Not really sure I get what you are defining a themepark in total as then.
The hallmark titles display rather well the concept of rails with zone levels and the flow of one quest hub to the next being a matter of following the road from the newbie zones all the way to the portals to the bosses private realms. It may not be the goal, but then what is if not a guided experience?
That's why I say it's conterintuitive, because like I mentioned having a system where quests always push the narrative in a meaningful fashion means the world will be pushed with it and zones would not remain what they were originally made as.
EDIT: Guess my question is what are you defining as 'rides' versus 'rails'. Because that's likely to make quite the distinction between opinions on what they mean as well as the common 'themepark versus sandbox' argument.
The rails occur in the individual rides. Exactly like a themepark.
You freely choose your leveling zone, then you (mostly) freely choose some of the quests in that zone, then those quests are linear experiences. Or you choose PVP, which isn't on rails at all. Or you choose to play various dungeons, which are on rails. Or you choose to engage in socializing or auctioning or gathering or crafting.
WOW wouldn't suddenly fail to work if zones had Rifts.
WOW wouldn't suddenly fail to work if the Halaa city was a PVE world event where hostile NPCs take over and you have to retake the city.
WOW would only fail to work if entire large segments of the world were taken over by hostile NPCs much higher in level than the zone's normal creatures, effectively disabling that zone for the purposes of leveling (and then, it would fail only if there weren't other zones within a fairly convenient distance where you could continue leveling.)
So dynamic elements in a themepark are completely fine. You just have to work through the list of problems I mentioned in my previous post.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If so do they change only your experience or do they effect a non instanced world?
Are you making dynamic content or are you making a tree of scripted content?
Its possible you are using dynamic in a way that it is not commonly used, which is fine, as long as you don't mind what you say being pretty unintelligible.
If content is actually dynamic, and not just a large set of possibilities scripted by devs, why are you pathcing things? Also that is called a sandbox.
If content is a large set of scripts and only one is followed you have absolutely no way to keep up with players.
Do you have quests generated from world state plus random selection of attributes?
Or are your quests all pre scripted and each scripted quest appears when the world enters a state?
If one player completes a quest is it gone? In which case either you run out of quests or you need a state+randomness generator to generate relatively generic and non scripted quests. Although I would like to note that if quests exist in the world, and someone else kills a mob, that would break the quest chain. Can you even have quest chains in that case?
Classic MMO design, from Dwarves to Dragons. But this is a world with a story, which you create as you go along, the players actions creating a new world with different outcomes.
Once the story is over the game resets, you carry over some advantages and start again at level 1. Last time the Orcs ran roughshod over the realms, but this time what will happen? Will the Elf manage to find and work the ritual that will protect his people? Will the humans arrive by ship in time to save the realms?
No rubbish end game, no endless alts, one character who picks his path and forges his way across the realms for good or ill.
Classic MMO design, from Dwarves to Dragons. But this is a world with a story, which you create as you go along, the players actions creating a new world with different outcomes.
Once the story is over the game resets, you carry over some advantages and start again at level 1. Last time the Orcs ran roughshod over the realms, but this time what will happen? Will the Elf manage to find and work the ritual that will protect his people? Will the humans arrive by ship in time to save the realms?
No rubbish end game, no endless alts, one character who picks his path and forges his way across the realms for good or ill.
Why not have a world that keeps on going, and doesn't lose it's history?
I know people think that a single entity (guild or otherwise) could end up running everything, but it's entirely possible to make it so that such a situation becomes so unwieldy that it can never reach that point.
The first requirement to accomplish that is to make it so coordinating "total conquest" requires massive player coordination. The next requirement would be to make it so that it becomes less rewarding for players to do that. In other words, the costs of a massive coordinated effort need to be more than the reward. Incrementally increasing costs would be the way, so that there's a tipping point where it starts to cost more than the total of gains after growing to a fluctuating point.
Its really difficult to stop the world becoming so disorted the original game is lost and players will drift away as nothing can be done to alter what has happened. So once those Orcs have set up camp, they are not going home etc. The problem with world changing events is it changes the world to a point where good gamplay becomes hard to balance. So a restart is the solution, after all loads of players like playing alts, here you play a new one each time the world restarts.
Tales of the Desert uses this idea, but its a crafting and economic game, not sure how strong the story is. Why not apply this to what we more often think of as a MMO?
Its really difficult to stop the world becoming so disorted the original game is lost and players will drift away as nothing can be done to alter what has happened. So once those Orcs have set up camp, they are not going home etc. The problem with world changing events is it changes the world to a point where good gamplay becomes hard to balance. So a restart is the solution, after all loads of players like playing alts, here you play a new one each time the world restarts.
Tales of the Desert uses this idea, but its a crafting and economic game, not sure how strong the story is. Why not apply this to what we more often think of as a MMO?
Well, the reason to not do resets is the persistence of the player's character(s). And all that they do.
If so do they change only your experience or do they effect a non instanced world?
Are you making dynamic content or are you making a tree of scripted content?
Its possible you are using dynamic in a way that it is not commonly used, which is fine, as long as you don't mind what you say being pretty unintelligible.
If content is actually dynamic, and not just a large set of possibilities scripted by devs, why are you pathcing things? Also that is called a sandbox.
If content is a large set of scripts and only one is followed you have absolutely no way to keep up with players.
Do you have quests generated from world state plus random selection of attributes?
Or are your quests all pre scripted and each scripted quest appears when the world enters a state?
If one player completes a quest is it gone? In which case either you run out of quests or you need a state+randomness generator to generate relatively generic and non scripted quests. Although I would like to note that if quests exist in the world, and someone else kills a mob, that would break the quest chain. Can you even have quest chains in that case?
Um, dynamic gameplay can be as big as the entire world revolving around player actions or as small as a knockback move which knocks the enemy off the cliff this time because you happened to have been a few pixels to the left when you used it.
No part of the definition of "dynamic" as applied to games is "it must affect the entire world or it's not dynamic." Dynamic simply describes a wealth of possible outcomes (often most interestingly when the player has some influence over them so that they can increase game depth, but even when they're not player-controlled they're dynamic.)
Your questions seem to veer off on an unrelated tangent, in light of this definition. They're all problems to be solved by extremely dynamic games, but all I was saying before was that Rift has clearly proven that the world can progress and have world events in a smart, functional manner, resting atop baseline content.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Its really difficult to stop the world becoming so disorted the original game is lost and players will drift away as nothing can be done to alter what has happened. So once those Orcs have set up camp, they are not going home etc. The problem with world changing events is it changes the world to a point where good gamplay becomes hard to balance. So a restart is the solution, after all loads of players like playing alts, here you play a new one each time the world restarts.
Tales of the Desert uses this idea, but its a crafting and economic game, not sure how strong the story is. Why not apply this to what we more often think of as a MMO?
Well, the reason to not do resets is the persistence of the player's character(s). And all that they do.
Actually the reason is because reseting only works in conquest and simulation environments where the players are working toward a win condition. For example, if the goal of an MMO is to bring your faction (or the whole server for that matter) to a certain win condition the playerbase not only accepts the reset but finds it more palatable than one group controlling the core gameplay and no one having a chance (real or perceived) to dethrone them. It's perceived by many to be a more fair enviroment and it's the main thinking behind the posts often seen calling for a game to open a new server.
PotBS and ATITD are two 3D MMOs that use reset mechanics, however the design is very common in SLGs and persistent browser based MMOs (PBBGs).
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
If content is actually dynamic, and not just a large set of possibilities scripted by devs, why are you pathcing things? Also that is called a sandbox.
You could do this and make it like a themepark game, where the focus is on consuming content. The focus on a sandbox is building/creating content. I see that as the main differentiation between the two.
Originally posted by Cuathon
If content is actually dynamic, and not just a large set of possibilities scripted by devs, why are you pathcing things? Also that is called a sandbox.
Do you have quests generated from world state plus random selection of attributes?
Or are your quests all pre scripted and each scripted quest appears when the world enters a state?
If one player completes a quest is it gone? In which case either you run out of quests or you need a state+randomness generator to generate relatively generic and non scripted quests. Although I would like to note that if quests exist in the world, and someone else kills a mob, that would break the quest chain. Can you even have quest chains in that case?
Good questions. If you had a dynamic story telling engine, you would be able to do quite a bit with quest chains, quests, etc. I envision each quest is only available to players whom it directly impacts. For instance, if there's a werewolf stalking the wilderness, only those of the town it's terrorizing or those whom are in someway connected to the werewolf NPC (which might, randomly, be an NPC that players have worked with before). And people could have very differing goals in a quest as well, players may have the option of curing the werewolf, killing the werewolf, soothing the werewolf, etc. Once the quest is completed, yes, it's gone forever. Soon a new quest will take its place.
There would obviously have to be locks on the quest. Restricted access areas (instances) would contain NPCs that need to be attacked, and these areas only become available when it makes sense according to the story telling engine. In general NPCs (and players) would not be attackable unless permitted by the story telling engine, though if there was another quest that made an important character killable than it would invalidate existing branches (if the person who knew how to cure the werewolf was killed) or quests (if the werewolf was killed when in human form).
There are different tiers of the story and different kinds of story elements.
Main Plot = dynamic content
Sub stories = race history, class history, zone history, political history ect. The main plot may influence sub stories.
If so do they change only your experience or do they effect a non instanced world?
The main plot is dynamic so therefore, it influences the world as a whole.Everyone at various levels will experience that dynamic content. Players can freely choose to participate or not. The content will be spread all over the world to help lag issues and server tension.
Are you making dynamic content or are you making a tree of scripted content?
I can see why you asked this question. I would say it's dynamic content that is scripted with no already pre-set end result. It's dynamic because content changes and it's scripted because there has to be some kind of parameters. I know you will say well that's not true dymamic content. It is, but yet it has some form of limitations for consistency. It may be an unorthadox way for dynamic content, so be it.
Its possible you are using dynamic in a way that it is not commonly used, which is fine, as long as you don't mind what you say being pretty unintelligible.
So do you have industry experience? Have you shipped a title?
If content is actually dynamic, and not just a large set of possibilities scripted by devs, why are you pathcing things? Also that is called a sandbox.
For some reason you have this idea that if certian gameplay elements are sandbox, they only belong in a sandbox game world. Which is not true because a lot of sandbox games still have themepark gameplay elements and mechanics.
If content is a large set of scripts and only one is followed you have absolutely no way to keep up with players.
Dynamic content is not the primary source of content. As mentioned before dynamic content will be a monthly occurance. In a "themepark" world, I think that is the most plausible way to do it. During the time where there is no dynamic content available players can progress in anyway they desire. The dynamic events that occur will not be level restricted because it would not be fair to leave out other players because of the level they are.
As said before there is a time and place for dynamic content. I guess a good visual for you would be differen patches the blizzard does leading up to an expansion. Those patches are already scirpted and determined. The difference is, that there are scripted events and players decide on the outcome. Sometimes it can be two sided, sometimes the outcome will have multiple paths.
Dynamic content doesn't necessarly mean the core mechanic of gameplay is indeed dynamic all the time. I don't invision this idea that way.
Do you have quests generated from world state plus random selection of attributes?
Not sure what you mean, can you elaborate?
Or are your quests all pre scripted and each scripted quest appears when the world enters a state?
There will be quests that will appear when a dynamic event is initiated. These types of event quests differ from other pre-scripted quests that are already within the world.
If one player completes a quest is it gone? In which case either you run out of quests or you need a state+randomness generator to generate relatively generic and non scripted quests. Although I would like to note that if quests exist in the world, and someone else kills a mob, that would break the quest chain. Can you even have quest chains in that case?
As I have been saying from other posts, the whole world is not dynamic. Only a certian portion. Sorry if I am giving the impression that all content is dynamic. To answer your question, when the dynamic event is over, the quest is complete and goes away. Other static quests that the player will recieve at other points of gameplay, those quests will still be there.
A little bit about my quest mechanics so you know where I am coming from. Essentially 75% of quests, are chained quests and continual that will progress the character to somesort of "end game." They derive from those choose your own adventure books. These quests outside of those dynamic events are pre-scripted. However, unlike traditional quests because they follow the choose your own adventure model, a player with the same quest as another player may have a different path to get to the same or a different outcome. I hope this clears things up. Ideally, these conversations can take hours to fully explain the mechanic. I have only breached the surface.
One thing I'd like to make clear is that an individual player may have the opportunity to change the world, but that will be a rare occasion. World events are to spark group play and team work. Quests they are not dynamic is designed to tell the lore of the world or other attributes about the game it self.
Good questions. If you had a dynamic story telling engine, you would be able to do quite a bit with quest chains, quests, etc. I envision each quest is only available to players whom it directly impacts. For instance, if there's a werewolf stalking the wilderness, only those of the town it's terrorizing or those whom are in someway connected to the werewolf NPC (which might, randomly, be an NPC that players have worked with before). And people could have very differing goals in a quest as well, players may have the option of curing the werewolf, killing the werewolf, soothing the werewolf, etc. Once the quest is completed, yes, it's gone forever. Soon a new quest will take its place.
You're on the right track with your assessment. If there are dynamic sub events for sub plots, then yes, it will only be available for players that directly impact it. However, for main dynamic events, it affects all. What is highlighted in green, that is only true for dynamic quests with the main and sub plot lines only.
The rails occur in the individual rides. Exactly like a themepark.
You freely choose your leveling zone, then you (mostly) freely choose some of the quests in that zone, then those quests are linear experiences. Or you choose PVP, which isn't on rails at all. Or you choose to play various dungeons, which are on rails. Or you choose to engage in socializing or auctioning or gathering or crafting.
WOW wouldn't suddenly fail to work if zones had Rifts.
WOW wouldn't suddenly fail to work if the Halaa city was a PVE world event where hostile NPCs take over and you have to retake the city.
WOW would only fail to work if entire large segments of the world were taken over by hostile NPCs much higher in level than the zone's normal creatures, effectively disabling that zone for the purposes of leveling (and then, it would fail only if there weren't other zones within a fairly convenient distance where you could continue leveling.)
So dynamic elements in a themepark are completely fine. You just have to work through the list of problems I mentioned in my previous post.
Rifts aren't dynamic. They take over a zone, yes, but they are setup so at any time players can just come in, kill the rift, and everything pops back to the way it was before the rifts were there.
That is not dynamic, that's just a loop. Dynamic would be a rift opening, the area being taken over, and when one aimed to reclaim the area you'd have a rebuilding/repopulating cycle involved as well, not the same people moving back into the same buildings to go back to doing the same things.
As for zones. Sure you have freedom to pick your zone, but that's with some really big caveats. The first and foremost being zones are level ranged and many quest chains intentionally lead you from one zone to another in order for you to jump from quest hub to quest hub. Sure, you're free to jump ship and move to a different zone, but you should be abundantly aware how that influences the expeirence of the gameplay by going places outside of the level range you are playing through.
And like PvP. Instanced environments that blink out of existence and are reset every time you join a new one are not dynamic. Fighting people in the game world to take a base and do some quests where the only effect is one faction or the other has control is not dynamic, it's a toggle.
Dynamics isn't options as you seem to define it as, it's change. Dynamic is moving, and while back and forth might technically be a motion, it is not a forward or changing one, and therefore not a truly dynamic one.
Also an event or action that has multiple outcomes (though not necessarily intended) is usually referred to as emergent gameplay. Like your example of using a knockback attack to send some one off a cliff.
The likes of WoW would fail to work with dynamic events, because they wouldn;t be something you could just reset by clearing a rift or capping a base. A dynamic event would spell the end of what people knew of the zone and the creation of new content.
Themepark worlds can't do that. The altering of content time and again without reversion would mean there's never any static guidelines or flow that players can experience.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
The rails occur in the individual rides. Exactly like a themepark.
You freely choose your leveling zone, then you (mostly) freely choose some of the quests in that zone, then those quests are linear experiences. Or you choose PVP, which isn't on rails at all. Or you choose to play various dungeons, which are on rails. Or you choose to engage in socializing or auctioning or gathering or crafting.
WOW wouldn't suddenly fail to work if zones had Rifts.
WOW wouldn't suddenly fail to work if the Halaa city was a PVE world event where hostile NPCs take over and you have to retake the city.
WOW would only fail to work if entire large segments of the world were taken over by hostile NPCs much higher in level than the zone's normal creatures, effectively disabling that zone for the purposes of leveling (and then, it would fail only if there weren't other zones within a fairly convenient distance where you could continue leveling.)
So dynamic elements in a themepark are completely fine. You just have to work through the list of problems I mentioned in my previous post.
Rifts aren't dynamic. They take over a zone, yes, but they are setup so at any time players can just come in, kill the rift, and everything pops back to the way it was before the rifts were there.
That is not dynamic, that's just a loop. Dynamic would be a rift opening, the area being taken over, and when one aimed to reclaim the area you'd have a rebuilding/repopulating cycle involved as well, not the same people moving back into the same buildings to go back to doing the same things.
As for zones. Sure you have freedom to pick your zone, but that's with some really big caveats. The first and foremost being zones are level ranged and many quest chains intentionally lead you from one zone to another in order for you to jump from quest hub to quest hub. Sure, you're free to jump ship and move to a different zone, but you should be abundantly aware how that influences the expeirence of the gameplay by going places outside of the level range you are playing through.
And like PvP. Instanced environments that blink out of existence and are reset every time you join a new one are not dynamic. Fighting people in the game world to take a base and do some quests where the only effect is one faction or the other has control is not dynamic, it's a toggle.
Dynamics isn't options as you seem to define it as, it's change. Dynamic is moving, and while back and forth might technically be a motion, it is not a forward or changing one, and therefore not a truly dynamic one.
Also an event or action that has multiple outcomes (though not necessarily intended) is usually referred to as emergent gameplay. Like your example of using a knockback attack to send some one off a cliff.
The likes of WoW would fail to work with dynamic events, because they wouldn;t be something you could just reset by clearing a rift or capping a base. A dynamic event would spell the end of what people knew of the zone and the creation of new content.
Themepark worlds can't do that. The altering of content time and again without reversion would mean there's never any static guidelines or flow that players can experience.
As mentioned before, "Um, dynamic gameplay can be as big as the entire world revolving around player actions or as small as a knockback move which knocks the enemy off the cliff this time because you happened to have been a few pixels to the left when you used it."
We get that you don't like instanced PVP, but that's completely inconsequential. Themeparks act like themeparks, and PVP is just one of many rides to ride. That's what characterizes a themepark. If linearity exists within themeparks, it's a byproduct of producing efficient content, not because linearity itself was the goal.
And since the goal is fun rides, and dynamic mechanics increase fun, dynamic events are fine themeparks.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah, that's a sidestep. And I addressed the thing you just repeated about 'dynamic events' and you seeming to interpret them as something akin to emergent gameplay. That's an antirely different factor than something that is inherently supposed to move gameplay (hence the use of the word 'dynamic').
Static content does not move. I made no remark on my opinion of instanced PvP, I only commented on the reality of it having no bearing on the state of the game world or the people in it.
It is as you say. A fun ride. But it is not dynamic and as a result it carries very little if any consequence for playing or not playing. Doesn't matter if it's fun or not, that's just the nature of it.
The concept of these being individual 'rides' people can choose to hop on or not isn't the issue either. Sure, when in Disneyland you can pick which one's you want to go on and which direction to walk, but you are not impacting any of that for more than a brief instance. Nothing you do leaves it's hallmark and when you come back the next day things will be about the same as when you left it. The only dynamic aspect is what the developers themselves choose to introduce over time, and that is hardly dynamic as far as moment to moment experience.
Your continued insistence that gameplay features which do not dramatically or permanently offer any change to the game world or even players is dynamic baffles me.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
You might want to double check with Will Cook on that one.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I really don't care what a particular developer wants to call their own stuff. Rifts do little more than toggle assets in a zone, they are incapable of making a real or lasting impact on the game world as a result. They intentionally did that so that the zones would never change dramatically enough that player experiences would have to shift.
As a result it does not change the fundamental nature of the game, zone, player interaction with the game, or player experience.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I really don't care what a particular developer wants to call their own stuff.
It's what any developer would call it. So, since you've no interest in fact if it conflicts with what you want deeply to believe, my work is done here. See ya.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
It is as you say. A fun ride. But it is not dynamic and as a result it carries very little if any consequence for playing or not playing. Doesn't matter if it's fun or not, that's just the nature of it.
The concept of these being individual 'rides' people can choose to hop on or not isn't the issue either. Sure, when in Disneyland you can pick which one's you want to go on and which direction to walk, but you are not impacting any of that for more than a brief instance. Nothing you do leaves it's hallmark and when you come back the next day things will be about the same as when you left it. The only dynamic aspect is what the developers themselves choose to introduce over time, and that is hardly dynamic as far as moment to moment experience.
Your continued insistence that gameplay features which do not dramatically or permanently offer any change to the game world or even players is dynamic baffles me.
They're dynamic within the context of players interacting with them, which is all that really matters.
Honestly instanced PVP is more dynamic than non-instanced PVP. The magnitude of travel, from neutrality to defeat or victory, is greater than what you experience in non-instanced PVP where you start very near defeat or victory and a tinier number of meaningful decisions take you that final step. In instanced PVP you walk that entire distance from scratch.
Dynamic interaction in a Disneyland ride would make things more fun (and I believe there's at least one ride like that nowadays.) The ride might start the same each time you ride it, but if things are changing based on decisions during the ride, then that's dynamic.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It is as you say. A fun ride. But it is not dynamic and as a result it carries very little if any consequence for playing or not playing. Doesn't matter if it's fun or not, that's just the nature of it.
The concept of these being individual 'rides' people can choose to hop on or not isn't the issue either. Sure, when in Disneyland you can pick which one's you want to go on and which direction to walk, but you are not impacting any of that for more than a brief instance. Nothing you do leaves it's hallmark and when you come back the next day things will be about the same as when you left it. The only dynamic aspect is what the developers themselves choose to introduce over time, and that is hardly dynamic as far as moment to moment experience.
Your continued insistence that gameplay features which do not dramatically or permanently offer any change to the game world or even players is dynamic baffles me.
They're dynamic within the context of players interacting with them, which is all that really matters.
Honestly instanced PVP is more dynamic than non-instanced PVP. The magnitude of travel, from neutrality to defeat or victory, is greater than what you experience in non-instanced PVP where you start very near defeat or victory and a tinier number of meaningful decisions take you that final step. In instanced PVP you walk that entire distance from scratch.
Dynamic interaction in a Disneyland ride would make things more fun (and I believe there's at least one ride like that nowadays.) The ride might start the same each time you ride it, but if things are changing based on decisions during the ride, then that's dynamic.
Yes, and that's what makes SWTOR such a "dynamic" game. And will do the same for GW2.
Of course, gamers should forget "world", as in the "dynamic world" that would make for an excellent continual state of world progression (the topic here). That's not going to happen, a la the current state of the industry. Amiright Axehilt?
Yes, and that's what makes SWTOR such a "dynamic" game. And will do the same for GW2.
Of course, gamers should forget "world", as in the "dynamic world" that would make for an excellent continual state of world progression (the topic here). That's not going to happen, a la the current state of the industry. Amiright Axehilt?
Who said anything about TOR being dynamic? It's not particularly dynamic on a large or small scale.
Gamers as a whole don't care much about the world being dynamic. What's important is the moment-to-moment gameplay. That's the game. If moment-to-moment gameplay sucks, a dynamic world won't save the game.
TOR's moment-to-moment gameplay was mediocre. Better than some MMORPGs, but not as good as WOW or RIFT, largely due to TOR's mobs having almost zero variation. Variation is gameplay, and the only variation in TOR's individual fights was that mobs would not always be packed close enough for your AOE to always work, so there was variation in how you optimized your AOE in some fights -- but that wasn't enough to offset each mob having virtually zero ability variation (whereas in WOW you see a lot of ability variation in mobs, which causes the "thing you have to do to fight optimally" to vary, creating gameplay.)
Again, moment-to-moment gameplay is the game. Without it, a game dies (or languishes in mediocrity like EVE, whose dynamic world doesn't matter to most players who find the moment-to-moment gameplay boring.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok. Let me put it this way, 'dynamic events' without permanence means nothing.
A pvp instance may change dramatically over the course of a battle (but not really aside from a possible color palette swap and a few things blowing up), but as said before that is all gone in the blink of an eye and all a player has to show for it is a few numbers. There is no meaningful difference whether that place has existed or not, or any concern over actions that had taken place within. Same with rifts, when they're here, then thry're here. When thy're not, they're not. The only consequence they have in the end is a number that's a wash among the rest. No tangible difference in the way that chatacter goes about things or the rest of the game.
That is not dynamic. Combat can play into, but is not itself a dynamic event or element. Like I said twice now you seem to be mixing up the notion of dynamic events somewhat with emergent gameplay. For example your knockdown example.
An attack that has the effect of knocking a target back a certain distance will always do the same thing, knock them back. When you use that contextually with other powers or gaography to do soething like knock them off a cliff?
That's called 'emergent gameplay' not a 'dynamic event'. It's the culmination of different game aspects to produce a result not explicitly coded or designed into the game.
Much of what you focus on is considerably more to do with emergent gameplay. The moment to moment experience is defined a lot more clearly by this aspect than dynamic events and it's only a misuse of syntax that convolutes this.
And actually by the definition you were pushing SWTOR would be a quite 'dynamic' game. with most every character having a pull, push, stun, etc most easily exemplified in pvp and rather liberally used in huttball.
Eat your cake or keep it, you can't have it both ways.
And as for Lock's comment, that's not an argument of fact it's an argument of opinion and a blind assertion to claim any developer would call a rift dynamic content. Maybe see what Notch calls dynamic content?
Point there being, that's not a matter of fact at all, that's a matter of opinion. They want to call it dynamic content, I don't. That doesn't change what it is functionally in any way what either one of us wants to call it. And that is the fact.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Ok. Let me put it this way, 'dynamic events' without permanence means nothing.
And actually by the definition you were pushing SWTOR would be a quite 'dynamic' game. with most every character having a pull, push, stun, etc most easily exemplified in pvp and rather liberally used in huttball.
Well now you're just spouting opinion. It means nothing to you, but it means a ton to most other players out there.
As for TOR, the definition of dynamic isn't some simple binary thing. Games can be more dynamic than others. In TOR's case, classes having pulls/etc makes the game more dynamic. So do spell interrupts (rarely) and getting the mobs to reposition themselves. But that's where the dynamic mechanics stop, so the game is much less dynamic than some other games out there.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I have been keeping up with the current conversation. I will say that there is no set template of dynamic content should be. Dynamic simply means something changes. Wintergrasp in WoW is dynamic content. By destroying the walls and such it changes the appearence of that fortress. It does not matter if the change is continual or perminant. It's still a change, so therefore it's dynamic content. It doesn't matter if you think it should be this or that, it's still dynamic whether continual or perminant. We all have our biased and opinion, but until one of us actually ships a title it's all just spitting in the wind.
Dynamic creation must have dynamic destruction as well.
The truly hard thing is not creating situations that are unrecoverable. If certain mobs stay dead, then can the players make them go extinct? What happens if they do are certain things completely uncraftable from then on?
That would actually be pretty cool but if I made a game like that I would have world recreate itself occasionally so the player base can learn from their mistakes. As in start everything over from scratch.
Ok. Let me put it this way, 'dynamic events' without permanence means nothing.
And actually by the definition you were pushing SWTOR would be a quite 'dynamic' game. with most every character having a pull, push, stun, etc most easily exemplified in pvp and rather liberally used in huttball.
Well now you're just spouting opinion. It means nothing to you, but it means a ton to most other players out there.
As for TOR, the definition of dynamic isn't some simple binary thing. Games can be more dynamic than others. In TOR's case, classes having pulls/etc makes the game more dynamic. So do spell interrupts (rarely) and getting the mobs to reposition themselves. But that's where the dynamic mechanics stop, so the game is much less dynamic than some other games out there.
Yer just entirely ignoring the other half of the point. Yes, my opinion of what people have recently been calling dynamic content is that what we have is pretty inconsequential.
You said my point best in this post though. Dynamic content isn't some simple binary thing. Sadly that's by in large what the 'dynamic content' that has been claimed is. Like I have prior explained with the likes of rifts. That aspect is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of how the game mechanics fundamentally work. It's on or it's off, it does not truly change. It's not dynamic.
It's why I say dynamics without permanence means nothing. Without a permanence to at least progression points, then you lose any reason for those points again. TOR is kind enough to maintain a narrative and implication that the universe changes around youthrough your progression in quest and narrative. Even if it's failing to actually change physically that's a sight better than WoW or Rift where you get snippets of 'progress' that you can literally see reset in front of you if you just watch for a bit, like when players would kill onyxia or, well, any other boss that was supposed to be momentous. There's a little celebration then people are back to fearing them.
Just as I said before, the only actual dynamic content is the world events. The only things that give the players the narrative and physical progression. That's not content scripted to be dynamic though,the developers have to implement it, so the game itself is still not dynamic.
And back to the reason it's not functional for dynamic content in a themepark. Binary content works great. It gives the illusion of a bit of change as long as it's not scrutinized. But that has to stop being mistaken for dynamic content, because that gives people all kinds of wrong impressions.
Also, like I've said thrice now, those player abilities play more into emergent gameplay, not dynamic content.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Comments
The rails occur in the individual rides. Exactly like a themepark.
You freely choose your leveling zone, then you (mostly) freely choose some of the quests in that zone, then those quests are linear experiences. Or you choose PVP, which isn't on rails at all. Or you choose to play various dungeons, which are on rails. Or you choose to engage in socializing or auctioning or gathering or crafting.
WOW wouldn't suddenly fail to work if zones had Rifts.
WOW wouldn't suddenly fail to work if the Halaa city was a PVE world event where hostile NPCs take over and you have to retake the city.
WOW would only fail to work if entire large segments of the world were taken over by hostile NPCs much higher in level than the zone's normal creatures, effectively disabling that zone for the purposes of leveling (and then, it would fail only if there weren't other zones within a fairly convenient distance where you could continue leveling.)
So dynamic elements in a themepark are completely fine. You just have to work through the list of problems I mentioned in my previous post.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Okay maybe you are just not very clear.
Do your actions change the story you experience?
If so do they change only your experience or do they effect a non instanced world?
Are you making dynamic content or are you making a tree of scripted content?
Its possible you are using dynamic in a way that it is not commonly used, which is fine, as long as you don't mind what you say being pretty unintelligible.
If content is actually dynamic, and not just a large set of possibilities scripted by devs, why are you pathcing things? Also that is called a sandbox.
If content is a large set of scripts and only one is followed you have absolutely no way to keep up with players.
Do you have quests generated from world state plus random selection of attributes?
Or are your quests all pre scripted and each scripted quest appears when the world enters a state?
If one player completes a quest is it gone? In which case either you run out of quests or you need a state+randomness generator to generate relatively generic and non scripted quests. Although I would like to note that if quests exist in the world, and someone else kills a mob, that would break the quest chain. Can you even have quest chains in that case?
Ok put your imagination hats on.
Classic MMO design, from Dwarves to Dragons. But this is a world with a story, which you create as you go along, the players actions creating a new world with different outcomes.
Once the story is over the game resets, you carry over some advantages and start again at level 1. Last time the Orcs ran roughshod over the realms, but this time what will happen? Will the Elf manage to find and work the ritual that will protect his people? Will the humans arrive by ship in time to save the realms?
No rubbish end game, no endless alts, one character who picks his path and forges his way across the realms for good or ill.
Why not have a world that keeps on going, and doesn't lose it's history?
I know people think that a single entity (guild or otherwise) could end up running everything, but it's entirely possible to make it so that such a situation becomes so unwieldy that it can never reach that point.
The first requirement to accomplish that is to make it so coordinating "total conquest" requires massive player coordination. The next requirement would be to make it so that it becomes less rewarding for players to do that. In other words, the costs of a massive coordinated effort need to be more than the reward. Incrementally increasing costs would be the way, so that there's a tipping point where it starts to cost more than the total of gains after growing to a fluctuating point.
Once upon a time....
Its really difficult to stop the world becoming so disorted the original game is lost and players will drift away as nothing can be done to alter what has happened. So once those Orcs have set up camp, they are not going home etc. The problem with world changing events is it changes the world to a point where good gamplay becomes hard to balance. So a restart is the solution, after all loads of players like playing alts, here you play a new one each time the world restarts.
Tales of the Desert uses this idea, but its a crafting and economic game, not sure how strong the story is. Why not apply this to what we more often think of as a MMO?
Well, the reason to not do resets is the persistence of the player's character(s). And all that they do.
Once upon a time....
Um, dynamic gameplay can be as big as the entire world revolving around player actions or as small as a knockback move which knocks the enemy off the cliff this time because you happened to have been a few pixels to the left when you used it.
No part of the definition of "dynamic" as applied to games is "it must affect the entire world or it's not dynamic." Dynamic simply describes a wealth of possible outcomes (often most interestingly when the player has some influence over them so that they can increase game depth, but even when they're not player-controlled they're dynamic.)
Your questions seem to veer off on an unrelated tangent, in light of this definition. They're all problems to be solved by extremely dynamic games, but all I was saying before was that Rift has clearly proven that the world can progress and have world events in a smart, functional manner, resting atop baseline content.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Actually the reason is because reseting only works in conquest and simulation environments where the players are working toward a win condition. For example, if the goal of an MMO is to bring your faction (or the whole server for that matter) to a certain win condition the playerbase not only accepts the reset but finds it more palatable than one group controlling the core gameplay and no one having a chance (real or perceived) to dethrone them. It's perceived by many to be a more fair enviroment and it's the main thinking behind the posts often seen calling for a game to open a new server.
PotBS and ATITD are two 3D MMOs that use reset mechanics, however the design is very common in SLGs and persistent browser based MMOs (PBBGs).
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You could do this and make it like a themepark game, where the focus is on consuming content. The focus on a sandbox is building/creating content. I see that as the main differentiation between the two.
Good questions. If you had a dynamic story telling engine, you would be able to do quite a bit with quest chains, quests, etc. I envision each quest is only available to players whom it directly impacts. For instance, if there's a werewolf stalking the wilderness, only those of the town it's terrorizing or those whom are in someway connected to the werewolf NPC (which might, randomly, be an NPC that players have worked with before). And people could have very differing goals in a quest as well, players may have the option of curing the werewolf, killing the werewolf, soothing the werewolf, etc. Once the quest is completed, yes, it's gone forever. Soon a new quest will take its place.
There would obviously have to be locks on the quest. Restricted access areas (instances) would contain NPCs that need to be attacked, and these areas only become available when it makes sense according to the story telling engine. In general NPCs (and players) would not be attackable unless permitted by the story telling engine, though if there was another quest that made an important character killable than it would invalidate existing branches (if the person who knew how to cure the werewolf was killed) or quests (if the werewolf was killed when in human form).
Answers will be in blue...
You're on the right track with your assessment. If there are dynamic sub events for sub plots, then yes, it will only be available for players that directly impact it. However, for main dynamic events, it affects all. What is highlighted in green, that is only true for dynamic quests with the main and sub plot lines only.
Rifts aren't dynamic. They take over a zone, yes, but they are setup so at any time players can just come in, kill the rift, and everything pops back to the way it was before the rifts were there.
That is not dynamic, that's just a loop. Dynamic would be a rift opening, the area being taken over, and when one aimed to reclaim the area you'd have a rebuilding/repopulating cycle involved as well, not the same people moving back into the same buildings to go back to doing the same things.
As for zones. Sure you have freedom to pick your zone, but that's with some really big caveats. The first and foremost being zones are level ranged and many quest chains intentionally lead you from one zone to another in order for you to jump from quest hub to quest hub. Sure, you're free to jump ship and move to a different zone, but you should be abundantly aware how that influences the expeirence of the gameplay by going places outside of the level range you are playing through.
And like PvP. Instanced environments that blink out of existence and are reset every time you join a new one are not dynamic. Fighting people in the game world to take a base and do some quests where the only effect is one faction or the other has control is not dynamic, it's a toggle.
Dynamics isn't options as you seem to define it as, it's change. Dynamic is moving, and while back and forth might technically be a motion, it is not a forward or changing one, and therefore not a truly dynamic one.
Also an event or action that has multiple outcomes (though not necessarily intended) is usually referred to as emergent gameplay. Like your example of using a knockback attack to send some one off a cliff.
The likes of WoW would fail to work with dynamic events, because they wouldn;t be something you could just reset by clearing a rift or capping a base. A dynamic event would spell the end of what people knew of the zone and the creation of new content.
Themepark worlds can't do that. The altering of content time and again without reversion would mean there's never any static guidelines or flow that players can experience.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
As mentioned before, "Um, dynamic gameplay can be as big as the entire world revolving around player actions or as small as a knockback move which knocks the enemy off the cliff this time because you happened to have been a few pixels to the left when you used it."
We get that you don't like instanced PVP, but that's completely inconsequential. Themeparks act like themeparks, and PVP is just one of many rides to ride. That's what characterizes a themepark. If linearity exists within themeparks, it's a byproduct of producing efficient content, not because linearity itself was the goal.
And since the goal is fun rides, and dynamic mechanics increase fun, dynamic events are fine themeparks.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah, that's a sidestep. And I addressed the thing you just repeated about 'dynamic events' and you seeming to interpret them as something akin to emergent gameplay. That's an antirely different factor than something that is inherently supposed to move gameplay (hence the use of the word 'dynamic').
Static content does not move. I made no remark on my opinion of instanced PvP, I only commented on the reality of it having no bearing on the state of the game world or the people in it.
It is as you say. A fun ride. But it is not dynamic and as a result it carries very little if any consequence for playing or not playing. Doesn't matter if it's fun or not, that's just the nature of it.
The concept of these being individual 'rides' people can choose to hop on or not isn't the issue either. Sure, when in Disneyland you can pick which one's you want to go on and which direction to walk, but you are not impacting any of that for more than a brief instance. Nothing you do leaves it's hallmark and when you come back the next day things will be about the same as when you left it. The only dynamic aspect is what the developers themselves choose to introduce over time, and that is hardly dynamic as far as moment to moment experience.
Your continued insistence that gameplay features which do not dramatically or permanently offer any change to the game world or even players is dynamic baffles me.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
You might want to double check with Will Cook on that one.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I really don't care what a particular developer wants to call their own stuff. Rifts do little more than toggle assets in a zone, they are incapable of making a real or lasting impact on the game world as a result. They intentionally did that so that the zones would never change dramatically enough that player experiences would have to shift.
As a result it does not change the fundamental nature of the game, zone, player interaction with the game, or player experience.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It's what any developer would call it. So, since you've no interest in fact if it conflicts with what you want deeply to believe, my work is done here. See ya.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
They're dynamic within the context of players interacting with them, which is all that really matters.
Honestly instanced PVP is more dynamic than non-instanced PVP. The magnitude of travel, from neutrality to defeat or victory, is greater than what you experience in non-instanced PVP where you start very near defeat or victory and a tinier number of meaningful decisions take you that final step. In instanced PVP you walk that entire distance from scratch.
Dynamic interaction in a Disneyland ride would make things more fun (and I believe there's at least one ride like that nowadays.) The ride might start the same each time you ride it, but if things are changing based on decisions during the ride, then that's dynamic.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yes, and that's what makes SWTOR such a "dynamic" game. And will do the same for GW2.
Of course, gamers should forget "world", as in the "dynamic world" that would make for an excellent continual state of world progression (the topic here). That's not going to happen, a la the current state of the industry. Amiright Axehilt?
Once upon a time....
Who said anything about TOR being dynamic? It's not particularly dynamic on a large or small scale.
Gamers as a whole don't care much about the world being dynamic. What's important is the moment-to-moment gameplay. That's the game. If moment-to-moment gameplay sucks, a dynamic world won't save the game.
TOR's moment-to-moment gameplay was mediocre. Better than some MMORPGs, but not as good as WOW or RIFT, largely due to TOR's mobs having almost zero variation. Variation is gameplay, and the only variation in TOR's individual fights was that mobs would not always be packed close enough for your AOE to always work, so there was variation in how you optimized your AOE in some fights -- but that wasn't enough to offset each mob having virtually zero ability variation (whereas in WOW you see a lot of ability variation in mobs, which causes the "thing you have to do to fight optimally" to vary, creating gameplay.)
Again, moment-to-moment gameplay is the game. Without it, a game dies (or languishes in mediocrity like EVE, whose dynamic world doesn't matter to most players who find the moment-to-moment gameplay boring.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok. Let me put it this way, 'dynamic events' without permanence means nothing.
A pvp instance may change dramatically over the course of a battle (but not really aside from a possible color palette swap and a few things blowing up), but as said before that is all gone in the blink of an eye and all a player has to show for it is a few numbers. There is no meaningful difference whether that place has existed or not, or any concern over actions that had taken place within. Same with rifts, when they're here, then thry're here. When thy're not, they're not. The only consequence they have in the end is a number that's a wash among the rest. No tangible difference in the way that chatacter goes about things or the rest of the game.
That is not dynamic. Combat can play into, but is not itself a dynamic event or element. Like I said twice now you seem to be mixing up the notion of dynamic events somewhat with emergent gameplay. For example your knockdown example.
An attack that has the effect of knocking a target back a certain distance will always do the same thing, knock them back. When you use that contextually with other powers or gaography to do soething like knock them off a cliff?
That's called 'emergent gameplay' not a 'dynamic event'. It's the culmination of different game aspects to produce a result not explicitly coded or designed into the game.
Much of what you focus on is considerably more to do with emergent gameplay. The moment to moment experience is defined a lot more clearly by this aspect than dynamic events and it's only a misuse of syntax that convolutes this.
And actually by the definition you were pushing SWTOR would be a quite 'dynamic' game. with most every character having a pull, push, stun, etc most easily exemplified in pvp and rather liberally used in huttball.
Eat your cake or keep it, you can't have it both ways.
And as for Lock's comment, that's not an argument of fact it's an argument of opinion and a blind assertion to claim any developer would call a rift dynamic content. Maybe see what Notch calls dynamic content?
Point there being, that's not a matter of fact at all, that's a matter of opinion. They want to call it dynamic content, I don't. That doesn't change what it is functionally in any way what either one of us wants to call it. And that is the fact.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Well now you're just spouting opinion. It means nothing to you, but it means a ton to most other players out there.
As for TOR, the definition of dynamic isn't some simple binary thing. Games can be more dynamic than others. In TOR's case, classes having pulls/etc makes the game more dynamic. So do spell interrupts (rarely) and getting the mobs to reposition themselves. But that's where the dynamic mechanics stop, so the game is much less dynamic than some other games out there.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I have been keeping up with the current conversation. I will say that there is no set template of dynamic content should be. Dynamic simply means something changes. Wintergrasp in WoW is dynamic content. By destroying the walls and such it changes the appearence of that fortress. It does not matter if the change is continual or perminant. It's still a change, so therefore it's dynamic content. It doesn't matter if you think it should be this or that, it's still dynamic whether continual or perminant. We all have our biased and opinion, but until one of us actually ships a title it's all just spitting in the wind.
Dynamic creation must have dynamic destruction as well.
The truly hard thing is not creating situations that are unrecoverable. If certain mobs stay dead, then can the players make them go extinct? What happens if they do are certain things completely uncraftable from then on?
That would actually be pretty cool but if I made a game like that I would have world recreate itself occasionally so the player base can learn from their mistakes. As in start everything over from scratch.
Yer just entirely ignoring the other half of the point. Yes, my opinion of what people have recently been calling dynamic content is that what we have is pretty inconsequential.
You said my point best in this post though. Dynamic content isn't some simple binary thing. Sadly that's by in large what the 'dynamic content' that has been claimed is. Like I have prior explained with the likes of rifts. That aspect is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of how the game mechanics fundamentally work. It's on or it's off, it does not truly change. It's not dynamic.
It's why I say dynamics without permanence means nothing. Without a permanence to at least progression points, then you lose any reason for those points again. TOR is kind enough to maintain a narrative and implication that the universe changes around youthrough your progression in quest and narrative. Even if it's failing to actually change physically that's a sight better than WoW or Rift where you get snippets of 'progress' that you can literally see reset in front of you if you just watch for a bit, like when players would kill onyxia or, well, any other boss that was supposed to be momentous. There's a little celebration then people are back to fearing them.
Just as I said before, the only actual dynamic content is the world events. The only things that give the players the narrative and physical progression. That's not content scripted to be dynamic though,the developers have to implement it, so the game itself is still not dynamic.
And back to the reason it's not functional for dynamic content in a themepark. Binary content works great. It gives the illusion of a bit of change as long as it's not scrutinized. But that has to stop being mistaken for dynamic content, because that gives people all kinds of wrong impressions.
Also, like I've said thrice now, those player abilities play more into emergent gameplay, not dynamic content.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin