Depends on what you are willing to trade. Although in a traditional themepark its not possible. I've been detailing this across like 30 threads I've made on this forum.
What do you mean? There are multiple activities at the end game. Here is a list.
Depends on what you are willing to trade. Although in a traditional themepark its not possible. I've been detailing this across like 30 threads I've made on this forum.
What do you mean? There are multiple activities at the end game. Here is a list.
1) Raid
2) Smaller dungeon runs
3) Dailies
4) Soon scenarios in WOW in MOP
5) collectiing pets, mounts and what-not
Dailies are even worse than raids and scenarios and dungeons that you repeat over and over aren't much better.
I tend to feel that any discussion that involves "I don't like X" needs either propose a better alternative or at least explain why you are still playing something you don't enjoy.
Raiding is what happens when you do not have a player run economy where all items are crafted instead of looted. Raiding funnels everyone down the same road so it is much easier and cheaper to develop content. The one thing I will miss about SWG was that the players did control the economy and there were multiple paths you could take to get the gear you desired.
I think it has to do with pacing, because you'll notice that beyond relying on the time/effort needed to collect 40+ playes in one spot they usually add lockout timers. They really go out of their way to pace out that content in order to make sure you can't do it all day, every day... because if you did... well... heh, it wouldn't be much different that it is now I guess. You'll still get tired of it, only faster.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I’ve playing MMO for several years now and of the things that intrigues me is who came up with the idea of raids as means of end game? and why players consider this is ok?
Well, just to answer this... because different people enjoy different things and raiding has a strong following of folks that enjoy it?
Since game companies aren't paying players real money for accomplishments, loot is the reward or status marker. In golf, if you want to make the bug bucks, you have to start at the bottem as an amatuer and work your way up to become a professional player. Amatuer; low pay, Pro; big pay. In the game world, you start with the simple challenges to gain better loot and work your way up to Hard raids to get the best loot. Seems pretty much the same to me.
In the game as in the real life, you have a choice, you can work to be the best or attempt to be happy being a casual golf player. I pretty sure I have never seen an amatuer golfer walk up to the PGA and demand Pro level pay purse.
I think what most are looking for are alternatives of activities (not everyone plays golf) and that is a justified request, problem is the game companies can only employ and pay so many people to develope and they only have so many days in a year. Having 50 different activites at lvl 50 to keep players entertained is very very time consuming and costly. Eventually the tech will reach a point where development will be simpler and quicker. It just isn't here yet.
What nonsense. The reason the top golfers get paid the most isn't that they've put the most time in. It isn't that they've worked their way up through the ranks. It's that they're the best at the game. Meanwhile, those who have put the very most time in tend not to be the very best golfers, because they've gotten old and aren't as good as they once were.
It's conceivable that someone who is phenomenally talented at golf could make big money on the pro tours within a few years of first trying the game. Meanwhile, someone who isn't talented at all could fanatically devote his life to becoming a better golfer and never break 90.
Endgames don't work that way. If you put in the time, you get the loot. And if you're incredibly good at the game but haven't put in the time, you don't get the loot.
-----
But you're fundamentally missing a larger point. Even if real-life did work the way you claimed, that's irrelevant. There are a lot of features of real-life that I think are a nuisance. I don't like having to wash my clothes, for example. It would be so much more convenient if they always magically stayed clean. Even if you could implement a nuisance like that in a game, you shouldn't. Games are supposed to be fun, and replicating all the hassles of real life isn't fun.
What nonsense. The reason the top golfers get paid the most isn't that they've put the most time in. It isn't that they've worked their way up through the ranks. It's that they're the best at the game. Meanwhile, those who have put the very most time in tend not to be the very best golfers, because they've gotten old and aren't as good as they once were.
Lol, I would like you to tell that to any professional athelete. Oh, by the way, you cannot become a Pro Golfer without moving up the ranks. You have to start at the bottom. If you are exceptionally good, then you can move up faster. If you don't practice and put the time in, how do you think got the title "It's that they're the best at the game"? They magically woke up that skilled one day? If only it was that easy.
It's conceivable that someone who is phenomenally talented at golf could make big money on the pro tours within a few years of first trying the game. Meanwhile, someone who isn't talented at all could fanatically devote his life to becoming a better golfer and never break 90.
Endgames don't work that way. If you put in the time, you get the loot. And if you're incredibly good at the game but haven't put in the time, you don't get the loot.
Time is the magical word there. People who put in the time. Since games like these avoid skill based mechanics due to the loss of a large playerbase who do not enjoy this time of gameplay, developers make time investment the resource needed to advance.
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But you're fundamentally missing a larger point. Even if real-life did work the way you claimed, that's irrelevant. There are a lot of features of real-life that I think are a nuisance. I don't like having to wash my clothes, for example. It would be so much more convenient if they always magically stayed clean. Even if you could implement a nuisance like that in a game, you shouldn't. Games are supposed to be fun, and replicating all the hassles of real life isn't fun.
You will have to elaborate with this paragraph. I don't understand how household chores relate to anything in the discussion.
Time is the only resource we as players have to give to developers for grading advancement. Most Game companies are not going to build a skill/twitch base MMORPG because it would deter nearly half the player base from playing.
Define shitty? Activities you don't like? Probably. Seeing as you are you.
It's simple. You have x dev hours. Splitting those hours between 2-5 core systems (like combat) will result in high polish and depth. Splitting them between 50 core systems will result in shitty systems.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Define shitty? Activities you don't like? Probably. Seeing as you are you.
It's simple. You have x dev hours. Splitting those hours between 2-5 core systems (like combat) will result in high polish and depth. Splitting them between 50 core systems will result in shitty systems.
Bargain bins are full of games which have done 2-3 things right, but the game is bad overall...
If you make a good basic game system overall, you can tag on 100 things which may be just a bit shitty , but can attract 100 different player types if they are meaningful (easier to do if the underlying game works), i mean what happened to "think big" ? Is Rifts <500k players really everything a big budget project should aim for?
And that even if we will wildly assume that more dev time actually brings more polish and not overdeveloped areas the player has no chance to notice and lack of dept, because the code, tables and scripts were regurgitated by X different people with a foggy at best idea what the original creator had in mind.
Define shitty? Activities you don't like? Probably. Seeing as you are you.
It's simple. You have x dev hours. Splitting those hours between 2-5 core systems (like combat) will result in high polish and depth. Splitting them between 50 core systems will result in shitty systems.
Bargain bins are full of games which have done 2-3 things right, but the game is bad overall...
If you make a good basic game system overall, you can tag on 100 things which may be just a bit shitty , but can attract 100 different player types if they are meaningful (easier to do if the underlying game works), i mean what happened to "think big" ? Is Rifts <500k players really everything a big budget project should aim for?
And that even if we will wildly assume that more dev time actually brings more polish and not overdeveloped areas the player has no chance to notice and lack of dept, because the code, tables and scripts were regurgitated by X different people with a foggy at best idea what the original creator had in mind.
"More" does sometimes mean more
Flame on!
Failed games didn't just do 2-3 things right, they also did other things -- other things which dragged the experience down and took away from your time spent in those 2-3 really fun activities.
If you surround a core experience with a few optional light features you can get away without harming gameplay, but if you make any of those optional things mandatory, you immediately harm the overall game. And if you implement too many things overall you tend to ruin the game too (unless you're building onto the game with additional game hours, like with an expansion pack, and you smartly separate the new features from the old.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So you're suggesting MMORPGs should charge real money for the next raid content like golf courses do?
No, what I'm saying is : a golf couse (same as a dungeon) is a place in which you beat the enviroment, at the end you get an score that can be compared with others that ran the same course as you.
The difference that I find is that in MMO, the dungeon is grinded "x" amount of time, for you to move to another dungeon and you dont get an score (its either completed or not). and there is no real reason to go back to the same dungeon.
In Golf, the course is used multiple times as means to get an score to win a tournament or to qualify to another tournament (which could be in the same course that he just played). Also, players run the same course every time to see if they can improve their score.
It appears to me, that developers have not found a way to make dungeons as a means of repetitive competitions as golf course courses are. Or they simply make more money the way it currently is.
I don't like the idea of raids as endgame; thus, I don't raid for endgame. Obviously, that doesn't give me a lot of options in most MMOs, but I don't like raids for my preferred treadmill.
Wait a minute. As a "casual", am I allowed to say that?
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Not raids per'se. But needing a large amount of people, all at the level cap, with decent gear, in order to kill the mega boss, is a staple of MMO's and of RPGs in general.
I mean, you're going to need to have lvl'd very high, and found the good armors and matera's in order to down Sephiroth... Applying that concept to an MMO was only natural, and since MMO's aren't limited to 3-4 characters per party like single player RPG's, lets just require them to need 20-40+ people!
But that's the old definition.
Raids as we know it today is a WoW construct.. bleh
Games are finite in terms of content. MMOs want to pretend that there is no end to the game but that simply is not the case. Period. You play an MMO, you exhaust the content and then they give you raids to keep you hooked. You've gone through all the content, it's that last 0.000001% of content which takes ages because of RNG and ridiculous time sinks.
MMOs are just like every other game but with a persistent world. They do not have endgame. Developers just refuse to admit that there is an end to an MMO for obvious reasons. So you have raiding with its ridiculous time sinks to fool people into thinking that there is a lot more to the game.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Define shitty? Activities you don't like? Probably. Seeing as you are you.
It's simple. You have x dev hours. Splitting those hours between 2-5 core systems (like combat) will result in high polish and depth. Splitting them between 50 core systems will result in shitty systems.
Bargain bins are full of games which have done 2-3 things right, but the game is bad overall...
If you make a good basic game system overall, you can tag on 100 things which may be just a bit shitty , but can attract 100 different player types if they are meaningful (easier to do if the underlying game works), i mean what happened to "think big" ? Is Rifts <500k players really everything a big budget project should aim for?
And that even if we will wildly assume that more dev time actually brings more polish and not overdeveloped areas the player has no chance to notice and lack of dept, because the code, tables and scripts were regurgitated by X different people with a foggy at best idea what the original creator had in mind.
"More" does sometimes mean more
Flame on!
Failed games didn't just do 2-3 things right, they also did other things -- other things which dragged the experience down and took away from your time spent in those 2-3 really fun activities.
If you surround a core experience with a few optional light features you can get away without harming gameplay, but if you make any of those optional things mandatory, you immediately harm the overall game. And if you implement too many things overall you tend to ruin the game too (unless you're building onto the game with additional game hours, like with an expansion pack, and you smartly separate the new features from the old.)
How do you define "core experience", the way "I like it, it is core experience" ?
Taken out of "core experience", arent raids atm in that unfortunate position of being the other things which are mandatory and harming gameplay?
I agree that Raids were likely introduced as a way to give max level players something to repeat over and over to keep them subscribing longer. However, if you enjoy raiding and "gearing up" then more power to you, it's just not my interest.
I like the idea of not making most of your PvE content useless at max level. In most games you do a quest once and it's done, and never available again. In most games you level to max and most of the game world is pointless for you to visit since all the mobs are gray and give no loot/XP/anything. Fix those 2 items and you open a lot more options for max level players.
GW2 is attempting to fix these very issues.
- Having Dynamic Events instead of quests means you can go back and repeat anything you did previously... and repeat isn't entirely accurate either since the Event may be in a completely different state than it was your first time through the area.
- They also scale player levels, so if you're level 80 and go back to a level 12 zone you'll be scaled down to level 15 or so. You're still strong for the area, but you aren't just one-shotting everything. And you get rewarded with things you can use to improve your level 80 character. That means you can level as a human to 80, then go back to the Charr starter areas and have whole zones full of new content that is still challenging and rewarding. And after that, go to the Asura zones and have even more new content.
So you're suggesting MMORPGs should charge real money for the next raid content like golf courses do?
No, what I'm saying is : a golf couse (same as a dungeon) is a place in which you beat the enviroment, at the end you get an score that can be compared with others that ran the same course as you.
The difference that I find is that in MMO, the dungeon is grinded "x" amount of time, for you to move to another dungeon and you dont get an score (its either completed or not). and there is no real reason to go back to the same dungeon.
In Golf, the course is used multiple times as means to get an score to win a tournament or to qualify to another tournament (which could be in the same course that he just played). Also, players run the same course every time to see if they can improve their score.
It appears to me, that developers have not found a way to make dungeons as a means of repetitive competitions as golf course courses are. Or they simply make more money the way it currently is.
Ah, well I'd totally be on board for keeping score of dungeons as a fun secondary activity to do in a game. I've actually suggested that several times for games like WOW (it's also a great way to give out rewards by having several tiers of score the player can beat to earn greater rewards.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
How do you define "core experience", the way "I like it, it is core experience" ?
Taken out of "core experience", arent raids atm in that unfortunate position of being the other things which are mandatory and harming gameplay?
The 1-3 main activities of a game (what you spend the most time doing) are the core experience.
The core activity is combat. Raids aren't a core activity, but rather a form of content that involves the core activity. And certainly some forms of content aren't popular (like those which require you to schedule game time, or water down your personal contribution amongst 24+ other members) but when it comes to the core experiences a game offer, trying to do too many things at once certainly would make combat much worse (if you think combat isn't that exciting in current MMORPGs, imagine if the devs spent 1/10th as much time implementing and polishing combat!)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm not entirely sure if it's true, but I read somewhere that it has it's roots back in EQ1 in which a small percentage of hardcore players were constantly complaining about the lack of progression/things to do at endgame.
I think the tiered equipment/tiered raids started in World of Warcraft. I can't for the life of me remember where I read it, but supposedly one of the lead designers for WoW's endgame was one of those hardcore players that was complaining about endgame in EQ1, he was some big guild leader I believe.
Beyond that, games have pretty much copy&pasted WoW's formula for endgame.
edit: Couldn't find the previous articles I read all this from, but I think this is the guy it was refering to.
I started reading Furors posts back about end of 02. Some of his stuff used to be pretty good. Our local server power guild's leader(Thott of Afterlife) just didnt have the way in print that Furor did.
End game raiding is a great mechanic for those wishing to partake in PVE progression. The ole days of EQ are simply too hardcore though. The "family" style raid guild me and the ex wife used to belong to was like 3 to 4 expansions behind whatever was current. Didnt matter. It was a great way for the guild to spend 2 or 3 nights a week doing things together.
These days I am of the mind raids should be about 5 to 10 folks. Nevertheless, it serves its purpose.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
So you're suggesting MMORPGs should charge real money for the next raid content like golf courses do?
No, what I'm saying is : a golf couse (same as a dungeon) is a place in which you beat the enviroment, at the end you get an score that can be compared with others that ran the same course as you.
The difference that I find is that in MMO, the dungeon is grinded "x" amount of time, for you to move to another dungeon and you dont get an score (its either completed or not). and there is no real reason to go back to the same dungeon.
In Golf, the course is used multiple times as means to get an score to win a tournament or to qualify to another tournament (which could be in the same course that he just played). Also, players run the same course every time to see if they can improve their score.
It appears to me, that developers have not found a way to make dungeons as a means of repetitive competitions as golf course courses are. Or they simply make more money the way it currently is.
Ah, well I'd totally be on board for keeping score of dungeons as a fun secondary activity to do in a game. I've actually suggested that several times for games like WOW (it's also a great way to give out rewards by having several tiers of score the player can beat to earn greater rewards.)
- huge open territoral pvp (not in every zone but in huge dedicated pvp-zones)
- a player driven economy without global bank-inventorys to enable trade and logistics
- dynamic, scaling and highly complex and challenging pve-events in the open world instead of linear questlines
- interesting mob groups with high AI and without any micromangament by the devs for hunting
- full terraforming like minecraft
trust me, i would not miss any raid in this game. and i would surely not unsubscribe after just 2 months after i have leveled 2 classes and seen all the storycontent worth to see, like in SWTOR. because content in such a game is player-driven and literally endless. and if its is skillbased, endgame starts right after the tutorial.
and please dont say EVE has that. it comes close but not close enough. and of course, there are no avatars and other issues.
Comments
I liked it when Endgame was running around the world killing very large rare spawn bosses that drop pieces of sets, and rare crafting materials.
Or when endgame was about rounding out your crafting skills to craft endgame gear that is relevant to your final "god set."
Or killing some timed spawn sub bosses, to get pop items for final bosses, that drop more pop items for the god of gods.
Or building another sub class for yourself, because you know, you could play all the classes on one character...
Oopse there I go describing FFXI again..
Taru-Gallante-Blood elf-Elysean-Kelari-Crime Fighting-Imperial Agent
What do you mean? There are multiple activities at the end game. Here is a list.
1) Raid
2) Smaller dungeon runs
3) Dailies
4) Soon scenarios in WOW in MOP
5) collectiing pets, mounts and what-not
Dailies are even worse than raids and scenarios and dungeons that you repeat over and over aren't much better.
I tend to feel that any discussion that involves "I don't like X" needs either propose a better alternative or at least explain why you are still playing something you don't enjoy.
Raiding is what happens when you do not have a player run economy where all items are crafted instead of looted. Raiding funnels everyone down the same road so it is much easier and cheaper to develop content. The one thing I will miss about SWG was that the players did control the economy and there were multiple paths you could take to get the gear you desired.
Unless developers have infinite budget, there is no reasonable way to put in non-repeatable PvE content with today's technology.
Even the random dungeno thingie like they use in Torchlight and Diablo feel very generic and repetitive.
I would much rather have INTERESTING repeatabe content (and i can decide to repeat it when i want to), then generic feeling, non-interesting content.
I think it has to do with pacing, because you'll notice that beyond relying on the time/effort needed to collect 40+ playes in one spot they usually add lockout timers. They really go out of their way to pace out that content in order to make sure you can't do it all day, every day... because if you did... well... heh, it wouldn't be much different that it is now I guess. You'll still get tired of it, only faster.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
It's a mean to keep people's subscription. Design a few raid dungeon, and dev manage to keep those people's subscription for a year.
Many people don't think it's ok. That's why they dont' play those games.
Well, just to answer this... because different people enjoy different things and raiding has a strong following of folks that enjoy it?
What nonsense. The reason the top golfers get paid the most isn't that they've put the most time in. It isn't that they've worked their way up through the ranks. It's that they're the best at the game. Meanwhile, those who have put the very most time in tend not to be the very best golfers, because they've gotten old and aren't as good as they once were.
It's conceivable that someone who is phenomenally talented at golf could make big money on the pro tours within a few years of first trying the game. Meanwhile, someone who isn't talented at all could fanatically devote his life to becoming a better golfer and never break 90.
Endgames don't work that way. If you put in the time, you get the loot. And if you're incredibly good at the game but haven't put in the time, you don't get the loot.
-----
But you're fundamentally missing a larger point. Even if real-life did work the way you claimed, that's irrelevant. There are a lot of features of real-life that I think are a nuisance. I don't like having to wash my clothes, for example. It would be so much more convenient if they always magically stayed clean. Even if you could implement a nuisance like that in a game, you shouldn't. Games are supposed to be fun, and replicating all the hassles of real life isn't fun.
It's simple. You have x dev hours. Splitting those hours between 2-5 core systems (like combat) will result in high polish and depth. Splitting them between 50 core systems will result in shitty systems.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Bargain bins are full of games which have done 2-3 things right, but the game is bad overall...
If you make a good basic game system overall, you can tag on 100 things which may be just a bit shitty , but can attract 100 different player types if they are meaningful (easier to do if the underlying game works), i mean what happened to "think big" ? Is Rifts <500k players really everything a big budget project should aim for?
And that even if we will wildly assume that more dev time actually brings more polish and not overdeveloped areas the player has no chance to notice and lack of dept, because the code, tables and scripts were regurgitated by X different people with a foggy at best idea what the original creator had in mind.
"More" does sometimes mean more
Flame on!
Failed games didn't just do 2-3 things right, they also did other things -- other things which dragged the experience down and took away from your time spent in those 2-3 really fun activities.
If you surround a core experience with a few optional light features you can get away without harming gameplay, but if you make any of those optional things mandatory, you immediately harm the overall game. And if you implement too many things overall you tend to ruin the game too (unless you're building onto the game with additional game hours, like with an expansion pack, and you smartly separate the new features from the old.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
No, what I'm saying is : a golf couse (same as a dungeon) is a place in which you beat the enviroment, at the end you get an score that can be compared with others that ran the same course as you.
The difference that I find is that in MMO, the dungeon is grinded "x" amount of time, for you to move to another dungeon and you dont get an score (its either completed or not). and there is no real reason to go back to the same dungeon.
In Golf, the course is used multiple times as means to get an score to win a tournament or to qualify to another tournament (which could be in the same course that he just played). Also, players run the same course every time to see if they can improve their score.
It appears to me, that developers have not found a way to make dungeons as a means of repetitive competitions as golf course courses are. Or they simply make more money the way it currently is.
I don't like the idea of raids as endgame; thus, I don't raid for endgame. Obviously, that doesn't give me a lot of options in most MMOs, but I don't like raids for my preferred treadmill.
Wait a minute. As a "casual", am I allowed to say that?
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Not raids per'se. But needing a large amount of people, all at the level cap, with decent gear, in order to kill the mega boss, is a staple of MMO's and of RPGs in general.
I mean, you're going to need to have lvl'd very high, and found the good armors and matera's in order to down Sephiroth... Applying that concept to an MMO was only natural, and since MMO's aren't limited to 3-4 characters per party like single player RPG's, lets just require them to need 20-40+ people!
But that's the old definition.
Raids as we know it today is a WoW construct.. bleh
Taru-Gallante-Blood elf-Elysean-Kelari-Crime Fighting-Imperial Agent
Games are finite in terms of content. MMOs want to pretend that there is no end to the game but that simply is not the case. Period. You play an MMO, you exhaust the content and then they give you raids to keep you hooked. You've gone through all the content, it's that last 0.000001% of content which takes ages because of RNG and ridiculous time sinks.
MMOs are just like every other game but with a persistent world. They do not have endgame. Developers just refuse to admit that there is an end to an MMO for obvious reasons. So you have raiding with its ridiculous time sinks to fool people into thinking that there is a lot more to the game.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
How do you define "core experience", the way "I like it, it is core experience" ?
Taken out of "core experience", arent raids atm in that unfortunate position of being the other things which are mandatory and harming gameplay?
I agree that Raids were likely introduced as a way to give max level players something to repeat over and over to keep them subscribing longer. However, if you enjoy raiding and "gearing up" then more power to you, it's just not my interest.
I like the idea of not making most of your PvE content useless at max level. In most games you do a quest once and it's done, and never available again. In most games you level to max and most of the game world is pointless for you to visit since all the mobs are gray and give no loot/XP/anything. Fix those 2 items and you open a lot more options for max level players.
GW2 is attempting to fix these very issues.
- Having Dynamic Events instead of quests means you can go back and repeat anything you did previously... and repeat isn't entirely accurate either since the Event may be in a completely different state than it was your first time through the area.
- They also scale player levels, so if you're level 80 and go back to a level 12 zone you'll be scaled down to level 15 or so. You're still strong for the area, but you aren't just one-shotting everything. And you get rewarded with things you can use to improve your level 80 character. That means you can level as a human to 80, then go back to the Charr starter areas and have whole zones full of new content that is still challenging and rewarding. And after that, go to the Asura zones and have even more new content.
Ah, well I'd totally be on board for keeping score of dungeons as a fun secondary activity to do in a game. I've actually suggested that several times for games like WOW (it's also a great way to give out rewards by having several tiers of score the player can beat to earn greater rewards.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The 1-3 main activities of a game (what you spend the most time doing) are the core experience.
The core activity is combat. Raids aren't a core activity, but rather a form of content that involves the core activity. And certainly some forms of content aren't popular (like those which require you to schedule game time, or water down your personal contribution amongst 24+ other members) but when it comes to the core experiences a game offer, trying to do too many things at once certainly would make combat much worse (if you think combat isn't that exciting in current MMORPGs, imagine if the devs spent 1/10th as much time implementing and polishing combat!)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I started reading Furors posts back about end of 02. Some of his stuff used to be pretty good. Our local server power guild's leader(Thott of Afterlife) just didnt have the way in print that Furor did.
End game raiding is a great mechanic for those wishing to partake in PVE progression. The ole days of EQ are simply too hardcore though. The "family" style raid guild me and the ex wife used to belong to was like 3 to 4 expansions behind whatever was current. Didnt matter. It was a great way for the guild to spend 2 or 3 nights a week doing things together.
These days I am of the mind raids should be about 5 to 10 folks. Nevertheless, it serves its purpose.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
That's what I think.
i would like to play a game with:
- huge open territoral pvp (not in every zone but in huge dedicated pvp-zones)
- a player driven economy without global bank-inventorys to enable trade and logistics
- dynamic, scaling and highly complex and challenging pve-events in the open world instead of linear questlines
- interesting mob groups with high AI and without any micromangament by the devs for hunting
- full terraforming like minecraft
trust me, i would not miss any raid in this game. and i would surely not unsubscribe after just 2 months after i have leveled 2 classes and seen all the storycontent worth to see, like in SWTOR. because content in such a game is player-driven and literally endless. and if its is skillbased, endgame starts right after the tutorial.
and please dont say EVE has that. it comes close but not close enough. and of course, there are no avatars and other issues.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds