I can't really explain it much more than that, but if you played some of the older sandbox games, maybe you can understand what I'm trying to get at.
However, I do notice that quite a number of posts cited other other players as the most serious problem. Sandbox games are especially vulnerable to sliding down to the lowest common griefer because of the scale of ways that one player's actions can affect another's.
Yeah, I edited that post you quoted and added that in. There is a huge difference in community in oldschool MMOs, and new ones. This would probably actually be my biggest complaint, and second would be unimmersive worlds. LOTRO came very close to a great community and immersive, and it was a themepark game...not sure how it is these days, though.
Check out my nature/animal/relaxing music channel on Youtube!
i dont know if this has been mentioned earlier....But i think a big factor for immersion is in game music too....Many mmos owe their music a great deal (AOC,Istaria,LOTRO) even non-online rpg games like Final fantasy series
I actually like noobs but I do not like support acting as if they do not know much or a community which talks without logic and harsh language.
Cheers Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
There are a number of things that ruin immersion for me in mmos. All of which, unsurprisingly enough, are centered around the fact that it is an MMO. There is no barrier to entry; Normal people are tossed in with the asylum inmates that do not even have to present themselves physically and yet are still capable of having a substantially negative impact on the aforementioned normal folks. The fact that anonimity in games brings about the absolute worst in human nature from what would normally be reasonable and decent people and that moments of real humanity, of just plain common decency from the gaming community are few and far between. The hundreds of asshats, that when their pvp server is down, have to make alts on the rp server and run around with the only goal being seeking enjoyment at the expense of anyone else.
Other things: chat channels, emotes, mundane quests, pathetic storylines, bland worlds, lame treadmills, invisible walls, atrocious character modelling where every PC runs around like a meth addicted parkinson's sufferer. First person view which restricts ones view worse than the blinders put on a draft horse. Complete lack of any impact on the game world, that killing big bad boss monster alpha at 11:04 pm means that big bad boss monster alpha will be back at 11:06 pm. That spending weeks or months on attaining the uber rare item makes you look just like every other motard on the server.
Developers who believe that htey are God's gift to creation and that they know better than anyone and everyone else as they regurgitate the same mundane crap over and over again wrapping it in a different skin and calling it innovative and new. That my fellow gamers have the collective intellect of dairy cows as they pour money into generic mmo gamma and scream from the mountain tops how said generic mmo is different and better than all that have come before and all that the future will present, while crying to the heavens how they want to play the game from everywhere without actually having to be bothered to log in and play the game.
That pretty much every single mmo out there has you playing their game without letting you do anything special or exciting, just doing the same thing over and over again with a different skin. How developers refuse to actually put any effort into designing an AI that does something other than move toward you and attack. How AI is incapable of doing anything but running a pre-designed script that is easily figured out turning every single encounter into something less exciting than flipping a coin.
In short the entire scam that is the mmo genre is what ruins immersion in mmo's for me, and is why there are none that I play any longer. Not even the f2p ones are worth the space on my hard drives (yes, the space is better utilised being empty than to have any of the tripe available today installed.)
linear gear progression paths. these games are about loot and acquiring the unknown. why would anyone want vendors carring the best items in the game. why do i want to know what every mob drops down to the percentage. how can anyone play any game if everything is already known. how boring.
i dont know if this has been mentioned earlier....But i think a big factor for immersion is in game music too....Many mmos owe their music a great deal (AOC,Istaria,LOTRO) even non-online rpg games like Final fantasy series
This does really help with immersion. But not only for MMOs. And, nNot only music, but the ambiance and sound effects. Music doesn't need to play 100% of the time (at least not for me), because sometimes I just like to hear the game world around me...animals making noise, wind blowing, sound of rain/thunder...stuff like that. That really helps, in any game.
Age of Conan did do a good job with music, some of my favorite in a MMO...same with LOTRO.
Check out my nature/animal/relaxing music channel on Youtube!
(This message is regarding the original poster's message)
I dont think voice chat makes it any less immersive, its optional, if you dont want to use it than dont use it. I do think every game needs in game voice chat and a cool feature would be to have the voice appear like its actually coming from the character, like if your in an instance or something have the farther away a character is from you the quiter they are and vice versa.
For me its hard to get into any game now adays because they all have the same questing formula!
WoW - Kill x amount of y
Aion - Kill x amount of y
Everquest 2 - Kill x amount of y
Lord of the rings online - kill x amount of y
etc......The point is there are hardly any games out there that break this mold, I was hoping DC Universe could be my new game but it is so repetative I cant stand it. All these new MMOs are coming out with stuff most of us have seen since EQ released in 1999 and after 12 years its getting really old. We need games to do like what Guild Wars 2 is trying to do with an alternate questing system. I think Star Wars The Old Republic could be it but who knows how long they can rly make a story line in an MMO.
its funny that the most immersive mmo's ive played are usually the bad ones. I played The Matrix Online for its first year, and it was by far the most immersive game ive ever played. The matrix community really got behind it and their was so much roleplaying going on it was great. They also had in-game live events where the developers would play key characters (morpheus, agents, seraph, etc) and continue the story. The game had a great radio system. Players set up their on radio stations online and i could listen to my server's radio while playing. It would have matrix-like music and theyd talk about all the stuff happening right now in the world + the RP aspect of the warring factions(machines,humans, merovigians goons) and the "clans" within the server.
Their really wasnt alot to do in-game in terms of endgame content so it was left to the players to really make up their own stories. The community made the matrix online one of the best mmo's ive played .
You know the ones, spammin up the zone chat with comments about someones mamma, body parts, what they wish they could do with women they obvsiouly have never done yet. The ones in a PvP situation who never do shit but sit back like an AFKer and biatch at everyone for not winning the match for them, like its everyone duty to please them. Those people. The ones you add to your ignore list but wish you could do so much more to. The ones where ignore just seems too small a punishment, the ones you feel you should save the entire gaming community from once and for all.
Yup, those guys. Those are the asshats. Those are the ones that absolutely kill immersion in ANY game no matter how good everything else is. Those are the ones that make us all wish we had a Delete PLAYER button that would just wipe thier hardrive instantly.
Oh I'm sorry, did I forget to mention I think these guys kill immersion yet?
I'm gonna go with the idiots in whatever chat. Just yesterday in Rift, 10-19 chat was all about why the US is better than Aussies and vice versa. This was like... two hours long.
Also, people that try to be the biggest pricks possible. Nothing compares to trying to help someone with an elite, and some asshole stands there to watch you and the other person die yelling things like "LOL GET RAPED." Really...just hilarious.
I'm always reading about this but have never experienced it... I think I've missed out on an immense part of MMO's that I'm doubtfull will come back. I think I've missed out on it mainly because of my age, it seems to be all the old games, Ultima Online is the first that springs to mind, that had immersion widely amongst the player base and it seems to have been drained never to return. There are so many things that can break your feeling of being in the game.
I hope it returns, with a glorious entrance.
Put through the personal paces of my crippled fingers.
It's a tie between other people trying to ruin the immersion on purpose, and superfluous game systems preventing me from doing things I'd otherwise be able to do ( i.e 'item levels' in WoW, or the invisible walls in Guild Wars.)
Idiots always wins this in my opinion. Because any social activety is only as fun as the people you spend it with, and MMOs are great fun with nice people and a huge waste of time with the wrong group.
You know the type, insults people, blame his incompetence on others, tells Chuck Norris jokes constantly in the chat, tells racists jokes and generally don't respect the other players.
Fortunatley is most players nice but the nasty ones stick out, it is harder to remember the 10 really nice guys after someone acted like a real jerk.
This might sounds "carebear" to you guys, but we need to at least give eachother some basic respect, even when we are killing eachother. It is one thing to sneak on someone and cut his throat in-game, it is another to send PMs threatening him IRL or other stuff like that. Yes, players like that is few but they do exist.
There are a number of things that ruin immersion for me in mmos. All of which, unsurprisingly enough, are centered around the fact that it is an MMO. There is no barrier to entry; Normal people are tossed in with the asylum inmates that do not even have to present themselves physically and yet are still capable of having a substantially negative impact on the aforementioned normal folks. The fact that anonimity in games brings about the absolute worst in human nature from what would normally be reasonable and decent people and that moments of real humanity, of just plain common decency from the gaming community are few and far between. The hundreds of asshats, that when their pvp server is down, have to make alts on the rp server and run around with the only goal being seeking enjoyment at the expense of anyone else.
Other things: chat channels, emotes, mundane quests, pathetic storylines, bland worlds, lame treadmills, invisible walls, atrocious character modelling where every PC runs around like a meth addicted parkinson's sufferer. First person view which restricts ones view worse than the blinders put on a draft horse. Complete lack of any impact on the game world, that killing big bad boss monster alpha at 11:04 pm means that big bad boss monster alpha will be back at 11:06 pm. That spending weeks or months on attaining the uber rare item makes you look just like every other motard on the server.
Developers who believe that htey are God's gift to creation and that they know better than anyone and everyone else as they regurgitate the same mundane crap over and over again wrapping it in a different skin and calling it innovative and new. That my fellow gamers have the collective intellect of dairy cows as they pour money into generic mmo gamma and scream from the mountain tops how said generic mmo is different and better than all that have come before and all that the future will present, while crying to the heavens how they want to play the game from everywhere without actually having to be bothered to log in and play the game.
That pretty much every single mmo out there has you playing their game without letting you do anything special or exciting, just doing the same thing over and over again with a different skin. How developers refuse to actually put any effort into designing an AI that does something other than move toward you and attack. How AI is incapable of doing anything but running a pre-designed script that is easily figured out turning every single encounter into something less exciting than flipping a coin.
In short the entire scam that is the mmo genre is what ruins immersion in mmo's for me, and is why there are none that I play any longer. Not even the f2p ones are worth the space on my hard drives (yes, the space is better utilised being empty than to have any of the tripe available today installed.)
I like your post ...it is super.
Cheers Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
- artificial time/money sinks such as leveling your artifacts or buying back con in DAOC
- NPCs that are close enough to talk to you but too far away to take the quest item they are asking for
- guns in a fantasy game
- dyes as something that is hugely expensive that you only get at high levels
- having the thing you do once your heroic character attains the highest level be grind instances or raids for incrementally better gear. Heroes are in it to save the world not to get better jewelry.
- people who make a big deal about Vent and using a mic but 99% of the conversation that goes on there is totally unrelated to the game and actually makes everybody play worse than they would if they just used in game text chat
Last night, after being spawn camped for about two hours on Rift by the guild 'Old age and Treachery' on Snarebrush server. I realized there is no immersion in mmos anymore. Yes, because of the idiots that don't want to go and fight something worhtwhile or at least similar to their level. I can't really enjoy the game. I know, someone is going to say 'play on a pve server'. Pve servers are not fun for me.....but neither is getting spawn camped for hours by someone you can't touch, If I could actually fight who I was being killed by...It might not bother me as much. It was really bad because I was in Scarlet Gorge first, finished the invasion and was checking out where to put my newly earned points. Along comes two ?? level characters. The first death, I was ah yep.....they caught me with my pants down. Ok, respawn.....Bam dead again......This went on for a while until i was tired of bitching at them and listening to them ask 'umadbro?' Then I left to Gloamwood pines, where they had worked their way DOWN the level scale of players and once again they commenced spawn camping everyone near the town....So i left AGAIN, figured if I can't do some crafting in pines, i'll do some quests at tearfall run......before I could finish my first quest there they were....killing every npc in the camp and anyone heading to turn in a quest was two or three shotted. So yeah....Definitley the asshats like those that not ruin immersion, but the whole game for me.
Last night, after being spawn camped for about two hours on Rift by the guild 'Old age and Treachery' on Snarebrush server. I realized there is no immersion in mmos anymore. Yes, because of the idiots that don't want to go and fight something worhtwhile or at least similar to their level. I can't really enjoy the game. I know, someone is going to say 'play on a pve server'. Pve servers are not fun for me.....but neither is getting spawn camped for hours by someone you can't touch, If I could actually fight who I was being killed by...It might not bother me as much. It was really bad because I was in Scarlet Gorge first, finished the invasion and was checking out where to put my newly earned points. Along comes two ?? level characters. The first death, I was ah yep.....they caught me with my pants down. Ok, respawn.....Bam dead again......This went on for a while until i was tired of bitching at them and listening to them ask 'umadbro?' Then I left to Gloamwood pines, where they had worked their way DOWN the level scale of players and once again they commenced spawn camping everyone near the town....So i left AGAIN, figured if I can't do some crafting in pines, i'll do some quests at tearfall run......before I could finish my first quest there they were....killing every npc in the camp and anyone heading to turn in a quest was two or three shotted. So yeah....Definitley the asshats like those that not ruin immersion, but the whole game for me.
And that's why I never play FFA pvp. pissants with such pathetic lives that ruining other people's enjoyment at no risk is fun. It's why there's so many less pvp servers in compared to PvE in games.
Comments
1) Immature players
2) Fast levelling
3) Lots of instancing (I can tollerate instanced dungeons but not world map)
4) Instanced Battlegrounds and Arenas (I like world pvp)
5) Cross server grouping
6) Character rerolling
Yeah, I edited that post you quoted and added that in. There is a huge difference in community in oldschool MMOs, and new ones. This would probably actually be my biggest complaint, and second would be unimmersive worlds. LOTRO came very close to a great community and immersive, and it was a themepark game...not sure how it is these days, though.
Check out my nature/animal/relaxing music channel on Youtube!
My game channel on Youtube!
http://www.youtube.com/vendayn
I think all the junk on the screen ruins the immersion, but dont see much of a way around it.
makes Icons, chat boxes, make me focus alot less on whats in front of me.
i dont know if this has been mentioned earlier....But i think a big factor for immersion is in game music too....Many mmos owe their music a great deal (AOC,Istaria,LOTRO) even non-online rpg games like Final fantasy series
I'd have to say ... poor game performance and a bad community will ruin my "immersion".
The community is my criteria too.
I hate to find too many teasing support people.
I actually like noobs but I do not like support acting as if they do not know much or a community which talks without logic and harsh language.
Cheers
Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
Once An Addict Always An Addict .
There are a number of things that ruin immersion for me in mmos. All of which, unsurprisingly enough, are centered around the fact that it is an MMO. There is no barrier to entry; Normal people are tossed in with the asylum inmates that do not even have to present themselves physically and yet are still capable of having a substantially negative impact on the aforementioned normal folks. The fact that anonimity in games brings about the absolute worst in human nature from what would normally be reasonable and decent people and that moments of real humanity, of just plain common decency from the gaming community are few and far between. The hundreds of asshats, that when their pvp server is down, have to make alts on the rp server and run around with the only goal being seeking enjoyment at the expense of anyone else.
Other things: chat channels, emotes, mundane quests, pathetic storylines, bland worlds, lame treadmills, invisible walls, atrocious character modelling where every PC runs around like a meth addicted parkinson's sufferer. First person view which restricts ones view worse than the blinders put on a draft horse. Complete lack of any impact on the game world, that killing big bad boss monster alpha at 11:04 pm means that big bad boss monster alpha will be back at 11:06 pm. That spending weeks or months on attaining the uber rare item makes you look just like every other motard on the server.
Developers who believe that htey are God's gift to creation and that they know better than anyone and everyone else as they regurgitate the same mundane crap over and over again wrapping it in a different skin and calling it innovative and new. That my fellow gamers have the collective intellect of dairy cows as they pour money into generic mmo gamma and scream from the mountain tops how said generic mmo is different and better than all that have come before and all that the future will present, while crying to the heavens how they want to play the game from everywhere without actually having to be bothered to log in and play the game.
That pretty much every single mmo out there has you playing their game without letting you do anything special or exciting, just doing the same thing over and over again with a different skin. How developers refuse to actually put any effort into designing an AI that does something other than move toward you and attack. How AI is incapable of doing anything but running a pre-designed script that is easily figured out turning every single encounter into something less exciting than flipping a coin.
In short the entire scam that is the mmo genre is what ruins immersion in mmo's for me, and is why there are none that I play any longer. Not even the f2p ones are worth the space on my hard drives (yes, the space is better utilised being empty than to have any of the tripe available today installed.)
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
linear gear progression paths. these games are about loot and acquiring the unknown. why would anyone want vendors carring the best items in the game. why do i want to know what every mob drops down to the percentage. how can anyone play any game if everything is already known. how boring.
This does really help with immersion. But not only for MMOs. And, nNot only music, but the ambiance and sound effects. Music doesn't need to play 100% of the time (at least not for me), because sometimes I just like to hear the game world around me...animals making noise, wind blowing, sound of rain/thunder...stuff like that. That really helps, in any game.
Age of Conan did do a good job with music, some of my favorite in a MMO...same with LOTRO.
Check out my nature/animal/relaxing music channel on Youtube!
My game channel on Youtube!
http://www.youtube.com/vendayn
(This message is regarding the original poster's message)
I dont think voice chat makes it any less immersive, its optional, if you dont want to use it than dont use it. I do think every game needs in game voice chat and a cool feature would be to have the voice appear like its actually coming from the character, like if your in an instance or something have the farther away a character is from you the quiter they are and vice versa.
For me its hard to get into any game now adays because they all have the same questing formula!
WoW - Kill x amount of y
Aion - Kill x amount of y
Everquest 2 - Kill x amount of y
Lord of the rings online - kill x amount of y
etc......The point is there are hardly any games out there that break this mold, I was hoping DC Universe could be my new game but it is so repetative I cant stand it. All these new MMOs are coming out with stuff most of us have seen since EQ released in 1999 and after 12 years its getting really old. We need games to do like what Guild Wars 2 is trying to do with an alternate questing system. I think Star Wars The Old Republic could be it but who knows how long they can rly make a story line in an MMO.
Mystery Bounty
Care to elaborate on #6? I am very interested in what you mean.
its funny that the most immersive mmo's ive played are usually the bad ones. I played The Matrix Online for its first year, and it was by far the most immersive game ive ever played. The matrix community really got behind it and their was so much roleplaying going on it was great. They also had in-game live events where the developers would play key characters (morpheus, agents, seraph, etc) and continue the story. The game had a great radio system. Players set up their on radio stations online and i could listen to my server's radio while playing. It would have matrix-like music and theyd talk about all the stuff happening right now in the world + the RP aspect of the warring factions(machines,humans, merovigians goons) and the "clans" within the server.
Their really wasnt alot to do in-game in terms of endgame content so it was left to the players to really make up their own stories. The community made the matrix online one of the best mmo's ive played .
Asshats, yup thats the numero uno right there.
You know the ones, spammin up the zone chat with comments about someones mamma, body parts, what they wish they could do with women they obvsiouly have never done yet. The ones in a PvP situation who never do shit but sit back like an AFKer and biatch at everyone for not winning the match for them, like its everyone duty to please them. Those people. The ones you add to your ignore list but wish you could do so much more to. The ones where ignore just seems too small a punishment, the ones you feel you should save the entire gaming community from once and for all.
Yup, those guys. Those are the asshats. Those are the ones that absolutely kill immersion in ANY game no matter how good everything else is. Those are the ones that make us all wish we had a Delete PLAYER button that would just wipe thier hardrive instantly.
Oh I'm sorry, did I forget to mention I think these guys kill immersion yet?
I'm gonna go with the idiots in whatever chat. Just yesterday in Rift, 10-19 chat was all about why the US is better than Aussies and vice versa. This was like... two hours long.
Also, people that try to be the biggest pricks possible. Nothing compares to trying to help someone with an elite, and some asshole stands there to watch you and the other person die yelling things like "LOL GET RAPED." Really...just hilarious.
Immersion? What is this you speak of?
I'm always reading about this but have never experienced it... I think I've missed out on an immense part of MMO's that I'm doubtfull will come back. I think I've missed out on it mainly because of my age, it seems to be all the old games, Ultima Online is the first that springs to mind, that had immersion widely amongst the player base and it seems to have been drained never to return. There are so many things that can break your feeling of being in the game.
I hope it returns, with a glorious entrance.
Put through the personal paces of my crippled fingers.
It's a tie between other people trying to ruin the immersion on purpose, and superfluous game systems preventing me from doing things I'd otherwise be able to do ( i.e 'item levels' in WoW, or the invisible walls in Guild Wars.)
store ware you buy stuff for in game with Real money such as startrek's C-store
would be #3
a lack in variety of things to do
(in other words a all combat and nothing else game just isnt for me)
that would be #2
and people interrupting my game experience to pvp or duel
would be #1
Idiots always wins this in my opinion. Because any social activety is only as fun as the people you spend it with, and MMOs are great fun with nice people and a huge waste of time with the wrong group.
You know the type, insults people, blame his incompetence on others, tells Chuck Norris jokes constantly in the chat, tells racists jokes and generally don't respect the other players.
Fortunatley is most players nice but the nasty ones stick out, it is harder to remember the 10 really nice guys after someone acted like a real jerk.
This might sounds "carebear" to you guys, but we need to at least give eachother some basic respect, even when we are killing eachother. It is one thing to sneak on someone and cut his throat in-game, it is another to send PMs threatening him IRL or other stuff like that. Yes, players like that is few but they do exist.
Lack of a third faction is up there, I'd like to add...
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I like your post ...it is super.
Cheers
Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
Once An Addict Always An Addict .
- bind on pickup or equip gear
- dungeon lockout timers
- artificial time/money sinks such as leveling your artifacts or buying back con in DAOC
- NPCs that are close enough to talk to you but too far away to take the quest item they are asking for
- guns in a fantasy game
- dyes as something that is hugely expensive that you only get at high levels
- having the thing you do once your heroic character attains the highest level be grind instances or raids for incrementally better gear. Heroes are in it to save the world not to get better jewelry.
- people who make a big deal about Vent and using a mic but 99% of the conversation that goes on there is totally unrelated to the game and actually makes everybody play worse than they would if they just used in game text chat
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
Last night, after being spawn camped for about two hours on Rift by the guild 'Old age and Treachery' on Snarebrush server. I realized there is no immersion in mmos anymore. Yes, because of the idiots that don't want to go and fight something worhtwhile or at least similar to their level. I can't really enjoy the game. I know, someone is going to say 'play on a pve server'. Pve servers are not fun for me.....but neither is getting spawn camped for hours by someone you can't touch, If I could actually fight who I was being killed by...It might not bother me as much. It was really bad because I was in Scarlet Gorge first, finished the invasion and was checking out where to put my newly earned points. Along comes two ?? level characters. The first death, I was ah yep.....they caught me with my pants down. Ok, respawn.....Bam dead again......This went on for a while until i was tired of bitching at them and listening to them ask 'umadbro?' Then I left to Gloamwood pines, where they had worked their way DOWN the level scale of players and once again they commenced spawn camping everyone near the town....So i left AGAIN, figured if I can't do some crafting in pines, i'll do some quests at tearfall run......before I could finish my first quest there they were....killing every npc in the camp and anyone heading to turn in a quest was two or three shotted. So yeah....Definitley the asshats like those that not ruin immersion, but the whole game for me.
And that's why I never play FFA pvp. pissants with such pathetic lives that ruining other people's enjoyment at no risk is fun. It's why there's so many less pvp servers in compared to PvE in games.
chowder heads on chat telling chuck norris jokes. Basically Barrens Chat
I self identify as a monkey.
lol Them chuck norris jokes still going on? Damn I remember them 5 years ago, IN THE BARRENS no less lol