The problem is that many of the posters here are telling people that they shouldn't have what they want in a game. When extra activities are in a game they don't take away from the pure combat types. But some people are saying that they leave the game because there isn't enough to keep them interested. This means population drop off, etc. The numbers may be fine in a fiscal sense, but a growing amount of loss of satisfaction is occurring. If your familiar with economics you know that such things often have an inertia that changes markets.
still, the combat-only crowd says:
You don't need Tolstoy, you need Two and Half Men!
See how that doesn't work?
You would have a point if there were not plenty of tolstoy in existing current gen titles. It is rather obviously not stopping the loss.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
I'm a one-gamer too. But I need a game that has the depth and diversity, and excitement stacked on top. I don't need constant sword play for "excitement". I don't even want that. I'd really prefer excitement in anticipation, and those great moments that a player remembers exactly because they aren't handed out like candy.
I also want an assortmant of long term goals. Building a business is one example, or mapping a woodland, or exploring a mountain range. Too much game play is lost because games hand out stuff as instant gratification. I like games where there are things you have to "work" for. Not to say I don't want the occasional instant grat, just not as a standard design of game play.
Remember what you perceive as gameplay may not be gameplay for others. And alot of what is cut is just being user friendliness and streamlining. You should never feel like you're logging in for your other job.
I'm pretty sure he meant work in the physics terms, effort applied over time.
That's why I put the word in "-". I don't consider it work, it's game play with a challenge of mind and effort. I'd much prefer it to also have setbacks, and require an expertice gained with knowledge and/or practice. That's a far cry better than reward based on a one-off, designed-to-win quest or simple repetitive action.
Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by TorgrimOriginally posted by BitterClingerWell, I think they are important, but they are helluva a lot harder to do in 3D than they were in 2D (or 2.5D).
why?They tend to consume a lot more resources. A model and textures, especially with today's multilayer stuff, take up a lot more memory and processing than a flat sprite.
They also don't go together in the same way. Laying down a bunch of square sprites is one thing, making a modular building that more than 4% of the population will be able to comprehend is another.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Or maybe it's you. There's been loads of posts about this for a long time now. New releases built like you suggest are dropping users like flies in a Raid factory. When can this arguement die?
That is only because raiding is getting old.
Look at LOL ... nothnig but fighting pvp in the same map and the number of players increased and surpassed WOW in terms of players.
Look at the top 10 online games on xfire .. how many are combat focus? I doubt you can argue that combat is not a central popular gameplay.
I'm not arguing at all that combat isn't the number one component, even in MMOs. But it's just one component. LoL is operating in a market voide of competition from those other components (quality wise), and evidently has a better mouse trap for that one component.
I'm not saying that a great Sandbox-Worldly game would kill LoL, but I do think a very healthy percent of their players would also pay for a great Sandbox-Worldly game at the same time.
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar I would prefer to play just one game. Have one game that provides me with everything I am looking for. As nice as that would be, I realize it will probably never happen unless I win the lottery and hire people to make a game (my training is totally unrelated to games and will likely not ever be related to it haha)
I'm a one-gamer too. But I need a game that has the depth and diversity, and excitement stacked on top. I don't need constant sword play for "excitement". I don't even want that. I'd really prefer excitement in anticipation, and those great moments that a player remembers exactly because they aren't handed out like candy.
I also want an assortmant of long term goals. Building a business is one example, or mapping a woodland, or exploring a mountain range. Too much game play is lost because games hand out stuff as instant gratification. I like games where there are things you have to "work" for. Not to say I don't want the occasional instant grat, just not as a standard design of game play.
It looks like WOW is headed in that direction, with the core WOW game being the world that your characters are in, and various games added within that world. Imagine logging into WOW and saying, "Let's see... do I want to play a MOBA, Tactics, raid or RTS today?" and then whatever your answer you jsut teleport to a different place within World of Warcraft to go do it.
One login, one set of characters. No need to level up new characters for new games, no need to start amassing wealth again. All your games in one game with the character set you're already familiar with playing and that already have overflowing banks and wallets to throw at new gameplay.
Now, that is a pretty clever idea, you sure the folks at Blizzard thought that up? (I kid)
Great concept, too bad the folks at EVE didn't take that approach with Dust514, would have been cool to jump out of my ship in the Command Center (or whatever the heck my characters can walk around in) and dive into Dust514 on my PC.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar I would prefer to play just one game. Have one game that provides me with everything I am looking for. As nice as that would be, I realize it will probably never happen unless I win the lottery and hire people to make a game (my training is totally unrelated to games and will likely not ever be related to it haha)
I'm a one-gamer too. But I need a game that has the depth and diversity, and excitement stacked on top. I don't need constant sword play for "excitement". I don't even want that. I'd really prefer excitement in anticipation, and those great moments that a player remembers exactly because they aren't handed out like candy.
I also want an assortmant of long term goals. Building a business is one example, or mapping a woodland, or exploring a mountain range. Too much game play is lost because games hand out stuff as instant gratification. I like games where there are things you have to "work" for. Not to say I don't want the occasional instant grat, just not as a standard design of game play.
It looks like WOW is headed in that direction, with the core WOW game being the world that your characters are in, and various games added within that world. Imagine logging into WOW and saying, "Let's see... do I want to play a MOBA, Tactics, raid or RTS today?" and then whatever your answer you jsut teleport to a different place within World of Warcraft to go do it.
One login, one set of characters. No need to level up new characters for new games, no need to start amassing wealth again. All your games in one game with the character set you're already familiar with playing and that already have overflowing banks and wallets to throw at new gameplay.
Ok, I have to admit that I've been sort of "AFK" more and more lately on all this stuff, but what again is MOBA?
But if you look at your list, that's all hack'n'slash stuff. Not that options are ever bad.
WoW, really, has a boat load of great things in it. And as polished as it always was, with all that it has, is what made it such a success. Keep in mind also that WoW's only real competition was other similar game designs. The few that were different had some real obstacles to success. The best of them, Eve, is limited to spaceships and no avatars or "boots on the ground" aspect to it. Eve is sort of like LoL in that it specializes in a specific aspect.
The thing is, there are no quality, even-remotely-modern games along the design I am talking about.
That's why I put the word in "-". I don't consider it work, it's game play with a challenge of mind and effort. I'd much prefer it to also have setbacks, and require an expertice gained with knowledge and/or practice. That's a far cry better than reward based on a one-off, designed-to-win quest or simple repetitive action.
And the old MMORPGs were different... how? Sure they didn't have all too much of the former but they had tons and tons of the latter.
My experience is: Nothing in PvE has been "challenging" since GW1 before they had to tone down difficulty, few of the dungeons in DDO with the hardest difficulty settings on and few of the encounters in GW2 before they had to tone down the difficulty aswell. I hear some of the dungeons in Rift were somewhat challenging, but I haven't played it myself.
It is very ironic that some posters are against scaling, instancing, some against non-trinity combat and at the same time whine "there's no challenge". You want challenge? -Play games where you can't out-level your content, can't bring more friends to make the encounter easier, the AI is not as dumb as a rock and where you have to start over when you fail a quest.
Old shcool MMORPGs were mostly arduous - not challenging. Challenge is very rare in PvE anyway - better place to find it is in PvP. And even there I don't want to win because I'm higher level than your, or that I have more wealth than you, or that I brought more friends than you; I want to win because I'm better than you. Now that's challenge.
But this is getting off-topc.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Ok, I have to admit that I've been sort of "AFK" more and more lately on all this stuff, but what again is MOBA?
MOBA = Multiplayer Online Battle Arena
It is the encompassing name for all games similar to the Warcaft 3 mod Defence of the Ancients, or DotA for short. DotA, League of Legends (LoL), Demigod, Smite and similar games are all MOBAs.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I think it boils down to what your chance of dying is, that was part of his point. In most games today you'd have to be afk to die. In EQ, whether solo or group, if you were fighting even or higher con mobs there was a real chance of dying. This made it more engaging, more so with grouping of course. In this aspect that made it more challenging than arduous and if it was as easy as most content today would have gotten old fast.
Originally posted by Aelious I think it boils down to what your chance of dying is, that was part of his point. In most games today you'd have to be afk to die. In EQ, whether solo or group, if you were fighting even or higher con mobs there was a real chance of dying. This made it more engaging, more so with grouping of course. In this aspect that made it more challenging than arduous and if it was as easy as most content today would have gotten old fast.
The "easyness" or difficulty in general is not the reason why games don't succeed now adays. Its about the variety of content to reach out to the varied playerbase. The most successful games of all time and currently learned this and that's why they succeed. Examples to follow:
Some people work difficult jobs and want to come home to something relaxing. If you play Wow, dailies and faction rep are easy enough to do with little chance of failure. They allow you to play your toon as a demi-god to the inferior minions scattered about the open world. Piece of cake, dailies done in a few hours, and repeat the next day. LoL does it with the free toons and non-ranked play. Jump into a game, try someone new, no real pressure(except from overexcited children) and after 20-45 minutes walk away or play something else.
Or maybe you had a boring day and need excitement, or have nothing to do and want to immerse yourself. Well raids in WoW have several tiers and hardcore options. And you can die in these encounters, and often do for the first several attempts on each boss. Sure all PvE content eventually gets beaten, but for most of the players in WoW, the hardcore raids give a sense of accomplishment and are no easy task for all but the most advanced players. LoL has ranked play, what better way to show how good you can be, than to play against equally tiered players.
The bottom line is that games need to be able to cater to a large sum of players, or they need to manage their expenses to maintain their game with a much smaller player base.
Or maybe it's you. There's been loads of posts about this for a long time now. New releases built like you suggest are dropping users like flies in a Raid factory. When can this arguement die?
That is only because raiding is getting old.
Look at LOL ... nothnig but fighting pvp in the same map and the number of players increased and surpassed WOW in terms of players.
Look at the top 10 online games on xfire .. how many are combat focus? I doubt you can argue that combat is not a central popular gameplay.
I'm not arguing at all that combat isn't the number one component, even in MMOs. But it's just one component. LoL is operating in a market voide of competition from those other components (quality wise), and evidently has a better mouse trap for that one component.
I'm not saying that a great Sandbox-Worldly game would kill LoL, but I do think a very healthy percent of their players would also pay for a great Sandbox-Worldly game at the same time.
There is simply no evidence for that. The evidence is that nothing but combat centric games are popular, and i am not going to recite all the examples.
And this thread is about fluff and housing. How many games sell because of the housing component? May be one .. that is SIMS.
In the end, combat is what is driving gaming. There are, of course, fringe efforts in almost anything .. look at the story driven indie adventure games. I am not saying combat is everything .. but it is pretty much most of the gameplay, probably by a large margin.
Originally posted by Aelious I think it boils down to what your chance of dying is, that was part of his point. In most games today you'd have to be afk to die. In EQ, whether solo or group, if you were fighting even or higher con mobs there was a real chance of dying. This made it more engaging, more so with grouping of course. In this aspect that made it more challenging than arduous and if it was as easy as most content today would have gotten old fast.
No, that's not my point at all. I absolutely hate the Themepark "go here now" design. Although I can see where you get that.
The idea of "challenge" can be taken in different ways. In the sense of this topic and my comments, what I mean is that there is lost game play because things are doled out. Even in EQ, the dictation of game play to "go here now" might have been more difficult to achieve, but it was still designed that you succeed at that particular level, at some point. And only then can you move on the the next "go here now" (by levelling past it), but that's a separate issue from this conversation.
Maybe the simplest for of my comment, as an example, is the explanation marks over a quest giver's head. You not only have that to look for, it's also on your map. More than even that, it only shows to you when you are queued to get that quest. You are dictated that quest (maybe among a few others), you go there and get the quest.
Oppose this to an alternative. Suppose a game is designed so that you can talk to NPCs using key words like UO had. Now, you're looking for something next to do, and game design has told you that you can go to specific NPCs in search of soemthing to do. A tavernkeeper, a boot shiner, a beggar, etc. You simply use the keywords, using the NPC's name first to fire him up for replies. You say "(name), jobs", maybe mixed with a few other words of your choice, and the NPC replies something like "Dolan is looking for people, he's the merchant in the town square wearing all red but with a yellow feather in his hat." Maybe he's a leather worker, and he gives you some things he'd buy from you. Regular leather, maybe Dragon hide. Then instead of knowing just where to go, you have to hunt for the source. If it's something like regular leather, you can hunt known areas. If it's something like Dragon hide, you can search yourself, but if you know the game and as you learn the game, you might know that you can ask NPCs. Asking any ol' NPC "(name) Dragons" might get you a reply like "Aye, Dragons often hunt in the valley north of here. They come from the dangerous mountains north of the valley." So now you know where Dragons hunt, and where they come from, and know that those mojntains are "dangerous" (for whatever that means to your character). That's some one-off knowledge learning, or it might be temporary if the game changes up on things.
But you might also learn, through other players or through your own efforts, that specific NPCs have more specific knowledge. In this case, maybe hunters now of recent Dragon activity in more specific areas. You ask one, and he might say "Aye, Dragons have been hunting around the great river crossing where the herds of migrating elk (regular leather) are active now."
You can even rinse and repeat this stuff, if you want to (choice!) or if you have a personal need for Dragon hide, or whatever.
Now, how hard is this to do for a player? Is it "work"? No, it's "game play". Much more interesting than following the glowing explanation marks.
Actually there is a lot of evidence that people like sandbox style games: minecraft, terraria, skyrim... Yes I know those are not mmo's and they would need to change a lot for them to be adapted. However they still are considered sandbox, at least for spg, and they are very very popular.
There is not a lot of evidence, a bit with Eve and many smaller titles that sandbox is popular with an MMO.
However we cannnot ignore the popularity of the spg. To me what this means is that a game designer than can pull off sandbox elements like the above mentioned titles, in an MMO, that still lets people be safe will be hugely popular.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Actually there is a lot of evidence that people like sandbox style games: minecraft, terraria, skyrim... Yes I know those are not mmo's and they would need to change a lot for them to be adapted. However they still are considered sandbox, at least for spg, and they are very very popular.
There is not a lot of evidence, a bit with Eve and many smaller titles that sandbox is popular with an MMO.
However we cannnot ignore the popularity of the spg. To me what this means is that a game designer than can pull off sandbox elements like the above mentioned titles, in an MMO, that still lets people be safe will be hugely popular.
I have no experience with Terraria, but what gives Skyrim and Minecraft so much appeal is that they are very much a "true" sandbox. They give you the actualy ability to change the game to meet the specific play experience that you wish to have. That does not work in anything close to a persistant world. If anything Second Life shows that. While there are Minecraft servers set so that you can change anything that others have also that are open to the public, they are generally the minorty, or closely guarded/moderated to prevent abuse. While there are some games currently in development (names escape me at the moment) I do not believe they will be successful because people for the most part do not play well together unless forced, and with the sheer amount of choice out there right now there is no forcing players to work together.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
Actually there is a lot of evidence that people like sandbox style games: minecraft, terraria, skyrim... Yes I know those are not mmo's and they would need to change a lot for them to be adapted. However they still are considered sandbox, at least for spg, and they are very very popular.
There is not a lot of evidence, a bit with Eve and many smaller titles that sandbox is popular with an MMO.
However we cannnot ignore the popularity of the spg. To me what this means is that a game designer than can pull off sandbox elements like the above mentioned titles, in an MMO, that still lets people be safe will be hugely popular.
minecraft is a building game like lego. I don't think it speaks much to a sandbox fantasy game. SKYRIM is probably the best example. However, it has quest icons, full voice story and so on. The only sandboxy element is the large world. Note that it has instance travel, once you visit a place.
In that regard, it is more similar to WOW, then Eve.
Or maybe it's you. There's been loads of posts about this for a long time now. New releases built like you suggest are dropping users like flies in a Raid factory. When can this arguement die?
That is only because raiding is getting old.
Look at LOL ... nothnig but fighting pvp in the same map and the number of players increased and surpassed WOW in terms of players.
Look at the top 10 online games on xfire .. how many are combat focus? I doubt you can argue that combat is not a central popular gameplay.
I'm not arguing at all that combat isn't the number one component, even in MMOs. But it's just one component. LoL is operating in a market voide of competition from those other components (quality wise), and evidently has a better mouse trap for that one component.
I'm not saying that a great Sandbox-Worldly game would kill LoL, but I do think a very healthy percent of their players would also pay for a great Sandbox-Worldly game at the same time.
There is simply no evidence for that. The evidence is that nothing but combat centric games are popular, and i am not going to recite all the examples.
And this thread is about fluff and housing. How many games sell because of the housing component? May be one .. that is SIMS.
In the end, combat is what is driving gaming. There are, of course, fringe efforts in almost anything .. look at the story driven indie adventure games. I am not saying combat is everything .. but it is pretty much most of the gameplay, probably by a large margin.
You can keep believing that if you want. There's no good alternatives out there for "worlds". Housing in instances isn't the housing player's want, they want it in the world and they want other players to see it, visit it, etc.
Would I be wrong to assume that you either work in the industry or are trying to get a job in the industry and cultivate friends that do? If so, you all are really messing this thing up. The exodus of players from anything that's not free might be a clue.
You can keep believing that if you want. There's no good alternatives out there for "worlds". Housing in instances isn't the housing player's want, they want it in the world and they want other players to see it, visit it, etc.
Would I be wrong to assume that you either work in the industry or are trying to get a job in the industry and cultivate friends that do? If so, you all are really messing this thing up. The exodus of players from anything that's not free might be a clue.
Don't sound like you know what others want. You only know what you want. There is no good alternative for "worlds" because most don't care about worlds. A persistent world is not a requirement for fun. In fact, there are lots of online, MMO-like games without a world and are very successful.
Heck, 1.2M wow players bought annual pass in D3, and D3 sold 12M boxes on top of that. Don't tell me you don't know that there is a big overlap of the market between MMOs and ARPGs.
Oh, i am not working in the industry. I don't make games and have no intention of doing so. I only consume games.
You can keep believing that if you want. There's no good alternatives out there for "worlds". Housing in instances isn't the housing player's want, they want it in the world and they want other players to see it, visit it, etc.
Would I be wrong to assume that you either work in the industry or are trying to get a job in the industry and cultivate friends that do? If so, you all are really messing this thing up. The exodus of players from anything that's not free might be a clue.
What? I have seen more arguments erupt in Housing threads over which game did housing best than even whether a game should have housing at all. Flat out saying that "players want uninstanced housing" is a complete farce.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
You can keep believing that if you want. There's no good alternatives out there for "worlds". Housing in instances isn't the housing player's want, they want it in the world and they want other players to see it, visit it, etc.
Would I be wrong to assume that you either work in the industry or are trying to get a job in the industry and cultivate friends that do? If so, you all are really messing this thing up. The exodus of players from anything that's not free might be a clue.
Don't sound like you know what others want. You only know what you want. There is no good alternative for "worlds" because most don't care about worlds. A persistent world is not a requirement for fun. In fact, there are lots of online, MMO-like games without a world and are very successful.
Heck, 1.2M wow players bought annual pass in D3, and D3 sold 12M boxes on top of that. Don't tell me you don't know that there is a big overlap of the market between MMOs and ARPGs.
Oh, i am not working in the industry. I don't make games and have no intention of doing so. I only consume games.
There are no good alternatives for worlds because developers simply refuse to make them.
You mention other forms of games and refuse to accept Minecraft? This whole thing is laughable. And sad. Which is why I don't spend much time on it anymore, with the rare exception like today. But I'm ok with moving on to other things.
It's just almost entertainment though, all this defense of failure in the MMO arena.
The problem is that many of the posters here are telling people that they shouldn't have what they want in a game. When extra activities are in a game they don't take away from the pure combat types. But some people are saying that they leave the game because there isn't enough to keep them interested. This means population drop off, etc. The numbers may be fine in a fiscal sense, but a growing amount of loss of satisfaction is occurring. If your familiar with economics you know that such things often have an inertia that changes markets.
still, the combat-only crowd says:
You don't need Tolstoy, you need Two and Half Men!
See how that doesn't work?
You would have a point if there were not plenty of tolstoy in existing current gen titles. It is rather obviously not stopping the loss.
Are you saying that there is plenty of fluff but people don't see it?
Are you saying that there is plenty of fluff but people don't see it?
No, people see it, just the majority are not interested in it as anything resembling a main form of play. As much as the op and his segment wish to believe fluff has not gone anywhere. Tsw and Rift are both FULL of fluff, it has not stopped either of them falling into obscurity. Rift playerbase now is at similar levels to what it was pre expansion. If fluff keeps players around than retension should be much higher since the launch of its Dimensions, especially after the "huge" contest they ran to promote it. At best fluff keeps the lifesupport population happy, like it did for Swg after WoW took all of its subs.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
There is a lot ot overcome in making a good successfull sandbox fantasy game. I'm not saying it would be easy, I am saying it is possible. The spg titles show us that people like sandbox, they like to create, they like to be involved in moving the story forward in some way. For the most the sandbox MMO titles (yes there are some exceptions) tell us that people are a bit shy about ffa pvp, they don't like people destroying their creations and they don't like to be dependant on others. Difficult to bridge that gap but not impossible. There would have to be some compromises though, such as possible instancing or phasing to move a story forwards, possible electing to have your creations in battle, that sort of thing,
but I still say it is possible. Someday it will happen.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
There is a lot ot overcome in making a good successfull sandbox fantasy game. I'm not saying it would be easy, I am saying it is possible. The spg titles show us that people like sandbox, they like to create, they like to be involved in moving the story forward in some way. For the most the sandbox MMO titles (yes there are some exceptions) tell us that people are a bit shy about ffa pvp, they don't like people destroying their creations and they don't like to be dependant on others. Difficult to bridge that gap but not impossible. There would have to be some compromises though, such as possible instancing or phasing to move a story forwards, possible electing to have your creations in battle, that sort of thing,
but I still say it is possible. Someday it will happen.
Its already happened, its called Second Life. Which even when it was getting tons of attention (because of micro transation wales essentially, lol) it was never super popular. Even Minecraft filling the rather specific niche it did I do not see being able to repeat on an mmo scale. The segregation is half of what keeps it in line. The other half being the sheer number of completely different options/difficulty levels to play it at. Whats more, going through all of the work to move it to an mmo format does not really add anything to the game.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
There are no good alternatives for worlds because developers simply refuse to make them.
You mention other forms of games and refuse to accept Minecraft? This whole thing is laughable. And sad. Which is why I don't spend much time on it anymore, with the rare exception like today. But I'm ok with moving on to other things.
It's just almost entertainment though, all this defense of failure in the MMO arena.
What about minecraft? It is not about a world. It is about a computer lego game.
Devs refuse to make them because there is little demand for it.
There is a lot ot overcome in making a good successfull sandbox fantasy game. I'm not saying it would be easy, I am saying it is possible. The spg titles show us that people like sandbox, they like to create, they like to be involved in moving the story forward in some way. For the most the sandbox MMO titles (yes there are some exceptions) tell us that people are a bit shy about ffa pvp, they don't like people destroying their creations and they don't like to be dependant on others. Difficult to bridge that gap but not impossible. There would have to be some compromises though, such as possible instancing or phasing to move a story forwards, possible electing to have your creations in battle, that sort of thing,
but I still say it is possible. Someday it will happen.
Its already happened, its called Second Life. Which even when it was getting tons of attention (because of micro transation wales essentially, lol) it was never super popular. Even Minecraft filling the rather specific niche it did I do not see being able to repeat on an mmo scale. The segregation is half of what keeps it in line. The other half being the sheer number of completely different options/difficulty levels to play it at. Whats more, going through all of the work to move it to an mmo format does not really add anything to the game.
No. Second life is very very different from a Fantasy Game. And it was actually very popular.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
You would have a point if there were not plenty of tolstoy in existing current gen titles. It is rather obviously not stopping the loss.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
That's why I put the word in "-". I don't consider it work, it's game play with a challenge of mind and effort. I'd much prefer it to also have setbacks, and require an expertice gained with knowledge and/or practice. That's a far cry better than reward based on a one-off, designed-to-win quest or simple repetitive action.
Once upon a time....
They tend to consume a lot more resources. A model and textures, especially with today's multilayer stuff, take up a lot more memory and processing than a flat sprite.
They also don't go together in the same way. Laying down a bunch of square sprites is one thing, making a modular building that more than 4% of the population will be able to comprehend is another.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I'm not arguing at all that combat isn't the number one component, even in MMOs. But it's just one component. LoL is operating in a market voide of competition from those other components (quality wise), and evidently has a better mouse trap for that one component.
I'm not saying that a great Sandbox-Worldly game would kill LoL, but I do think a very healthy percent of their players would also pay for a great Sandbox-Worldly game at the same time.
Once upon a time....
Now, that is a pretty clever idea, you sure the folks at Blizzard thought that up? (I kid)
Great concept, too bad the folks at EVE didn't take that approach with Dust514, would have been cool to jump out of my ship in the Command Center (or whatever the heck my characters can walk around in) and dive into Dust514 on my PC.
Such is life and lost opportunities.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Ok, I have to admit that I've been sort of "AFK" more and more lately on all this stuff, but what again is MOBA?
But if you look at your list, that's all hack'n'slash stuff. Not that options are ever bad.
WoW, really, has a boat load of great things in it. And as polished as it always was, with all that it has, is what made it such a success. Keep in mind also that WoW's only real competition was other similar game designs. The few that were different had some real obstacles to success. The best of them, Eve, is limited to spaceships and no avatars or "boots on the ground" aspect to it. Eve is sort of like LoL in that it specializes in a specific aspect.
The thing is, there are no quality, even-remotely-modern games along the design I am talking about.
Once upon a time....
And the old MMORPGs were different... how? Sure they didn't have all too much of the former but they had tons and tons of the latter.
My experience is: Nothing in PvE has been "challenging" since GW1 before they had to tone down difficulty, few of the dungeons in DDO with the hardest difficulty settings on and few of the encounters in GW2 before they had to tone down the difficulty aswell. I hear some of the dungeons in Rift were somewhat challenging, but I haven't played it myself.
It is very ironic that some posters are against scaling, instancing, some against non-trinity combat and at the same time whine "there's no challenge". You want challenge? -Play games where you can't out-level your content, can't bring more friends to make the encounter easier, the AI is not as dumb as a rock and where you have to start over when you fail a quest.
Old shcool MMORPGs were mostly arduous - not challenging. Challenge is very rare in PvE anyway - better place to find it is in PvP. And even there I don't want to win because I'm higher level than your, or that I have more wealth than you, or that I brought more friends than you; I want to win because I'm better than you. Now that's challenge.
But this is getting off-topc.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
MOBA = Multiplayer Online Battle Arena
It is the encompassing name for all games similar to the Warcaft 3 mod Defence of the Ancients, or DotA for short. DotA, League of Legends (LoL), Demigod, Smite and similar games are all MOBAs.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The "easyness" or difficulty in general is not the reason why games don't succeed now adays. Its about the variety of content to reach out to the varied playerbase. The most successful games of all time and currently learned this and that's why they succeed. Examples to follow:
Some people work difficult jobs and want to come home to something relaxing. If you play Wow, dailies and faction rep are easy enough to do with little chance of failure. They allow you to play your toon as a demi-god to the inferior minions scattered about the open world. Piece of cake, dailies done in a few hours, and repeat the next day. LoL does it with the free toons and non-ranked play. Jump into a game, try someone new, no real pressure(except from overexcited children) and after 20-45 minutes walk away or play something else.
Or maybe you had a boring day and need excitement, or have nothing to do and want to immerse yourself. Well raids in WoW have several tiers and hardcore options. And you can die in these encounters, and often do for the first several attempts on each boss. Sure all PvE content eventually gets beaten, but for most of the players in WoW, the hardcore raids give a sense of accomplishment and are no easy task for all but the most advanced players. LoL has ranked play, what better way to show how good you can be, than to play against equally tiered players.
The bottom line is that games need to be able to cater to a large sum of players, or they need to manage their expenses to maintain their game with a much smaller player base.
There is simply no evidence for that. The evidence is that nothing but combat centric games are popular, and i am not going to recite all the examples.
And this thread is about fluff and housing. How many games sell because of the housing component? May be one .. that is SIMS.
In the end, combat is what is driving gaming. There are, of course, fringe efforts in almost anything .. look at the story driven indie adventure games. I am not saying combat is everything .. but it is pretty much most of the gameplay, probably by a large margin.
No, that's not my point at all. I absolutely hate the Themepark "go here now" design.
Although I can see where you get that.
The idea of "challenge" can be taken in different ways. In the sense of this topic and my comments, what I mean is that there is lost game play because things are doled out. Even in EQ, the dictation of game play to "go here now" might have been more difficult to achieve, but it was still designed that you succeed at that particular level, at some point. And only then can you move on the the next "go here now" (by levelling past it), but that's a separate issue from this conversation.
Maybe the simplest for of my comment, as an example, is the explanation marks over a quest giver's head. You not only have that to look for, it's also on your map. More than even that, it only shows to you when you are queued to get that quest. You are dictated that quest (maybe among a few others), you go there and get the quest.
Oppose this to an alternative. Suppose a game is designed so that you can talk to NPCs using key words like UO had. Now, you're looking for something next to do, and game design has told you that you can go to specific NPCs in search of soemthing to do. A tavernkeeper, a boot shiner, a beggar, etc. You simply use the keywords, using the NPC's name first to fire him up for replies. You say "(name), jobs", maybe mixed with a few other words of your choice, and the NPC replies something like "Dolan is looking for people, he's the merchant in the town square wearing all red but with a yellow feather in his hat." Maybe he's a leather worker, and he gives you some things he'd buy from you. Regular leather, maybe Dragon hide. Then instead of knowing just where to go, you have to hunt for the source. If it's something like regular leather, you can hunt known areas. If it's something like Dragon hide, you can search yourself, but if you know the game and as you learn the game, you might know that you can ask NPCs. Asking any ol' NPC "(name) Dragons" might get you a reply like "Aye, Dragons often hunt in the valley north of here. They come from the dangerous mountains north of the valley." So now you know where Dragons hunt, and where they come from, and know that those mojntains are "dangerous" (for whatever that means to your character). That's some one-off knowledge learning, or it might be temporary if the game changes up on things.
But you might also learn, through other players or through your own efforts, that specific NPCs have more specific knowledge. In this case, maybe hunters now of recent Dragon activity in more specific areas. You ask one, and he might say "Aye, Dragons have been hunting around the great river crossing where the herds of migrating elk (regular leather) are active now."
You can even rinse and repeat this stuff, if you want to (choice!) or if you have a personal need for Dragon hide, or whatever.
Now, how hard is this to do for a player? Is it "work"? No, it's "game play". Much more interesting than following the glowing explanation marks.
Once upon a time....
Actually there is a lot of evidence that people like sandbox style games: minecraft, terraria, skyrim... Yes I know those are not mmo's and they would need to change a lot for them to be adapted. However they still are considered sandbox, at least for spg, and they are very very popular.
There is not a lot of evidence, a bit with Eve and many smaller titles that sandbox is popular with an MMO.
However we cannnot ignore the popularity of the spg. To me what this means is that a game designer than can pull off sandbox elements like the above mentioned titles, in an MMO, that still lets people be safe will be hugely popular.
I have no experience with Terraria, but what gives Skyrim and Minecraft so much appeal is that they are very much a "true" sandbox. They give you the actualy ability to change the game to meet the specific play experience that you wish to have. That does not work in anything close to a persistant world. If anything Second Life shows that. While there are Minecraft servers set so that you can change anything that others have also that are open to the public, they are generally the minorty, or closely guarded/moderated to prevent abuse. While there are some games currently in development (names escape me at the moment) I do not believe they will be successful because people for the most part do not play well together unless forced, and with the sheer amount of choice out there right now there is no forcing players to work together.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
minecraft is a building game like lego. I don't think it speaks much to a sandbox fantasy game. SKYRIM is probably the best example. However, it has quest icons, full voice story and so on. The only sandboxy element is the large world. Note that it has instance travel, once you visit a place.
In that regard, it is more similar to WOW, then Eve.
You can keep believing that if you want. There's no good alternatives out there for "worlds". Housing in instances isn't the housing player's want, they want it in the world and they want other players to see it, visit it, etc.
Would I be wrong to assume that you either work in the industry or are trying to get a job in the industry and cultivate friends that do? If so, you all are really messing this thing up. The exodus of players from anything that's not free might be a clue.
Once upon a time....
Don't sound like you know what others want. You only know what you want. There is no good alternative for "worlds" because most don't care about worlds. A persistent world is not a requirement for fun. In fact, there are lots of online, MMO-like games without a world and are very successful.
Heck, 1.2M wow players bought annual pass in D3, and D3 sold 12M boxes on top of that. Don't tell me you don't know that there is a big overlap of the market between MMOs and ARPGs.
Oh, i am not working in the industry. I don't make games and have no intention of doing so. I only consume games.
What? I have seen more arguments erupt in Housing threads over which game did housing best than even whether a game should have housing at all. Flat out saying that "players want uninstanced housing" is a complete farce.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
There are no good alternatives for worlds because developers simply refuse to make them.
You mention other forms of games and refuse to accept Minecraft? This whole thing is laughable. And sad. Which is why I don't spend much time on it anymore, with the rare exception like today. But I'm ok with moving on to other things.
It's just almost entertainment though, all this defense of failure in the MMO arena.
Once upon a time....
Are you saying that there is plenty of fluff but people don't see it?
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
No, people see it, just the majority are not interested in it as anything resembling a main form of play. As much as the op and his segment wish to believe fluff has not gone anywhere. Tsw and Rift are both FULL of fluff, it has not stopped either of them falling into obscurity. Rift playerbase now is at similar levels to what it was pre expansion. If fluff keeps players around than retension should be much higher since the launch of its Dimensions, especially after the "huge" contest they ran to promote it. At best fluff keeps the lifesupport population happy, like it did for Swg after WoW took all of its subs.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
There is a lot ot overcome in making a good successfull sandbox fantasy game. I'm not saying it would be easy, I am saying it is possible. The spg titles show us that people like sandbox, they like to create, they like to be involved in moving the story forward in some way. For the most the sandbox MMO titles (yes there are some exceptions) tell us that people are a bit shy about ffa pvp, they don't like people destroying their creations and they don't like to be dependant on others. Difficult to bridge that gap but not impossible. There would have to be some compromises though, such as possible instancing or phasing to move a story forwards, possible electing to have your creations in battle, that sort of thing,
but I still say it is possible. Someday it will happen.
Its already happened, its called Second Life. Which even when it was getting tons of attention (because of micro transation wales essentially, lol) it was never super popular. Even Minecraft filling the rather specific niche it did I do not see being able to repeat on an mmo scale. The segregation is half of what keeps it in line. The other half being the sheer number of completely different options/difficulty levels to play it at. Whats more, going through all of the work to move it to an mmo format does not really add anything to the game.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
What about minecraft? It is not about a world. It is about a computer lego game.
Devs refuse to make them because there is little demand for it.
No. Second life is very very different from a Fantasy Game. And it was actually very popular.