Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Waiting for the boat.
whilan
Member UncommonPosts: 3,472
I have notice a big change over the course from EQ to today, in my experience when i was in EQ the best time i had was when i was waiting for a boat and some random person came up that was also waiting for the boat. This began a sort of friendship over the course of 15 mins waiting for that boat. By the time the boat had arrived i changed my plan to help that said person because i wanted to see what his adventure was like.
This in turn allowed him to help me with my quest because we were friends by the time his quest was finished. After about a week of talking to each other, he invited me to his guild.
Now this isn't the normal circumstance but this was one of my experiences. If there had been an instant teleport, then good chance i'd never met that person and made a friend and eventually alot of friend in the guild.
So i'm wondering, is all this instant travel and getting to places quicker really a good thing? Is it truely just about the adventure or the people in the adventure. Personally myself i think the stopping people at points is actually a good thing. But i'm curious on your thoughts on this matter.
Apologies if this has been brought up before but i haven't seen it recently and i don't want to necro any threads.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Comments
There are quite a few people out there that share your views. It's just that we are a minority compared to the rest of the gaming populace and nobody feels it would be profitable to make a game that caters to our tastes.
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 dont' know why people find it hard to find people to play with.
Find the largest guild on the server. Join them. You'll find people to play with.
Long travel time dont' bother me very much though.
To me, there should be a value(reason) for long travel time. For example, in a open pvp games you'll meet people to gank/get ganked. Or long travel time add another dimension to economy(for example, certain things only sell or sell cheaper in certaintown).
I can relate to that experience, whilan.
I play MMOs for the combination of gaming & social interaction in that game world. Blizzard's changes to World of Warcraft are excellent examples of what not to do, in my personal opinion. Previously, I would talk to players and form a group, then travel to a destination alone or together, and work as a team toward a common goal. If someone left the party it impacted the experience to a relatively large degree. Also, all the players involved were on the same server, which encourages a player to actually care about their reputation in that game world. If they behave poorly, then they might not be welcome in a number of groups. People talked about the game and other topics while "running an instance", etc.
Unfortunately, now many people sit in a major city, waiting in a queue, only to be thrown together with random people from other servers, teleporting instantly to the destination with these other players who rarely speak (in my experience), and leave as soon as the last boss mob is killed. This is a common occurrence and was a major reason I cancelled my account (for the nth time) to that game.
Yikes. I wouldn't even bother playing an mmo if I was just thrown in a random group with strangers. I might as well be playing counter strike at that point. Grouping with cool people is what makes these games fun.
Time sinks can foster positive side effects such as interacting with others you wouldn't normally do. It is just a side effect though albeit a positive one, to something largely considered a negative thing. Nobody In their right mind, with a job a wife and a couple of kids has time to sit and wait 15 - 30 mins on a boat to go somewhere, just so you can be ready to take your spot on yet another timesink "a list" in order to have a little playtime in before real life screams at you. A lot of us that started with EQ just don't have the same freedom today as we did back then.
I miss those times as well were I would be in a camp somewhere down in lower guk waiting to get my haste belt, ykesha or whatever making ingame friendships with people who would be there for 6 hours or more straight. The truth is most of us don't have that time available anymore. We have real lives now.
Time sinks had it's hayday with EQ and it helped foster community unlike what we see today but as I mentioned before it was a side effect, because the timesinks gave you nothing to do much like a chatroom doesn't give you anything to do other than to chat with others. I wouldn't brand it as a positive feature however.
The OP is 100% correct to me. Having those experiences in-between the lvls, mobs, and loot was what made mmos so great.
The "Right Now" attitude is too much nowdays and we are spoon fed our content. You can't just find your own way much anymore.
Who remembers when you actually would READ quests to see where you needed to go etc?
Sadly, I too have fallen victim to the "not enough time anymore" mental state sometimes and just glided through.
I always feel cheated and bored at the end.
I want my mmos to be my own story about what I do and who I interact with. I don't want to be just like all the other lvl XXs in that we all did the exact same steps to get to where we are.
Actually there is some truth to what the OP say. But for a casual player that might get an hour or 2 when the kids are sleeping 15 minutes are forever.
Maybe it is time for casual servers with instant travels and lower difficulty and then have a regular game for people with some more time? It would not be that hard, it is not as much work as having PvE and PvP servers.
This post pretty much nails it, imo, and good topic OP.
This quote, however, pretty much explains why such things have disappeared. In the exact same quote, he nails why it's a negative! The same folks who enjoyed "waiting for the boat" and other such timesinks have moved on in life, but still "want" an MMORPG, but one that's catered to their new playstyle and schedule (or unscheduled) lives. I mean Fibsdk and Odium are prime examples; both happy to have moved forward, taking on responsibilities, and no longer having the time they once did, but still trying to take on enjoy MMO's. Unfortunately it leads to what Odium explained - feeling cheated. It's pretty much a paradox where both can't really exist; players with little time and still want that feeling. But we still get MMO's that try, and pretty much fail. And then there's WoW....
It's a shame really, because so many newer gamers don't even understand such things having never experienced them. Even more of a shame is that with the way MMO's continue to develop towards the "now now now" mentality, even less will have the opportunity or will to do so.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde
You had to queue? We can’t have that in modern MMO’s! Its push one button and you are there, or push one button and the guy ahead of you is in the river.
Yes, EverQuest was full of time sinks. A player would group with other players to kill a static spawned mob over and over, for a chance at killing the rare spawn mob, and then hope the rare loot item dropped, and then hope no one ninja'd the item, and then hope he/she won the role. The player could spend as little as an hour to days or weeks of camping to get one item.
In World of Warcraft, a player will queue to group. DPS classes might wait 10-30min for a group, while tanks and healers wait shorter periods of time, due to demand. The players are instantly teleported to the instance (yay for no time sink of travel!), then fight with random strangers from other servers, probably not talking, hoping the boss mob drops the item they want, hope that he/she wins the role (if anyone else rolls against them). If it doesn't drop, then the player is forced to wait until the next day for another chance to do it all over again. A player could spend as little as 20-30min to days or weeks of re-running the entire instance in order to get one item.
Time sinks haven't disappeared. They've simply changed from game to game.
The EQ player could spend 1-2 hours camping, not get the item, and then call it a night and try tomorrow.
The WoW player could spend 10-20min queueing for a group, then 20-30min running the instance, and not be allowed to try again until the next day.
I will keep looking for a game I like with the level of social interaction I desire, and those who are happy without it can keep playing any number of the MMOs already live.
Or better yet, instead of catering to the casual instant action players, why don't the players themselves just realise that they don't have time for this type of game/genre and go do something else instead?
It's a false problem.
You have the option: wait for a boat or do the fast stuff with random people.
The problem is rather simple too: player populations and their limits in place/time.
The Guild is the mainstay of any succesful immersive playing style these days and if guildies are absent or your social skills suck to join a guild or have RL friends in a game, you can go and hook up with random people.
You cover both markets. The problem is that many people lack the social skills to team up in a structured way with friends (guild play).
In the end : those ... lacking these social skills are also those who make quick PUG's and do fast (travel) play.
It's a false problem. As a publisher you can promote group play for both kind of players, but in the end it is the player that decides how he wants to play.
Guild rewards are a push, but you cant change a player's character. And still a lot of computer players are strong individual personalities.
In the end people who complain about these things are just the ones applying them without the obvious other choice to make (and available)... because that would mean they would utilize social skills and time sinks.
Just these 2 last points - social skills and the use of time sinks - are the core problems why they don't play in structured game play like guilds.
"waiting for the boat" along with "going to the bathroom" is just one of those things that i can assume my chracter had to do without actually watching them do it. i've always hoped a game would use more creative loading screens, something like a map in indiana jones that shows you moving along the map or something, to symbolize the journey.
of course it depends on the game, if the game world is really detailed and things are actually happening on boats as well as in and around docks, then the waiting can be part of the experience. if it's just there as a timesink, no thanks.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
I think all the early games copied each other. My first MMORPG, Lineage 1 also had a boat to take new players from the starter island over the mainland (wasn't cheap either) and I too met a person on my first trip over (10 minute ride btw) and almost 10 years later, we're still friends.
In fact, I still remain in close contact with a number of folks from Lineage 1 and DAOC and the one thing both games had in common with each other was forced downtime and encouraged grouping.
At the time the timesinks/downtime sort of pissed me off, but in retrospect today I see why developers put them into the game, (no, it wasn't just to extend your sub time) but rather to foster a sense of community between strangers.
I've seen the posts on these forums countless times about how much it would suck to be forced to group with strangers.
As if they're all some sort of alien life form that no one could relate to.
Gamers who've only experienced the last 5 years or so of MMORPG's have no idea what they missed..... or are still missing today.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I agree with the original post. I hate to bring up WoW but there are good examples there. Even though the boats didn't take nearly 15 minutes they had been an important way to get from one continent to another. During these times I met cool allies also riding along, or met enemies to have really epic fights with. This is dead now that they added two cycling boats at a time, and there really is no one who uses these boats anymore.
Looking at this through a PvP perspective I really miss this kind of thing. New MMOs (no WoW wasn't my first mmo or anything) are almost making it so players don't have to interact besides raids/dungeons. I think at all levels of the game for any reason player should want and need to interact with one another to accomplish minor or major things. Just my input though because I don't see any old school style games making a come back
Whether or not I'm in a game, I tend to react the same way to strangers who try to strike up conversations with me on public transportation - cautious looks and slowly moving away.
Any idea why you do this? What would be the harm of being social? What taught you to be so wary and fearful?
NM, off topic I guess.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Of course it is a good thing. You met ONE person while waiting for the boat. How many hours did you wasted in TOTAL not meeting anyone?
It is not like people are NOT making friends in MMOs with instant travel. I am in 3 separate guilds (2 leveling & social, one progression) in WOW and i don't need to wait 30 min every play session to get that.
And no, i wont be going back to games that waste my time.
I respect your views on this idea, however this isn't the only incident, this was just the one i choose for the topic at hand, i've met tons of people in these time sink as people call them. Also to touch on the wasted hours point, for that one person that led to a guild of friends? those "suppose" wasted hours were not lost to me. They were well worth it. I'm glad that you've found a guild that works for you. The point of the post however was to ask the question is all this instant travel to point A and Point B really all it's cracked up to be, if all we do is travel right to a dungeon? why not make it like GW1 where we take a task and we immediately appear in the dungeon we selected. I'll stop there because i don't want to makes this a fight between GW1 and EQ and because this feels like i'm trying to push my point onto you, and thats counter productive to a discussion.
Anyhow, I choose the waiting for the boat idea because you can't normally make it right to the location it takes time to get there. The boat while annoying at times to have to wait all the time to get to Qeynos or Erudian, it did make the world feel "somewhat" real. If you just missed the boat, you had to wait a while for it to make it's journey to the other port and come back. If i might bring Rl into this for a moment. It takes time to get to the store, it takes time to get to work. While yes these all suck they are a part of real life and i think the boat idea is a good representation of making the game world seem more real.
I agree you can join a guild. But that feels cold and distant to me until i actually meet the people and group/fight with them. I don't feel right sometime entering a guild of people and trying to work my way into their hearts (so to speak) I like sometime meeting the people first and getting to know them (this is my personal choice). I know i can do this even with instant teleport but it can make it hard when everyone is just running to their destination. Theres little chance to say hello or to strike up a conversation without people "staring" at you wonder why you are trying to talk to them when they are stopped for 2 second to activate said teleport. If you were at the dock and someone sat next to you. Someone could say hello and the other person would respond to pass the time.
Now i agree that in cases the time sinks were just stupidly annoying and had no place (ala ragefire) and they should be taken out or reduced. Mostly the waiting forever to get a specific drop. Some of the drop rates in those places were horrible but i don't believe the actual getting to a place should be instant. These are just my views and i'm glad people enjoy the instant teleport. I'm just curious if the instant teleport really bring the community together or not
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
It's a case of themepark vs sandbox, with the majority of games now coming out as themeparks. Themeparks you jump off one ride and rush to the next, there's very little to slow you down allowing interaction with people around you. Most of the time you don't even need to interact with other players, as everything can be done solo and thus usually is. I think a lot of people view these games as just another single player game, just with other people populating the world, so the whole MMORPG novelty is lost on them.
Personally, I wish games would take a switch back to what made MMO's great in the first place, and had us all jumping on board. The focus should return to player interaction, about building a community and having people praised or outcast for their actions. Take EverQuest, if you were a ninja looter with no skill at playing your character, chances are you wouldn't be seeing many groups and would eventually need to restart due to feeling unwelcome. That's a community at work. The world felt larger and more real because of the distances and times involved. But there were options around that, such as Wizard and Druid ports which meant interacting with other players to get those ports. Win win situation.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I just feel like MMO's have lost their way, they're trying to be single player RPG's with story, cutscenes and quick jumps from one place to the next. MMO's should be about living in a different world, not being shown the highlights.
Forced downtime is not the answer to social inadequacy. Between focal points where people will gather, forums, etc - there are plenty of avenues for one to socialize if they so wish.
Forcing people into awkward waiting periods where they may seek to relieve their boredom and stumble upon love...well, is not the answer.
Then again, I do not play MMORPGs looking to make friends, find a spouse, or the like. Have friends outside of games. If I end up making friends with somebody along the way, fine... but to try to build your social life around a MMORPG is rather sad.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
If they did that, the MMO marketplace would implode. There are just too many games out there to support UO-level numbers.
It's never going to go back to the way it was, deal with it.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
See it doesn't matter how much time I am forced to spend waiting for something, I am not going to want to talk or befriend people. I already have some friends, I play games with them I don't play games to make friends though, so downtime for me isn't a chance to socialize it is just a waste of time., I mean I have spent 10 or so minutes waiting for boats in WoW, it isn't a large ammount of time and I am not complaining but I have never struck up a conversation with people either. It is like waiting in line or something in real life, I don't talk to people and I really wish they wouldn't talk to me since I don't want to be forced into an awkward conversation.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
All the friends I had ever made during my years in EQ were from waiting on the boat, waiting around at the Druid circles trying to convince a Druid why they should port me for free (Roleplaying), going to the auction tunnle in EFP, standing at the city gates/zone line shouting for a "Spirit of the Wolf" (again, roleplaying), etc..
For me, the battles and the questing and the all the other physical elements of the game were the bonus. The real meat of the game was interacting with the other players. Everything else was just the icing on the cake.
A tiny mind is a tidy mind...