I think that most sane people realise you NEED downtime and that to not have it puts into question why you are paying to play a game that is not updated and changed occasionally. The problem then lies in how often downtime is, interestingly I think more downtime is better, as I explain below.
Downtime at short predictable times everyday (such as Eve used to have) were my favourite. Small downtimes did not distract much because you knew it was coming every day and you always had something ready to do at that time. It also meant any problems from one patch could be fixed the next day without disruption.
Downtime once a week at a specific day was something WoW used to do and this also had its benefits as you would not set raids that day. the problem is that if the patch stuffed up then the next day would be a second downtime, which could get annoying (hence blizzard gave some free time occasionally to make up for patching).
Downtime 2-3 weeks apart is getting annoying. AoC does this and it is frustrating for two reasons. Firstly you forget you got downtime coming up and are ready to play and then find out you can't. Secondly If the patch stuffs up then time you would otherwise have to play is taken up.
Random downtimes is simply ridiculous, last thing you want is that your only raiding time each week suddenly has to be broken because they are patching. i don't think anyone wants this.
The Situation: MMORPG's lack downtime. The benefit of this, is that you get more done in less time. You also do not have to wait around and watch a bar rise slowly up to 100%, which when your solo can be boring. The cons to no downtime is that there is less social interaction when grouped, and the game feels more gamey and less worldy (I made those terms up, haha). The Proposal: Bring back downtime. The way to do this is allow the ability to set up camps. DAoC did this eventually with campfires, where you got a small buff to recovery. WoW has this, which does the same thing. SWG literally allowed you to set up a camp, which is the best example of camps. The benefit of camps is that it allows for socializing, which would greatly increase the comradre amongst the community, building a tight community that once used to exist in MMORPG's, and STILL can exist now. When you're sitting around a campfire, with not much better to do, you end up talking with others and making friends. Another benefit of downtime is that it allows for perfect times for bio breaks or to take a bite of that sandwich ( ). Even if you aren't grouped, a person passing by another who has a camp setup may stop by and say hello. Then again, maybe they won't. But it's more likely they will compared to when you're running past each other 5 miles an hour to get to the next quest objective. It forces players to STOP, and enjoy the PRESENT. Gamers are so focused on the future while in the game, that they never take the time to get to know the number 1 asset any game has to offer: A Community. You Decide: Bring back downtime, or lose it forever?
WoW doesn't have camps though? When you run instances in WoW, you just go through it really fast without any downtime at all.
EQ had camps and downtime, because players camped NPCs with slower spawn rates, or the opponents are actually difficult and use up hp/mana when you fight them, unlike the joke NPCs in WoW that are designed for retarded players who just have to mash the same button to kill something.
Downtime isn't bad, because the exp rate is independent of downtime. For instance, if a mob will use up lots of hp/mana, maybe have it drop better loot, or give more exp. It's too bad in WoW and other newer MMORPGs all the NPCs are basically the same and allow players to kill them one after the other without breaks.
I never thought of down-time as being an intended mechanic in a MMO. I thought of it as something that comes out of the pacing of the gameplay.
People discussing it as an intended mechanic, added just for the sake of adding delays sounds kinda silly to me, because I can't think of a single scenario in all my time playing MMOs where it was like "Okay... now we wait 10 minutes... just because".
In my experience, downtime has come as a result of, say, mages needing to regen their MP after a particularly tough string of fights where they were unable to keep it maintained as they normally would. Or, after a death in the group, the time needed for res sickness to go away, etc. Or, after an hour straight of grinding away, people call for a break so people can get food, smoke, etc. etc. Taking a break after a tough boss fight in a dungeon before moving on, etc.
During all those times, people would hang out and chat, etc.
I never felt it was something that was there "by design"... just sorta a natural part of playing the MMO, and it never felt like a "punishment" or anything.
-shrug-
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
haratu, we're not talking about that kind of downtime bud. The downtime being discussed is: you fight monsters 15 minutes; now you're hurt and/or out of mana and need to rest for 10 minutes.
EVE is a bit unique in its terminology anyway. EVE calls it downtime. Everyone else in games (and other industries) call it server maintenence. /shrug
A few times lately I've noticed how much more I play Haven & Hearth than EVE. Downtime is a huge part of it. In EVE there are rather large chunks of downtime where you're waiting for things to happen -- and you're basically not playing the game at those points. Whereas in H&H the majority of my time is spent doing things. EVE has some of the best artistic design in the industry, whereas H&H objects have a certain "30 mins in MS Paint" feel to them, and yet I find myself preferring H&H's gameplay. (don't mean to come down too harshly on H&H's art style, as I do rather like it overall and the rate at which new things get implemented is damn impressive.)
WSIMike: "People discussing it as an intended mechanic, added just for the sake of adding delays sounds kinda silly to me, because I can't think of a single scenario in all my time playing MMOs where it was like "Okay... now we wait 10 minutes... just because"."
As excessive (and bizarre: reading spellbooks? Really?) as EQ's downtime was, it wouldn't surprise me to learn it was intentional.
Misguided, perhaps, as later games (aka WOW) came along and changed things to vastly improve gameplay (at the cost of some socializing.) And really "vastly improved gameplay at the cost of some socializing" is the root of my arguments against increasing downtime: if you increase downtime you get a tiny payoff at a tremendous cost.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Misguided, perhaps, as later games (aka WOW) came along and changed things to vastly improve gameplay (at the cost of some socializing.) And really "vastly improved gameplay at the cost of some socializing" is the root of my arguments against increasing downtime: if you increase downtime you get a tiny payoff at a tremendous cost.
What tremendous cost? WOW is 100x more fun than EQ because the horrible down-time & camping is gone. It is not like I can't make friends in WOW.
You can argue all you want. People play games to have FUN, not stuck chatting. If i just want to chat, i have tons of MSN buddies I can do that with.
Misguided, perhaps, as later games (aka WOW) came along and changed things to vastly improve gameplay (at the cost of some socializing.) And really "vastly improved gameplay at the cost of some socializing" is the root of my arguments against increasing downtime: if you increase downtime you get a tiny payoff at a tremendous cost.
What tremendous cost? WOW is 100x more fun than EQ because the horrible down-time & camping is gone. It is not like I can't make friends in WOW.
You can argue all you want. People play games to have FUN, not stuck chatting. If i just want to chat, i have tons of MSN buddies I can do that with.
Your last statement seems a bit over the top... and I'm not entirely sure it was intended that way, yet I see that mentality more and more all the time in newer MMOs.
No one plays the game to "be stuck chatting" - even the heavy socializers want to actually *play* the game they're in. They play the game to... play the game and have fun, like everyone else. They simply see the occasional downtime as being conducive to being social and getting to know other people in the game; not some horrible, terrible unfair thing that's "forced" upon them.
And incidentally... what is it with people lately? In a few different MMOs I've played lately I've seen people becoming belligerently anti-social... like they're *offended* at the idea of talking to someone else in a game. Is it the time of year? I asked a guy in a MMO the other day if he wanted to group up to take out this one mob needed for a quest we were both doing. I wasn't rude. I wasn't steal-killing or anything. I was very polite about it. He said, and I quote, "I have real life friends for that. I don't need imaginary friends in a video game". I mean seriously... Why the hostility? Is anyone else noticing this?
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Your last statement seems a bit over the top... and I'm not entirely sure it was intended that way, yet I see that mentality more and more all the time in newer MMOs. I had a guy bitch me out once because I was asking him in-game if he was doing a quest that I was doing so we could team up and finish it off at the same time instead of competing with each other. It went something like this:
No one plays the game to "be stuck chatting" - even the heavy socializers want to actually *play* the game they're in. They play the game to... play the game and have fun, like everyone else. They simply see the occasional downtime as being conducive to being social and getting to know other people in the game; not some horrible, terrible unfair thing that's "forced" upon them. And incidentally... what is it with people lately? In a few different MMOs I've played lately I've seen people becoming belligerently anti-social... like they're *offended* at the idea of talking to someone else in a game. Is it the time of year? I asked a guy in a MMO the other day if he wanted to group up to take out this one mob needed for a quest we were both doing. I wasn't rude. I wasn't steal-killing or anything. I was very polite about it. He said, and I quote, "I have real life friends for that. I don't need imaginary friends in a video game". I mean seriously... Why the hostility? Is anyone else noticing this?
It's just the way nariusseldon is. He refuses to understand that there are people out there who enjoy a different play style that differs greatly than that of his own and usually takes said difference as an affront to his personal enjoyment of whatever game he chooses to play.
I am starting to believe that he has the inability to place himself in the shoes of the other person even for a little bit and actually see their perspective. It is his way or the wrong way and by his words "11 million people can't be wrong". If you go and read his post history you'll see that he epitomizes the mentality that exists in the newer games that respond with a knee-jerk reaction to just about anything others will say. Being offended at the drop of a hat is their main defense against anything even when there is nothing to defend from. Get used to it is my only advice.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
haratu, we're not talking about that kind of downtime bud. The downtime being discussed is: you fight monsters 15 minutes; now you're hurt and/or out of mana and need to rest for 10 minutes. EVE is a bit unique in its terminology anyway. EVE calls it downtime. Everyone else in games (and other industries) call it server maintenence. /shrug A few times lately I've noticed how much more I play Haven & Hearth than EVE. Downtime is a huge part of it. In EVE there are rather large chunks of downtime where you're waiting for things to happen -- and you're basically not playing the game at those points. Whereas in H&H the majority of my time is spent doing things. EVE has some of the best artistic design in the industry, whereas H&H objects have a certain "30 mins in MS Paint" feel to them, and yet I find myself preferring H&H's gameplay. (don't mean to come down too harshly on H&H's art style, as I do rather like it overall and the rate at which new things get implemented is damn impressive.) WSIMike: "People discussing it as an intended mechanic, added just for the sake of adding delays sounds kinda silly to me, because I can't think of a single scenario in all my time playing MMOs where it was like "Okay... now we wait 10 minutes... just because"." As excessive (and bizarre: reading spellbooks? Really?) as EQ's downtime was, it wouldn't surprise me to learn it was intentional. Misguided, perhaps, as later games (aka WOW) came along and changed things to vastly improve gameplay (at the cost of some socializing.) And really "vastly improved gameplay at the cost of some socializing" is the root of my arguments against increasing downtime: if you increase downtime you get a tiny payoff at a tremendous cost.
I thought you were only exaggerrating when you said 10min the first post, but you just said it again, so I think you might actually believe that. I'm not sure which games you played, but 10 minutes of downtime is crazy. In DAoC, you only rested when the healer and casters ran out of mana. Depending on the group, this could be every kill to several kills. But the rest time wasn't that long, maybe 2 minutes tops.
Your last statement seems a bit over the top... and I'm not entirely sure it was intended that way, yet I see that mentality more and more all the time in newer MMOs. I had a guy bitch me out once because I was asking him in-game if he was doing a quest that I was doing so we could team up and finish it off at the same time instead of competing with each other. It went something like this:
No one plays the game to "be stuck chatting" - even the heavy socializers want to actually *play* the game they're in. They play the game to... play the game and have fun, like everyone else. They simply see the occasional downtime as being conducive to being social and getting to know other people in the game; not some horrible, terrible unfair thing that's "forced" upon them. And incidentally... what is it with people lately? In a few different MMOs I've played lately I've seen people becoming belligerently anti-social... like they're *offended* at the idea of talking to someone else in a game. Is it the time of year? I asked a guy in a MMO the other day if he wanted to group up to take out this one mob needed for a quest we were both doing. I wasn't rude. I wasn't steal-killing or anything. I was very polite about it. He said, and I quote, "I have real life friends for that. I don't need imaginary friends in a video game". I mean seriously... Why the hostility? Is anyone else noticing this?
It's just the way nariusseldon is. He refuses to understand that there are people out there who enjoy a different play style that differs greatly than that of his own and usually takes said difference as an affront to his personal enjoyment of whatever game he chooses to play.
I am starting to believe that he has the inability to place himself in the shoes of the other person even for a little bit and actually see their perspective. It is his way or the wrong way and by his words "11 million people can't be wrong". If you go and read his post history you'll see that he epitomizes the mentality that exists in the newer games that respond with a knee-jerk reaction to just about anything others will say. Being offended at the drop of a hat is their main defense against anything even when there is nothing to defend from. Get used to it is my only advice.
He's just young. From what you described, that's just an age thing really. I mean, most people start to become more open-minded as they grow up on some things. They start to learn the skill of "walking a mile in their shoes." I know some never grow out of this, but it very well cold be due to his age. At anyrate, as long as games cater to teenagers, I guess we'll never get away from this mentality. I guess the reason we didn't see that mentality before WoW, was because the entire genre was niche, and the people in that niche were probably just far more social and open-minded.
Socialization and communities hasn't been killed by lack of downtime, it's been killed by social networking, instant messaging, vent and global chat. People take ease of communication for granted and use these tools to stick with their cliques rather than reaching out to new people. UO had far and away the best community I've experienced in an MMO. It had very little downtime between encounters, yet I made more friends in that game than all other MMO's combined. Why? Because I had to physically walk up to people to talk to them. If I wanted friends, I couldn't be antisocial, I had to make an effort to make friends. This is in stark contrast to today's MMOs which have global chat and instant messaging to anyone, anywhere, anytime. You'd think that players would be more social with all the tools we have to today, but the opposite is true. Sitting in the safety of the towns walls, yelling "LFG!" is antisocial behaviour. There's no effort required on the players part. When your identity is tied to a faceless name in a chat room, your identity has far less weight. Trying to make yourself noticed through a constant stream of chatter can be exceedingly difficult. It's definitely harder to make friends in that environment. Downtime is nothing but a useless timesink. You don't need downtime to force people to interact with one another. There are plenty of other good game mechanics to promote socialization.
Excellent post! I'm hoping this post helps those in favor of downtime see that those who are against it are not against socializing but are advocating going a more reasonable route to fostering interaction that downtime.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Socialization and communities hasn't been killed by lack of downtime, it's been killed by social networking, instant messaging, vent and global chat. People take ease of communication for granted and use these tools to stick with their cliques rather than reaching out to new people. UO had far and away the best community I've experienced in an MMO. It had very little downtime between encounters, yet I made more friends in that game than all other MMO's combined. Why? Because I had to physically walk up to people to talk to them. If I wanted friends, I couldn't be antisocial, I had to make an effort to make friends. This is in stark contrast to today's MMOs which have global chat and instant messaging to anyone, anywhere, anytime. You'd think that players would be more social with all the tools we have to today, but the opposite is true. Sitting in the safety of the towns walls, yelling "LFG!" is antisocial behaviour. There's no effort required on the players part. When your identity is tied to a faceless name in a chat room, your identity has far less weight. Trying to make yourself noticed through a constant stream of chatter can be exceedingly difficult. It's definitely harder to make friends in that environment. Downtime is nothing but a useless timesink. You don't need downtime to force people to interact with one another. There are plenty of other good game mechanics to promote socialization.
Excellent post! I'm hoping this post helps those in favor of downtime see that those who are against it are not against socializing but are advocating going a more reasonable route to fostering interaction that downtime.
I advocate for downtime, but do not say that without it there can be no community.
Downtime makes for what is to me better game play, because it is less rushed, less hurried.
It also creates a feeling of accomplishment, danger, and challenge.
if I can just fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, like I could in Coh, nothing seems like a challenge.
In EQ, you could not do that. You would run out of mana, health, etc., and die. So if you managed to beat a mob without doing that it felt like an accomplishment.
Also, it created a sense of danger. you hope a wandering mob doesn't come by, you make sure to go rest somewhere besides where the mobs spawn, so you don't get killed.
And, it provided a very relaxed atmosphere to discuss what do do next. Ad another player, move to a new location, do we need to go get rid of items at the shop, etc?
No need to be rushed about that stuff, because you had the downtime anyway.
Much more fun, IMO, than City of Heroes, which is fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, boss dead, cya thanks, kbye.
Socialization and communities hasn't been killed by lack of downtime, it's been killed by social networking, instant messaging, vent and global chat. People take ease of communication for granted and use these tools to stick with their cliques rather than reaching out to new people. UO had far and away the best community I've experienced in an MMO. It had very little downtime between encounters, yet I made more friends in that game than all other MMO's combined. Why? Because I had to physically walk up to people to talk to them. If I wanted friends, I couldn't be antisocial, I had to make an effort to make friends. This is in stark contrast to today's MMOs which have global chat and instant messaging to anyone, anywhere, anytime. You'd think that players would be more social with all the tools we have to today, but the opposite is true. Sitting in the safety of the towns walls, yelling "LFG!" is antisocial behaviour. There's no effort required on the players part. When your identity is tied to a faceless name in a chat room, your identity has far less weight. Trying to make yourself noticed through a constant stream of chatter can be exceedingly difficult. It's definitely harder to make friends in that environment. Downtime is nothing but a useless timesink. You don't need downtime to force people to interact with one another. There are plenty of other good game mechanics to promote socialization.
Excellent post! I'm hoping this post helps those in favor of downtime see that those who are against it are not against socializing but are advocating going a more reasonable route to fostering interaction that downtime.
I advocate for downtime, but do not say that without it there can be no community.
Downtime makes for what is to me better game play, because it is less rushed, less hurried.
It also creates a feeling of accomplishment, danger, and challenge.
if I can just fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, like I could in Coh, nothing seems like a challenge.
In EQ, you could not do that. You would run out of mana, health, etc., and die. So if you managed to beat a mob without doing that it felt like an accomplishment.
Also, it created a sense of danger. you hope a wandering mob doesn't come by, you make sure to go rest somewhere besides where the mobs spawn, so you don't get killed.
And, it provided a very relaxed atmosphere to discuss what do do next. Ad another player, move to a new location, do we need to go get rid of items at the shop, etc?
No need to be rushed about that stuff, because you had the downtime anyway.
Much more fun, IMO, than City of Heroes, which is fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, boss dead, cya thanks, kbye.
I don't mind some downtime, if it's done right. EverQuest is the worst example of downtime because downtime was so long, they introduced that silly Gems minigame so players would have something to do while waiting for their HP/MP to regen.
Having to rest after every battle is wearisome and breaks up the pacing of the game. If your time spent resting is greater than or equal to that of the time you spend in combat, then it's been implemented poorly. I think resting to regen should always be fairly quick.
I see good points being made on both sides of the argument. Downtime was definitely the norm in the older mmorpgs. Whether you were medding, resting, buffing, etc., there was usually a point of several minutes before and after a fight that required a break in action. Things moved considerably slower back then. Days, weeks or months could pass before you gained a skill, level, etc. Mmorpgs in general have moved away from this practice as they have more focused on non stop gameplay action. Whether this is for the better or worse is up for opinion. I seem to be one of those gamers that's been playing for so long I've reached a point where I find myself on various sides of an argument depending on the game in quesion.
Downtime is really what the community makes of it. It's going promote more socialization among grouping gamers, it's going to give them a chance to go AFK for a few minutes, or it's going to interrupt their gameplay with frustrating pauses.
"Lose it. I want a fun, difficult and action packed fight where I succeed or fail by my own choices, and then I want a rapid recovery so that I can do it again."
See, here is what I dont get about you staunch anti downtime/group people: You really think that combat is difficult in current mmos? Combat has been so dumbed-down to facilitate the no-downtime mechanic. And its contridictory to say on one hand you want difficult combat, yet in the same breath say you want rapid recovery. How can the fight have really been that difficult if 2 secs later you are immediately moving on to another mob? As a level 1 warriordin or w/e with a rusty spoon, why should it take you only 2 seconds to kill a mob?
I don't know what you are smoking. Down-time has NOTHING to do with difficulty.
For example, some raids in WOW are pretty difficult and people wipe & wipe. But they can get back up quickly and try again precisely because they don't have to sit there to regen mana for 10 min.
You can be fast pace & difficult .. by making you DIE FAST if you don't play right.
Even in some leveling scenarios, if you pull the wrong mobs, you die in 10 sec. Now that is fast and without down-time.
Waiting for mana/health to regen is just failed game design.
Downtime and death penalty do affect difficulty. Not directly, no. Having an expendable resource like mana, hitpoints, or stamina which regenerates slowly rather than near instantly won't change the dynamics of how a mob fights or it's stats. Having a death penalty which hurts and causes significant downtime won't change the fight.
But it means that losing a fight matters. It means that playing your character in a sloppy, inefficient way matters. With no painful death penalty and no significant recovery time needed when you don't manage your resources well it may not change the hitpoints of a mob or how hard it hits or how good the AI is but it makes the difficulty largely irrelevant. Win or lose, it doesn't really matter because even if you lose the fight you don't lose anything. Play your character efficiently, why? It doesn't matter when you recover in just a second or two.
Imagine a player fighting a mob. If he dies he will lose several hours worth of experience plus he will have to do a long and difficult corpse run. In this case the difficulty of the fight really matters. If the player dies it will hurt.
Now imagine the same player fighting the same mob but in this case if he dies he won't lose anything and he will pop back up a short distance away so that he can run back in 10 or 15 seconds to try again. The difficulty of the fight is, strictly speaking, the same. However, the difficulty has now become irrelevant. It doesn't matter if this mob is somewhat tougher than most, the player can charge back in over and over again untill he kills it and he has no reason not to and no reason to fear failing. As long as it is possible for him to kill the mob the degree of difficulty hardly matters at all.
Now imagine again a player fighting a mob. This time the player knows that it takes him about 10 seconds to regen his health, mana, stamina, or whatever from near zero to full. This player feels free to blow all of his expendable resources with carefree abandon while fighting the mob. Because he knows that at the very most it will only take 10 seconds to fully recover.
And now imagine the same player fighting the same mob but in this case he knows that regening any of those expendable resources from near zero to full will take 8 minutes. In this case he still could piss away all of his mana/stamina/whatever in one fight but he has something else to think about now. If he blows it all in one fight he is increasing his downtime. Also, if he blows it all in this fight he will be vulnerable and helpless if he agroes something else, and he will have several minutes of sitting around in that vulnerable state. So now he not only needs to beat the mob but he would prefer to do it in a somewhat efficient manner. And if he doesn't try to manage his resources more efficiently, well, sooner or later it will get him killed because he's going to be spending a lot more time in that vulnerable condition.
So these things may not change the difficulty of individual mobs but they affect the overall difficulty of the game as a whole.
Originally posted by nate1980 Okay, you do see people standing around just chatting even in a game like WoW, such as in Goldshire. However, they aren't really doing anything else either. Perhaps those of us in this thread are talking more about socializing and leveling at the same time. Since games are solo oriented now from 1-max level, perhaps we miss this socialization, because it doesn't exist anymore. If you want to socialize, you join a guild full of strangers, or fight for some air time on the General chat channel that's been overtaken by teenagers. Even in groups, in a game such as WoW, are not social even if you wanted to, because most of the people in that group care only about finishing the instance ASAP with hopes of being the guy who got the rare loot. So maybe these games are just populated with anti-social people? Maybe they are the same type of people as they were pre-WoW, but game mechanics have changed, so those people have changed too?
Well if we conveniently ignore those guys in Goldshire socializing, and the people in General chat socializing, and the people in Orgrimmar socializing, and the people raiding socializing, it still comes back to your original idea being a terrible way to encourage socializing; or more accurately a mediocre improvement to socializing at the expense of terrible implications for the game's gameplay.
Yes, because talking to yourself in general chat is a great form of socializing. I think I'll call an automated teller so I can have a nice meaningful conversation. Maybe they can help me with my class strategies as well.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Downtime and death penalty do affect difficulty. Not directly, no. Having an expendable resource like mana, hitpoints, or stamina which regenerates slowly rather than near instantly won't change the dynamics of how a mob fights or it's stats. Having a death penalty which hurts and causes significant downtime won't change the fight. But it means that losing a fight matters. It means that playing your character in a sloppy, inefficient way matters. With no painful death penalty and no significant recovery time needed when you don't manage your resources well it may not change the hitpoints of a mob or how hard it hits or how good the AI is but it makes the difficulty largely irrelevant. Win or lose, it doesn't really matter because even if you lose the fight you don't lose anything. Play your character efficiently, why? It doesn't matter when you recover in just a second or two. Imagine a player fighting a mob. If he dies he will lose several hours worth of experience plus he will have to do a long and difficult corpse run. In this case the difficulty of the fight really matters. If the player dies it will hurt. Now imagine the same player fighting the same mob but in this case if he dies he won't lose anything and he will pop back up a short distance away so that he can run back in 10 or 15 seconds to try again. The difficulty of the fight is, strictly speaking, the same. However, the difficulty has now become irrelevant. It doesn't matter if this mob is somewhat tougher than most, the player can charge back in over and over again untill he kills it and he has no reason not to and no reason to fear failing. As long as it is possible for him to kill the mob the degree of difficulty hardly matters at all. Now imagine again a player fighting a mob. This time the player knows that it takes him about 10 seconds to regen his health, mana, stamina, or whatever from near zero to full. This player feels free to blow all of his expendable resources with carefree abandon while fighting the mob. Because he knows that at the very most it will only take 10 seconds to fully recover. And now imagine the same player fighting the same mob but in this case he knows that regening any of those expendable resources from near zero to full will take 8 minutes. In this case he still could piss away all of his mana/stamina/whatever in one fight but he has something else to think about now. If he blows it all in one fight he is increasing his downtime. Also, if he blows it all in this fight he will be vulnerable and helpless if he agroes something else, and he will have several minutes of sitting around in that vulnerable state. So now he not only needs to beat the mob but he would prefer to do it in a somewhat efficient manner. And if he doesn't try to manage his resources more efficiently, well, sooner or later it will get him killed because he's going to be spending a lot more time in that vulnerable condition. So these things may not change the difficulty of individual mobs but they affect the overall difficulty of the game as a whole.
Wow, you really went to extremes. Several hours of experience lost with one death? I don't know anyone who thinks this is fun, because you ARE going to die sometimes. Maybe not often, but knowing that at some point or another, you're going to die and lose hours of your time is enough motivation to pick another game. This thread isn't about death penalties, but I couldn't help but point that out.
Also, 8 minutes of downtime is a bit rediculous. I mean, you spend more time sitting around than fighting. Downtime is important to making strategy important and socializing, but it should be used in moderation. Not too much, and not too little.
Originally posted by nate1980 Wow, you really went to extremes. Several hours of experience lost with one death? I don't know anyone who thinks this is fun, because you ARE going to die sometimes. Maybe not often, but knowing that at some point or another, you're going to die and lose hours of your time is enough motivation to pick another game. This thread isn't about death penalties, but I couldn't help but point that out. Also, 8 minutes of downtime is a bit rediculous. I mean, you spend more time sitting around than fighting. Downtime is important to making strategy important and socializing, but it should be used in moderation. Not too much, and not too little.
You're focusing on the arbitrary numbers I threw in there as examples and not on the points I was trying to make.
Point 1: The lighter the death penalty is the less relevant the difficulty of mobs is. Think of a single player rpg; you could play it on the "difficult" setting but if you save the game before every fight so that you can reset it if you lose then you have effectively negated the whole point of playing it on the difficult setting. Lack of a painfull death penalty and downtime after dying is very similar to that.
Point 2: The shorter recovery time is the easier fights are and the easier the game as a whole is. This is because the shorter recovery times are the more mana/energy/stamina/whatever the players feel free to use in each fight. With very short recovery times the question of conserving energy is no longer a part of the equation. Also, with very short recovery times the possibility of being caught in a vulnerable, weakened condition becomes almost non-existant.
I was making these points to address the supposition that downtime has no impact on difficulty.
But if you want to talk about the arbitrary numbers I tossed out there the eight minutes of recovery times was supposed to be if you had to recover from near zero (health, mana, whatever) to full. And the point was that if it took eight minutes people would try to avoid being wastefull with their resources. People who played inefficiently would have more downtime than people who conserved their resources and beat the same mobs using less mana/energy.
So then a whole new dynamic is created in the game. People who play their character well and learn to do more with less are rewarded with less downtime. People who blunder through and rely on spamming their attacks and pissing away all of their resources in every fight would have more downtime. In games where people recover from near zero to full in just a few seconds this entire facet of gaming no longer exists.
I believe EQ was more social because the game punished the players and you had to take your time and learn how to pull encounters properly or everyone died. Dying sucked in EQ because you ahd to take the time to run back from wherever you were bound if no rez was around and loot your body. Which at the time might be under whatever it is you were camping because the room had respawned. This meant even more time was required because you had to enlist the help of even more people or a friendly necro or rogue to drag your corpses back to your safe spot.
Yes this did bring people closer together but it also really pissed me off in how much time it wasted.
On the other hand no downtime and look at DDO. You get wankers who want to run through dungeons like its a godman race. I'm not kidding. Join a group go into an instance and everyone is running at full speed through the instance. Some go off in different directions, some try to run directly to the boss that completes the game. Imagine doing that back in EQ days ? Lol you'd be quickly blacklisted and never get a group again, not only that but you'd be dead after trying to run up solo to the first group of mobs.
I used to solo alot on my troll shadowknight in EQ. In particular I'd camp the froglok kings room. This was back when the current expansion was only kunark. I'd fight one blue con froglok then sit for 10-15 minutes playing that stupid gems game waiting for mana to return. More then two at once and I'd be dead. Fighting the king if I could interrupt his heals the fight well if not I'd have to feign death and try again if not I'd zone out behind his throne and try it again. When I think back to how much time I wasted on all the EQ downtime I could've got four more characters to 80 in WOW.
I thought you were only exaggerrating when you said 10min the first post, but you just said it again, so I think you might actually believe that. I'm not sure which games you played, but 10 minutes of downtime is crazy. In DAoC, you only rested when the healer and casters ran out of mana. Depending on the group, this could be every kill to several kills. But the rest time wasn't that long, maybe 2 minutes tops.
You haven't played EQ. When it first come out, you have to wait 10 min to regen your mana between fights. It is crazy. That is one of the reasons I quit the game (and the excessive non-fun horrible camping).
I thought you were only exaggerrating when you said 10min the first post, but you just said it again, so I think you might actually believe that. I'm not sure which games you played, but 10 minutes of downtime is crazy. In DAoC, you only rested when the healer and casters ran out of mana. Depending on the group, this could be every kill to several kills. But the rest time wasn't that long, maybe 2 minutes tops.
You haven't played EQ. When it first come out, you have to wait 10 min to regen your mana between fights. It is crazy. That is one of the reasons I quit the game (and the excessive non-fun horrible camping).
It's true. you didn't see it as much until you leveled. At first when you were low level, you didnt' have much mana or many hit points, so the regen was pretty quick. But as you entered the upper levels, it would take longer and longer.
The original boat ride between continents could last as long as 30 minutes or more. Seriously, no joke, you get on the boat and then you ride for 30 real life minutes.
You could go watch an entire sit com, come back, your character is still riding the boat. It made travel a big deal.
I agree with the OP, but I've never played a game with a camp system or something so I wouldn't know what it is like but it seems like fun. Community in my opinion is a huge role in any MMORPG and can make or break a game for me. I think that with downtime, yes it would be a more social environment, which is definitely a good thing.
I thought you were only exaggerrating when you said 10min the first post, but you just said it again, so I think you might actually believe that. I'm not sure which games you played, but 10 minutes of downtime is crazy. In DAoC, you only rested when the healer and casters ran out of mana. Depending on the group, this could be every kill to several kills. But the rest time wasn't that long, maybe 2 minutes tops.
You haven't played EQ. When it first come out, you have to wait 10 min to regen your mana between fights. It is crazy. That is one of the reasons I quit the game (and the excessive non-fun horrible camping).
It's true. you didn't see it as much until you leveled. At first when you were low level, you didnt' have much mana or many hit points, so the regen was pretty quick. But as you entered the upper levels, it would take longer and longer.
The original boat ride between continents could last as long as 30 minutes or more. Seriously, no joke, you get on the boat and then you ride for 30 real life minutes.
You could go watch an entire sit com, come back, your character is still riding the boat. It made travel a big deal.
I'm guessing Naruisseldon was soloing because in groups you didn't usually have to rest after every fight. That was part of the benefit of grouping. If you were with a good group of people downtime could be minimized so that you only had to stop to rest very rarely.
But those boats, I'll admit there were times when I got upset with that. I didn't mind it most of the time but on those occassions when slow loading into the destination zone caused me to miss my port and have to make the whole damn round trip again, yeah, that could piss a guy off. Of course I was using dial-up back then so...you know.
During downtimes, which I hate, I tend to multitask, watch movies or TV, play another game in the background, do chores or honestly anything else BUT stare at the chat channel.
Likely because you were solo. Down time also encouraged grouping, which is what MMOs should be about.
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I think that most sane people realise you NEED downtime and that to not have it puts into question why you are paying to play a game that is not updated and changed occasionally. The problem then lies in how often downtime is, interestingly I think more downtime is better, as I explain below.
Downtime at short predictable times everyday (such as Eve used to have) were my favourite. Small downtimes did not distract much because you knew it was coming every day and you always had something ready to do at that time. It also meant any problems from one patch could be fixed the next day without disruption.
Downtime once a week at a specific day was something WoW used to do and this also had its benefits as you would not set raids that day. the problem is that if the patch stuffed up then the next day would be a second downtime, which could get annoying (hence blizzard gave some free time occasionally to make up for patching).
Downtime 2-3 weeks apart is getting annoying. AoC does this and it is frustrating for two reasons. Firstly you forget you got downtime coming up and are ready to play and then find out you can't. Secondly If the patch stuffs up then time you would otherwise have to play is taken up.
Random downtimes is simply ridiculous, last thing you want is that your only raiding time each week suddenly has to be broken because they are patching. i don't think anyone wants this.
WoW doesn't have camps though? When you run instances in WoW, you just go through it really fast without any downtime at all.
EQ had camps and downtime, because players camped NPCs with slower spawn rates, or the opponents are actually difficult and use up hp/mana when you fight them, unlike the joke NPCs in WoW that are designed for retarded players who just have to mash the same button to kill something.
Downtime isn't bad, because the exp rate is independent of downtime. For instance, if a mob will use up lots of hp/mana, maybe have it drop better loot, or give more exp. It's too bad in WoW and other newer MMORPGs all the NPCs are basically the same and allow players to kill them one after the other without breaks.
It's kinda weird...
I never thought of down-time as being an intended mechanic in a MMO. I thought of it as something that comes out of the pacing of the gameplay.
People discussing it as an intended mechanic, added just for the sake of adding delays sounds kinda silly to me, because I can't think of a single scenario in all my time playing MMOs where it was like "Okay... now we wait 10 minutes... just because".
In my experience, downtime has come as a result of, say, mages needing to regen their MP after a particularly tough string of fights where they were unable to keep it maintained as they normally would. Or, after a death in the group, the time needed for res sickness to go away, etc. Or, after an hour straight of grinding away, people call for a break so people can get food, smoke, etc. etc. Taking a break after a tough boss fight in a dungeon before moving on, etc.
During all those times, people would hang out and chat, etc.
I never felt it was something that was there "by design"... just sorta a natural part of playing the MMO, and it never felt like a "punishment" or anything.
-shrug-
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
haratu, we're not talking about that kind of downtime bud. The downtime being discussed is: you fight monsters 15 minutes; now you're hurt and/or out of mana and need to rest for 10 minutes.
EVE is a bit unique in its terminology anyway. EVE calls it downtime. Everyone else in games (and other industries) call it server maintenence. /shrug
A few times lately I've noticed how much more I play Haven & Hearth than EVE. Downtime is a huge part of it. In EVE there are rather large chunks of downtime where you're waiting for things to happen -- and you're basically not playing the game at those points. Whereas in H&H the majority of my time is spent doing things. EVE has some of the best artistic design in the industry, whereas H&H objects have a certain "30 mins in MS Paint" feel to them, and yet I find myself preferring H&H's gameplay. (don't mean to come down too harshly on H&H's art style, as I do rather like it overall and the rate at which new things get implemented is damn impressive.)
WSIMike: "People discussing it as an intended mechanic, added just for the sake of adding delays sounds kinda silly to me, because I can't think of a single scenario in all my time playing MMOs where it was like "Okay... now we wait 10 minutes... just because"."
As excessive (and bizarre: reading spellbooks? Really?) as EQ's downtime was, it wouldn't surprise me to learn it was intentional.
Misguided, perhaps, as later games (aka WOW) came along and changed things to vastly improve gameplay (at the cost of some socializing.) And really "vastly improved gameplay at the cost of some socializing" is the root of my arguments against increasing downtime: if you increase downtime you get a tiny payoff at a tremendous cost.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What tremendous cost? WOW is 100x more fun than EQ because the horrible down-time & camping is gone. It is not like I can't make friends in WOW.
You can argue all you want. People play games to have FUN, not stuck chatting. If i just want to chat, i have tons of MSN buddies I can do that with.
nariusseldon you might want to read it again: "if you increase downtime you get a tiny payoff at a tremendous cost."
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What tremendous cost? WOW is 100x more fun than EQ because the horrible down-time & camping is gone. It is not like I can't make friends in WOW.
You can argue all you want. People play games to have FUN, not stuck chatting. If i just want to chat, i have tons of MSN buddies I can do that with.
Your last statement seems a bit over the top... and I'm not entirely sure it was intended that way, yet I see that mentality more and more all the time in newer MMOs.
No one plays the game to "be stuck chatting" - even the heavy socializers want to actually *play* the game they're in. They play the game to... play the game and have fun, like everyone else. They simply see the occasional downtime as being conducive to being social and getting to know other people in the game; not some horrible, terrible unfair thing that's "forced" upon them.
And incidentally... what is it with people lately? In a few different MMOs I've played lately I've seen people becoming belligerently anti-social... like they're *offended* at the idea of talking to someone else in a game. Is it the time of year? I asked a guy in a MMO the other day if he wanted to group up to take out this one mob needed for a quest we were both doing. I wasn't rude. I wasn't steal-killing or anything. I was very polite about it. He said, and I quote, "I have real life friends for that. I don't need imaginary friends in a video game". I mean seriously... Why the hostility? Is anyone else noticing this?
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
It's just the way nariusseldon is. He refuses to understand that there are people out there who enjoy a different play style that differs greatly than that of his own and usually takes said difference as an affront to his personal enjoyment of whatever game he chooses to play.
I am starting to believe that he has the inability to place himself in the shoes of the other person even for a little bit and actually see their perspective. It is his way or the wrong way and by his words "11 million people can't be wrong". If you go and read his post history you'll see that he epitomizes the mentality that exists in the newer games that respond with a knee-jerk reaction to just about anything others will say. Being offended at the drop of a hat is their main defense against anything even when there is nothing to defend from. Get used to it is my only advice.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
I thought you were only exaggerrating when you said 10min the first post, but you just said it again, so I think you might actually believe that. I'm not sure which games you played, but 10 minutes of downtime is crazy. In DAoC, you only rested when the healer and casters ran out of mana. Depending on the group, this could be every kill to several kills. But the rest time wasn't that long, maybe 2 minutes tops.
It's just the way nariusseldon is. He refuses to understand that there are people out there who enjoy a different play style that differs greatly than that of his own and usually takes said difference as an affront to his personal enjoyment of whatever game he chooses to play.
I am starting to believe that he has the inability to place himself in the shoes of the other person even for a little bit and actually see their perspective. It is his way or the wrong way and by his words "11 million people can't be wrong". If you go and read his post history you'll see that he epitomizes the mentality that exists in the newer games that respond with a knee-jerk reaction to just about anything others will say. Being offended at the drop of a hat is their main defense against anything even when there is nothing to defend from. Get used to it is my only advice.
He's just young. From what you described, that's just an age thing really. I mean, most people start to become more open-minded as they grow up on some things. They start to learn the skill of "walking a mile in their shoes." I know some never grow out of this, but it very well cold be due to his age. At anyrate, as long as games cater to teenagers, I guess we'll never get away from this mentality. I guess the reason we didn't see that mentality before WoW, was because the entire genre was niche, and the people in that niche were probably just far more social and open-minded.
The game needs downtime. It really enhances the immersion and the game play when there are brief rests between combat.
The trick is to get it just right. Not to long, not to short.
City of Heroes, almost no downtime, to short. Everquest, a tad bit to long.
I thought DAoC had it just right.
Excellent post! I'm hoping this post helps those in favor of downtime see that those who are against it are not against socializing but are advocating going a more reasonable route to fostering interaction that downtime.
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Excellent post! I'm hoping this post helps those in favor of downtime see that those who are against it are not against socializing but are advocating going a more reasonable route to fostering interaction that downtime.
I advocate for downtime, but do not say that without it there can be no community.
Downtime makes for what is to me better game play, because it is less rushed, less hurried.
It also creates a feeling of accomplishment, danger, and challenge.
if I can just fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, like I could in Coh, nothing seems like a challenge.
In EQ, you could not do that. You would run out of mana, health, etc., and die. So if you managed to beat a mob without doing that it felt like an accomplishment.
Also, it created a sense of danger. you hope a wandering mob doesn't come by, you make sure to go rest somewhere besides where the mobs spawn, so you don't get killed.
And, it provided a very relaxed atmosphere to discuss what do do next. Ad another player, move to a new location, do we need to go get rid of items at the shop, etc?
No need to be rushed about that stuff, because you had the downtime anyway.
Much more fun, IMO, than City of Heroes, which is fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, boss dead, cya thanks, kbye.
Excellent post! I'm hoping this post helps those in favor of downtime see that those who are against it are not against socializing but are advocating going a more reasonable route to fostering interaction that downtime.
I advocate for downtime, but do not say that without it there can be no community.
Downtime makes for what is to me better game play, because it is less rushed, less hurried.
It also creates a feeling of accomplishment, danger, and challenge.
if I can just fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, like I could in Coh, nothing seems like a challenge.
In EQ, you could not do that. You would run out of mana, health, etc., and die. So if you managed to beat a mob without doing that it felt like an accomplishment.
Also, it created a sense of danger. you hope a wandering mob doesn't come by, you make sure to go rest somewhere besides where the mobs spawn, so you don't get killed.
And, it provided a very relaxed atmosphere to discuss what do do next. Ad another player, move to a new location, do we need to go get rid of items at the shop, etc?
No need to be rushed about that stuff, because you had the downtime anyway.
Much more fun, IMO, than City of Heroes, which is fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, boss dead, cya thanks, kbye.
I don't mind some downtime, if it's done right. EverQuest is the worst example of downtime because downtime was so long, they introduced that silly Gems minigame so players would have something to do while waiting for their HP/MP to regen.
Having to rest after every battle is wearisome and breaks up the pacing of the game. If your time spent resting is greater than or equal to that of the time you spend in combat, then it's been implemented poorly. I think resting to regen should always be fairly quick.
I see good points being made on both sides of the argument. Downtime was definitely the norm in the older mmorpgs. Whether you were medding, resting, buffing, etc., there was usually a point of several minutes before and after a fight that required a break in action. Things moved considerably slower back then. Days, weeks or months could pass before you gained a skill, level, etc. Mmorpgs in general have moved away from this practice as they have more focused on non stop gameplay action. Whether this is for the better or worse is up for opinion. I seem to be one of those gamers that's been playing for so long I've reached a point where I find myself on various sides of an argument depending on the game in quesion.
Downtime is really what the community makes of it. It's going promote more socialization among grouping gamers, it's going to give them a chance to go AFK for a few minutes, or it's going to interrupt their gameplay with frustrating pauses.
I don't know what you are smoking. Down-time has NOTHING to do with difficulty.
For example, some raids in WOW are pretty difficult and people wipe & wipe. But they can get back up quickly and try again precisely because they don't have to sit there to regen mana for 10 min.
You can be fast pace & difficult .. by making you DIE FAST if you don't play right.
Even in some leveling scenarios, if you pull the wrong mobs, you die in 10 sec. Now that is fast and without down-time.
Waiting for mana/health to regen is just failed game design.
Downtime and death penalty do affect difficulty. Not directly, no. Having an expendable resource like mana, hitpoints, or stamina which regenerates slowly rather than near instantly won't change the dynamics of how a mob fights or it's stats. Having a death penalty which hurts and causes significant downtime won't change the fight.
But it means that losing a fight matters. It means that playing your character in a sloppy, inefficient way matters. With no painful death penalty and no significant recovery time needed when you don't manage your resources well it may not change the hitpoints of a mob or how hard it hits or how good the AI is but it makes the difficulty largely irrelevant. Win or lose, it doesn't really matter because even if you lose the fight you don't lose anything. Play your character efficiently, why? It doesn't matter when you recover in just a second or two.
Imagine a player fighting a mob. If he dies he will lose several hours worth of experience plus he will have to do a long and difficult corpse run. In this case the difficulty of the fight really matters. If the player dies it will hurt.
Now imagine the same player fighting the same mob but in this case if he dies he won't lose anything and he will pop back up a short distance away so that he can run back in 10 or 15 seconds to try again. The difficulty of the fight is, strictly speaking, the same. However, the difficulty has now become irrelevant. It doesn't matter if this mob is somewhat tougher than most, the player can charge back in over and over again untill he kills it and he has no reason not to and no reason to fear failing. As long as it is possible for him to kill the mob the degree of difficulty hardly matters at all.
Now imagine again a player fighting a mob. This time the player knows that it takes him about 10 seconds to regen his health, mana, stamina, or whatever from near zero to full. This player feels free to blow all of his expendable resources with carefree abandon while fighting the mob. Because he knows that at the very most it will only take 10 seconds to fully recover.
And now imagine the same player fighting the same mob but in this case he knows that regening any of those expendable resources from near zero to full will take 8 minutes. In this case he still could piss away all of his mana/stamina/whatever in one fight but he has something else to think about now. If he blows it all in one fight he is increasing his downtime. Also, if he blows it all in this fight he will be vulnerable and helpless if he agroes something else, and he will have several minutes of sitting around in that vulnerable state. So now he not only needs to beat the mob but he would prefer to do it in a somewhat efficient manner. And if he doesn't try to manage his resources more efficiently, well, sooner or later it will get him killed because he's going to be spending a lot more time in that vulnerable condition.
So these things may not change the difficulty of individual mobs but they affect the overall difficulty of the game as a whole.
Well if we conveniently ignore those guys in Goldshire socializing, and the people in General chat socializing, and the people in Orgrimmar socializing, and the people raiding socializing, it still comes back to your original idea being a terrible way to encourage socializing; or more accurately a mediocre improvement to socializing at the expense of terrible implications for the game's gameplay.
Yes, because talking to yourself in general chat is a great form of socializing. I think I'll call an automated teller so I can have a nice meaningful conversation. Maybe they can help me with my class strategies as well.
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Wow, you really went to extremes. Several hours of experience lost with one death? I don't know anyone who thinks this is fun, because you ARE going to die sometimes. Maybe not often, but knowing that at some point or another, you're going to die and lose hours of your time is enough motivation to pick another game. This thread isn't about death penalties, but I couldn't help but point that out.
Also, 8 minutes of downtime is a bit rediculous. I mean, you spend more time sitting around than fighting. Downtime is important to making strategy important and socializing, but it should be used in moderation. Not too much, and not too little.
You're focusing on the arbitrary numbers I threw in there as examples and not on the points I was trying to make.
Point 1: The lighter the death penalty is the less relevant the difficulty of mobs is. Think of a single player rpg; you could play it on the "difficult" setting but if you save the game before every fight so that you can reset it if you lose then you have effectively negated the whole point of playing it on the difficult setting. Lack of a painfull death penalty and downtime after dying is very similar to that.
Point 2: The shorter recovery time is the easier fights are and the easier the game as a whole is. This is because the shorter recovery times are the more mana/energy/stamina/whatever the players feel free to use in each fight. With very short recovery times the question of conserving energy is no longer a part of the equation. Also, with very short recovery times the possibility of being caught in a vulnerable, weakened condition becomes almost non-existant.
I was making these points to address the supposition that downtime has no impact on difficulty.
But if you want to talk about the arbitrary numbers I tossed out there the eight minutes of recovery times was supposed to be if you had to recover from near zero (health, mana, whatever) to full. And the point was that if it took eight minutes people would try to avoid being wastefull with their resources. People who played inefficiently would have more downtime than people who conserved their resources and beat the same mobs using less mana/energy.
So then a whole new dynamic is created in the game. People who play their character well and learn to do more with less are rewarded with less downtime. People who blunder through and rely on spamming their attacks and pissing away all of their resources in every fight would have more downtime. In games where people recover from near zero to full in just a few seconds this entire facet of gaming no longer exists.
I believe EQ was more social because the game punished the players and you had to take your time and learn how to pull encounters properly or everyone died. Dying sucked in EQ because you ahd to take the time to run back from wherever you were bound if no rez was around and loot your body. Which at the time might be under whatever it is you were camping because the room had respawned. This meant even more time was required because you had to enlist the help of even more people or a friendly necro or rogue to drag your corpses back to your safe spot.
Yes this did bring people closer together but it also really pissed me off in how much time it wasted.
On the other hand no downtime and look at DDO. You get wankers who want to run through dungeons like its a godman race. I'm not kidding. Join a group go into an instance and everyone is running at full speed through the instance. Some go off in different directions, some try to run directly to the boss that completes the game. Imagine doing that back in EQ days ? Lol you'd be quickly blacklisted and never get a group again, not only that but you'd be dead after trying to run up solo to the first group of mobs.
I used to solo alot on my troll shadowknight in EQ. In particular I'd camp the froglok kings room. This was back when the current expansion was only kunark. I'd fight one blue con froglok then sit for 10-15 minutes playing that stupid gems game waiting for mana to return. More then two at once and I'd be dead. Fighting the king if I could interrupt his heals the fight well if not I'd have to feign death and try again if not I'd zone out behind his throne and try it again. When I think back to how much time I wasted on all the EQ downtime I could've got four more characters to 80 in WOW.
You haven't played EQ. When it first come out, you have to wait 10 min to regen your mana between fights. It is crazy. That is one of the reasons I quit the game (and the excessive non-fun horrible camping).
You haven't played EQ. When it first come out, you have to wait 10 min to regen your mana between fights. It is crazy. That is one of the reasons I quit the game (and the excessive non-fun horrible camping).
It's true. you didn't see it as much until you leveled. At first when you were low level, you didnt' have much mana or many hit points, so the regen was pretty quick. But as you entered the upper levels, it would take longer and longer.
The original boat ride between continents could last as long as 30 minutes or more. Seriously, no joke, you get on the boat and then you ride for 30 real life minutes.
You could go watch an entire sit com, come back, your character is still riding the boat. It made travel a big deal.
I agree with the OP, but I've never played a game with a camp system or something so I wouldn't know what it is like but it seems like fun. Community in my opinion is a huge role in any MMORPG and can make or break a game for me. I think that with downtime, yes it would be a more social environment, which is definitely a good thing.
You haven't played EQ. When it first come out, you have to wait 10 min to regen your mana between fights. It is crazy. That is one of the reasons I quit the game (and the excessive non-fun horrible camping).
It's true. you didn't see it as much until you leveled. At first when you were low level, you didnt' have much mana or many hit points, so the regen was pretty quick. But as you entered the upper levels, it would take longer and longer.
The original boat ride between continents could last as long as 30 minutes or more. Seriously, no joke, you get on the boat and then you ride for 30 real life minutes.
You could go watch an entire sit com, come back, your character is still riding the boat. It made travel a big deal.
I'm guessing Naruisseldon was soloing because in groups you didn't usually have to rest after every fight. That was part of the benefit of grouping. If you were with a good group of people downtime could be minimized so that you only had to stop to rest very rarely.
But those boats, I'll admit there were times when I got upset with that. I didn't mind it most of the time but on those occassions when slow loading into the destination zone caused me to miss my port and have to make the whole damn round trip again, yeah, that could piss a guy off. Of course I was using dial-up back then so...you know.
Likely because you were solo. Down time also encouraged grouping, which is what MMOs should be about.
Darkfall Travelogues!