If MMO's go to total forced social group games, that is fine with me, I will simply not play them. I will not be hampered by , people randomly quitting groups, bio breaks that go on forever, The I only have 30 minutes till school so don't read the quest text people, the reasons go on and on for me.
Last note, It really bugs me when people say, Oh yeah you have to have a group for that quest, but you can get a group easy and do it. I might be
QFTMFT, I couldn't say it better myself. If i group i want to group on my terms not the games.
I think someone hit the nail on the head when they said "EVE Only encourages joining a corporation because its so dangerous to group with unknown people"
Even in safe space, grouping with someone can merly be a trick to find your location.
in addition, since the new player experience is utter tosh in eve its often easier to ask questions and get a human reply than it is to figure it out for yourself, hence you often spark a debate as people fall over themselves to help you.
I should also point out that the growth of eve is often players buying additional accounts and paying for them with in-game money, I have two accounts myself now, but only because I can afford it, and I have friends who have grown their accounts to over 10. If you like Eve then its practically the norm that you would have multiple accounts not long after starting.
I doubt that there is much genuine growth on Eve.
Its incredibly easy to join partys in City of Heroes too, and yet that is one of the few mmo's that I can jump into at any point and be instantly botherd by people wanting to form a party, rather than every other mmo where i genuinly prefer to solo, even if I wanted to party you can shout LFG all day with out a whisper.
I think this is because CoH is one of the few mmo's where after a certain level its very difficult to solo, and the advantage of teaming so vastly out weighs any advantage of soloing that it just doesnt happen. And CoH like all mmo's has seen a decline over the years, not a steady growth.
In conclusion, I disagree or highly seceptical that EVE's growth is associated with its socialism, it may contribute but paying for subscription using in game money is more likley the reason.
In addition, I doubt making grouping "too easy" is destroying MMO's on the contrary, its the fact that they make them too easy to solo. We appear to be in an age where people demand Massivly Multiplayer games who then demand them to be soloable.
in any case, your theory doesnt explain why Wow (a very typical mmo in reality) continues to see growth,
I think you are correct. The new games just don't make you feel neccesary. Any 10 year old can fill your shoes....that's just annoying. (Nothing against 10 year olds).
It's one of the things that kept me playing EQ for so long, at least it used to matter that you took along someone who actually knew how to play their class. Not all healers were the same and it made a big difference if you had made a name for yourself.
Today they have dumbed it all down so much that you just need another body to fill the slot. It makes it easy to group but takes away that feeling of being wanted and needed. I remember many nights playing as a cleric that if I wanted to log it was going to break the group. I lost a lot of sleep to the begging of others, LOL. We burned a lot of time just getting the right group set up but then we rocked it for hours.
Today, if you log out it's no big deal, they can get anyone else.
I would ask, what's the point of playing an MMO if you are not integral to the experience of others? You may as well play a single player game, the story is almost always better and you are the hero of the whole story. Plus, you have a pause key.
Of all the games I have played for any time EVE is one of the few that I would consider going back to. I think the only reason I quit was I burned myself out mining while trying to fill a contract my little corporation had.
I am not currently playing any MMOs because I'm waiting for something great to come along. I am tired of all the same old thing copies of one another. You would think nobody has any imagination the way fantasy MMOs keep churning out. It's almost like they way every automobile looks the same if it was made by the big 3. No wonder they are doomed. (I hope that's not true but...)
I can make Torchwood's words mine, if he don't mind, OFC.
About EVE, and why it is growing (as slowly that CCP is focused in another project right now) I have to disagree with the author. As someone already said, rule number 1 in EVE: "Don't trust anyone". I've played it for the last (almost) 4 years and I still remember the Bio of one guy when I was in the trial period: "Welcome to the Internet, the place where guys are guys, girls are guys and children are FBI agents". I did not gave credit to that words... I was robbed, betrayed (more than once) and ended with my 3 accounts, 9 characters in a Corporation with 9 members.
You can ask: But what made you play the game all this time? I really don't know, maybe complexity, maybe the freedom to change but more than nothing I never got the End Game. Reaching cap level and asking yourself - Now what? Never happened in EVE, even to those 100+ characters that have 100,000,000 skill points.
About the necessity to grind, as mostly MMO, in EVE you have to grind or either buy your isk with RL money. You can't even train your skills if you don't have money to buy them 1st, not to talk in use that said skils to fly something, no isk, no ship. Oh you lost your ship? Was insured? Hope you didn't fit it with fanction/deadspace/officer mods...
I still love that game, don't ask me why, but is not because social interaction as I had much, much more playing LotRO with only one character that I had in EVE in that (almost) 4 years with 9.
Sorry for my english, is not my native language and, OFC, I'm not the "Holder of the Truth".
I agree whole heartedly with everything you said Dana in this post (other than about the bar menu being a bad idea). Things such as 'a virtual world not a game', 'social interaction' and 'player made content' I couldn't agree more on. My only problem is that a few weeks ago you told us what a hit Star Wars TOR is going to be. While Bioware are going to produce a wonderful polished world with great story content for the single player in an MMO, it also seems to me that TOR will do just about everything different to Eve. It is definitely the WoW/WAR model. So what exactly do you believe is the right recipe for success because you seem to be hedging your bets?
Comments
BRAVO BRAVO tats exactly wat i had in mind too:P
The post tells the truth of MMOs
But i sure think that the author can also see from another perspective :
If a person is not able to find a helping group then he looses interest in the game when he comes.... So being independent is all essential as the group... Gammers should not feel obligated to take help for every thing... as said the basic urge of a WINNER is what the gaming community offers... That said we must have periodic intervals in the gme where gamers need to come together to play side by side and build bonds.. BUT TOTAL dependence on other players guidance for ppl to play is difficult
MMO's need to work on this. Its not about forced grouping, its about putting in game dynamics that promote or encourage positive player interaction.
A great example of this was in SWG pre-nge, in addition to leveling up your skills from a skill trainer NPC, any other player who had the skill could teach it to you. Some did it for money, others just to be nice. It was such a small thing but many of the friends I'd made in SWG were from either having someone teach me, or teaching someone else.
I enjoyed that part of SWG. Also crafters making house items. Thats another social aspect of MMO's I enjoy. There are many areas that can be social and interactive besides requiring group combat.
ruat caelum
I enjoyed that part of SWG. Also crafters making house items. Thats another social aspect of MMO's I enjoy. There are many areas that can be social and interactive besides requiring group combat.
Image Designers were good too. LoTRO has npc barbers if you want to change your hair color/stye. Why not make it a player skill? Anything to promote or encourage positive player interaction. So much can be done without talking about grouping for pve.
ROTFL. Your post reminded me of an interview with Robert Pant I heard years ago where the interviewer asked him about subliminal "backwards" satanic messages on Stariway to Heaven. He said [I'm paraphrasing], "No, but if we thought any of that worked, we wouldn't have wasted time with satanic messages. We would have put something on there like buy the next album"
O.k so being forced to group in a mmorpg to improve the character you are playing sucks.
That's pretty much the generalization of it. People want to choose when and how they group. Then why doesn't companies like Blizzard ect understand this ? Ccp seems to understand this philosophy.
Originally posted by Torchwood
To be blunt, If I cannot solo/duo well in a game, I will not play it.
I think we see less freeform play, classless systems and such, is, it is harder to force you into a group, if you can do more then one narrow role.
Raids seem like lazy programing. Instead of making an instance adjust to the amount of people in a group, one or more, you need mass amounts of people. Each person with limited roles. We ended up with roles that take over classes. Tanks better tank, and so on.
I work, juggle family, and play. I might be playing for an hour, or two. If I get a day off and get to play for a whole day, I don't want to waste it, searching for groups, getting into a group were my "warrior" has one task, stand there and spam hate skills.
I want to get some levels, do some mining, do some crafting. But, if the scripts for crafting come from a raid, or a componet is only found in a group instance, Well, I will not be crafting.
It comes down to, the more a game forces me into a small role, and a large group, the less I will be there. The social aspect for me, is global chats, market channel, buying and selling on a market. If someone needs some help, grouping with them to help them out, then going on my way.
I cannot be called casual, I generally have two to six accounts going at any one time. Two in one game, couple other games and such. Tend to play an hour or so at night, and most of the weekends.
I played EnB untill gate raids. I played COH untill you had to have a group to get a respec. I played SWG untill you had to raid to make BH armor. Played eq2 recently, till they started talking about making classes more dependant on each other, and getting Tanks back to being Tanks. I don't play tanks, I play fighters. So bye eq2. Lotro same problem. When conan starts nerfing solo/duo play, I will leave it as well.
If MMO's go to total forced social group games, that is fine with me, I will simply not play them. I will not be hampered by , people randomly quitting groups, bio breaks that go on forever, The I only have 30 minutes till school so don't read the quest text people, the reasons go on and on for me.
Last note, It really bugs me when people say, Oh yeah you have to have a group for that quest, but you can get a group easy and do it. I might be
QFTMFT, I couldn't say it better myself. If i group i want to group on my terms not the games.
I think someone hit the nail on the head when they said "EVE Only encourages joining a corporation because its so dangerous to group with unknown people"
Even in safe space, grouping with someone can merly be a trick to find your location.
in addition, since the new player experience is utter tosh in eve its often easier to ask questions and get a human reply than it is to figure it out for yourself, hence you often spark a debate as people fall over themselves to help you.
I should also point out that the growth of eve is often players buying additional accounts and paying for them with in-game money, I have two accounts myself now, but only because I can afford it, and I have friends who have grown their accounts to over 10. If you like Eve then its practically the norm that you would have multiple accounts not long after starting.
I doubt that there is much genuine growth on Eve.
Its incredibly easy to join partys in City of Heroes too, and yet that is one of the few mmo's that I can jump into at any point and be instantly botherd by people wanting to form a party, rather than every other mmo where i genuinly prefer to solo, even if I wanted to party you can shout LFG all day with out a whisper.
I think this is because CoH is one of the few mmo's where after a certain level its very difficult to solo, and the advantage of teaming so vastly out weighs any advantage of soloing that it just doesnt happen. And CoH like all mmo's has seen a decline over the years, not a steady growth.
In conclusion, I disagree or highly seceptical that EVE's growth is associated with its socialism, it may contribute but paying for subscription using in game money is more likley the reason.
In addition, I doubt making grouping "too easy" is destroying MMO's on the contrary, its the fact that they make them too easy to solo. We appear to be in an age where people demand Massivly Multiplayer games who then demand them to be soloable.
in any case, your theory doesnt explain why Wow (a very typical mmo in reality) continues to see growth,
Excellent article.
I think you are correct. The new games just don't make you feel neccesary. Any 10 year old can fill your shoes....that's just annoying. (Nothing against 10 year olds).
It's one of the things that kept me playing EQ for so long, at least it used to matter that you took along someone who actually knew how to play their class. Not all healers were the same and it made a big difference if you had made a name for yourself.
Today they have dumbed it all down so much that you just need another body to fill the slot. It makes it easy to group but takes away that feeling of being wanted and needed. I remember many nights playing as a cleric that if I wanted to log it was going to break the group. I lost a lot of sleep to the begging of others, LOL. We burned a lot of time just getting the right group set up but then we rocked it for hours.
Today, if you log out it's no big deal, they can get anyone else.
I would ask, what's the point of playing an MMO if you are not integral to the experience of others? You may as well play a single player game, the story is almost always better and you are the hero of the whole story. Plus, you have a pause key.
Of all the games I have played for any time EVE is one of the few that I would consider going back to. I think the only reason I quit was I burned myself out mining while trying to fill a contract my little corporation had.
I am not currently playing any MMOs because I'm waiting for something great to come along. I am tired of all the same old thing copies of one another. You would think nobody has any imagination the way fantasy MMOs keep churning out. It's almost like they way every automobile looks the same if it was made by the big 3. No wonder they are doomed. (I hope that's not true but...)
I can make Torchwood's words mine, if he don't mind, OFC.
About EVE, and why it is growing (as slowly that CCP is focused in another project right now) I have to disagree with the author. As someone already said, rule number 1 in EVE: "Don't trust anyone". I've played it for the last (almost) 4 years and I still remember the Bio of one guy when I was in the trial period: "Welcome to the Internet, the place where guys are guys, girls are guys and children are FBI agents". I did not gave credit to that words... I was robbed, betrayed (more than once) and ended with my 3 accounts, 9 characters in a Corporation with 9 members.
You can ask: But what made you play the game all this time? I really don't know, maybe complexity, maybe the freedom to change but more than nothing I never got the End Game. Reaching cap level and asking yourself - Now what? Never happened in EVE, even to those 100+ characters that have 100,000,000 skill points.
About the necessity to grind, as mostly MMO, in EVE you have to grind or either buy your isk with RL money. You can't even train your skills if you don't have money to buy them 1st, not to talk in use that said skils to fly something, no isk, no ship. Oh you lost your ship? Was insured? Hope you didn't fit it with fanction/deadspace/officer mods...
I still love that game, don't ask me why, but is not because social interaction as I had much, much more playing LotRO with only one character that I had in EVE in that (almost) 4 years with 9.
Sorry for my english, is not my native language and, OFC, I'm not the "Holder of the Truth".
I love this thread. Great thoughts from everyone!
I agree whole heartedly with everything you said Dana in this post (other than about the bar menu being a bad idea). Things such as 'a virtual world not a game', 'social interaction' and 'player made content' I couldn't agree more on. My only problem is that a few weeks ago you told us what a hit Star Wars TOR is going to be. While Bioware are going to produce a wonderful polished world with great story content for the single player in an MMO, it also seems to me that TOR will do just about everything different to Eve. It is definitely the WoW/WAR model. So what exactly do you believe is the right recipe for success because you seem to be hedging your bets?