Travel used to be exciting. It was not safe. Even low level zones had mobs who may be present that posed a threat. You couldn't just stroll through a zone and have monsters ignore you. Getting somewhere alive was an adventure. And to us, adventure was fun, not just gimmie my epic now gimmie another one.
Not if you have to go through the same zone again and again. It will be ANNOYING instead of fun.
In fact, that is why we don't do that anymore.
And if you want an adventure, go into a dungeon. There is no point doing it when all you want is goind from point A to B.
you know what he meant gees!dont nitpick!
That is not nitpik. Tell me a game that you never have to go back to the same zone. That is just plain impossible and i do NOT want to fight my way through everytime i want to go from city A to B.
Do you know that WOW take OUT open war PvP because people are complaining about that is blocking people who want to travel? There is no reason to inconvenient people who just want to get to a dungeon & have fun.
yep you dont like it ask for its removal got it now screw everybody else at least now you are happy even tho it left a huge amount of player without the gaming fix of chocie they had paid and even paid their monthly,yep good thinking!
if at least blizzard had just added their new stuff without touching what player loved it would have been fine put reward on both side make player choose .nope didnt happen they steered the player where blizzard and the casual player wanted them to be and say !ok heres your new wow playground!"(beurk)
So what? You jealous i am on the side of the issue that have more market and have the ears of developers?
And you have no proof of the "huge" amount of players without the gaming fix of choice. If their number is so huge, why aren't developers listening to them?
easy !core player arent vocal contrary to casual!they dont like it, they just leave with their guild and thats it!i bet if you asked soe when it happened to them back in eq1 they could mention this!core player dont bother they just leave!and its never good for any game to lose core player!oh there are core player that are vocal but on average they dont bother they just leave
so try to have a discussion about an issue with a core player lol good luck getting their feed back its often friend of those core player that speak for them .so blizzard couldnt listen to core player any more then eq1 couldnt listen to core player since in both case they didnt bother discussing they just left!
There is lots of value to vastly sized worlds to explore, and in general that will require you to get out on foot to investigate. However, there is no value in a 20 minute commute to get from one place to the other for known locations. As with pretty much everything I debate, I usually support a middle ground. There should be plenty of instantaneous travel, and there should also be exploration zones which must be explored and exploited on foot (or horse or whatever), the exception being some towns or outposts in strategic locations.
easy !core player arent vocal contrary to casual!they dont like it, they just leave with their guild and thats it!i bet if you asked soe when it happened to them back in eq1 they could mention this!core player dont bother they just leave!and its never good for any game to lose core player!oh there are core player that are vocal but on average they dont bother they just leave
so try to have a discussion about an issue with a core player lol good luck getting their feed back its often friend of those core player that speak for them .so blizzard couldnt listen to core player any more then eq1 couldnt listen to core player since in both case they didnt bother discussing they just left!
This site is proof that what you said is not true. This THREAD is proof that they are vocal. How many QQing threads are there? .. just on THIS site.
Plus, if there are a lot of them and they leave, developers are going to notice and use surveys and what-not to find out why. You think companies just read forums?
This is an example of one side of the debate. To illustrate how different our opinions are, I'll state that I would rather pay for dull moments, because I feel it adds more bang to my proverbial buck.
You don't have to. You can play any number of thrill-by-the-minute, quest-grinder themeparks available on the market, and you'll be playing with a larger majority of the MMO population. Honestly, if someone doesn't get the sandbox mentality, it's probably for the best that they play other games, as so the two separate sub-genre's aren't worried about credibility, or changing based upon another variable market. Homogonization is ruining the genre for everyone, not just the hardcore or sandboxers.
Then I have a clue for you. Pay me some money and i will send you a blank picture to stare at. I will GUARANTEE that it is DULL.
And if you want to chat in the process, i would recommend MSN. It is free but you can pay me, if you like to pay for chatting while staring at a dull screen.
I'm not talking about a game that's all lull and no action, I'm talking about the previous posts in which I mentioned the reasons why I find more personal enjoyment in games that hand me the good with the bad, and action in scattered intervals, in terms of experiences. I like the risk of having all my shit looted, that adds excitement out in unprotected territories. I like having to roam for PvP, because if I were to be consantly in the fray, it would lose it's charm (I've had this experience with most instanced PvP MMO's). These are just a few examples, and why I've already mentioned before this post that I think this is all a matter of preference. MMO companies are going to continue to reflect the larger shares of the market, and niche sandbox games will exist for the players like myself. Some people like chocolate, some people like vanilla. Granted, some people probably like both, but we've all got an opinion why our flavor is the best.
Easy. Play WOW for 15 min than pay me to show you a blank screen (heck, i will throw in a picture) that guarantees to be the "bad" with the good. And you can resume after 10 min.
Every 30 min, i will throw a dice and if it comes out 6, you can give me all your stuff.
That is probably the closet you will get in a AAA polished MMO.
For the rest of us, we will just take the "good" and forget the "bad". I am not in a habit of paying for games to BORE me.
There is lots of value to vastly sized worlds to explore, and in general that will require you to get out on foot to investigate. However, there is no value in a 20 minute commute to get from one place to the other for known locations. As with pretty much everything I debate, I usually support a middle ground. There should be plenty of instantaneous travel, and there should also be exploration zones which must be explored and exploited on foot (or horse or whatever), the exception being some towns or outposts in strategic locations.
Only if there is something interesting there. A 100 sq miles of desert with nothing is vast to explore but boring as hell. In fact, i don't want a vast world, i want an interesting one.
It is a pain to walk 30 min with teh same scenary before you get to something interesting.
I am not a regular poster and I do not express myself very well but: I am so sick of instances and instant travels. I play MMO's for the adventure and for the community and atmosphere. I want my party to actually enter a dungeon/castle and meet people along the way who dare to venture alone or another band of travelers.
I dont care if we meet and end up in conflict or become friends and venture futher depth's to conqueror the unknown that lies within!
I want random dungeons (not generated) that are hidden well, so explorer's can come across them. Is it really hard to program a cave inside a cliff that isn't easily seen on the road? What is the whole point in this land mass if there only DUNGEON A, B, and C and they have a big advertizement saying "COME HERE".
Why can't we have many and many hidden depth's located around the world? I just want the simple things (lol even though they might be complicated)
And this Instant traveling BS?
Do away with it (That is my personal opinion, many people like IT and if that is there cup of tea: go ahead and do your thing), I rather travel around on foot, or horse with travelers exploring that ancient ruin's and maybe traveling along the beach to find a shipwreck that was not there yesterday. Let the world revolve. Have a schedule on key events that happen monthly or daily? I stated it before "what is the whole point in this land mass" If I am going to skip it by instant tele'ing to the city and Instant Tele'ing back to the nearest dungeons and not explore.
This may be a rant but blah blah blah!
I think part of the issue is with current technology it's tough for developers to do dynamic content and also tough to put in any real scale. Most don't even try due to fears about real resource requirements.
Most game worlds (even the largest ones) are frankly ultra-tiny by real world standards. They are almost entirely static. The thing about travel in the real world (at least prior to modern times) that made it exciting/adventurous/dangerous was that no 2 journies between 2 distant points were ever the same. Conditions CHANGED with each trip and you never knew who or what you might encounter...even if you were familiar with the geography.
Games don't do this. Nor do they model well the dynamic in most fantasy settings...where "adventurers" were few and far between and the wilderness was vast and filled with hazards. The dynamic in todays games is pretty much the reverse, there are dozens of adventurers for every square meter of "wilderness".
I don't think these issues are unsolvable, but it's going to take advances in technology (and yes advances in the sophistication of procedural generation) for them to become more common-place in games.
If you DO solve these issues....then I think you will see less demand (although probably still some) for instant travel and instances. Since adventurers won't be tripping over each other every 5 paces...and travel will actualy be part of the adventure... but, unfortunately, we aren't there yet.
1) No instances ....yeah .. like we really want to camp with 50 other people and take a number.
2) Hidden caves .... they will be hidden by less than 10 min until it is all over the internet. Plus, it is stupid to make dungeons where few people will come. The whole POINT of having dungeons is for people to adventure through them.
Vanguard, theres not enough people to camp and theres no people who puts dungeons all over the internet.
This is an example of one side of the debate. To illustrate how different our opinions are, I'll state that I would rather pay for dull moments, because I feel it adds more bang to my proverbial buck.
You don't have to. You can play any number of thrill-by-the-minute, quest-grinder themeparks available on the market, and you'll be playing with a larger majority of the MMO population. Honestly, if someone doesn't get the sandbox mentality, it's probably for the best that they play other games, as so the two separate sub-genre's aren't worried about credibility, or changing based upon another variable market. Homogonization is ruining the genre for everyone, not just the hardcore or sandboxers.
Then I have a clue for you. Pay me some money and i will send you a blank picture to stare at. I will GUARANTEE that it is DULL.
And if you want to chat in the process, i would recommend MSN. It is free but you can pay me, if you like to pay for chatting while staring at a dull screen.
I'm not talking about a game that's all lull and no action, I'm talking about the previous posts in which I mentioned the reasons why I find more personal enjoyment in games that hand me the good with the bad, and action in scattered intervals, in terms of experiences. I like the risk of having all my shit looted, that adds excitement out in unprotected territories. I like having to roam for PvP, because if I were to be consantly in the fray, it would lose it's charm (I've had this experience with most instanced PvP MMO's). These are just a few examples, and why I've already mentioned before this post that I think this is all a matter of preference. MMO companies are going to continue to reflect the larger shares of the market, and niche sandbox games will exist for the players like myself. Some people like chocolate, some people like vanilla. Granted, some people probably like both, but we've all got an opinion why our flavor is the best.
Easy. Play WOW for 15 min than pay me to show you a blank screen (heck, i will throw in a picture) that guarantees to be the "bad" with the good. And you can resume after 10 min.
Every 30 min, i will throw a dice and if it comes out 6, you can give me all your stuff.
That is probably the closet you will get in a AAA polished MMO.
For the rest of us, we will just take the "good" and forget the "bad". I am not in a habit of paying for games to BORE me.
You're still not understanding the point I'm making. I'm not talking about games in which I do absolutely nothing for ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes. I'm talking about games that force me to think creatively, to find the fun for myself, rather than be guided through the experiences mindlessly. The reason I relate these to "good" and "bad" experiences, is because that's the way the casual market views this problem, and I was trying to use some phrasing that would cause less confusion. You can still reporte, such as, "Oh man, here's a blank page. Awesome game." And I'll continue to say, "You don't understand, that's not what I'm talking about." I've already compared this to a real world scenario regarding feeling and emotion, in which we would never understand how truly good happiness or joy can be to experience unless we had those moments in which we were forced to endure depression, frustration, or anger. If you don't understand that, I can't make it any less complicated for you.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
easy !core player arent vocal contrary to casual!they dont like it, they just leave with their guild and thats it!i bet if you asked soe when it happened to them back in eq1 they could mention this!core player dont bother they just leave!and its never good for any game to lose core player!oh there are core player that are vocal but on average they dont bother they just leave
so try to have a discussion about an issue with a core player lol good luck getting their feed back its often friend of those core player that speak for them .so blizzard couldnt listen to core player any more then eq1 couldnt listen to core player since in both case they didnt bother discussing they just left!
This site is proof that what you said is not true. This THREAD is proof that they are vocal. How many QQing threads are there? .. just on THIS site.
Plus, if there are a lot of them and they leave, developers are going to notice and use surveys and what-not to find out why. You think companies just read forums?
i dont consider my self a core player!i might have been there since original wow but like i say i dont consider my self a core player!
I think the concept of hidden dungeons is really cool. I would like to see that implemented in more games. However, I can't say that I completely agree with you about a lack of instances and a lack of Instant Travel. I love to use instances, but only when I am in a bind. I think that a lot of us who don't always like to travel in packs of people would find that the games are a lot more difficult without the ability to heal one's self. This also brings me to instant travel. If one of the main problems with MMOs is that people hate the grind then being forced to travel slowly to get anywhere in the world would only increase everyone's frustrations. I think that without the ability to teleport from place to place MMOs would be much less enjoyable.
I think the concept of hidden dungeons is really cool. I would like to see that implemented in more games. However, I can't say that I completely agree with you about a lack of instances and a lack of Instant Travel. I love to use instances, but only when I am in a bind. I think that a lot of us who don't always like to travel in packs of people would find that the games are a lot more difficult without the ability to heal one's self. This also brings me to instant travel. If one of the main problems with MMOs is that people hate the grind then being forced to travel slowly to get anywhere in the world would only increase everyone's frustrations. I think that without the ability to teleport from place to place MMOs would be much less enjoyable.
The concept of hidden dungeons is done. You can only hide a dungeon if no one plays your game and the internet doesn't exist=) Since lots of people should be playing this game and they're all obviously on the internet, there will be no such thing as a hidden dungeon. The easiest solution for that is to NOT look anything up on the internet if you enjoy figuring everything out for yourself. But I guess certain people can't help themselves=)
1) No instances ....yeah .. like we really want to camp with 50 other people and take a number.
2) Hidden caves .... they will be hidden by less than 10 min until it is all over the internet. Plus, it is stupid to make dungeons where few people will come. The whole POINT of having dungeons is for people to adventure through them.
Vanguard, theres not enough people to camp and theres no people who puts dungeons all over the internet.
Good thing about low population.
Sure ... for unsuccessful games.
I mean if no one is in the game, you are more or less having the whole "instance" to yourself. Obviously this won't work for games that actuallly have a lot of players.
This is an example of one side of the debate. To illustrate how different our opinions are, I'll state that I would rather pay for dull moments, because I feel it adds more bang to my proverbial buck.
You don't have to. You can play any number of thrill-by-the-minute, quest-grinder themeparks available on the market, and you'll be playing with a larger majority of the MMO population. Honestly, if someone doesn't get the sandbox mentality, it's probably for the best that they play other games, as so the two separate sub-genre's aren't worried about credibility, or changing based upon another variable market. Homogonization is ruining the genre for everyone, not just the hardcore or sandboxers.
Then I have a clue for you. Pay me some money and i will send you a blank picture to stare at. I will GUARANTEE that it is DULL.
And if you want to chat in the process, i would recommend MSN. It is free but you can pay me, if you like to pay for chatting while staring at a dull screen.
I'm not talking about a game that's all lull and no action, I'm talking about the previous posts in which I mentioned the reasons why I find more personal enjoyment in games that hand me the good with the bad, and action in scattered intervals, in terms of experiences. I like the risk of having all my shit looted, that adds excitement out in unprotected territories. I like having to roam for PvP, because if I were to be consantly in the fray, it would lose it's charm (I've had this experience with most instanced PvP MMO's). These are just a few examples, and why I've already mentioned before this post that I think this is all a matter of preference. MMO companies are going to continue to reflect the larger shares of the market, and niche sandbox games will exist for the players like myself. Some people like chocolate, some people like vanilla. Granted, some people probably like both, but we've all got an opinion why our flavor is the best.
Easy. Play WOW for 15 min than pay me to show you a blank screen (heck, i will throw in a picture) that guarantees to be the "bad" with the good. And you can resume after 10 min.
Every 30 min, i will throw a dice and if it comes out 6, you can give me all your stuff.
That is probably the closet you will get in a AAA polished MMO.
For the rest of us, we will just take the "good" and forget the "bad". I am not in a habit of paying for games to BORE me.
You're still not understanding the point I'm making. I'm not talking about games in which I do absolutely nothing for ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes. I'm talking about games that force me to think creatively, to find the fun for myself, rather than be guided through the experiences mindlessly. The reason I relate these to "good" and "bad" experiences, is because that's the way the casual market views this problem, and I was trying to use some phrasing that would cause less confusion. You can still reporte, such as, "Oh man, here's a blank page. Awesome game." And I'll continue to say, "You don't understand, that's not what I'm talking about." I've already compared this to a real world scenario regarding feeling and emotion, in which we would never understand how truly good happiness or joy can be to experience unless we had those moments in which we were forced to endure depression, frustration, or anger. If you don't understand that, I can't make it any less complicated for you.
Then why are you talking about dull moments and down-time? You are not making yourself clear.
Tell me WHICH down-time or dull moments in the old games require you to thin k creatively? There is no fun to be had staring at a spell book .. no matter how hard you try.
And if you have to go OUT of the game to get the fun, may as well not play.
Just claim other people don't understand does NOT make sitting down 10 min staring at the same screen fun.
easy !core player arent vocal contrary to casual!they dont like it, they just leave with their guild and thats it!i bet if you asked soe when it happened to them back in eq1 they could mention this!core player dont bother they just leave!and its never good for any game to lose core player!oh there are core player that are vocal but on average they dont bother they just leave
so try to have a discussion about an issue with a core player lol good luck getting their feed back its often friend of those core player that speak for them .so blizzard couldnt listen to core player any more then eq1 couldnt listen to core player since in both case they didnt bother discussing they just left!
This site is proof that what you said is not true. This THREAD is proof that they are vocal. How many QQing threads are there? .. just on THIS site.
Plus, if there are a lot of them and they leave, developers are going to notice and use surveys and what-not to find out why. You think companies just read forums?
i dont consider my self a core player!i might have been there since original wow but like i say i dont consider my self a core player!
Doesn't matter what you consider yourself as. There are enough QQing on this site about instances and instant travel. I am talking about those people. Are YOU one of those QQers?
i dont really care if its instanced or not!where i do really care is the silly low number of player they can fit on any given map be it instanced or not.in my book bellow 1k its a multiplayer game i have said this many time.my view on distant travel ?again i thing original wow was a good compromise i dont believe in teleportation for everybody!and if it was in game the person using it sjould loose a level (just to make sure that feature isnt abused)would probably be the best compromise so that those instant traveller would go where they want but they wouldnt be oped because they would loose a level when they do use it .this along with the original way wow worked would be making everybody happy!(exept farmer that sell gold ,item character etc,who cares about them anyway i sure dont)
I haven't read the whole thread so someone may have touched on this. I'm at work taking advantage of intermittant downtime, so... yeah. Anyway, someone mentioned the problem with hidden npcs and quests is that once found it's posted on 23466574565 wikis and game guides. I'd like to see some kind of generated one-of system where once an npc gives a quest and it's turned in, the npc leaves, only to be replaced with another with a different quest about an hour later. A pool of quest frameworks could be put into some kind of database that randomly generates the quest objectives and text. If anyone remembers playing Daggerfall, it implemented a similar, albeit somewhat simpler system for sidequests. They were basically FedEx style quests, but I think with some new programming techniques something similar could be achieved for MMOs, and with more robust content.
That way, even in the midst of the most themepark of themepark games, each person has the opportunity to do something unique in various places around the gameworld. What do you guys think? Would such a system be feasible?
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
I think the 'no instances' thing would work. The Dungeons would have to be very, very long and increase in difficulty on the way down, with bosses every few floors, and then everyone playing in the dungeon at the moment could potentially work together to get deeper and deeper, pushing back hordes of monsters. The dungeon would have to be so ridiculously long it would literally be impossible to completely kill every single monster in it, and each floor would have to be a labyrinth with many many mobs so that people who aren't interested in going further down can still kill stuff.
As mentioned by many, 'hidden dungeons' wouldn't stay hidden the moment someone discovers it, but it would still be a cool thing to do when the game first comes out. Also, if the world is big enough, it would take a considerable amount of time to find all the dungeons (especially if the areas are full of monsters, which would make exploration difficult). Also, the developers could occasionally add dungeons to previously empty areas without announcing it (or at least not announcing where the entrance is).
I also would love a game without instant travel, but it would definitely need a mount system so that you can travel quickly across huge distances, or a train or something that went really fast but only stops at certain places at certain times. WoW did ok with their taxi flying mounts, but even then, i'd like it more if there weren't so many stops.
But that's just me. There's plenty of people who don't have time for a game like that. Maybe for them there could be a system where you tell your player to go to a certain place and he'll automatically walk there, even when you're offline...
I completely agree that a MMORPG without instances would work- it's been done before and it worked. The problem is I don't see Devs ever going that way again. It is far more effort adding enough high level content to occupy the majority of the players than it is to instance it and let everyone do the same content at the same time.
The casuals complain they do not have enough time in the day to accomplish anything in their games and fast travel makes it easier for them instead of having to waste 30 min riding on a mount. The casuals whine and the mmo gods listen, thats how it works.
Then peple need to start playing games that more suit their lifesyle choices rather than bitch up a storm in any and every other game.
QFT
If you want a damn action/arcade instant gratification RPG go play one & leave the MMORPG worlds alone please!!
Like Diablo gear grinders games or something...
But this plea will fall into deft ears, because the masses are good at auto convincing themself that they are the righteous ones & those that don't agree with them are the dumb ones.
If we are many, we must be right! Right?
So not to seem like I'm attacking you but what's the difference between the highlighted portion and the players who feel the opposite who think they are right and have auto convinced themselves that they are the rightous ones and that those who dont agree with them are the dumb ones? The "if we are loud enough and are cranky enough we must be right. Right?" crowd.
This is a double edged sword. Just because one side yells louder or another side has more people or another side makes amore impassioned plea doesnt' make any of the arguments "more betterer".
Essentially what is happenign in these arguments is that someone is holding up a coin and asking "what do you see'. One guy is sayign "heads" and the other is saying "tails" and they keep arguing that the other is completley wrong.
As far as the idea of being "brain dead zombies', that axe, again can also swing both ways. Besides, if you are going to use that analogy then you should at least add an explanation that is plausible.
If I completely state my reasons for doing something and back it up with as explanation and even examples then that is not "brain dead". That is simply taking another side of the argument and explaining "why". So far from brain dead you cannot get.
But simply making blanket statements like that does come across as not only brain dead but rhetoric. Basically it's the spinal tap "this one goes to 11 - why not make 10 more powerful instead of just adding one more number - but, but this one goes to eleven" type of statement.
And for the most part, last I looked, most players did not have any say in how mmo's are actually developed. They are what they are and it's the developers who are the ones making the decicions. And of course those who hold the purse strings.
You are basically saying "don't show up to the party because if you do then the party will be different therefore stay home". When everyone was invited.
If anything the devs need to step up and say 'this is going to be a full on disco dance party. If you don't like it then it might not be for you".
And this way, those people who love full on disco dance will have a place to enjoy themselves no matter what.
very well done post. might be a bit over the heads of the guys that need to hear that the most tho. oh well.
The casuals complain they do not have enough time in the day to accomplish anything in their games and fast travel makes it easier for them instead of having to waste 30 min riding on a mount. The casuals whine and the mmo gods listen, thats how it works.
Then peple need to start playing games that more suit their lifesyle choices rather than bitch up a storm in any and every other game.
maybe there are no games that fall under some peoples taste anymore? The ancient games that used to have all the features I want are either so freaking old that theres a mountain of content now and they are impossible to just now get into or have fallen under peoples complaints and added features which took out some of peoples favorite events.
Many people dont actually like traveling, but looking back some of my favorite memories in games are from having to travel and it really does make things seem more real. Eq did away with that way back in PoP (which is about when I quit) and vanguard added in instant travel as well, I was kind of off and on with vanguard, it was a fun game but way too many bugs and many of the added crap (instant travel!) was ruining the game for me.
So what we have here is me following your advice and sticking with a game that suits my taste. Since all mmos follow the "instant" everything then I havent played an mmo in about 2 years. I used to love mmos, but if nobody is interested in creating a game that falls under the category that many of us are demanding than nobody will get our money. Im not so attached to mmos that I will pay for something I dont want.
Im still waiting for the new final fantasy, but from what I have heard it might have some of the same crap games these days spew out. I will give it a try, but this genre has probably lost a customer since nobody seems to give what many of the fans who actually supported mmos back at the start are demanding.
Im affraid there will never be a mmo that you realy need to spent time traveling and have real adventure:(
They promise that in Darkfall but failed now you have so many ways to travel fast that the world is not so big anymore as i thought it would be with adventure as reward.
The casuals will ruin that for those who dont mind playing a game for longtime and progress slowly and have a real adventure.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I fine that without travel capabilities it hurts the game more than helps, mounts/ teleports /fast travel are a necessity.
I always find statements like "if only their were no maps" or "instances" or "factions" that the game would be instantly better, as if those were the real flaws behind the MMOs, not the terrible gameplay, lack of storyline, or giant hindering flaw.
People often blame WoW for the state of MMOs, sure it has a lot to do with it, but really you cant completely blame one game or company. After all its not the companies fault that people would rather have quick travel instead of epic long walks, and its not Blizzards fault that other companies would rather mimic WoW than be their own thing.
Let go of your hatred, and stop blaming the wrong things and maybe look at the real reason most MMOs "Fail."
I fine that without travel capabilities it hurts the game more than helps, mounts/ teleports /fast travel are a necessity.
I always find statements like "if only their were no maps" or "instances" or "factions" that the game would be instantly better, as if those were the real flaws behind the MMOs, not the terrible gameplay, lack of storyline, or giant hindering flaw.
People often blame WoW for the state of MMOs, sure it has a lot to do with it, but really you cant completely blame one game or company. After all its not the companies fault that people would rather have quick travel instead of epic long walks, and its not Blizzards fault that other companies would rather mimic WoW than be their own thing.
Let go of your hatred, and stop blaming the wrong things and maybe look at the real reason most MMOs "Fail."
Fast/instant travel isnt a necessity, its just what the majority of people want. Theres nothing wrong with that, and its obvious why most would want that. Personally I miss having the travel. I often got a rush when I wandered into a new foreign area in EQ and then accidently ran into a huge sand giant, or dragon. I liked finding really cool looking landmarks or creatures that were just kind of out there. Having the travel time made the world seem HUGE. I really did feel like an ant in the eq world because of how large it seemed to be.
Having the lack of transportation also seemed spread out the population a lot more. You always saw people in every zone and every area. Sure there were spots like EC tunnels where there were tons of people but for the most part you didnt go many places and be left alone. Once PoP came out and we got the instant book travel then it seemed like everyone would just stay in a few spots and all the other zones were dead.
Also I dont think ive ever heard someone say that having no maps instances or factions is what makes or breaks a game. Its just certain features that people enjoy more.
And I dont really think it was blizzards intention to ruin the genre, but that is what happened. By ruin I mean change, it changed the entire genre so that each and every game wanted to be like WoW. Thus, each and every game stripped out many of our favorite features so that the average person would be more inclined to play it.
It may be unfair to hate blizzard for what happened, but the fact is before WoW the mmorpg genre was exactly how many of us wanted it to be. After it was released many of us dont even want to play any of the games.
I am not a regular poster and I do not express myself very well but: I am so sick of instances and instant travels. I play MMO's for the adventure and for the community and atmosphere. I want my party to actually enter a dungeon/castle and meet people along the way who dare to venture alone or another band of travelers.
I dont care if we meet and end up in conflict or become friends and venture futher depth's to conqueror the unknown that lies within!
I want random dungeons (not generated) that are hidden well, so explorer's can come across them. Is it really hard to program a cave inside a cliff that isn't easily seen on the road? What is the whole point in this land mass if there only DUNGEON A, B, and C and they have a big advertizement saying "COME HERE".
Why can't we have many and many hidden depth's located around the world? I just want the simple things (lol even though they might be complicated)
And this Instant traveling BS?
Do away with it (That is my personal opinion, many people like IT and if that is there cup of tea: go ahead and do your thing), I rather travel around on foot, or horse with travelers exploring that ancient ruin's and maybe traveling along the beach to find a shipwreck that was not there yesterday. Let the world revolve. Have a schedule on key events that happen monthly or daily? I stated it before "what is the whole point in this land mass" If I am going to skip it by instant tele'ing to the city and Instant Tele'ing back to the nearest dungeons and not explore.
This may be a rant but blah blah blah!
I support the OP ideas and requests. I want MMOs to be a virtual world without fast travel, without billboards signs that say "go here, Kill this", without quest Icons above NPCs heads. I want a big virtual world... massive... where you actually have to hunt and track to find the NPC your looking for... and also allows you when you get hungry to hunt for venison or wild turkey to satisfy the hunger (character effecting) of your group.
I want a virtual world where Explorers are NEEDED and useful to discover/locate caverns that function as dungeons, and other hidden areas of interest. I want Rogues to not only pick locks, steal and backstab, but also be able to pick up on rumors in towns... rumors that speak of treasure hidden....
What I want is a MMO Virtual world that recreates as closely and detailed as possible the world of pen and paper games like DnD. I would pay big bucks for the privaledge to log into a MMO like this, 5 times the normal MMO subscription just to start with.
No, DDO isn't it. It's not even close. Massive instancing and tiny landscape. Not cool. As far as I am concerned DDO is a good MMO, but is nothing like what the OP asks for and what Iseek as well.
But just as my opinion is irrelevant to Developers, Publishers, and MMO Investors, so too is my preferences in how I believe MMOs should be designed. No one will care what I want and am willing to pay for... no one that makes the decisions that is.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!" ............... "I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. " __Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__ ...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I think the 'no instances' thing would work. The Dungeons would have to be very, very long and increase in difficulty on the way down, with bosses every few floors, and then everyone playing in the dungeon at the moment could potentially work together to get deeper and deeper, pushing back hordes of monsters. The dungeon would have to be so ridiculously long it would literally be impossible to completely kill every single monster in it, and each floor would have to be a labyrinth with many many mobs so that people who aren't interested in going further down can still kill stuff.
As mentioned by many, 'hidden dungeons' wouldn't stay hidden the moment someone discovers it, but it would still be a cool thing to do when the game first comes out. Also, if the world is big enough, it would take a considerable amount of time to find all the dungeons (especially if the areas are full of monsters, which would make exploration difficult). Also, the developers could occasionally add dungeons to previously empty areas without announcing it (or at least not announcing where the entrance is).
I also would love a game without instant travel, but it would definitely need a mount system so that you can travel quickly across huge distances, or a train or something that went really fast but only stops at certain places at certain times. WoW did ok with their taxi flying mounts, but even then, i'd like it more if there weren't so many stops.
But that's just me. There's plenty of people who don't have time for a game like that. Maybe for them there could be a system where you tell your player to go to a certain place and he'll automatically walk there, even when you're offline...
I don't want very very long dungeons because i don't have that much time to play. In fact, the trend is to have dungeons and raids shorter and shorter so people can do it in bites.
And asking toons to walk offline is just silly and difficult to coordinate. If you want a group to go a dungeon, do we now have to ESTIMATE when all the toons will arrive? Give me a break. This is a perfect sound good, but unworkable idea.
Comments
easy !core player arent vocal contrary to casual!they dont like it, they just leave with their guild and thats it!i bet if you asked soe when it happened to them back in eq1 they could mention this!core player dont bother they just leave!and its never good for any game to lose core player!oh there are core player that are vocal but on average they dont bother they just leave
so try to have a discussion about an issue with a core player lol good luck getting their feed back its often friend of those core player that speak for them .so blizzard couldnt listen to core player any more then eq1 couldnt listen to core player since in both case they didnt bother discussing they just left!
There is lots of value to vastly sized worlds to explore, and in general that will require you to get out on foot to investigate. However, there is no value in a 20 minute commute to get from one place to the other for known locations. As with pretty much everything I debate, I usually support a middle ground. There should be plenty of instantaneous travel, and there should also be exploration zones which must be explored and exploited on foot (or horse or whatever), the exception being some towns or outposts in strategic locations.
easy !core player arent vocal contrary to casual!they dont like it, they just leave with their guild and thats it!i bet if you asked soe when it happened to them back in eq1 they could mention this!core player dont bother they just leave!and its never good for any game to lose core player!oh there are core player that are vocal but on average they dont bother they just leave
so try to have a discussion about an issue with a core player lol good luck getting their feed back its often friend of those core player that speak for them .so blizzard couldnt listen to core player any more then eq1 couldnt listen to core player since in both case they didnt bother discussing they just left!
This site is proof that what you said is not true. This THREAD is proof that they are vocal. How many QQing threads are there? .. just on THIS site.
Plus, if there are a lot of them and they leave, developers are going to notice and use surveys and what-not to find out why. You think companies just read forums?
Easy. Play WOW for 15 min than pay me to show you a blank screen (heck, i will throw in a picture) that guarantees to be the "bad" with the good. And you can resume after 10 min.
Every 30 min, i will throw a dice and if it comes out 6, you can give me all your stuff.
That is probably the closet you will get in a AAA polished MMO.
For the rest of us, we will just take the "good" and forget the "bad". I am not in a habit of paying for games to BORE me.
Only if there is something interesting there. A 100 sq miles of desert with nothing is vast to explore but boring as hell. In fact, i don't want a vast world, i want an interesting one.
It is a pain to walk 30 min with teh same scenary before you get to something interesting.
I think part of the issue is with current technology it's tough for developers to do dynamic content and also tough to put in any real scale. Most don't even try due to fears about real resource requirements.
Most game worlds (even the largest ones) are frankly ultra-tiny by real world standards. They are almost entirely static. The thing about travel in the real world (at least prior to modern times) that made it exciting/adventurous/dangerous was that no 2 journies between 2 distant points were ever the same. Conditions CHANGED with each trip and you never knew who or what you might encounter...even if you were familiar with the geography.
Games don't do this. Nor do they model well the dynamic in most fantasy settings...where "adventurers" were few and far between and the wilderness was vast and filled with hazards. The dynamic in todays games is pretty much the reverse, there are dozens of adventurers for every square meter of "wilderness".
I don't think these issues are unsolvable, but it's going to take advances in technology (and yes advances in the sophistication of procedural generation) for them to become more common-place in games.
If you DO solve these issues....then I think you will see less demand (although probably still some) for instant travel and instances. Since adventurers won't be tripping over each other every 5 paces...and travel will actualy be part of the adventure... but, unfortunately, we aren't there yet.
Vanguard, theres not enough people to camp and theres no people who puts dungeons all over the internet.
Good thing about low population.
You're still not understanding the point I'm making. I'm not talking about games in which I do absolutely nothing for ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes. I'm talking about games that force me to think creatively, to find the fun for myself, rather than be guided through the experiences mindlessly. The reason I relate these to "good" and "bad" experiences, is because that's the way the casual market views this problem, and I was trying to use some phrasing that would cause less confusion. You can still reporte, such as, "Oh man, here's a blank page. Awesome game." And I'll continue to say, "You don't understand, that's not what I'm talking about." I've already compared this to a real world scenario regarding feeling and emotion, in which we would never understand how truly good happiness or joy can be to experience unless we had those moments in which we were forced to endure depression, frustration, or anger. If you don't understand that, I can't make it any less complicated for you.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
i dont consider my self a core player!i might have been there since original wow but like i say i dont consider my self a core player!
I think the concept of hidden dungeons is really cool. I would like to see that implemented in more games. However, I can't say that I completely agree with you about a lack of instances and a lack of Instant Travel. I love to use instances, but only when I am in a bind. I think that a lot of us who don't always like to travel in packs of people would find that the games are a lot more difficult without the ability to heal one's self. This also brings me to instant travel. If one of the main problems with MMOs is that people hate the grind then being forced to travel slowly to get anywhere in the world would only increase everyone's frustrations. I think that without the ability to teleport from place to place MMOs would be much less enjoyable.
www.ryzom.com
The concept of hidden dungeons is done. You can only hide a dungeon if no one plays your game and the internet doesn't exist=) Since lots of people should be playing this game and they're all obviously on the internet, there will be no such thing as a hidden dungeon. The easiest solution for that is to NOT look anything up on the internet if you enjoy figuring everything out for yourself. But I guess certain people can't help themselves=)
Sure ... for unsuccessful games.
I mean if no one is in the game, you are more or less having the whole "instance" to yourself. Obviously this won't work for games that actuallly have a lot of players.
Then why are you talking about dull moments and down-time? You are not making yourself clear.
Tell me WHICH down-time or dull moments in the old games require you to thin k creatively? There is no fun to be had staring at a spell book .. no matter how hard you try.
And if you have to go OUT of the game to get the fun, may as well not play.
Just claim other people don't understand does NOT make sitting down 10 min staring at the same screen fun.
Doesn't matter what you consider yourself as. There are enough QQing on this site about instances and instant travel. I am talking about those people. Are YOU one of those QQers?
i dont really care if its instanced or not!where i do really care is the silly low number of player they can fit on any given map be it instanced or not.in my book bellow 1k its a multiplayer game i have said this many time.my view on distant travel ?again i thing original wow was a good compromise i dont believe in teleportation for everybody!and if it was in game the person using it sjould loose a level (just to make sure that feature isnt abused)would probably be the best compromise so that those instant traveller would go where they want but they wouldnt be oped because they would loose a level when they do use it .this along with the original way wow worked would be making everybody happy!(exept farmer that sell gold ,item character etc,who cares about them anyway i sure dont)
I haven't read the whole thread so someone may have touched on this. I'm at work taking advantage of intermittant downtime, so... yeah. Anyway, someone mentioned the problem with hidden npcs and quests is that once found it's posted on 23466574565 wikis and game guides. I'd like to see some kind of generated one-of system where once an npc gives a quest and it's turned in, the npc leaves, only to be replaced with another with a different quest about an hour later. A pool of quest frameworks could be put into some kind of database that randomly generates the quest objectives and text. If anyone remembers playing Daggerfall, it implemented a similar, albeit somewhat simpler system for sidequests. They were basically FedEx style quests, but I think with some new programming techniques something similar could be achieved for MMOs, and with more robust content.
That way, even in the midst of the most themepark of themepark games, each person has the opportunity to do something unique in various places around the gameworld. What do you guys think? Would such a system be feasible?
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
I think the 'no instances' thing would work. The Dungeons would have to be very, very long and increase in difficulty on the way down, with bosses every few floors, and then everyone playing in the dungeon at the moment could potentially work together to get deeper and deeper, pushing back hordes of monsters. The dungeon would have to be so ridiculously long it would literally be impossible to completely kill every single monster in it, and each floor would have to be a labyrinth with many many mobs so that people who aren't interested in going further down can still kill stuff.
As mentioned by many, 'hidden dungeons' wouldn't stay hidden the moment someone discovers it, but it would still be a cool thing to do when the game first comes out. Also, if the world is big enough, it would take a considerable amount of time to find all the dungeons (especially if the areas are full of monsters, which would make exploration difficult). Also, the developers could occasionally add dungeons to previously empty areas without announcing it (or at least not announcing where the entrance is).
I also would love a game without instant travel, but it would definitely need a mount system so that you can travel quickly across huge distances, or a train or something that went really fast but only stops at certain places at certain times. WoW did ok with their taxi flying mounts, but even then, i'd like it more if there weren't so many stops.
But that's just me. There's plenty of people who don't have time for a game like that. Maybe for them there could be a system where you tell your player to go to a certain place and he'll automatically walk there, even when you're offline...
I completely agree that a MMORPG without instances would work- it's been done before and it worked. The problem is I don't see Devs ever going that way again. It is far more effort adding enough high level content to occupy the majority of the players than it is to instance it and let everyone do the same content at the same time.
very well done post. might be a bit over the heads of the guys that need to hear that the most tho. oh well.
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Corpus Callosum
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maybe there are no games that fall under some peoples taste anymore? The ancient games that used to have all the features I want are either so freaking old that theres a mountain of content now and they are impossible to just now get into or have fallen under peoples complaints and added features which took out some of peoples favorite events.
Many people dont actually like traveling, but looking back some of my favorite memories in games are from having to travel and it really does make things seem more real. Eq did away with that way back in PoP (which is about when I quit) and vanguard added in instant travel as well, I was kind of off and on with vanguard, it was a fun game but way too many bugs and many of the added crap (instant travel!) was ruining the game for me.
So what we have here is me following your advice and sticking with a game that suits my taste. Since all mmos follow the "instant" everything then I havent played an mmo in about 2 years. I used to love mmos, but if nobody is interested in creating a game that falls under the category that many of us are demanding than nobody will get our money. Im not so attached to mmos that I will pay for something I dont want.
Im still waiting for the new final fantasy, but from what I have heard it might have some of the same crap games these days spew out. I will give it a try, but this genre has probably lost a customer since nobody seems to give what many of the fans who actually supported mmos back at the start are demanding.
Im affraid there will never be a mmo that you realy need to spent time traveling and have real adventure:(
They promise that in Darkfall but failed now you have so many ways to travel fast that the world is not so big anymore as i thought it would be with adventure as reward.
The casuals will ruin that for those who dont mind playing a game for longtime and progress slowly and have a real adventure.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I fine that without travel capabilities it hurts the game more than helps, mounts/ teleports /fast travel are a necessity.
I always find statements like "if only their were no maps" or "instances" or "factions" that the game would be instantly better, as if those were the real flaws behind the MMOs, not the terrible gameplay, lack of storyline, or giant hindering flaw.
People often blame WoW for the state of MMOs, sure it has a lot to do with it, but really you cant completely blame one game or company. After all its not the companies fault that people would rather have quick travel instead of epic long walks, and its not Blizzards fault that other companies would rather mimic WoW than be their own thing.
Let go of your hatred, and stop blaming the wrong things and maybe look at the real reason most MMOs "Fail."
Fast/instant travel isnt a necessity, its just what the majority of people want. Theres nothing wrong with that, and its obvious why most would want that. Personally I miss having the travel. I often got a rush when I wandered into a new foreign area in EQ and then accidently ran into a huge sand giant, or dragon. I liked finding really cool looking landmarks or creatures that were just kind of out there. Having the travel time made the world seem HUGE. I really did feel like an ant in the eq world because of how large it seemed to be.
Having the lack of transportation also seemed spread out the population a lot more. You always saw people in every zone and every area. Sure there were spots like EC tunnels where there were tons of people but for the most part you didnt go many places and be left alone. Once PoP came out and we got the instant book travel then it seemed like everyone would just stay in a few spots and all the other zones were dead.
Also I dont think ive ever heard someone say that having no maps instances or factions is what makes or breaks a game. Its just certain features that people enjoy more.
And I dont really think it was blizzards intention to ruin the genre, but that is what happened. By ruin I mean change, it changed the entire genre so that each and every game wanted to be like WoW. Thus, each and every game stripped out many of our favorite features so that the average person would be more inclined to play it.
It may be unfair to hate blizzard for what happened, but the fact is before WoW the mmorpg genre was exactly how many of us wanted it to be. After it was released many of us dont even want to play any of the games.
I support the OP ideas and requests. I want MMOs to be a virtual world without fast travel, without billboards signs that say "go here, Kill this", without quest Icons above NPCs heads. I want a big virtual world... massive... where you actually have to hunt and track to find the NPC your looking for... and also allows you when you get hungry to hunt for venison or wild turkey to satisfy the hunger (character effecting) of your group.
I want a virtual world where Explorers are NEEDED and useful to discover/locate caverns that function as dungeons, and other hidden areas of interest. I want Rogues to not only pick locks, steal and backstab, but also be able to pick up on rumors in towns... rumors that speak of treasure hidden....
What I want is a MMO Virtual world that recreates as closely and detailed as possible the world of pen and paper games like DnD. I would pay big bucks for the privaledge to log into a MMO like this, 5 times the normal MMO subscription just to start with.
No, DDO isn't it. It's not even close. Massive instancing and tiny landscape. Not cool. As far as I am concerned DDO is a good MMO, but is nothing like what the OP asks for and what Iseek as well.
But just as my opinion is irrelevant to Developers, Publishers, and MMO Investors, so too is my preferences in how I believe MMOs should be designed. No one will care what I want and am willing to pay for... no one that makes the decisions that is.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!"
...............
"I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. "
__Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__
...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I don't want very very long dungeons because i don't have that much time to play. In fact, the trend is to have dungeons and raids shorter and shorter so people can do it in bites.
And asking toons to walk offline is just silly and difficult to coordinate. If you want a group to go a dungeon, do we now have to ESTIMATE when all the toons will arrive? Give me a break. This is a perfect sound good, but unworkable idea.