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In MMORPGs, when you log out, the world and other players dont wait for you.
Interesting
Member UncommonPosts: 973
In MMORPGs, you and other players have a living breathing world to live in.
It presents you with a persistant environment, wich is always there, 24 hours per day, for players to progress/evolve within.
Its not stale, both the world and the characters within are constantly progressing, changing, evolving.
Said world continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.
WETHER BOB WANTS IT OR NOT.
If Bob play 1 hour per day and another a third world country dude named Nguyen or SilvaBR play for 16 hours, what Bob could do? Nothing, thats how it is. Bob grows up or changes genre.
Each day, each hour, each minute you are not playing, delay you from the other millions of players who did not stop.
KEEPING UP WITH THE VIRTUAL WORLD is an intrinsic characteristic of MMORPGs that players have to deal with, SIMPLY BECAUSE THE WORLD DOESNT STOP FOR YOU.
"Stop the world! Your highness Bob will crap, cease all activities at once".
People dont wait for you, the world dont stop because you are not logged on. Everything keeps going.
Now, what the fuck are the sudden "progression caps" on my MMORPGs?
Why Bob type of players wants to create game mechanics to prevent me from progress even further from him?
Whats up with all those level caps, skill caps, gear caps...
WTF is wrong with Bobs complaining about the in-game virtual economy inflation not waiting for him?
The world never stops, people keep playing and interacting with the game, evolving their characters, acquiring more money, better gear, whatever. Generating more value, evolving, progressing.
You name it, in the end, it resumes in more POWER.
The more somebody plays, more it interacts with the world and acquire value and progress within said world. Said progression never stops, the world never stops, other players dont stop because of you.
Peoples time and effort spent on the game arent equal. Time and effort spent are not balanced. Why the hell do they think they have the right to compete with every other player, regardless of the knowing they just spent a fraction of someone's else time and effort investment? If someone who spents just a fraction of time and effort can keep up due to some game mechanics or catch up to due to the other person being capped in their progress, due to another game mechanics. Its not an MMORPG anymore. In MMORPG there is no such thing as "thats it, end of the line", in MMORPGs "the world doesnt stop, never, everything keeps going".
People are always getting more power, regardless of you being logged on or off.
Its a persistant world that exists regardless of whoever is logged on.
The moment we start seing "progression caps" or "power caps" in a generically speaking, ITS STOPS.
Forcing people to stop acquiring more power/progressing so others can keep up, changes the intrinsic characteristic of MMORPGs.
And what we are seing is games who call themselfs MMORPGs, purposefully being made with that idea in mind: limiting power/progression. Activelly stopping the world, so those who spent more time logged off than logged on can keep up.
THIS GOES AGAINST MMORPGS PERSISTANT DINAMIC NATURE, IT NEVER STOPS.
On your face casual/carebears, I dare you to argument against me! Do your best.
Discuss.
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Comments
At least us casuals never whine about lack of content just because hardcores like you burned though it in 2 weeks.
GG
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
So you want to grind all day long?
Without level caps, you'll have to design such a system that will give you XP from any mobs/quests/whatever, otherwise you'd run off content very fast. And this will be...too generic and boring.
Without skill caps, everyone will be a clone of each other. Everyone will have the same macros, weapon swaps, skills because they simply can. The only progresion will be in numbers, instead of trying to create an awesome background and role for your character.
You can still make the caps very hard(grindy, whatever you prefer) to attain, but there's really no point in not adding caps. The game should be fun, not a huge endless grind with close to little point(and this would probably ruin the PvP aspect as well, unless you split the way skills work in PvP and PvE).
I would imagine that's why such measures are added to games. It isn't to keep you from moving ahead of someone else, it's to stop you from burning through the content so fast. People who do that tend to quit soon after, which means less money for the developer.
Keeping up with the virtual world is only really a concern for powergamers in shallow level-based MMOs. You either keep pace with the group or you get 'left behind.' Luckily, casual gamers and 'carebears' don't experience such capslock-inducing rage-posting anxiety because their concern is simply whether or not they themselves are having fun. They don't gauge their fun against the perceived fun of the guy next to them.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
It happens in every aspect of life, you have to make rules to ensure that everything is used as it was planed to be used and not abused. If you play 16hours or 24 hours in shared accounts, or because you are insane, you are abusing the system and unbalancing it, and compromising normal players fun.
-Ummm ok so i am not casual player i don't like to play that way....but wth are you saying here? that in MMO "harcore" players should just lvlup and lvlup to endless levels? what would be the point of that seriously? if its a pvp game it would fail instantly because imagine someone "no-life" playing and he is like lvl300 and your lvl30 <_< with like 100 others so ofc he gank you untill you quit game, 2nd thing is i dont think any "hardcore" player would want to have MMO without lvl cap.....because thats why they make expansions ofr games ffs, you reach max lvl and enjoy end game raids dungeons crafting or w/e, MMO with endless leveling? UBER fail imo.
Lack of Content is an excuse for bad design decision.
With proper design decisions and after thought you dont have players complaining that there is nothing else for them to do.
Its not a problem about "content" as it is a problem about "balance".
Except that balance is an ilusion, unless you invent miraculously progression caps and stalemate their progression untill more "content" is released. Bad excuse.
You stop the world, with the "Lack of Content" excuse, to indirectly stop the players progression, to overcome a natural and intrinsic problem of unequal time and effort spent on a virtual persistant world.
Except that you dont need to limit progression or to stop the world.
I don't want there to be such a huge gear gap that you start to think less of me and don't want to hug me no more.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I vote for Hardcore servers. Any player that is online playing for more than 10 hours a day automatically gets moved to this 'special' server, where all the other insane people play. That way the rules on the normal peoples servers can remain unchanged and they can continue to have fun. Those that get moved to the 'hardcore server' can continue past the caps, but never return to the normal community. And if for some strange reason they want to, they have to prove for one full month that they will not play more than 2 hours a day. At the end of that month they can rejoin the human race and the normal server population.
At least thats my idea anyway.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
Dont throw around terms like "hardcore players" or "level up".
Im talking about progression, it doesnt need to be about vertical progression. There is horizontal progression.
To make an MMORPG you dont have to think in terms of "no life" and "level 300 vs level 30". You were brainwashed.
It doesnt need to be that a "no-life" player is much more powerfull. It doesnt need to be about "ganking".
You are not thinking of an MMORPG, you are thinking of a modern multiplayer online competitive game with elements of progression based purelly on combat gameplay and combat superiority. MMORPG transcend that. You have to think out of the box.
MMORPGs are not what they told you to, look about the terms you are throwing up: "hardcore". "level up". "no-life". "gank". "end game". "leveling".
Thats why you are failing. There is a huge barrier of concepts blocking your view, thats why you cant see outside of that spetre of vision.
So you are saying your major problem with MMO's is an illusion huh?
Glad we could clear that up.
"If we don't attack them, they will attack us first. So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike"
Dont throw around terms like "hardcore players" or "level up".
Im talking about progression, it doesnt need to be about vertical progression. There is horizontal progression.
To make an MMORPG you dont have to think in terms of "no life" and "level 300 vs level 30". You were brainwashed.
It doesnt need to be that a "no-life" player is much more powerfull. It doesnt need to be about "ganking".
You are not thinking of an MMORPG, you are thinking of a modern multiplayer online competitive game with elements of progression based purelly on combat gameplay and combat superiority. MMORPG transcend that. You have to think out of the box.
MMORPGs are not what they told you to, look about the terms you are throwing up: "hardcore". "level up". "no-life". "gank". "end game". "leveling".
Thats why you are failing. There is a huge barrier of concepts blocking your view, thats why you cant see outside of that spetre of vision.
Ok, I can't hold my breath anymore.
This post I quoted and your OP, makes abso-f'ing-lutely no sense what-so-ever. I don't have an opinion on your OP and I don't have a reply to this post... because I don't know what you're talking about. After reading all the responses in this thread, NOBODY really knows what you're talking about.
Something about the focus of level progression is completely pointless and retarded? I think?
If that's the case, I agree.
Like Trading Card Games? Click Here.
Im talking about progression, it doesnt need to be about vertical progression. There is horizontal progression.
Hmmm, now that is a very interesting concept right there. You might just have a valid argument afterall.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
-I played through CoD: Modern Warfare 2 in little over 6 hours in the Hardened mode (2nd hardest of 4) and loved it.
-I finished SW:KotoR 2 in 28 hours despite Bioware claiming there was gameplay for a total of 40 hourse - And I scoured through every place and quest in the game, I guarantee you. I loved that game aswell.
-Haloes can each be played through in one day with a friend in co-op and they still rock you socks off.
-Left 4 Dead is propably the best lan game I've ever played and it is finished in an afternoon.
My point is: I take quality over quantity any time.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Just change the "competitive", "combat", "power" focus of the modern face of the genre and the "balance" problem of progression goes away. The actual "MMORPGs" are all about that.
These games are not being made to be "enjoyed" at each players own time anymore. These games dont offer you the tools, options, freedom and other activities beyond the power hungry combat oriented design.
These games are made based on a belicist notion of progress, without offering other entertaining and likeable paths, hence, people are chained into a linear path. Then, in this view, you need a progression cap.
We can think of solutions for the games we currently have, like limiting character progression after a certain period of hours doing a certain type of activity, like combat, and after that nerfing its progression rate. Another common used way is to implement "level caps" easily reachable alongside its "content" ("content" as in linear content where the game makes you follow a scripted path of progression) and its "end game" (the last step of said scripted linear content, usually preceding an "expansion").
So you are saying your major problem with MMO's is an illusion huh?
Glad we could clear that up.
Players time and effort spent on the game are different, the rate of progression and acquirement of power is directly proportional to the time and effort spent.
Based on that, any attempts to "even out" or "balance" players is an ilusion, because essentially, their factors of power (mainly time and effort) are different / not balanced.
Hope you understood now, I thought it became clear on the main post.
I hate the person who came up with the term "Casual" and "Hardcore" gaming, just another thing in the world where people just bicker and attack each other about. What happened to just "Gaming".
from the way i understand the OP it sounds like he thinks there are to many restrictions in MMORPG's today. There is only so much the game is allowing you to do every seven days. I dont want to bash WOW but its a good example to use here. You have the raid lock out times, and more recently limited chances to try an encounter per week.
Other examples are the terms endgame, achievements and veteran rewards.
There is nothing dynamic about these mechanics, you arnt really given a choice. You basically exist inside your own little world within the world you play in.
These kind of mechanics dont exactly read as persistant worlds to me, which i think is what the OP has such an issue with.
Just change the "competitive", "combat", "power" focus of the modern face of the genre and the "balance" problem of progression goes away. The actual "MMORPGs" are all about that.
These games are not being made to be "enjoyed" at each players own time anymore. These games dont offer you the tools, options, freedom and other activities beyond the power hungry combat oriented design.
These games are made based on a belicist notion of progress, without offering other entertaining and likeable paths, hence, people are chained into a linear path. Then, in this view, you need a progression cap.
We can think of solutions for the games we currently have, like limiting character progression after a certain period of hours doing a certain type of activity, like combat, and after that nerfing its progression rate. Another common used way is to implement "level caps" easily reachable alongside its "content" ("content" as in linear content where the game makes you follow a scripted path of progression) and its "end game" (the last step of said scripted linear content, usually preceding an "expansion").
Your right. But knowning that is only a very small percentage of fixing this problem. EVERY game on the market fits into the vertical, level based progression mechanism. In order to remove that would take a completely invovative design, one I would venture to say would become the first true sandbox style. There just doesn't seem to be a way to fit any part of a theme park design into a persitant world that doesn't have the current elements.
There is one game that just put in a system which helps it move in this direction now and that is City of Heros. Their last Issue added in an automatic mentoring system to replace the manual one they had for the first 4 years. WIth it, you can join a team of any level, to do any content, and automatically become the level of the party leader. It scales you to that level on your abilities and stats. True this doesn't solve all of the vertical progression challenges, but it does help to level the field no matter the time spent or level attained when teaming or playing content. And in a way, removes that barrier of time played. It's also one of the reasons that game is my fall back, as I can go back at anytime and rejoin my friends in whatever they are doing, no matter how long I have been gone.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
I'll take your poorly worded challenge.
When MMO's are launched, they're released with a certain amount of content in them. A finite amount of MMO content that is designed to take their target audience a certain amount of time to complete. I think we can all accept this as fact.
With that in mind, MMO developers also recognize progression and leveling by the general population will occur at a somewhat predictable rate. This can be diagrammed best by using a graphical model. Let's use the bell curve.
Now, in my graphical model the X axis would time spent playing. The Y axis would be percentage of the total player population.
A great majority of the people that play MMOs and generate much of the revenue that MMO companies lust for, are generated by the casual, "everyday" audience. This audience ( the audience that most MMO games are designed for) progress through the content very naturally and take many months to go through it all. In our model, this is resented by the large bulge in the middle. This is the "general population." This is where the largest percentage of their population lies and this is the crowd they're looking to please.
MMO companies realize this and plan their content releases accordingly, often taking many months before they think about adding anything new. The casual audience doesn't need new content every two weeks. The casual audience doesn't stay up and play for 16 hours a day to power through content. The casual audience is also the target audience for these games.
Let me sum it up for you because you're probably lost at this point. You really don't seem like the brightest of bulbs.
You're attempting to speak for the hardcore crowd. The crowd that you represent is a very small, niche portion of any given MMO population. You're a small percentage and therefore have a small say in how things are done. No one cares that you powered through all the content and now have nothing to do. The game wasn't designed for that and a lot of games never, ever,ever will be. Designing a game to keep up with the hardcore, power leveling crowd is impossible and would certainly sacrifice quality for quantity.
Attempting to come down on the "carebear" crowd like we're some sort of disease accomplishes nothing. It shows a lack of foresight on your part, as well as a profound ignorance to how MMOs are made and operated.
In closing, no one cares about your hardcore philosophy towards MMO games. They aren't made for you and aren't created to always give you fresh content. They're made for us and we're having a great time with them.
Don't like it? Leave and play something else. Coming to the forums and pretending like you have any idea what you're talking about makes you look like a fool.
Bob is the man!!!!
See in Eve Bob wouldn't be punished for having a life because no lifers (power gamers) wouldn't have an advantage since he trains offline
go go go casuals!!!!!!
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Dont throw around terms like "hardcore players" or "level up".
Im talking about progression, it doesnt need to be about vertical progression. There is horizontal progression.
To make an MMORPG you dont have to think in terms of "no life" and "level 300 vs level 30". You were brainwashed.
It doesnt need to be that a "no-life" player is much more powerfull. It doesnt need to be about "ganking".
You are not thinking of an MMORPG, you are thinking of a modern multiplayer online competitive game with elements of progression based purelly on combat gameplay and combat superiority. MMORPG transcend that. You have to think out of the box.
MMORPGs are not what they told you to, look about the terms you are throwing up: "hardcore". "level up". "no-life". "gank". "end game". "leveling".
Thats why you are failing. There is a huge barrier of concepts blocking your view, thats why you cant see outside of that spetre of vision.
-Seriously dude just f"ing say what would you like to see in MMO instead of this BS.....sigh i hate when someone say loads of things that meant nothing at all but a pure BS......fail post. And wth did you mean with the last line? "Thats why you are failing. There is a huge barrier of concepts blocking your view, thats why you cant see outside of that spetre of vision." seriously lol?
Its perfectly normal for you to think that.
How could I explain something most didnt experience.
Im talking about MMORPGs as they came up to be, their original concepts and premisses and most people are thinking MMORPGs as what they are now.
MMORPGs nowadays are linear games where the players are presented with a scripted path, whose main goal was pre-determined by the developers with huge focus on combat and acquirement of more power. The core design decisions addapted to its limited scope creating this hard idea that MMORPGs are about power (consubstantiated in level progression and gear and sometimes other factors of power).
Many dont understand it, so I have to basically reprogram everyone in order to even start having a discussion, because they are bound to that view of MMORPGs: kill stuff over and over, level up, get skills, get better gear, kill more stuff, do the kill stuff, fetch stuff quests, reach level cap, play end game content, wait for expansion.
That is nowhere near what MMORPG's are. People were brainwashed if they cant think outside of that view.
Its perfectly normal for you to think that.
How could I explain something most didnt experience.
Im talking about MMORPGs as they came up to be, their original concepts and premisses and most people are thinking MMORPGs as what they are now.
MMORPGs nowadays are linear games where the players are presented with a scripted path, whose main goal was pre-determined by the developers with huge focus on combat and acquirement of more power. The core design decisions addapted to its limited scope creating this hard idea that MMORPGs are about power (consubstantiated in level progression and gear and sometimes other factors of power).
Many dont understand it, so I have to basically reprogram everyone in order to even start having a discussion, because they are bound to that view of MMORPGs: kill stuff over and over, level up, get skills, get better gear, kill more stuff, do the kill stuff, fetch stuff quests, reach level cap, play end game content, wait for expansion.
That is nowhere near what MMORPG's are. People were brainwashed if they cant think outside of that view.
-More BS talk?
Your argument is getting muddled.
You began by talking about progression and how varying playing times effected in-game progression. You also expressed dissatisfaction with how some current MMO's stifle your progression and how you believe it's because they're catering to the casual crowd.
Now you've switched your tune and are trying to garner a discussion of current MMO design and vertical/horizontal progression?
You need to get your thesis straight before trying to have a productive discussion about anything.