I also enjoy exploration, here are some examples of what i found fun and what I considered "exploration"
1. Mapping in Xsyon, I found exploring Xsyon to be one of the best qualities of this game, even though the original game map is based off a real-world location (Lake Tahoe I believe) it was/is an amazing game to just go in and start exploring.
2. Minecraft, a dynamic world with biomes (jungle, ocean, desert, forest, etc.) with each area dynamically created. Whether digging down into the unknown or running across a desert, Minecraft's exploration is great, every game is different which helps.
3. UO, prior to access to all sorts of online maps I would wander aimlessly in UO looking for hunting grounds, maybe a chicken spawn area for feathers, run across some nice mining areas etc. The in-game use of cartography was also amazing.
4. EQ, when I started out before printing out maps of all the zones (which I eventually did, I still have a binder full of it all) just running around towns like Qeynos and finding stuff in the sewers. Both EQ and UO were exciting because while exploring you could run into danger at any moment.
5. Oblivion/Skyrim, Oh man just pick a direction and run. Find a random dungeon, fight through it, find awesome magic items and awesome sites with detailed lore and background. I really could care less for the quests which send you in that direction to begin with, I much prefer finding it, then finding out the magic helm I found was actually a lost kings and someone is looking for it... so cool.
I think the majority of the fun tied to exploration is the unknown (duh?) but most modern MMOs tend to remove all concepts of the unknown. But can you really blame them when websites like torhead have all the game's information at the touch of a button before the game even releases? Would be hard-pressed to find a game which a.) Didn't allow you to look at online maps and b.) Has an in-depth in-game mapping system.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
For me, exploration in an mmorpg is looking for something that you aren't lead to by the developer. It doesn't matter what kind of game it is or what the developer's intentions were. This can happen in open world games or it can happen in bread crumb maze games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Nobody uses scenery to tell a story anymore. How many games have you played where you stumble across an area, look around, and without having an NPC spout of any lore to you, tell just by looking that some kind of battle or something else interesting happened here at one time?
Lots of other good ideas that range the gammut in this thread, but I wanted to touch on this.
I always wanted this sort of thing, and to have it matter a great deal in the game through discoveries hidden in the mysteries of the past.
I'd like to see a wide range of what can be discovered.
Treasures consisting of rare items, gold, art, etc.
Technology (***see below). Learn to make gear that's a little better, new construction styles and techniques, better forges and tanning techniques, things that players can make use of or make it a little less expensive to produce, etc.
Rare magics, being carefull with balance issues
Ancient tomes, tablets, etc., and often with clues in them to other discoveries.
One of a kind discoveries are something that in the past many have said you can't do because it'll be all over the internet and a waste of effort to make. I strongly disagree. I think it can be done in such a way that the internet becomes an asset in a deeper mystery. Where players work together to piece together wide spread bits of information to solve the next piece of the riddle.
But I think that also has to be limited, and there needs to be a much wider range of what you all have mentioned. But the more depth in all of this, the better the experience is for all of us as participating together in a game world.
***On technology, I've always thought that as a player advances their skills in construction or crafting skills, that it would be great if they needed to actually go to places in the game world to "study" things in order to learn their techniques. Places like:
Ancient forges and other crafting centers so as to learn yourself how they are made and worked
Advanced wall construction, and architectural styles. Shouldn't a player have to learn how stones are cut and stacked to make a stone wall? How to make an arch? This probably should be limited to special cases, and I haven't thought it through to figure out a system, so I'll leave it open at that.
And then, hidden within this, there can be special events. If a guild makes a discovery of the location of an ancient buried ruins (as like what Cuathan was talking about in his post), couldn't there be a chance that they also happen across an ancient secret? A secret that unleashes something monumental? Like an ancient liche of extreme power who then starts raising undead all over the world to create armies to destroy mankind?
What I would do here, if I were making this game, is give this liche an AI and the means to escape once freed by the players. This is as an NPC. Then I'd have GMs start playing this liche, find a hidey hole to leave it in NPC mode, and play it to go out into the game world and raise it's army. Players may eventually kill it out in the world as a GM played critter, or may discover the hiding spot and kill it as an NPC there. Or it may yet again escape.
I think the difference between me and Kyleran is that I love exploration in Vanguard. One of my best explorative moments was ni Vanguard where I discovered this mine and after getting to the end of it I then discovered that one of the miners broke through to some ancient Elvish temple of sorts.
This to me is what exploration is about. It's about being in an area and seeing something of interest that not only is pretty to the eye (in whatever form it takes) but where one might be able to intereact or have some game play in the area. Or maybe even just a little nifty discovery.
Like another Vanguard moment when I was coming back from a very northern part of the map and saw a tower in the distance. After going to the top I discovered a moving blob of sorts. Clicking on it yielded "cheese" which I could use as a buff of sorts.
And if i have to fight through mobs and then come to something that is different then for me that is ok too.
There is some movie coming out that had an interesting quote. To paraphrase "if it was easy to find then it wouldn't be worth finding".
Hmm, so perhaps this is a situation where I really didn't play Vanguard long enough to find the interesting content.
I never got much past the mid 20's and at that level much of the game world became an impenetrable wall with most zones so full of higher level mobs I couldn't really travel freely except on the roads.
The only other way to navigate was to move along the fringes of the zones (yes, there were zones of sort) such as in the mountains where there would be nothing, no mobs, no real landscape, just featureless land mass that let you skirt the danger zones but offered nothing in terms of exploration.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy fighting my way through mobs as much as the next guy...sometimes...but not all the time.
On those occasions I just want to wander about with ways to navigate the game world that doesn't involve being attacked constantly as I explore.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Exploration is only possible the first couple of months after release no matter what game. After that there will be guides everywhere with hints and spoilers. If you manage to stay away from those you are setting yourself at a disadvantage to those willing to use them to get rewards.
I'm quite aware there are some purists out there that can refrain from using guides and online maps, I just don't believe they represent a significant number of players. The rest will see it as an inconvenience and a timesink doing everything they can to read up on where to go for what
The trick is to make a world that changes so people can't do that. Also don't have a map that is fully open and obvious. So you have to actually have a physical intuition of the world, just like in real life. Also make the world REALLY big.
Exploration is only possible the first couple of months after release no matter what game.
Not true, randomness is a very good thing and very versatile. The problem is that current developers seem to lack the creativity and thought process to implement such a feature in a more impactful way.
"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
Exploration is only possible the first couple of months after release no matter what game.
Not true, randomness is a very good thing and very versatile. The problem is that current developers seem to lack the creativity and thought process to implement such a feature in a more impactful way.
I would love randomly created content. Any MMO that can successfully add such a feature being able to disguise it was randomly created would get my vote
Exploration is only possible the first couple of months after release no matter what game.
Not true, randomness is a very good thing and very versatile. The problem is that current developers seem to lack the creativity and thought process to implement such a feature in a more impactful way.
I would love randomly created content. Any MMO that can successfully add such a feature being able to disguise it was randomly created would get my vote
How do you feel about this:
World is generate procedurally. World is as large as either earth or as large as 1/10th of earth.
You can make gates to other worlds of similar sizes.
There are caves and underground cities and such things. Players have the power to drastically alter the environment. Tunneling, digging, buildings, walls and so forth.
Obviously not every player will be able to experience the world as being the first to explore every part. But you can still get a reasonable amount of experience even if you aren't a dedicated explorer.
I don't belive there even need to be a real reward. Even just handcrafted places and special NPCs will do. Something fun you discover if you trod off the path. This does need larger worlds to have the free space which to fit stuff. Either something which fit's into world or even something completly random and humorous... Like there is Marvin in AO or just a forgoten fishing village. Even just sights that are there, which players don't find in normal gameplay.
Exploration is only possible the first couple of months after release no matter what game.
Not true, randomness is a very good thing and very versatile. The problem is that current developers seem to lack the creativity and thought process to implement such a feature in a more impactful way.
I would love randomly created content. Any MMO that can successfully add such a feature being able to disguise it was randomly created would get my vote
How do you feel about this:
World is generate procedurally. World is as large as either earth or as large as 1/10th of earth.
You can make gates to other worlds of similar sizes.
There are caves and underground cities and such things. Players have the power to drastically alter the environment. Tunneling, digging, buildings, walls and so forth.
Obviously not every player will be able to experience the world as being the first to explore every part. But you can still get a reasonable amount of experience even if you aren't a dedicated explorer.
As long as the graphics doesn't look like minecraft I'm sold
No quests.... materials can be everywhere, some good, some standard, and some great. Landmarks and explorable places all over. Caves, dungeons, pickables. If you can see it most likely you can go there, and most likely there is a material to gather or pick there whether or not its common or uncommon.
I realy enjoyed exploring early Aion, the breathtaking scenery and the faction vs faction openworld pvp system made it very exciting and dangerous/rewarding to explore!
Exploration is only possible the first couple of months after release no matter what game.
Not true, randomness is a very good thing and very versatile. The problem is that current developers seem to lack the creativity and thought process to implement such a feature in a more impactful way.
I would love randomly created content. Any MMO that can successfully add such a feature being able to disguise it was randomly created would get my vote
How do you feel about this:
World is generate procedurally. World is as large as either earth or as large as 1/10th of earth.
You can make gates to other worlds of similar sizes.
There are caves and underground cities and such things. Players have the power to drastically alter the environment. Tunneling, digging, buildings, walls and so forth.
Obviously not every player will be able to experience the world as being the first to explore every part. But you can still get a reasonable amount of experience even if you aren't a dedicated explorer.
As long as the graphics doesn't look like minecraft I'm sold
How about ATITD or Wurm graphics? You aren't going to have bleeding ege high res textures and stuff with alterable worlds.
I don't know, I don't think exploration can really be done right in an MMO.
Why? Other people.
To me, exploration is picking a random direction, pointing yourself in that direction, and walking.
You just see what you find.
Games like Skyrim and Minecraft REALLY, really do this very well - tons of stuff to stumble across, cool little areas and new challenges etc.
In order for this kind of thing to "work" in a MMO, you'd have to have just MASSIVE worlds - like a single planet in TOR or a single zone in a fantasy world being the size of a Minecraft map or all of Skyrim.
If you had a system of quests and such, the objectives for the quests would have to be positioned just right... not too far from the towns/cities and other such social hubs.
But massive tracks of land in between these hubs.
Massive, empty tracks of land.
As soon as you put a quest objective or some such in an area, it no longer because exploration. It becomes following a map.
But also like Skyrim you'd have to litter the landscape with random little things like caves, dungeons, monuments, random boss mobs, etc. as well as your typical packs/groups of mobs or npc encampments etc. Things with NO quest objective, no arrow pointing you towards them etc.
But still, at the same time... other players would ruin it.
How terrible would it be to be wandering around the wilderness, find a really cool looking cave mouth that leads to a dungeon of some sort, or some hidden lair of a terrible monster....
And find a group of players camping the spawn. "Sup dood, we here first wait till next spawn k thx bai."
So I think exploration can be done a lot better in MMOs, but will NEVER be the same as in a single player sandbox.
Exploration is only possible the first couple of months after release no matter what game.
Not true, randomness is a very good thing and very versatile. The problem is that current developers seem to lack the creativity and thought process to implement such a feature in a more impactful way.
I would love randomly created content. Any MMO that can successfully add such a feature being able to disguise it was randomly created would get my vote
How do you feel about this:
World is generate procedurally. World is as large as either earth or as large as 1/10th of earth.
You can make gates to other worlds of similar sizes.
There are caves and underground cities and such things. Players have the power to drastically alter the environment. Tunneling, digging, buildings, walls and so forth.
Obviously not every player will be able to experience the world as being the first to explore every part. But you can still get a reasonable amount of experience even if you aren't a dedicated explorer.
As long as the graphics doesn't look like minecraft I'm sold
How about ATITD or Wurm graphics? You aren't going to have bleeding ege high res textures and stuff with alterable worlds.
I don't like the graphics in either of those titles. It looks like they were created the same time as Everquest. I don't think graphics are the most important thing when it comes to games but It's important. Hell I'll even settle with graphics that looked good 4 - 5 years ago. Even stylized
-A rare mob that gives a good loot and exp, or possibly just a chest or rare resource nodes
-An extra quest that can be found
-Npcs doing some fun event if you just stop and watch
I hate what SWTOR did to 'exploration' with their datacrons. They made exploration so significant that you can't just stumble upon things, it's not exploration if you feel you have to find everything.
^ Yep. As one of those that is participating in that discussion, this is pretty much it. I know themeparks breadcrumb you around each zone you go to, but if you don't have any real reason to get off the path then most people won't. When you add barriers on top of that you really stifle it.
Security chests, found plenty thus far off the beaten path, netted a few purples in doing so as well.
I may be the exception here. A lot of modern games feature a radar / mini map feature. To me. this feature hurts the feeling of immersion, and curtails the sense of exploration in MMORPGs.
I think exploration needs to present the opportunity to get lost in the big forest, or think you're never going to find you way across the desert. There should be some sense of accomplishment in finding a mineral outcropping to feed your crafting needs. Finding an NPC hermit as part of a quest should be challenging. And finding a herd of critters that give great experience, or great cash that no one else seems to know about is amazing.
The radar/mini-map/quest tracker pretty much undermines the exploration aspect of many games. I recognize that I'm in the minority here, but some of us would appreciate the ability to turn off the mini-map feature. At times, I actually wonder how many people are essentially looking at nothing but the mini-map portion of their big expensive monitor. I seem to miss the point of having an immersive 3D vista laid out before me, if all I'm doing is looking at 1/8th of the display.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Exploring is probably my favorite part of MMO's. I love to see new places I haven't seen before.
I would spend hours just running around in Asheron's Call while much of the player base was camped in XP dungeons. Sure it slowed my leveling progress, but it was more about the visual experience than the leveling, although in the process I found quite a few good grinding spots that I could go to and not have any competition for mobs.
I enjoyed exploring in WoW, but the zones, and the world in general, seemed so compacted compared to AC.
^^^ This. I recently started playing Asheron's Call (as a noob, not a resubber) and it perfectly has that sort of exploration I was always looking for. It does not enforce (this game doesn't seem to "enforce" anything) but strongly encourage exploration, even some quests require a certain amount of exploration if you don't want to depend on spoilers. AC is unfortunately the prototype of a "beginner unfriendly" game and with its outdated (>10 years old) graphics it's surely not for everyone. But disappointed (from current games) old school players should definitely give this game a shot (and *some* patience).
I may be the exception here. A lot of modern games feature a radar / mini map feature. To me. this feature hurts the feeling of immersion, and curtails the sense of exploration in MMORPGs.
We surely are a minority but you are not alone, just a bit old school perhaps. Which is nothing bad in my book. I really would love to see current games taking one or two advices from their ancient ancestors.
I agree with much of what is posted. I usually play games with crafting and harvesting. So I enjoy roaming around finding deposits of resources.
I used to play ATITD, which rewarded exploration (or people who run around alot). There were rare mushrooms and herbs to find, idenitify and harvest; rare ore to dowse, beetles to find and breed. It was pretty fun, if you are into that sort of thing.
Right now i'm in the Wakfu open beta and its pretty cool so far. there are rare ores to find and secret dungeons and challenges to find. So far, I really enjoy it.
I'm just pondering here, but I think for alot of people, whether they're aware or not, exploration is about:
-going someplace unknown, where you'll have no idea what you will find when you go there.
and/or...
-going someplace where few other players have been, and quite possibly discovering something there that they can take ownership of in some way, at least in some emotional sense.
This, I think, is why TOR, despite being big and having some surprises here and there doesn't scratch the itch for the more hard core explorer. TOR uses at least 75% of the map in its missions. And so, the mission(and particularly the mission indicators) pretty much tell the explorer what to expect before they travel that 75%.
As for the remaining 25%? Well... the interwebs destroy that for an explorer. If there's anything of interest in that 25%, then there will be a half dozen wiki's giving the scoop, and lots of players will have already been there. Even if an explorer doesn't read spoilers, the explorer knows that anything good in far out zones is already "public knowledge", so to speak, even at launch.
To be honest, I'm not sure how you get past that. Both GW2(thru dynamic events) and TSW(through mystery) elude to possibly bringing something to the table for explorers. But in the end, I'm a bit skeptical that much can be done to avoid a "been there, done that" feel to those elements after so many play-throughs. We'll have to wait and see.
When I think of exploration done right in an MMO the one game I can think of that actually made exploration fun and rewarding was Asheron's Call 1. The massive open world meant there was virtually a limitless amount of places to go at any level. The lack of instances meant you actually were forced to use the massive open world. The lack of quests meant you weren't directed to certain areas. Finally, many of the content updates completely changed what levels certain areas were meant for. Where there used to be level 20 mobs one month, you might see level 50 mobs another month. Also, it seemed usually the further you moved away from a town/settlement, the more dangerous and rewarding things got.
Granted, in 1999-2000 there weren't a flood of gaming sites like there are today, but I remember one time in Asheron's Call I was just kind of wandering through the world and found a dungeon that I could find no record of existing on any web site. That's exploration in an MMO to me.
Comments
I also enjoy exploration, here are some examples of what i found fun and what I considered "exploration"
1. Mapping in Xsyon, I found exploring Xsyon to be one of the best qualities of this game, even though the original game map is based off a real-world location (Lake Tahoe I believe) it was/is an amazing game to just go in and start exploring.
2. Minecraft, a dynamic world with biomes (jungle, ocean, desert, forest, etc.) with each area dynamically created. Whether digging down into the unknown or running across a desert, Minecraft's exploration is great, every game is different which helps.
3. UO, prior to access to all sorts of online maps I would wander aimlessly in UO looking for hunting grounds, maybe a chicken spawn area for feathers, run across some nice mining areas etc. The in-game use of cartography was also amazing.
4. EQ, when I started out before printing out maps of all the zones (which I eventually did, I still have a binder full of it all) just running around towns like Qeynos and finding stuff in the sewers. Both EQ and UO were exciting because while exploring you could run into danger at any moment.
5. Oblivion/Skyrim, Oh man just pick a direction and run. Find a random dungeon, fight through it, find awesome magic items and awesome sites with detailed lore and background. I really could care less for the quests which send you in that direction to begin with, I much prefer finding it, then finding out the magic helm I found was actually a lost kings and someone is looking for it... so cool.
I think the majority of the fun tied to exploration is the unknown (duh?) but most modern MMOs tend to remove all concepts of the unknown. But can you really blame them when websites like torhead have all the game's information at the touch of a button before the game even releases? Would be hard-pressed to find a game which a.) Didn't allow you to look at online maps and b.) Has an in-depth in-game mapping system.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
For me, exploration in an mmorpg is looking for something that you aren't lead to by the developer. It doesn't matter what kind of game it is or what the developer's intentions were. This can happen in open world games or it can happen in bread crumb maze games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Lots of other good ideas that range the gammut in this thread, but I wanted to touch on this.
I always wanted this sort of thing, and to have it matter a great deal in the game through discoveries hidden in the mysteries of the past.
I'd like to see a wide range of what can be discovered.
Treasures consisting of rare items, gold, art, etc.
Technology (***see below). Learn to make gear that's a little better, new construction styles and techniques, better forges and tanning techniques, things that players can make use of or make it a little less expensive to produce, etc.
Rare magics, being carefull with balance issues
Ancient tomes, tablets, etc., and often with clues in them to other discoveries.
One of a kind discoveries are something that in the past many have said you can't do because it'll be all over the internet and a waste of effort to make. I strongly disagree. I think it can be done in such a way that the internet becomes an asset in a deeper mystery. Where players work together to piece together wide spread bits of information to solve the next piece of the riddle.
But I think that also has to be limited, and there needs to be a much wider range of what you all have mentioned. But the more depth in all of this, the better the experience is for all of us as participating together in a game world.
***On technology, I've always thought that as a player advances their skills in construction or crafting skills, that it would be great if they needed to actually go to places in the game world to "study" things in order to learn their techniques. Places like:
Ancient forges and other crafting centers so as to learn yourself how they are made and worked
Advanced wall construction, and architectural styles. Shouldn't a player have to learn how stones are cut and stacked to make a stone wall? How to make an arch? This probably should be limited to special cases, and I haven't thought it through to figure out a system, so I'll leave it open at that.
And then, hidden within this, there can be special events. If a guild makes a discovery of the location of an ancient buried ruins (as like what Cuathan was talking about in his post), couldn't there be a chance that they also happen across an ancient secret? A secret that unleashes something monumental? Like an ancient liche of extreme power who then starts raising undead all over the world to create armies to destroy mankind?
What I would do here, if I were making this game, is give this liche an AI and the means to escape once freed by the players. This is as an NPC. Then I'd have GMs start playing this liche, find a hidey hole to leave it in NPC mode, and play it to go out into the game world and raise it's army. Players may eventually kill it out in the world as a GM played critter, or may discover the hiding spot and kill it as an NPC there. Or it may yet again escape.
Once upon a time....
Hmm, so perhaps this is a situation where I really didn't play Vanguard long enough to find the interesting content.
I never got much past the mid 20's and at that level much of the game world became an impenetrable wall with most zones so full of higher level mobs I couldn't really travel freely except on the roads.
The only other way to navigate was to move along the fringes of the zones (yes, there were zones of sort) such as in the mountains where there would be nothing, no mobs, no real landscape, just featureless land mass that let you skirt the danger zones but offered nothing in terms of exploration.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy fighting my way through mobs as much as the next guy...sometimes...but not all the time.
On those occasions I just want to wander about with ways to navigate the game world that doesn't involve being attacked constantly as I explore.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Exploration is only possible the first couple of months after release no matter what game. After that there will be guides everywhere with hints and spoilers. If you manage to stay away from those you are setting yourself at a disadvantage to those willing to use them to get rewards.
I'm quite aware there are some purists out there that can refrain from using guides and online maps, I just don't believe they represent a significant number of players. The rest will see it as an inconvenience and a timesink doing everything they can to read up on where to go for what
The trick is to make a world that changes so people can't do that. Also don't have a map that is fully open and obvious. So you have to actually have a physical intuition of the world, just like in real life. Also make the world REALLY big.
Not true, randomness is a very good thing and very versatile. The problem is that current developers seem to lack the creativity and thought process to implement such a feature in a more impactful way.
"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
I would love randomly created content. Any MMO that can successfully add such a feature being able to disguise it was randomly created would get my vote
How do you feel about this:
World is generate procedurally. World is as large as either earth or as large as 1/10th of earth.
You can make gates to other worlds of similar sizes.
There are caves and underground cities and such things. Players have the power to drastically alter the environment. Tunneling, digging, buildings, walls and so forth.
Obviously not every player will be able to experience the world as being the first to explore every part. But you can still get a reasonable amount of experience even if you aren't a dedicated explorer.
I don't belive there even need to be a real reward. Even just handcrafted places and special NPCs will do. Something fun you discover if you trod off the path. This does need larger worlds to have the free space which to fit stuff. Either something which fit's into world or even something completly random and humorous... Like there is Marvin in AO or just a forgoten fishing village. Even just sights that are there, which players don't find in normal gameplay.
As long as the graphics doesn't look like minecraft I'm sold
No quests.... materials can be everywhere, some good, some standard, and some great. Landmarks and explorable places all over. Caves, dungeons, pickables. If you can see it most likely you can go there, and most likely there is a material to gather or pick there whether or not its common or uncommon.
I realy enjoyed exploring early Aion, the breathtaking scenery and the faction vs faction openworld pvp system made it very exciting and dangerous/rewarding to explore!
How about ATITD or Wurm graphics? You aren't going to have bleeding ege high res textures and stuff with alterable worlds.
I don't know, I don't think exploration can really be done right in an MMO.
Why? Other people.
To me, exploration is picking a random direction, pointing yourself in that direction, and walking.
You just see what you find.
Games like Skyrim and Minecraft REALLY, really do this very well - tons of stuff to stumble across, cool little areas and new challenges etc.
In order for this kind of thing to "work" in a MMO, you'd have to have just MASSIVE worlds - like a single planet in TOR or a single zone in a fantasy world being the size of a Minecraft map or all of Skyrim.
If you had a system of quests and such, the objectives for the quests would have to be positioned just right... not too far from the towns/cities and other such social hubs.
But massive tracks of land in between these hubs.
Massive, empty tracks of land.
As soon as you put a quest objective or some such in an area, it no longer because exploration. It becomes following a map.
But also like Skyrim you'd have to litter the landscape with random little things like caves, dungeons, monuments, random boss mobs, etc. as well as your typical packs/groups of mobs or npc encampments etc. Things with NO quest objective, no arrow pointing you towards them etc.
But still, at the same time... other players would ruin it.
How terrible would it be to be wandering around the wilderness, find a really cool looking cave mouth that leads to a dungeon of some sort, or some hidden lair of a terrible monster....
And find a group of players camping the spawn. "Sup dood, we here first wait till next spawn k thx bai."
So I think exploration can be done a lot better in MMOs, but will NEVER be the same as in a single player sandbox.
For the love of all that is holy...some gamers even need quests to go explore. LOL
Once upon a time....
I don't like the graphics in either of those titles. It looks like they were created the same time as Everquest. I don't think graphics are the most important thing when it comes to games but It's important. Hell I'll even settle with graphics that looked good 4 - 5 years ago. Even stylized
Plus they look more like single player games
Security chests, found plenty thus far off the beaten path, netted a few purples in doing so as well.
I may be the exception here. A lot of modern games feature a radar / mini map feature. To me. this feature hurts the feeling of immersion, and curtails the sense of exploration in MMORPGs.
I think exploration needs to present the opportunity to get lost in the big forest, or think you're never going to find you way across the desert. There should be some sense of accomplishment in finding a mineral outcropping to feed your crafting needs. Finding an NPC hermit as part of a quest should be challenging. And finding a herd of critters that give great experience, or great cash that no one else seems to know about is amazing.
The radar/mini-map/quest tracker pretty much undermines the exploration aspect of many games. I recognize that I'm in the minority here, but some of us would appreciate the ability to turn off the mini-map feature. At times, I actually wonder how many people are essentially looking at nothing but the mini-map portion of their big expensive monitor. I seem to miss the point of having an immersive 3D vista laid out before me, if all I'm doing is looking at 1/8th of the display.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
^^^ This. I recently started playing Asheron's Call (as a noob, not a resubber) and it perfectly has that sort of exploration I was always looking for. It does not enforce (this game doesn't seem to "enforce" anything) but strongly encourage exploration, even some quests require a certain amount of exploration if you don't want to depend on spoilers. AC is unfortunately the prototype of a "beginner unfriendly" game and with its outdated (>10 years old) graphics it's surely not for everyone. But disappointed (from current games) old school players should definitely give this game a shot (and *some* patience).
I really enjoyed the exploration in Vanguard. I get a kick out of setting off in a direction and just seeing what is to be seen.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
We surely are a minority but you are not alone, just a bit old school perhaps. Which is nothing bad in my book. I really would love to see current games taking one or two advices from their ancient ancestors.
I agree with much of what is posted. I usually play games with crafting and harvesting. So I enjoy roaming around finding deposits of resources.
I used to play ATITD, which rewarded exploration (or people who run around alot). There were rare mushrooms and herbs to find, idenitify and harvest; rare ore to dowse, beetles to find and breed. It was pretty fun, if you are into that sort of thing.
Right now i'm in the Wakfu open beta and its pretty cool so far. there are rare ores to find and secret dungeons and challenges to find. So far, I really enjoy it.
I'm just pondering here, but I think for alot of people, whether they're aware or not, exploration is about:
-going someplace unknown, where you'll have no idea what you will find when you go there.
and/or...
-going someplace where few other players have been, and quite possibly discovering something there that they can take ownership of in some way, at least in some emotional sense.
This, I think, is why TOR, despite being big and having some surprises here and there doesn't scratch the itch for the more hard core explorer. TOR uses at least 75% of the map in its missions. And so, the mission(and particularly the mission indicators) pretty much tell the explorer what to expect before they travel that 75%.
As for the remaining 25%? Well... the interwebs destroy that for an explorer. If there's anything of interest in that 25%, then there will be a half dozen wiki's giving the scoop, and lots of players will have already been there. Even if an explorer doesn't read spoilers, the explorer knows that anything good in far out zones is already "public knowledge", so to speak, even at launch.
To be honest, I'm not sure how you get past that. Both GW2(thru dynamic events) and TSW(through mystery) elude to possibly bringing something to the table for explorers. But in the end, I'm a bit skeptical that much can be done to avoid a "been there, done that" feel to those elements after so many play-throughs. We'll have to wait and see.
When I think of exploration done right in an MMO the one game I can think of that actually made exploration fun and rewarding was Asheron's Call 1. The massive open world meant there was virtually a limitless amount of places to go at any level. The lack of instances meant you actually were forced to use the massive open world. The lack of quests meant you weren't directed to certain areas. Finally, many of the content updates completely changed what levels certain areas were meant for. Where there used to be level 20 mobs one month, you might see level 50 mobs another month. Also, it seemed usually the further you moved away from a town/settlement, the more dangerous and rewarding things got.
Granted, in 1999-2000 there weren't a flood of gaming sites like there are today, but I remember one time in Asheron's Call I was just kind of wandering through the world and found a dungeon that I could find no record of existing on any web site. That's exploration in an MMO to me.