Very good article, thanks, I saw it on Massively too.
I agree with his viewpoint and feel kinda sad about it. I think the MMO genre got too popular for its own good. When the mainstream population got involved, it was suddenly soccer mom and grandad that joined with little Jimmy, where as before it was more the domain of D&D PnP fans, RPG afficionados and hardcore gamers.
Which is fine of course if people like that start playing MMORPG's too, but like Koster says, people like that have other priorities, values and tastes in what they like for entertainment. The overall and atmosphere of MMO's and the MMO scene definitely changed when that happened, with the values and preferences of the early MMO adopters becoming as niche in that reshaped MMO landscape and culture as D&D pen & paper games are in real life.
A shame. MMO's can be so much more and have so much unfulfilled potential yet. And I kinda mourn the loss of focus on world immersion with Koster, even if I can be entertained by more game focused MMO's.
He's right. But it has been like this for a good while now so he is kind of closing the door after the horse has already bolted.
Mmorpgs are nothing more than online single player games now really. Turn on, play a 15 minute baddlefield and then log out to watch some reality tv crap.
Some people on this site would have you believe that this is all a turn for the better, that popularity is all that ever matters and that everyone and his cat only wants to have fast pew pew in mmorpgs so that is all they should offer. It's like all they see mmorpgs as is shite versions of mobas.
The sad part of it is we used to have a range of different game types, deep, dynamic online worlds in which you couldn't do everything just by logging in and instantly blasting away. Coupled with more instant action offline and lan style games. Now we have clearly seen a shit into homogeneity in the gaming industry, EVERY genre of game has to be fast, bright, instant access and casual.
It's like the adhd generation can't accept that there should be a diverse range of game types, they think their whack a mole idea of game mechanics should permeate through every genre. Sadly due to the fact the majority of players are either ultra casual or ritalin users, the companies funding mmos are clearly going to throw their money at games which cater to them.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Wonderful. There have been many debates where raph's arguements have been taken out of context to actually argue the benefits of fast rewards themepark hell blah blah blah. The man knows his stuff and is respected, and he has elequently decsribed what many of us 'sandbox lovers' have talked about.
This isn't really a sandbox Vs Themepark issue.
Ralph is right, the publishers are all trying to make exactly the same game for the same players which killed off the immersion. The devs are not allowed to be creative even if they can, they should just make the same crap over and over.
The thing is that the genre needs both deep and casual games, sandboxes and themeparks and easy and hard games.
By remaking the same game over and over you are losing a lot of potential MMO players while at the same time make the competition a lot harer about the players that like the current style.
Wow earns a lot of money, copies of it on the other hand usually fail badly but it just seems like no dev can figure out that there actually is easier to get many players in a unique fun game than trying to steal Wows playerbase. Wow players play Wow because they love Wow, they don't want a similar game because they already have that.
So? That will be like monday night quarterbacking. Is he trying to explain why UO does not take off as big as the competition? It does not take a genius to know that ""virtual worlds only seem to appeal to a specific personality type". Just look at WOW success, or Diablo and we already know it.
My comments are also general. RK seems to be quite revered but he does not have that many hit, does he? I mean it is a lot easier to talk about what is wrong (or at least one's version of what is wrong). Heck, there are people doing that all day here. But it takes a lot more to really make a successful game.
Wow success is really because it was a well made game. WAR, AoC and almost every game just like it have failed badly.
It has been done now and if you want to make a successful post Wow MMO you need to offer something Wow don't offer.
Diversity is the way to go, not copy and paste.
As for Diablo we are talking about a different kind of game for a different player. And frankly didn't Diablo 1 and 2 really sell that much compared to Wow or even Guildwars, Diablo sold 2 million copies and Diablo 2 4 million. It is still impressive but compared to Wow it is nothing, and you are comparing apples and oranges.
Remaking the same game over and over will kill the genre, not make it big.
As for UO when it released it very soon got more players than all other MMOs combined, it is just that few people even heard of the genre at the time (I was playing M59 at the time). It was a huge success at the time.
Immersion for an mmo implies RP, you know actually making up a character what their dispositions are etc so you can act that out when something happens to them.
I don't see how you can run around Loling and ganking newbs and at the same time be immersed.
So somethings that heavily break immersion/rp are
Quest system - No matter it's quality IE wow vs SW:ToR, for example killing general bob and then see general bob respawn or be killed again or even if it's instanced hearing "I just killed general bob" (or just plain knowing essentially everyone will kill him is enough) when you had already done so.
Instancing/phasing - Much for the same core reason above, it creates alternate realities.
Community(possibly lack of moderation) - Even on rp servers you do not get away from people who constantly does not rp and belongs on a pvp server (IE lol gank). - but this might be an outgrowth from the hard to immerse/rp world (I know I don't feel like RPing in swtor altough I don't run around and spam lololol).
Immersion for an mmo implies RP, you know actually making up a character what their dispositions are etc so you can act that out when something happens to them.
I don't see how you can run around Loling and ganking newbs and at the same time be immersed.
I don't know about that. The game I've been most immersed in was probably Mirror's Edge, which is even less of a roleplaying game than Duke Nukem 3D.
I also get ‘immersed’ in games where you don't even have a character, i.e. AudioSurf and Eufloria. In fact, the story that plays out in my mind when I play Eufloria can be pretty inspiring. Or terrifying.
See also how immersed people become in Minecraft.
I'd agree that immersion and roleplaying are obvious bedfellows, but I really don't think it's so necessary to have one in order to have the other.
Also:
Originally posted by dlld
Instancing/phasing - Much for the same core reason above, it creates alternate realities.
Instancing actually aids my immersion. Aside from the in-your-face portals or force fields that tend to signify their entrances, it really helps me enjoy the game, alone or with friends, to be able to experience events not as repeatable static mob farms, but rungs along the ladder of our experience to which we cannot return. No do-overs.
I think that those ‘alternate realities’ are preferable to one reality that is much more gamey.
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
Immersion for an mmo implies RP, you know actually making up a character what their dispositions are etc so you can act that out when something happens to them.
I don't see how you can run around Loling and ganking newbs and at the same time be immersed.
I don't know about that. The game I've been most immersed in was probably Mirror's Edge, which is even less of a roleplaying game than Duke Nukem 3D.
I also get ‘immersed’ in games where you don't even have a character, i.e. AudioSurf and Eufloria. In fact, the story that plays out in my mind when I play Eufloria can be pretty inspiring. Or terrifying.
See also how immersed people become in Minecraft.
I'd agree that immersion and roleplaying are obvious bedfellows, but I really don't think it's so necessary to have one in order to have the other.
It's why is specifically mentioned "For an MMO" you can't really RP in singleplayer games as such. I guess it could also be expanded to "For MMO's where you are put into the role of a sentient being". I don't know about minecraft immersion, I think the word in the OPs article fits better for that "mesmerized".
Also:
Originally posted by dlld
Instancing/phasing - Much for the same core reason above, it creates alternate realities.
Instancing actually aids my immersion. Aside from the in-your-face portals or force fields that tend to signify their entrances, it really helps me enjoy the game, alone or with friends, to be able to experience events not as repeatable static mob farms, but rungs along the ladder of our experience to which we cannot return. No do-overs.
In the case of quest instancing there usually is no do overs but that remains true for non instanced quests aswell so for me that's just pancake on pancake immersion breaking (quest system + instancing). As for regular instances or dungeons they are usually repetable not only that but you are essentially forced to do so in order to progress (getting gear) to experience the next dungeon they also tend to inherently have the quest system in them even if you don't actively have a quest there they act as one big instanced quest.
Instancing/phasing - Much for the same core reason above, it creates alternate realities.
Instancing actually aids my immersion. Aside from the in-your-face portals or force fields that tend to signify their entrances, it really helps me enjoy the game, alone or with friends, to be able to experience events not as repeatable static mob farms, but rungs along the ladder of our experience to which we cannot return. No do-overs.
I think that those ‘alternate realities’ are preferable to one reality that is much more gamey.
Agreed.
Nothing ruins immersion faster than being told there's a nasty boss that needs to die and seeing another player kill him in front of your face -- and then still having to kill him yourself after he respawns because it's not like you got credit for the boss dying at the hands of another player.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It not being an MMORPG isn't really the point. The point is it was a game focused on immersion and did great.
In fact it's immersion was possibly specifically because it wasn't an MMORPG.
No skyrim didn't actually happen.. no game actually happens :P
I'm not saying immersion doesn't exist outside of mmo's.. i'm saying for an mmo to have immersion they have to have some level of RP and you can't rp if everyone is living in alternate realities while at the same time interacting with eachother, it makes no sense.
The quest system works great in singleplayer games because you are the only one doing the quest and you see the impacts etc IE immersive, you feel apart of the world.
Wonderful. There have been many debates where raph's arguements have been taken out of context to actually argue the benefits of fast rewards themepark hell blah blah blah. The man knows his stuff and is respected, and he has elequently decsribed what many of us 'sandbox lovers' have talked about.
This isn't really a sandbox Vs Themepark issue.
Ralph is right, the publishers are all trying to make exactly the same game for the same players which killed off the immersion. The devs are not allowed to be creative even if they can, they should just make the same crap over and over.
The thing is that the genre needs both deep and casual games, sandboxes and themeparks and easy and hard games.
By remaking the same game over and over you are losing a lot of potential MMO players while at the same time make the competition a lot harer about the players that like the current style.
Wow earns a lot of money, copies of it on the other hand usually fail badly but it just seems like no dev can figure out that there actually is easier to get many players in a unique fun game than trying to steal Wows playerbase. Wow players play Wow because they love Wow, they don't want a similar game because they already have that.
IMO, most MMO companies these days are just after the quick box sales, the could care less about how immersive the game is. They're perfectly content getting their quck fix funding for their next crappy product repackaged in another snazzy box highlighted with more fanciful demo videos. Almost like a ponzi scheme really.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
No skyrim didn't actually happen.. no game actually happens :P
I'm not saying immersion doesn't exist outside of mmo's.. i'm saying for an mmo to have immersion they have to have some level of RP and you can't rp if everyone is living in alternate realities while at the same time interacting with eachother, it makes no sense.
The quest system works great in singleplayer games because you are the only one doing the quest and you see the impacts etc IE immersive, you feel apart of the world.
Sure, but I'd question whether that ever truly existed in MMORPGs then, because every major MMORPG has always involved the majority of players playing it as a light game.
Can we even lament this as something "lost" if it never truly existed?
If we pretend that due to RP more immersion occurred in early MMORPGs, we must also accept that RP still occurs in every major MMORPG and those players become similarly immersed. Certainly in all but the most hardcore RP MMORPGs (read: none of the major releases) the majority of players weren't/aren't RPing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
RK talks a lot. However, how many successful games does he really have? UO is eclipsed by EQ once EQ is out. I would chalk UO's mini success up to being the first one out of the gate.
I was in the beta and it was not that great a game.
Well does he mae sense to you or not, because that is what matters, not points scoring.
Whether he makes sense or not is irelevant. What makes sense is that when he's handed the reigns of a game does he actually put all his lofty talk into practice or is he just ideas with no idea how to implement them? I'd say the latter. The guy has done nothing at all. UO was a horrid game ran by PK's, it didn't work for anyone else really. He made a star wars MMO that was about crafting and pokemon before adventure and the things that star wars was really about. Star wars wasn't about crafting and running a shop out of your house it was about blowing things up, space combat, jedi etc. Most of which wasn't even in at launch. Was the crafting system in star wars deep? yeah, but it had absolutely no place in a star wars games and a good designer would have seen that and designed his game around the subject matter rather than try and force in all your goofy ideas just to make a name for yourself.
Koster says interesting things sometimes but has no means or ability to implement them, he's a hack that should stick to writing and less to making games because frankly from his track record he really really sucks at making games.
Wow success is really because it was a well made game. WAR, AoC and almost every game just like it have failed badly.
No, wow's success is because it is the right formula of just enough carrot and just enough stick and it was based on a very popular franchise. Wow as a game is absolutely horrid just like most other MMO's. MMO's are and have been mostly just a game of whack a mole since day one. When fighting a normal mob in WoW does it matter in any way shape or form what abilities you hit and when to win? nope. you can literally faceroll through the vast majority of wow and you seriously want to say it's a good game? Back in the days of EQ when it first came out, you had to CAREFULLY strategize how you fought a mob to win with most classes. If you just randomly hit one of your eight spells you were going to die. that's challenge and that makes a good game because it's actually interactive, you are actively participating not mindlessly playing whack a mole.
Nope, wow is like justin bieber or britney spears. Their music is carefully written to have certain chord progressions, to avoid progressions that aren't easy to listen to, and to have catchy beats. They aren't creative expressions of art, they are mass marketed carefully designed products to get people to buy the album and then once they quickly tire of it throw it away. WoW is the same thing except instead of throwing it away, they carefully balance the carrot with the stick to keep you going as long as possible.
Wow success is really because it was a well made game. WAR, AoC and almost every game just like it have failed badly.
No, wow's success is because it is the right formula of just enough carrot and just enough stick and it was based on a very popular franchise. Wow as a game is absolutely horrid just like most other MMO's. MMO's are and have been mostly just a game of whack a mole since day one. When fighting a normal mob in WoW does it matter in any way shape or form what abilities you hit and when to win? nope. you can literally faceroll through the vast majority of wow and you seriously want to say it's a good game? Back in the days of EQ when it first came out, you had to CAREFULLY strategize how you fought a mob to win with most classes. If you just randomly hit one of your eight spells you were going to die. that's challenge and that makes a good game because it's actually interactive, you are actively participating not mindlessly playing whack a mole.
Nope, wow is like justin bieber or britney spears. Their music is carefully written to have certain chord progressions, to avoid progressions that aren't easy to listen to, and to have catchy beats. They aren't creative expressions of art, they are mass marketed carefully designed products to get people to buy the album and then once they quickly tire of it throw it away. WoW is the same thing except instead of throwing it away, they carefully balance the carrot with the stick to keep you going as long as possible.
That sounds like well made to me. Blizzard decided what group to make the game for and made a well polished game for that.
I don't play Wow either but you can't get that many players with a badly made game. There are plenty of other games that tried the exact same thing but they werent as well made and failed.
A well made game is made for a particular group of players and have good programmers as well as a good system for that group.
Heck, even Spears are good on what she do or she would have stopped selling CDs when she got uglier. Bieber on the other hand plainly sucks and will be forgotten as soon as he looks fade.
I did not say Wow is the ultimate MMO or anything of the kind (and I am right now listening to Rob Zombie) but it does what it is supposed to do very good.
what's amazing to me is the number of people who are duped into thinking that it's okay to have no immersion because somehow it's the players fault which is the gist of what this guy is saying imo. Sorry our game didn't have enough immersion but you players didn't let us Devs put that in, sorry that there weren't ambient sounds, critters, or explorations but it's definitely the community's fault.
That's what i'm hearing but let me remind you people of a single word argument that wins everytime because it was the community that demanded this from their devs and their devs listened and delivered instead of playing the blame game or hiding after the launch. Skyrim. That is all.
No skyrim didn't actually happen.. no game actually happens :P
I'm not saying immersion doesn't exist outside of mmo's.. i'm saying for an mmo to have immersion they have to have some level of RP and you can't rp if everyone is living in alternate realities while at the same time interacting with eachother, it makes no sense.
The quest system works great in singleplayer games because you are the only one doing the quest and you see the impacts etc IE immersive, you feel apart of the world.
Sure, but I'd question whether that ever truly existed in MMORPGs then, because every major MMORPG has always involved the majority of players playing it as a light game.
Can we even lament this as something "lost" if it never truly existed?
If we pretend that due to RP more immersion occurred in early MMORPGs, we must also accept that RP still occurs in every major MMORPG and those players become similarly immersed. Certainly in all but the most hardcore RP MMORPGs (read: none of the major releases) the majority of players weren't/aren't RPing.
Personally I never played an mmo with immersion (started with wow), actually I didn't start rping until very recently when i bought NWN2 on the steam summersale and logged into a PW to check it out.. So I guess I'm not really lamenting something lost per se.
Some people might be able to RP despite these things but you'd have to make some mind tricks, if everyone you meet saved elwynn from hogger, killed vancleef etc etc up to deathwing at the moment how much is there to RP? The whole basis of RP is that everyone doesn't have an identical and/or contradictory story so that it can be combined into a larger unified one.
From a NWN2 PW perspective this is where DM's come in creating events storylines the players can partake and change the outcome of that happen that are not instanced everyone is in on it. Once it happened it happened just like real-life.
A player really doesn't have to do much RP for other players immersion not to be broken (IE mine), they don't necessarily have to create elaborate stories of why their character is the way they are etc they can just be themselves and just keep acronyms and irl talk out of it and the rest comes naturally provided the world tries to be a world and not a singleplayer game put in an mmo setting "Damnit that guy just killed general bob now we have to wait for him to respawn" "Looking for people to kill vancleef!, I would like to join, Sorry the group is full already" (and many more examples) doesn't fly well for immersion/rp.
GW2's dynamic events will be brilliant in this sense if done right, which is if they necessarily need to have often repeating events make sure they are generic and logically can occur multiple times IE generic centaur attack not uber centaur lord of lords x show up everytime and is killed. In the cases of giant boss fights make the enemy retreat instead of die (something the shatterer does) possibly actually die forever server wise after a number of defeats if these events are only supposed to happen once a month they could easily expand and create a new event or even complete new chain to replace the old before that happens (say 10 defeats) and for servers that haven't defeated him 10 times he wouldn't disapear without being killed but actually needed to be defeated 10 times before the new event comes into play alternatively have them side by side altough not at the same time necessarily. I really hope this will ultimately replace the quest systems in MMO's it's so much more immersive and rp friendly. (Now put down those flamethrowers. I'm not saying GW2 will be the epitome of immersive/rpness I am fully aware it contains immersive breaking stuff too, just that the event system they have will be far better in that department then the quest system, it is a step forward for MMO's)
It's impossible to "escape" completely from immersion breaking at least not until we get something like true virtual reality/matrix technology but there is a difference between implementing features which the game are completely based upon that utterly contradicts immersion in an mmo setting (like the quest system which virtually any themepark out at the moment has) and those that at least try to be immersive (such as the event system).
what's amazing to me is the number of people who are duped into thinking that it's okay to have no immersion because somehow it's the players fault which is the gist of what this guy is saying imo. Sorry our game didn't have enough immersion but you players didn't let us Devs put that in, sorry that there weren't ambient sounds, critters, or explorations but it's definitely the community's fault.
That's what i'm hearing but let me remind you people of a single word argument that wins everytime because it was the community that demanded this from their devs and their devs listened and delivered instead of playing the blame game or hiding after the launch. Skyrim. That is all.
That is actually okay, what isn't okay is that all games lack it.
There is room for some Diablo games where you just go down a generic dungeon and kill stuff but there should also be some virtual worlds for us that want that.
People tend to blame Wow for the lack of diversity in the genre, but it is EA and activisions fault, not Wows.
I always attributed a lot of WoW's success to it having a degree of immersion.
When you ride a Griffin and look down and see MOBs and players moving in what seems like a huge world below, when you dive under water and count down your breath timer and find stuff down there, when you stealth around something, when you plop the fishing line into the water, when you go out on a dock and wait for the ship and jump on and wait for it to start moving, lots of little things, it does feel immersive. But it was limited by the game's design to that degree only. And the second time through is when the quest system slaps you in the face that everything you've done, everyone else has repeated too, like an act in a play that you have no choice in the matter.
And when nothing changes, and you aren't even able to change what you do (mostly), and the world story is scripted and you as much as the world, well, that just kills the immersion.
Some people might be able to RP despite these things but you'd have to make some mind tricks, if everyone you meet saved elwynn from hogger, killed vancleef etc etc up to deathwing at the moment how much is there to RP? The whole basis of RP is that everyone doesn't have an identical and/or contradictory story so that it can be combined into a larger unified one.
From a NWN2 PW perspective this is where DM's come in creating events storylines the players can partake and change the outcome of that happen that are not instanced everyone is in on it. Once it happened it happened just like real-life.
A player really doesn't have to do much RP for other players immersion not to be broken (IE mine), they don't necessarily have to create elaborate stories of why their character is the way they are etc they can just be themselves and just keep acronyms and irl talk out of it and the rest comes naturally provided the world tries to be a world and not a singleplayer game put in an mmo setting "Damnit that guy just killed general bob now we have to wait for him to respawn" "Looking for people to kill vancleef!, I would like to join, Sorry the group is full already" (and many more examples) doesn't fly well for immersion/rp.
GW2's dynamic events will be brilliant in this sense if done right, which is if they necessarily need to have often repeating events make sure they are generic and logically can occur multiple times IE generic centaur attack not uber centaur lord of lords x show up everytime and is killed. In the cases of giant boss fights make the enemy retreat instead of die (something the shatterer does) possibly actually die forever server wise after a number of defeats if these events are only supposed to happen once a month they could easily expand and create a new event or even complete new chain to replace the old before that happens (say 10 defeats) and for servers that haven't defeated him 10 times he wouldn't disapear without being killed but actually needed to be defeated 10 times before the new event comes into play alternatively have them side by side altough not at the same time necessarily. I really hope this will ultimately replace the quest systems in MMO's it's so much more immersive and rp friendly. (Now put down those flamethrowers. I'm not saying GW2 will be the epitome of immersive/rpness I am fully aware it contains immersive breaking stuff too, just that the event system they have will be far better in that department then the quest system, it is a step forward for MMO's)
It's impossible to "escape" completely from immersion breaking at least not until we get something like true virtual reality/matrix technology but there is a difference between implementing features which the game are completely based upon that utterly contradicts immersion in an mmo setting (like the quest system which virtually any themepark out at the moment has) and those that at least try to be immersive (such as the event system).
People RP in WOW all the time. Join a RP server and at time you can't get away from the stuff.
It's question of attitude: if you're waiting for the game to provide the story, you're never going to have that immersive experience. (Although I'd argue that games like ToR and Skyrim actually do provide this type of experience. Each of my ToR characters has a personality of their own, which shows through in conversations. This didn't occur in any prior MMORPG, with the weak exception of CoX.)
If you're willing to RP how RP is classically done -- by being part of the story and generating part of it yourself -- then there are plenty of those experiences around to be had.
I'm sure if you went on a WOW RP PVP server and mass emailed players with a cryptic, "All those loyal to the true blood of Onyxia, meet outside her lair at 9pm" you're going to have a bunch of players show up playing dragon cultists, and probably a bunch of goody two-shoes paladins showing up to stop them.
Sure it's possible to escape completely from immersion breaking factors. We live in reality, guy. When a dragon cultist explains that his wife has made dinner for him and he has to log off, that's life. But the point is that's never been any different in MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
People RP in WOW all the time. Join a RP server and at time you can't get away from the stuff.
It's question of attitude: if you're waiting for the game to provide the story, you're never going to have that immersive experience. (Although I'd argue that games like ToR and Skyrim actually do provide this type of experience. Each of my ToR characters has a personality of their own, which shows through in conversations. This didn't occur in any prior MMORPG, with the weak exception of CoX.)
If you're willing to RP how RP is classically done -- by being part of the story and generating part of it yourself -- then there are plenty of those experiences around to be had.
I'm sure if you went on a WOW RP PVP server and mass emailed players with a cryptic, "All those loyal to the true blood of Onyxia, meet outside her lair at 9pm" you're going to have a bunch of players show up playing dragon cultists, and probably a bunch of goody two-shoes paladins showing up to stop them.
It's possible to RP anywhere at anytime really, doesn't mean it's RP friendly though IE pnp you have virtually nothing besides a possible somewhat detailed map of the place you are in and some rough miniatures of the characters/monsters most of the RP occurs in your head but it works because there's nothing obvious pulling you out from the made up world constantly with illogical game nonsense, the DM doesn't go "jack the barbarian just killed general bob you have to wait 5 rounds before he respawns". Basically the more RP friendly the less the players have to make up excuses/explanations for things that makes no sense(either due to flawed/bad design or limited technically).
I'd imagine the RP that occurs on wow servers are for the most part more or less completely detached from what your character actually does ingame.. could as well RP in a irc chat room really. *walks into bar* "Hey X what did you do today?" "Oh I killed Onyxia with my guild mates for the fifth time" "Oh? I did the same!" *highfive* .... wat
Comments
I agree with his viewpoint and feel kinda sad about it. I think the MMO genre got too popular for its own good. When the mainstream population got involved, it was suddenly soccer mom and grandad that joined with little Jimmy, where as before it was more the domain of D&D PnP fans, RPG afficionados and hardcore gamers.
Which is fine of course if people like that start playing MMORPG's too, but like Koster says, people like that have other priorities, values and tastes in what they like for entertainment. The overall and atmosphere of MMO's and the MMO scene definitely changed when that happened, with the values and preferences of the early MMO adopters becoming as niche in that reshaped MMO landscape and culture as D&D pen & paper games are in real life.A shame. MMO's can be so much more and have so much unfulfilled potential yet. And I kinda mourn the loss of focus on world immersion with Koster, even if I can be entertained by more game focused MMO's.
He's right. But it has been like this for a good while now so he is kind of closing the door after the horse has already bolted.
Mmorpgs are nothing more than online single player games now really. Turn on, play a 15 minute baddlefield and then log out to watch some reality tv crap.
Some people on this site would have you believe that this is all a turn for the better, that popularity is all that ever matters and that everyone and his cat only wants to have fast pew pew in mmorpgs so that is all they should offer. It's like all they see mmorpgs as is shite versions of mobas.
The sad part of it is we used to have a range of different game types, deep, dynamic online worlds in which you couldn't do everything just by logging in and instantly blasting away. Coupled with more instant action offline and lan style games. Now we have clearly seen a shit into homogeneity in the gaming industry, EVERY genre of game has to be fast, bright, instant access and casual.
It's like the adhd generation can't accept that there should be a diverse range of game types, they think their whack a mole idea of game mechanics should permeate through every genre. Sadly due to the fact the majority of players are either ultra casual or ritalin users, the companies funding mmos are clearly going to throw their money at games which cater to them.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
This isn't really a sandbox Vs Themepark issue.
Ralph is right, the publishers are all trying to make exactly the same game for the same players which killed off the immersion. The devs are not allowed to be creative even if they can, they should just make the same crap over and over.
The thing is that the genre needs both deep and casual games, sandboxes and themeparks and easy and hard games.
By remaking the same game over and over you are losing a lot of potential MMO players while at the same time make the competition a lot harer about the players that like the current style.
Wow earns a lot of money, copies of it on the other hand usually fail badly but it just seems like no dev can figure out that there actually is easier to get many players in a unique fun game than trying to steal Wows playerbase. Wow players play Wow because they love Wow, they don't want a similar game because they already have that.
Usual Koster's article - lots of words, little content, little sense.
I really wonder why people bother following the guy...
Its a weird article indeed, but does have some valid points.
Wow success is really because it was a well made game. WAR, AoC and almost every game just like it have failed badly.
It has been done now and if you want to make a successful post Wow MMO you need to offer something Wow don't offer.
Diversity is the way to go, not copy and paste.
As for Diablo we are talking about a different kind of game for a different player. And frankly didn't Diablo 1 and 2 really sell that much compared to Wow or even Guildwars, Diablo sold 2 million copies and Diablo 2 4 million. It is still impressive but compared to Wow it is nothing, and you are comparing apples and oranges.
Remaking the same game over and over will kill the genre, not make it big.
As for UO when it released it very soon got more players than all other MMOs combined, it is just that few people even heard of the genre at the time (I was playing M59 at the time). It was a huge success at the time.
Immersion for an mmo implies RP, you know actually making up a character what their dispositions are etc so you can act that out when something happens to them.
I don't see how you can run around Loling and ganking newbs and at the same time be immersed.
So somethings that heavily break immersion/rp are
Quest system - No matter it's quality IE wow vs SW:ToR, for example killing general bob and then see general bob respawn or be killed again or even if it's instanced hearing "I just killed general bob" (or just plain knowing essentially everyone will kill him is enough) when you had already done so.
Instancing/phasing - Much for the same core reason above, it creates alternate realities.
Community(possibly lack of moderation) - Even on rp servers you do not get away from people who constantly does not rp and belongs on a pvp server (IE lol gank). - but this might be an outgrowth from the hard to immerse/rp world (I know I don't feel like RPing in swtor altough I don't run around and spam lololol).
Probably tons more.
I don't know about that. The game I've been most immersed in was probably Mirror's Edge, which is even less of a roleplaying game than Duke Nukem 3D.
I also get ‘immersed’ in games where you don't even have a character, i.e. AudioSurf and Eufloria. In fact, the story that plays out in my mind when I play Eufloria can be pretty inspiring. Or terrifying.
See also how immersed people become in Minecraft.
I'd agree that immersion and roleplaying are obvious bedfellows, but I really don't think it's so necessary to have one in order to have the other.
Also:
Instancing actually aids my immersion. Aside from the in-your-face portals or force fields that tend to signify their entrances, it really helps me enjoy the game, alone or with friends, to be able to experience events not as repeatable static mob farms, but rungs along the ladder of our experience to which we cannot return. No do-overs.
I think that those ‘alternate realities’ are preferable to one reality that is much more gamey.
So...Skyrim didn't actually happen?
It not being an MMORPG isn't really the point. The point is it was a game focused on immersion and did great.
In fact it's immersion was possibly specifically because it wasn't an MMORPG.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Agreed.
Nothing ruins immersion faster than being told there's a nasty boss that needs to die and seeing another player kill him in front of your face -- and then still having to kill him yourself after he respawns because it's not like you got credit for the boss dying at the hands of another player.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
No skyrim didn't actually happen.. no game actually happens :P
I'm not saying immersion doesn't exist outside of mmo's.. i'm saying for an mmo to have immersion they have to have some level of RP and you can't rp if everyone is living in alternate realities while at the same time interacting with eachother, it makes no sense.
The quest system works great in singleplayer games because you are the only one doing the quest and you see the impacts etc IE immersive, you feel apart of the world.
IMO, most MMO companies these days are just after the quick box sales, the could care less about how immersive the game is. They're perfectly content getting their quck fix funding for their next crappy product repackaged in another snazzy box highlighted with more fanciful demo videos. Almost like a ponzi scheme really.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Did you actually try to run the math behind your statement?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a84y85jUutg
There, even WoW can be immersive.
Sure, but I'd question whether that ever truly existed in MMORPGs then, because every major MMORPG has always involved the majority of players playing it as a light game.
Can we even lament this as something "lost" if it never truly existed?
If we pretend that due to RP more immersion occurred in early MMORPGs, we must also accept that RP still occurs in every major MMORPG and those players become similarly immersed. Certainly in all but the most hardcore RP MMORPGs (read: none of the major releases) the majority of players weren't/aren't RPing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Whether he makes sense or not is irelevant. What makes sense is that when he's handed the reigns of a game does he actually put all his lofty talk into practice or is he just ideas with no idea how to implement them? I'd say the latter. The guy has done nothing at all. UO was a horrid game ran by PK's, it didn't work for anyone else really. He made a star wars MMO that was about crafting and pokemon before adventure and the things that star wars was really about. Star wars wasn't about crafting and running a shop out of your house it was about blowing things up, space combat, jedi etc. Most of which wasn't even in at launch. Was the crafting system in star wars deep? yeah, but it had absolutely no place in a star wars games and a good designer would have seen that and designed his game around the subject matter rather than try and force in all your goofy ideas just to make a name for yourself.
Koster says interesting things sometimes but has no means or ability to implement them, he's a hack that should stick to writing and less to making games because frankly from his track record he really really sucks at making games.
No, wow's success is because it is the right formula of just enough carrot and just enough stick and it was based on a very popular franchise. Wow as a game is absolutely horrid just like most other MMO's. MMO's are and have been mostly just a game of whack a mole since day one. When fighting a normal mob in WoW does it matter in any way shape or form what abilities you hit and when to win? nope. you can literally faceroll through the vast majority of wow and you seriously want to say it's a good game? Back in the days of EQ when it first came out, you had to CAREFULLY strategize how you fought a mob to win with most classes. If you just randomly hit one of your eight spells you were going to die. that's challenge and that makes a good game because it's actually interactive, you are actively participating not mindlessly playing whack a mole.
Nope, wow is like justin bieber or britney spears. Their music is carefully written to have certain chord progressions, to avoid progressions that aren't easy to listen to, and to have catchy beats. They aren't creative expressions of art, they are mass marketed carefully designed products to get people to buy the album and then once they quickly tire of it throw it away. WoW is the same thing except instead of throwing it away, they carefully balance the carrot with the stick to keep you going as long as possible.
That sounds like well made to me. Blizzard decided what group to make the game for and made a well polished game for that.
I don't play Wow either but you can't get that many players with a badly made game. There are plenty of other games that tried the exact same thing but they werent as well made and failed.
A well made game is made for a particular group of players and have good programmers as well as a good system for that group.
Heck, even Spears are good on what she do or she would have stopped selling CDs when she got uglier. Bieber on the other hand plainly sucks and will be forgotten as soon as he looks fade.
I did not say Wow is the ultimate MMO or anything of the kind (and I am right now listening to Rob Zombie) but it does what it is supposed to do very good.
what's amazing to me is the number of people who are duped into thinking that it's okay to have no immersion because somehow it's the players fault which is the gist of what this guy is saying imo. Sorry our game didn't have enough immersion but you players didn't let us Devs put that in, sorry that there weren't ambient sounds, critters, or explorations but it's definitely the community's fault.
That's what i'm hearing but let me remind you people of a single word argument that wins everytime because it was the community that demanded this from their devs and their devs listened and delivered instead of playing the blame game or hiding after the launch. Skyrim. That is all.
Personally I never played an mmo with immersion (started with wow), actually I didn't start rping until very recently when i bought NWN2 on the steam summersale and logged into a PW to check it out.. So I guess I'm not really lamenting something lost per se.
Some people might be able to RP despite these things but you'd have to make some mind tricks, if everyone you meet saved elwynn from hogger, killed vancleef etc etc up to deathwing at the moment how much is there to RP? The whole basis of RP is that everyone doesn't have an identical and/or contradictory story so that it can be combined into a larger unified one.
From a NWN2 PW perspective this is where DM's come in creating events storylines the players can partake and change the outcome of that happen that are not instanced everyone is in on it. Once it happened it happened just like real-life.
A player really doesn't have to do much RP for other players immersion not to be broken (IE mine), they don't necessarily have to create elaborate stories of why their character is the way they are etc they can just be themselves and just keep acronyms and irl talk out of it and the rest comes naturally provided the world tries to be a world and not a singleplayer game put in an mmo setting "Damnit that guy just killed general bob now we have to wait for him to respawn" "Looking for people to kill vancleef!, I would like to join, Sorry the group is full already" (and many more examples) doesn't fly well for immersion/rp.
GW2's dynamic events will be brilliant in this sense if done right, which is if they necessarily need to have often repeating events make sure they are generic and logically can occur multiple times IE generic centaur attack not uber centaur lord of lords x show up everytime and is killed. In the cases of giant boss fights make the enemy retreat instead of die (something the shatterer does) possibly actually die forever server wise after a number of defeats if these events are only supposed to happen once a month they could easily expand and create a new event or even complete new chain to replace the old before that happens (say 10 defeats) and for servers that haven't defeated him 10 times he wouldn't disapear without being killed but actually needed to be defeated 10 times before the new event comes into play alternatively have them side by side altough not at the same time necessarily. I really hope this will ultimately replace the quest systems in MMO's it's so much more immersive and rp friendly. (Now put down those flamethrowers. I'm not saying GW2 will be the epitome of immersive/rpness I am fully aware it contains immersive breaking stuff too, just that the event system they have will be far better in that department then the quest system, it is a step forward for MMO's)
It's impossible to "escape" completely from immersion breaking at least not until we get something like true virtual reality/matrix technology but there is a difference between implementing features which the game are completely based upon that utterly contradicts immersion in an mmo setting (like the quest system which virtually any themepark out at the moment has) and those that at least try to be immersive (such as the event system).
That is actually okay, what isn't okay is that all games lack it.
There is room for some Diablo games where you just go down a generic dungeon and kill stuff but there should also be some virtual worlds for us that want that.
People tend to blame Wow for the lack of diversity in the genre, but it is EA and activisions fault, not Wows.
I always attributed a lot of WoW's success to it having a degree of immersion.
When you ride a Griffin and look down and see MOBs and players moving in what seems like a huge world below, when you dive under water and count down your breath timer and find stuff down there, when you stealth around something, when you plop the fishing line into the water, when you go out on a dock and wait for the ship and jump on and wait for it to start moving, lots of little things, it does feel immersive. But it was limited by the game's design to that degree only. And the second time through is when the quest system slaps you in the face that everything you've done, everyone else has repeated too, like an act in a play that you have no choice in the matter.
And when nothing changes, and you aren't even able to change what you do (mostly), and the world story is scripted and you as much as the world, well, that just kills the immersion.
Once upon a time....
People RP in WOW all the time. Join a RP server and at time you can't get away from the stuff.
It's question of attitude: if you're waiting for the game to provide the story, you're never going to have that immersive experience. (Although I'd argue that games like ToR and Skyrim actually do provide this type of experience. Each of my ToR characters has a personality of their own, which shows through in conversations. This didn't occur in any prior MMORPG, with the weak exception of CoX.)
If you're willing to RP how RP is classically done -- by being part of the story and generating part of it yourself -- then there are plenty of those experiences around to be had.
I'm sure if you went on a WOW RP PVP server and mass emailed players with a cryptic, "All those loyal to the true blood of Onyxia, meet outside her lair at 9pm" you're going to have a bunch of players show up playing dragon cultists, and probably a bunch of goody two-shoes paladins showing up to stop them.
Sure it's possible to escape completely from immersion breaking factors. We live in reality, guy. When a dragon cultist explains that his wife has made dinner for him and he has to log off, that's life. But the point is that's never been any different in MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's possible to RP anywhere at anytime really, doesn't mean it's RP friendly though IE pnp you have virtually nothing besides a possible somewhat detailed map of the place you are in and some rough miniatures of the characters/monsters most of the RP occurs in your head but it works because there's nothing obvious pulling you out from the made up world constantly with illogical game nonsense, the DM doesn't go "jack the barbarian just killed general bob you have to wait 5 rounds before he respawns". Basically the more RP friendly the less the players have to make up excuses/explanations for things that makes no sense(either due to flawed/bad design or limited technically).
I'd imagine the RP that occurs on wow servers are for the most part more or less completely detached from what your character actually does ingame.. could as well RP in a irc chat room really. *walks into bar* "Hey X what did you do today?" "Oh I killed Onyxia with my guild mates for the fifth time" "Oh? I did the same!" *highfive* .... wat