...Everyone can see that the individual player is driven to better his hero. Not to better the herd.
Derogatory "herd" usage aside, that's exactly the kind of mentality that got us to where we are today. Something tells me you haven't had the pleasure of being a part of a great guild/corp/clan etc.
The human experience that can come with these games, seems to ever escape you.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
If you want to follow the 100 DPS running from one triggered event to another triggered event I give you exaclty 3 days before being bored.
You see you talk about hyped potential, I talk about gaming everyone sees.
Everyone can see that the individual player is driven to better his hero. Not to better the herd.
that is like generalizing questing, which is what phasing is, as generic zerging unimaginative gameplay that you can brainlessly solo faceroll your way through. Game mechanics cannot be described so simply and WoW never did Any dynamic content like that I should know I was in closed beta all the way up through wrath in wow. I will tell you though Phasing wont make it. It is better to actually have the world effected than creating the illusion of the world changing. which was done in guild wars, Illusion don't hold much. Phasing divides community, mechanics that divide the community wont last the genre just like individual questing isn't lasting. MMO's are going to become about creating a solo experience while you still being in a group helping the community. I expect the future of MMO's to destroy all barriers that slow, hinder, or divide the community. While I think Single player games are going to explore the realm of Co-Op to create experience like Diablo, but with new game mechanics from different genres.
...Everyone can see that the individual player is driven to better his hero. Not to better the herd.
Derogatory "herd" usage aside, that's exactly the kind of mentality that got us to where we are today. Something tells me you haven't had the pleasure of being a part of a great guild/corp/clan etc.
The human experience that can come with these games, seems to ever escape you.
I will quote my other one liner: and yes I am in a guild.
"What makes MMO great is that IF you have the time and IF it interests you, YOU can decide to group or not and with whom or not."
It is the key why most MMO's died a slow and rather painful death. Self triggered mass events (in PVE !) mentioned above will not be the hyped success everyone thinks it will be, because the personal incensitive is absent in the long run. It all passes "above your heads".
Players play games for their individual amusement, not for the herd.
Why bother even dipping your toes in the genre if you don't want that?
Perhaps you should ask the millions of WOW players who play exactly like that?
Or read the hundreds of posts here on MMORPG.com where players who enjoy soloing enjoy it more when they get the passive benefits MMOs provide, like economy and random social encounters (which still happen, even with phasing.)
Personally I prefer small-group content, but I also enjoy solo world content (as long as it hits a certain bar of quality, which phasing allows WOW's solo content to achieve. LOTRO's solo content was similarly excellent.)
I would much prefer to be with a small group of actual friends, than to be slapped into some "team" of random people that happen to be online. Also, I'm not against soloing at all, but if that's the be all and end all for a gamer, there's simply better options out there for them than mmos.
Well it's clearly not the be-all/end-all, for those choosing MMOs over Pure Singleplayer games. Either that or those players are just making bad choices about the games they play, heh.
But yeah I agree with preferring friends to randoms (although I do plenty of both). RealID helps, but there are plenty of ways I criticize WOW's queue system for not allowing me to friend people in those random groups, or to queue with RealID friends (especially those who are IRL friends) if they're not on the same server. At least RealID helped me spot a server to xfer to, to play with a bunch of friends.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I will quote my other one liner: and yes I am in a guild.
"What makes MMO great is that IF you have the time and IF it interests you, YOU can decide to group or not and with whom or not."
It is the key why most MMO's died a slow and rather painful death. Self triggered mass events (in PVE !) mentioned above will not be the hyped success everyone thinks it will be, because the personal incensitive is absent in the long run. It all passes "above your heads".
Players play games for their individual amusement, not for the herd.
My theory of course.
As to your one liner, /bows: I do that in both of my mmorpg homes. That is not unique to the game you're playing, it has to do with the kind of RL people that make up the group (guild).
To the rest: sounds like you really don't care for Rift, and you continue to refer to those of us who enjoy human interaction (more so than you do) in game as "the herd".
Strange theory.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
There is another reason why phasing will not be easely copied: it is too expensive to develop.
Yeah I think that's probably the biggest of the reasons phasing will struggle to be widely adopted.
It doesn't strike me as something super easy to do (at least at the scale to which these worlds are made.)
Being a programmer myself i know what it takes to implement something like phasing. While not the simplest of tasks it isn't nearly as difficult as you seem to think. The actualy mechanic isn't to difficult to implement as i already described in an earlier post.
Oh really: so you think implementing phasing is "easy" in an mmorpg....
First eliminate already all MMO's which don't have background loading.
Then eliminate all instance techniques used because it is not a loaded instance.
Then do the activation of a phased surface based on proximity of the avatars (sometimes 5 meters, sometimes, 10; 20 or more). And remember at X + 1 meter all avatars in the zone still see each other, NO MATTER what.
Then design the flow charts for EACH individual avatar in the complete game and track his/her status according to the multiple realities of the few hundred phased quests in the game.
Then design multiple design stages of the zones where multiple phasing takes place.
Costs to develop: probably 3 to 5 times more than a non changing or ONE global dimensional dynamic changing world event.
Like I said Oblivion meets MMORPG's.
yeah real easy...or how exactly did you even say ? "lazy..."
Seriously.
Hmm, I want to step into this (although I probably shouldn't).
Phasing is a massive can of worms for a developer, because it opens up whole categories of bugs and even design challenges. That being said, strictly in the programming sense it's not hard but I imagine it's probably something like a 6 month to 1 year investment (really depends on the tech, the more instanced the tech the easier it is). Lets say programmers cost about 50k/yr, and you have an architect that costs lets say 75/k who needs to be involved for the first month. You'd probably want to throw about 2 game programmers, a core engine programmer, maybe a tools/tech programmer to get it all working. The last month lets say you need a render programmer to make sure it doesn't look like ass with weird popping. You also need to consult your DBA, but lets say that's "free" because he'll probably just bitch and then the programmers will do whatever they want anyway.
Then the real issue with phasing is the design challenges because you need to cleverly use placement and fed-ex quests to hide the ugliness (aka, when it's time to change phase). So you need more designers because they'll be fiddling with this all day long. And then there's the QA cost, and the CS cost and all the knock-on effects.
Phasing touches probably every gameplay system that has to do with outdoor PvE content. All of that costs resources which come from the budget. Consider 1 adventure zone with multiple phased versions... some level designer has to go through and make all that... and then make sure it all fits together properly when stuff changes. And then designers who go through and do camps and quests have to be able to navigate that mess when it's all sitting on top of each other, so your world builder tool needs to be able to cycle through all the phases. So it's not just every gameplay system that has to be aware of the phases (and able to manipulate them), but also all the tools need to be able to allow the designers to actually use the phasing to make fun content and not be a complete disorganized mess.
So what an upper manager does is he looks at all these costs, and lets say all together it's something like 5 million very rough ballpark, he'll ask him self "is the investment worth the return?" That's a hard question, because it really depends on what kind of game you are making and what your market is and whether you can afford it in the budget. Then you look at ROI for the feature. So using the 5 million figure, lets say after the publisher and distributor take their cut the company walks away with $50 per box (which is being very, very generous). This means the phasing feature has to bring in 100,000 additional box sales (or more) to be a profitable feature.
I don't know how much interaction you guys have had with CEOs or investors, but saying "I have this feature that costs 5 million, but I can guarantee you over 100,000 more box sales if it gets implemented" is a pretty hard sell. Because there are a lot of things you can do for 5 million in an MMORPG which have a much better ROI. The thing with WoW was that they'd pretty much implemented practically every other feature they could think of before they got to phasing.
GW's 2 / Rifts "dynamic events" (what's in a name) were done already 5 years ago and they are re-introduced with every pre expansion patch and they are BORING as hell in PVE.
The last ones lasted one to two weeks and after 3 days no one wanted to do them anymore.
Why? because they are based on a mindless group zerg fest, whether you do something as an individual or not, it doesn't matter in PVE. Open a gate (Vanilla), open a portal (TBC) or change the looks of an island (TBC) or a dungeon (pre Cata) it has ZERO personal satisfaction. ---- You undergo the event as such ----
You see the event and you follow the group. Yeah, it is triggered without you and resolved - if you wish - without you.
Exciting the first time you see it, disgusting if you see it happen 5 times in a row. The variant being the PVE timing.
Video games ARE single player experience. What makes MMO great is that IF you have the time and IF it interests you, YOU can decide to group or not and with whom or not.
12.000.000 or 50K that has always been the question. Core mechanic of succes.
And phasing is FANTASTIC and certainly not a lazy or cheap option since you have to program multiple quest realities for every avatar that walks around without resorting to instances and still putting everyone in the same zone.
Stating this high tech programming "phasing" as something "lazy" is a laugh. Typical for this Blizzard hate.
You guys get worse by the day.
I really think this is great that you can say with absolute certainty that the dynamic events in GW2 are going to fail and that phasing is the future of gaming. Can you also predict for me the next company to go public and expand like Cisco did, please? After all you know for certain what is going to happen in the future, as you have said it over and over again in this thread. Yeah we get it you are in love with phasing, and you think Blizzard is the God of gaming (that accomplishes things no other company will ever dare to try because of the expenses involved).
Oh on a side note please watch both these videos (video1 and video2) and tell me where this was done 5 years ago? Because from watching the videos, if Anet does what they say they are trying to do, I know I have never seen it done before. So I would like proof that it has been done before. Yes there is a still the big IF that says they might not accomplish it, but with that in mind there is still a big IF for phasing too.
P.S. If you cannot find this proof that it has been done before please stop down playing other games and being the prophet for Blizzard and its greatness. Because in the end you just make people stop listening to your zealotry and not care about anything you say.
And be honest ...: leveling in group is and was never a success after a game's launching periods. You walk days in some games to even have ONE other dude being on the same quest chain AND having the right levels AND being in the same zone AND was willing to devote time ... in what is finally the leveling process.
You only want to level in group? better do it in dungeons or batlegrounds with friends or even with a PUG (as an extra mentality challenge . I think even a father and son / or husband and wife relation is not a guarantee to always level side by side.
. . .
The problem I have with phasing, which apparently not one of you praisers of it has realized . . . is that phasing does not jst affect quests.
I was half way through Hyjal on my mage, when we got a new guy in our guild (friend of the GL) who faction transferred. I offered to port him to Darnassus when he asked how to get there (he had just resubbed for Cata). We grouped, as we were both in SW, and decided to meet at the docks after he bought his flying license. He gets there, and we can't interact at all. He has the phased symbol next to his name (and he said I did as well.)
A few days later, I am finished the quest chain. He has not logged on after finally getting to Darnassus and logging out. Magically, we can see each other again.
I was fine with firends not being able to jump in halfway through certain key quest lines, but this phasing crap is just retarded. I can't even interact with other people unless they have done the same quests as me.
Comments
Derogatory "herd" usage aside, that's exactly the kind of mentality that got us to where we are today. Something tells me you haven't had the pleasure of being a part of a great guild/corp/clan etc.
The human experience that can come with these games, seems to ever escape you.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
that is like generalizing questing, which is what phasing is, as generic zerging unimaginative gameplay that you can brainlessly solo faceroll your way through. Game mechanics cannot be described so simply and WoW never did Any dynamic content like that I should know I was in closed beta all the way up through wrath in wow. I will tell you though Phasing wont make it. It is better to actually have the world effected than creating the illusion of the world changing. which was done in guild wars, Illusion don't hold much. Phasing divides community, mechanics that divide the community wont last the genre just like individual questing isn't lasting. MMO's are going to become about creating a solo experience while you still being in a group helping the community. I expect the future of MMO's to destroy all barriers that slow, hinder, or divide the community. While I think Single player games are going to explore the realm of Co-Op to create experience like Diablo, but with new game mechanics from different genres.
I will quote my other one liner: and yes I am in a guild.
"What makes MMO great is that IF you have the time and IF it interests you, YOU can decide to group or not and with whom or not."
It is the key why most MMO's died a slow and rather painful death. Self triggered mass events (in PVE !) mentioned above will not be the hyped success everyone thinks it will be, because the personal incensitive is absent in the long run. It all passes "above your heads".
Players play games for their individual amusement, not for the herd.
My theory of course.
Well it's clearly not the be-all/end-all, for those choosing MMOs over Pure Singleplayer games. Either that or those players are just making bad choices about the games they play, heh.
But yeah I agree with preferring friends to randoms (although I do plenty of both). RealID helps, but there are plenty of ways I criticize WOW's queue system for not allowing me to friend people in those random groups, or to queue with RealID friends (especially those who are IRL friends) if they're not on the same server. At least RealID helped me spot a server to xfer to, to play with a bunch of friends.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As to your one liner, /bows: I do that in both of my mmorpg homes. That is not unique to the game you're playing, it has to do with the kind of RL people that make up the group (guild).
To the rest: sounds like you really don't care for Rift, and you continue to refer to those of us who enjoy human interaction (more so than you do) in game as "the herd".
Strange theory.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Hmm, I want to step into this (although I probably shouldn't).
Phasing is a massive can of worms for a developer, because it opens up whole categories of bugs and even design challenges. That being said, strictly in the programming sense it's not hard but I imagine it's probably something like a 6 month to 1 year investment (really depends on the tech, the more instanced the tech the easier it is). Lets say programmers cost about 50k/yr, and you have an architect that costs lets say 75/k who needs to be involved for the first month. You'd probably want to throw about 2 game programmers, a core engine programmer, maybe a tools/tech programmer to get it all working. The last month lets say you need a render programmer to make sure it doesn't look like ass with weird popping. You also need to consult your DBA, but lets say that's "free" because he'll probably just bitch and then the programmers will do whatever they want anyway.
Then the real issue with phasing is the design challenges because you need to cleverly use placement and fed-ex quests to hide the ugliness (aka, when it's time to change phase). So you need more designers because they'll be fiddling with this all day long. And then there's the QA cost, and the CS cost and all the knock-on effects.
Phasing touches probably every gameplay system that has to do with outdoor PvE content. All of that costs resources which come from the budget. Consider 1 adventure zone with multiple phased versions... some level designer has to go through and make all that... and then make sure it all fits together properly when stuff changes. And then designers who go through and do camps and quests have to be able to navigate that mess when it's all sitting on top of each other, so your world builder tool needs to be able to cycle through all the phases. So it's not just every gameplay system that has to be aware of the phases (and able to manipulate them), but also all the tools need to be able to allow the designers to actually use the phasing to make fun content and not be a complete disorganized mess.
So what an upper manager does is he looks at all these costs, and lets say all together it's something like 5 million very rough ballpark, he'll ask him self "is the investment worth the return?" That's a hard question, because it really depends on what kind of game you are making and what your market is and whether you can afford it in the budget. Then you look at ROI for the feature. So using the 5 million figure, lets say after the publisher and distributor take their cut the company walks away with $50 per box (which is being very, very generous). This means the phasing feature has to bring in 100,000 additional box sales (or more) to be a profitable feature.
I don't know how much interaction you guys have had with CEOs or investors, but saying "I have this feature that costs 5 million, but I can guarantee you over 100,000 more box sales if it gets implemented" is a pretty hard sell. Because there are a lot of things you can do for 5 million in an MMORPG which have a much better ROI. The thing with WoW was that they'd pretty much implemented practically every other feature they could think of before they got to phasing.
Single Player MMO? So using single player mechanis in MMO, good for telling story TOR might acctualy do this too eventualy...
Still, it boils down to clever instancing(zoning) and mechanism of displaying differents parts of world and triggers of events. Or is there more?
dupe. quoted when I wanted to edit.
I really think this is great that you can say with absolute certainty that the dynamic events in GW2 are going to fail and that phasing is the future of gaming. Can you also predict for me the next company to go public and expand like Cisco did, please? After all you know for certain what is going to happen in the future, as you have said it over and over again in this thread. Yeah we get it you are in love with phasing, and you think Blizzard is the God of gaming (that accomplishes things no other company will ever dare to try because of the expenses involved).
Oh on a side note please watch both these videos (video1 and video2) and tell me where this was done 5 years ago? Because from watching the videos, if Anet does what they say they are trying to do, I know I have never seen it done before. So I would like proof that it has been done before. Yes there is a still the big IF that says they might not accomplish it, but with that in mind there is still a big IF for phasing too.
P.S. If you cannot find this proof that it has been done before please stop down playing other games and being the prophet for Blizzard and its greatness. Because in the end you just make people stop listening to your zealotry and not care about anything you say.
The problem I have with phasing, which apparently not one of you praisers of it has realized . . . is that phasing does not jst affect quests.
I was half way through Hyjal on my mage, when we got a new guy in our guild (friend of the GL) who faction transferred. I offered to port him to Darnassus when he asked how to get there (he had just resubbed for Cata). We grouped, as we were both in SW, and decided to meet at the docks after he bought his flying license. He gets there, and we can't interact at all. He has the phased symbol next to his name (and he said I did as well.)
A few days later, I am finished the quest chain. He has not logged on after finally getting to Darnassus and logging out. Magically, we can see each other again.
I was fine with firends not being able to jump in halfway through certain key quest lines, but this phasing crap is just retarded. I can't even interact with other people unless they have done the same quests as me.