Instant gratification players are the cesspool that keeps causing MMO's to fail. Unfortunately developers are just now starting to realize that MMO's were about being virtual worlds and thats why they succeeded and did so well back in the day. Some devs still have their heads up their asses, but some are starting to get the hint at least.
Hopefully EQNext and Star Citizen and games like it will really push the genre back to its roots.
Ironically, players who focus on gameplay instead of time-wasting ("instant gratification" players if you will) are the ones who forged the genre into successful gameplay-focused games like WOW. They're the reason the genre even got this big, instead of fizzling out still-born.
If MMOs had retained their classic emptiness, devoid of interesting gameplay, they would have never made much noise.
Doesn't excuse the current rut of mediocrity, but that's mostly designers' fault for not focusing on making the moment-to-moment gameplay in their games amazing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Instant gratification players are the cesspool that keeps causing MMO's to fail. Unfortunately developers are just now starting to realize that MMO's were about being virtual worlds and thats why they succeeded and did so well back in the day. Some devs still have their heads up their asses, but some are starting to get the hint at least.
Hopefully EQNext and Star Citizen and games like it will really push the genre back to its roots.
Ironically, players who focus on gameplay instead of time-wasting ("instant gratification" players if you will) are the ones who forged the genre into successful gameplay-focused games like WOW. They're the reason the genre even got this big, instead of fizzling out still-born.
If MMOs had retained their classic emptiness, devoid of interesting gameplay, they would have never made much noise.
Doesn't excuse the current rut of mediocrity, but that's mostly designers' fault for not focusing on making the moment-to-moment gameplay in their games amazing.
If "instant gratification" means reaching max level in weeks, rather than years, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
If "instant gratification" means no more boring travel, and i can jump into a dungeon instantly, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
If "instant gratification" means no more staring at a spell book, and i don't have to find something to do for 10 min in between interesting gameplay, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
"Instance gratification" is great. No wonder the market will point to that direction.
Well certainly if it's easy enough to create a bunch of gameplay to fill in that portion of the game that's a possibility. But just skipping that part of the game is also completely acceptable.
It would require a substantial and powerful (thus costly) system to dynamically create travel events that never became excessively repetitive, and it would still fail to solve the earlier "I'm just trying to meet up with my group mates at the dungeon" problem without the system also constantly serving them events too.
All of which achieves gameplay which is kinda only as good as just skipping straight to the content in the first place.
I mean I think there might be a take on this which works, but it feels like a "tons of extra effort just to achieve partiy" sort of thing.
You're still stating it as the dungeon/quest everyone is gathering around is the main event.
That's a problem all it's own and where a lot of this present issue is coming from. Hence one of my previous posts.
EDIT: Should clarify since I seem to have though of a post in a different thread.
I do not see the way quests are presently built to benefit the concept, and how we approach quests and dungeons is actually a considerable contributing factor to the way games becomes so isolated in it's experiences and the quality of it's content.
The fact that you have so far commented in the manner suggesting the quest and location are of greater importance, it implies that that is a more solid or static element, not something playing with the rest of the game system like I had briefly suggested in my second post.
For example
If we eliminated that element and put the emphasis instead on building narratives via bits of stories that we string together to chronicle events rather than running behind scripted ones, and building the player progress and reward scheme behind collecting these elements, that would take the value out of running canned experiences and help egg people towards the idea that they are actually making them via their play of the game.
"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
Games are not movies. I don't need the game to pace me. If i need a break, i will turn the game off, get up and go get a sandwich.
And slow travel is not pacing, it is unavoidable boring bits that many players don't want. Otherwise, why would players use teleports at all?
Plus, in a movie, even the non-action parts are made (or tried to be made) interesting. Look at the Avengers. The bantering is as much fun as the action. The movie could not have made $1.5B if the film maker show nothing but Tony Stark traveling from point A to B in between fights.
While I agree that fast travel is not the immersion-killer and genre-ruiner that people like to call it, I think it would be better for you to concede this point. Forcing slow travel on people does have some value in creating a contrast between low and high moments. There are a lot of things that players want but don't think that they want, or things they don't think they want but they really do. So I don't think you can claim that slow travel is bad due to the fact that players do skip it when given the opportunity.
Plenty of games—especially RPGs—use pacing. It would be a big mistake for a Final Fantasy game to be nothing but dungeons from start to finish. Even if the player has the ability to take a break whenever they want, that's not the same as having a part of the game that's just laid-back. A break in the action can be a part of the experience; you shouldn't have to step back from the game for that.
What's better, logging in to waste 50% of your gaming time traveling, or spending 100% of your time doing the interesting meaningful things?
A game's job is to entertain: to be fun.
When a book wants to entertain it doesn't explain literally every dull day of Frodo's journey to Mordor, it skips between the interesting parts.
When a movie wants to entertain, it doesn't waste time filming literally every single minute of the protagonist's 2-hour-long car trip to New York. It skips to the interesting part.
Immersion is fun, but doesn't justify wasting the player's time with non-gameplay. If a game deliberately wastes players' times, players move on to other games that don't waste their time.
People with no patience and/or a sense of accomplishment at any pace given or taken by that player move on. There are players who can find the fun and entertainment in any given portion of a game. Even if that portion may be considered "non-gameplay" or "not fun" to someone such as yourself.
I mean, "end game" raiding in today's MMORPG's I consider wasting my time. Since you are basically GRINDING (Yes, I said grinding) that same content over and over to get gear that is meaningless once acquired beyond showing it off to other players. At least until an expansion comes out so you can rinse and repeat....and that gear you worked so hard for becomes pointless.
But does that mean I am going to sit here and fight you tooth and nail why it shouldn't exist? No, because for one, everyone like different things. And two, who am I to tell you what you can or can't have, or spew out a bunch of supposed "facts" and/or statistics trying to deter your preferences.
Games are not movies. I don't need the game to pace me. If i need a break, i will turn the game off, get up and go get a sandwich.
And slow travel is not pacing, it is unavoidable boring bits that many players don't want. Otherwise, why would players use teleports at all?
Plus, in a movie, even the non-action parts are made (or tried to be made) interesting. Look at the Avengers. The bantering is as much fun as the action. The movie could not have made $1.5B if the film maker show nothing but Tony Stark traveling from point A to B in between fights.
While I agree that fast travel is not the immersion-killer and genre-ruiner that people like to call it, I think it would be better for you to concede this point. Forcing slow travel on people does have some value in creating a contrast between low and high moments. There are a lot of things that players want but don't think that they want, or things they don't think they want but they really do. So I don't think you can claim that slow travel is bad due to the fact that players do skip it when given the opportunity.
Plenty of games—especially RPGs—use pacing. It would be a big mistake for a Final Fantasy game to be nothing but dungeons from start to finish. Even if the player has the ability to take a break whenever they want, that's not the same as having a part of the game that's just laid-back. A break in the action can be a part of the experience; you shouldn't have to step back from the game for that.
Oh, i don't disagree that you need some pacing, and have high and low moments.
However, i disagree that slow travel, or any extending stretch of non-fun, boring non-activity is the way to go. You can break up combat by other stuff. Kill some trash between bosses. Have a scripted event. Do some stealth gameplay. Walking from point A to B with no activity is not a way to do it. Particularly when it is the same point A to B that players have done 1000 times.
In fact, if you look at RPG pacing, there is seldom long stretch of walking with nothing in between. Usually we have side quests, NPCs to talk to, and other activities. The noted exception is Skyrim, which i don't like precisely because it requires too much walking on the same looking terrain for a long time. Thank GOD even SKYRIM has fast travel.
youre missing the point... immersive gameworlds REWARDS the player for exploration and traveling around with gameplay. If you have a world based on thematic immersion then youre filling the world with interesting events and encounters and lore elements waiting to be discovered... thats FUN. thats meaningful. thats entertaining.
but what entertains you, and bores us to tears - are gameworlds that are just filled with exp and leveling fodder. nothing interesting, just pacman pellets to be eaten and fill your time until max level. once at max level you just queue and instant teleport to the same dungeons or raids or farm areas... over and over and over. so basically what you call meaningful is repetitive content meant for currency grinds. so thats interesting to you.. not to many others.
and youre movie analogy is dumb. maybe youre expecting your MMO to interest you for only 2 hours... Immersion seeking players like ourselves hope for more. much more. Its the journey to us. Its killing the same dragon 1000909090 times to you. BIG DIFFERENCE.
What specific games are you describing though? Because early MMORPGs I tried definitely did not have any semblence of rewarding travel or exploration. Whereas with later MMORPGs they skipped over as much of the repetitive travel as possible (Guild War's "instant travel anywhere you've traveled to before" being my favorite and the ideal.)
Do most modern MMORPGs fall woefully short of WOW's mark when it comes to mob variety in quests and general quest variety? Absolutely. But early MMORPGs were even worse, rewarding an endless grind of the same mob types (who were about as varied as WAR and SWTOR's, which had nearly a complete lack of mob variety.)
Again, I'm just not clear on what ficticious game you're thinking of where travel was reliably entertaining. I don't think it exists, except in games where travel was the core activity of the game like Puzzle Pirates. And in Puzzle Pirates you teleported directly into your group's ship any always skipped past anything which wasn't densely interesting gameplay.
My movie analogy is perfectly suited to any form of entertainment, and all the more important to a game hoping to hold a player's interest for thousands of hours. If you waste the viewer's time they're going to do something else.
I'm not surprised that Guild Wars is your ideal - that game is based upon giving you a cookie every 3 minutes. I know you need "reliable entertainment" - which means you need spoon fed content on a themepark experience on rails. Players interested in immersion are interested in exploring gameworlds and not warping from cookie dispensers to cake dispensers. Guild Wars 2 is basically a feel good slot machine where the only thrill is wondering what is in the chest... never the experience or the journey.
Fictitious? Ok you mentioned "old games" so ill use Everquest and classic World of Warcraft. I met my guild leader (and still current guild leader) while exploring the Karanas and stumbling upon the ultra rare spawn Quillmane for his Epic weapon quest. I kited that darn pegasus to his location and we've been friends since. I also found the Ruins of Old Sebilis by chance and upon entering I was invited to a group that saw a Lamentation drop (when Lammys were super valuable) and I was given it for assisting on a pretty brutal corpse run. I could go on and on.
In World of Warcraft, and this applies to pretty much ANY open world pvp MMO, the best experiences and most rewarding always happen in the open world. You still hear players wistfully remember the awesome fights that used to occur at many different outposts. NONE of this happens... nothing unexpected, nothing surprising or thrilling happens when you teleport straight to your dungeon or battlegrounds. Some players are playing to mow through content, farm currencies FAST AS HUMANLY possible like competitive MMO hotdog eaters. For that... instant travel (oxymoron?) and queues are perfect but I'm not that type. Now, i'm not against sparse and appropriately used fast travel.. but when games like GW2 are pretty much ALL fast travel - I dont enjoy that.
Also, have you heard of the fictitious game UO? AC? Shadowbane? DAOC? DC Universe Online, where exploring the open cities and hunting exobits and investigations and briefings and sightings and hunting villains (or heroes) and hundreds of feats and world bosses is most of the content. There are alot of games where the journey from point A to point B offers different surprises that I dont want to miss.
If "instant gratification" means reaching max level in weeks, rather than years, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
If "instant gratification" means no more boring travel, and i can jump into a dungeon instantly, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
If "instant gratification" means no more staring at a spell book, and i don't have to find something to do for 10 min in between interesting gameplay, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
"Instance gratification" is great. No wonder the market will point to that direction.
Instant gratification isn't actually related to the first point much. What matter is that every single session the player has fun. Whether you reach max level in 10 minutes or 10 years is irrelevant.
But yes, the other things you describe are examples of empty, hollow non-gameplay. Games which avoid wasting players' time are clearly what the market expects and deserves.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Oh, i don't disagree that you need some pacing, and have high and low moments.
However, i disagree that slow travel, or any extending stretch of non-fun, boring non-activity is the way to go. You can break up combat by other stuff. Kill some trash between bosses. Have a scripted event. Do some stealth gameplay. Walking from point A to B with no activity is not a way to do it. Particularly when it is the same point A to B that players have done 1000 times.
In fact, if you look at RPG pacing, there is seldom long stretch of walking with nothing in between. Usually we have side quests, NPCs to talk to, and other activities. The noted exception is Skyrim, which i don't like precisely because it requires too much walking on the same looking terrain for a long time. Thank GOD even SKYRIM has fast travel.
I know it's in some funny broken English, but you really should go back and re-read the original post, as you're arguing for something that was not an argument.
His first example outlined a case where players are farming instances, not leaving town to explore the game simply because it's more straightforward.
His second one illustrated the idea of exploring places and actually poked at the idea of special encounters fleshing out the game experience instead of you riding to a place with an intended quest.
This is generally why I made the comment about Lobby games in a few of my posts.
It's just in a sense simpler to cut out the world and make little instances you warp to. A single hub to stand about in, like a virtual chat room, between queues for quests.
If we actually tried applying your argument to the thread, we end up noting that such is what you are arguing for. It's not the matter of whether or not you're being delivered an experience while traveling, your argument is against an open world even being there.
"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're still stating it as the dungeon/quest everyone is gathering around is the main event.
That's a problem all it's own and where a lot of this present issue is coming from. Hence one of my previous posts.
EDIT: Should clarify since I seem to have though of a post in a different thread.
I do not see the way quests are presently built to benefit the concept, and how we approach quests and dungeons is actually a considerable contributing factor to the way games becomes so isolated in it's experiences and the quality of it's content.
The fact that you have so far commented in the manner suggesting the quest and location are of greater importance, it implies that that is a more solid or static element, not something playing with the rest of the game system like I had briefly suggested in my second post.
For example
If we eliminated that element and put the emphasis instead on building narratives via bits of stories that we string together to chronicle events rather than running behind scripted ones, and building the player progress and reward scheme behind collecting these elements, that would take the value out of running canned experiences and help egg people towards the idea that they are actually making them via their play of the game.
The type of gameplay isn't the point.
The point is travel time is an obstacle to players playing together.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The point is travel time is an obstacle to players playing together.
I'm not going to talk about a point that's a 'no shit' point. That's pointless.
Stating the obvious achieves nothing.
I'm also going to note as I just did that it's not the point, not according to the OP and not from anything I have had to say on the matter.
My interest is on the things that can be done to change the problems with a game.
EDIT: You want players to be able to instantly play together? Great.
That's not in conflict with the OP as far can I can understand and it's not been in conflict with anyone else's opinions. Running a broken record for an issue that's not an issue makes no sense.
You were the one to establish this dilemma as a question in the first place, it having minimal relations to the OP beyond perhaps you playing off the mention of mounts.
The question the thread posed was effectively "which do you prefer, lobby games or games with worlds".
Making up your own agenda on the thread for an argument that doesn't do anything is not necessary.
EDIT2: This is where the type of gameplay is the point for me. Because when talking about what contributes to the entertainment factor of the game, the gameplay is the core reason.
People can tolerate standing in lines for hours at themeparks, conventions, movies, etc, because they bank on the fun they will experience when they do any of those things. Waiting five minutes for someone to haul their digital ass over to where you're standing might be an inconvenience, but it's not remotely on the scale to ruin somebody's day.
If that can be alleviated by having a group warp mechanic, then there's not even a problem there. People can get their friend into group and over to the action, and then they can all go exploring as a group again.
The part this all hinges on is how the game supports this. What gameplay elements are considered "gameplay" or "non-gameplay" and how does the way they are presented influence your joy at playing the game.
If you're the kind of person that needs a skittle every time they do something, then you probably will have a hard time if the game is open world without a constant trickle of 'you found a rock, here's five xp' type rewards to keep you going.
On the flip-side, if you're the kind of person that thinks warping about to farm the same instanced dungeons all day gets redundant, then the lobby style games are probably not for you.
This isn't an absolute scenario either. Perhaps there's blends of gameplay elements that can find people's interests.
"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 think fast travel is okay as long as its not to the "foot" of any particular quest or person. To cities? Assorted Druid rings or wizard spires throughout the world? Sure, sounds great. We're talking fantasy and magic and all right?
I think it becomes a problem when the world itself becomes trivial because of the spot to spot travel to anywhere.
People with no patience and/or a sense of accomplishment at any pace given or taken by that player move on. There are players who can find the fun and entertainment in any given portion of a game. Even if that portion may be considered "non-gameplay" or "not fun" to someone such as yourself.
I mean, "end game" raiding in today's MMORPG's I consider wasting my time. Since you are basically GRINDING (Yes, I said grinding) that same content over and over to get gear that is meaningless once acquired beyond showing it off to other players. At least until an expansion comes out so you can rinse and repeat....and that gear you worked so hard for becomes pointless.
But does that mean I am going to sit here and fight you tooth and nail why it shouldn't exist? No, because for one, everyone like different things. And two, who am I to tell you what you can or can't have, or spew out a bunch of supposed "facts" and/or statistics trying to deter your preferences.
Sure, I never suggested there wasn't a tiny niche of masochistic players out there. There's a sucker born every minute and you can sell them a subscription to a game which provides little gameplay but a lot of timesinks just by planting a few trees along the road of your game world, and telling them to travel back and forth for some Very Important Reason.
Some people are fine with boring books too, whose long-winded authors take forever to reach a point (writing much, but saying little.)
But most of us demand books (and games, and every other form of entertainment) which are rich in content.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Sure, I never suggested there wasn't a tiny niche of masochistic players out there. There's a sucker born every minute and you can sell them a subscription to a game which provides little gameplay but a lot of timesinks just by planting a few trees along the road of your game world, and telling them to travel back and forth for some Very Important Reason.
Some people are fine with boring books too, whose long-winded authors take forever to reach a point (writing much, but saying little.)
But most of us demand books (and games, and every other form of entertainment) which are rich in content.
Before I can address what's wrong with this commentary, can you answer one question.
Are you just being facetious?
EDIT: I mean seriously, do you even realize how many forms of art and entertainment you just insulted?
"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'm a 20 warrior in Wow. The world seems exciting, it's beauriful and has nice lore. So, why do I don't explore it? Simple, for what sake? I will don't find any open dungeon with dangerous monsters and the boss from which I can loot very rare item to become rich. All the challenge is in the instances, so even if I loot something worth it will be nothing after 3 lvls. So I stay in city and queque for instances.
I'm a 20 warrior in open world mmo. Now I have only a wolf to ride on. I see a big hole in the middle of mountain. I go there, enter, but the monsters are too strong, I can't cope with them. 2 more people have arrived, because there were rumours that here is a monster which drops a very unique mount (1% chance). We clear the cave. Fight with the boss, but there isn't anything worth to loot. So, we come to the nearest village. People are talking about a raid on their village. In few minutes a dragon attacks the city. Only few people have killed him, but now I have a unique mount, and can explore the world, seeking for the adventure.
What is better, standing in city queueing for instances and loot mounts which are useless, cuz you stay in city the whole time while not raiding/ doing instances/bg/ arenas, or the second option. I'm waiting for your opinion .
Standing in city queuing for instances.
Much better, for me, than waiting for others to arrive ... have to listen to people yelping the raid, may miss the event if i wasn't there. so on and so forth.
We get it, you dont like to explore you have lost the spark of discovery and adventure, you prefer to stand on a mailbox until your queue pops, so you can enter the same dungeon over and over then return to your mailbox. There are allot of people like you as I see more and more lobby games being made and less and less open world free form games.
Before I can address what's wrong with this commentary, can you answer one question.
Are you just being facetious?
EDIT: I mean seriously, do you even realize how many forms of art and entertainment you just insulted?
If an author uses many words to say very little, that's bad writing. So no, I'm not being facetious.
Perhaps you mistook this for me criticizing using many words? That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you're saying many things with those words.
Same goes for games: a game which requires a lot of time is fine, so long as the content is rich and interesting. It's only when it requires a lot of time (and a subscription) and then provides very little in return that things turn sour.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok, so it's unintentional then, as you don't seem to know.
More so it's something of a global insult. Art has many forms and many aspects, all of which are elements that contribute to the depth and detail of a game.
A cleaner example would be Journey.
This is a game that was developed very much based on traveling. The interest from the game comes from a lot of relatively passive elements.
You can say it's not that deep a game. Which in a sense it isn't, but a lot of thought went into the setting, the set pieces, and the ambient atmosphere.
This is an element that's in play in many other kinds of games as well. It's not often given the same level of concern, but for a game built with exploration or open worlds in mind, the construction of detailed and beautiful landscapes is effectively the entire job of a few people.
Entire art forms are built around this kind of stuff too, in painting and photography both. And it is very much entertainment for some people to look at, admire, and talk about such things.
When you look at gaming, the way in which a person appreciates a game is pretty varying. The reason graphics are commonly such an important part of AAA titles is because people do look. It may not be what gets them to stay, but creating a visually appealing and involved world "by planting a few trees along the road" is an important factor that garners a lot of attention.
It's similarly part of why there's such a large section of the modding community dedicated to improving the visual quality of games like the TES series.
Similarly there's a lot of the 'fluff' of the games. The lore and the details chucked into the narrative people tend to skip over. There's a wide array of people that share interest in these kind of elements, and even if it doesn't change whether or not the combat and crafting is fun, it goes a long way to contributing to the level of entertainment of plenty of players.
A 'good game' might from a mechanical sense be one that delivers on the basic gameplay elements in the most direct fashion, but that does not make for a good novel. That makes a textbook.
You espouse the idea of having books that are concise though 'rich in content'. Yet you also turn around and say "There's a sucker born every minute and you can sell them a subscription to a game which provides little gameplay but a lot of timesinks..."
You straight up fail to acknowledge the fact that every action in a game, every form of entertainment even, is a time sink. The level of proficiency and quality they each deliver might vary, but by making this assertion as you did, it establishes the notion that certain forms of entertainment are more meaningful than others.
Well I can straight up clarify this for you. Unless you're hobby is curing cancer or some other technical goal, you're not doing anything that's 'meaningful'. To call one action more so than another when neither can even be measured on anything other than a personal scale is facetious.
Your entire argument is still squarely in the redundant category anyway, so why you even take the time to explain a concept that doesn't even need to be said is itself an exercise in and an example of "long-winded authors take forever to reach a point (writing much, but saying little.)"
"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
Games are not movies. I don't need the game to pace me. If i need a break, i will turn the game off, get up and go get a sandwich.
And slow travel is not pacing, it is unavoidable boring bits that many players don't want. Otherwise, why would players use teleports at all?
Plus, in a movie, even the non-action parts are made (or tried to be made) interesting. Look at the Avengers. The bantering is as much fun as the action. The movie could not have made $1.5B if the film maker show nothing but Tony Stark traveling from point A to B in between fights.
Hey look at that a straw man.
Well since you so blithely ignored the part where I noted that as a developer making an mmo they want you to be playing the game, I'll just requote the part you cut.
"If the game itself has the space and variety to let a player unwind, it's a boon to the game because it means that player isn't passing their bucks to someone else to be doing that."
That's an important sentence there, though it isn't telling everything. If you take a break, you are walking away from the game. The ability to psychologically disconnect like that in order to decompress from a game means you are in some way 'done' with the game. That's a feeling that is very easily exaggerated when elements are taken out of a game in order to deliver on a single thing.
While they may do that one thing well, it also increases the probability that people will reach a stopping point with the game altogether, sooner.
For games that are built on the premise of wringing money out of you for an indefinite period of time, that's a bad thing to be doing.
So pacing is actually just as important in gaming as it is in the rest of life. I referenced movies simply because it's been done before in the thread. You can not cite a single thing in life where some form of moderation and pacing is not a good idea.
As for the straw man comment, you made two. First off you are doing the same characterization of calling out travel by only referring to it as "slow" and "boring". It's very obvious you have a particular concept of it in mind, and you are applying that concept to it as a whole.
At no point is this regarding how travel can be changed or why you find travel boring. Instead you are looking at a numb limb and opting to just cut it off, instead of thinking about why you have arms and legs in the first place.
The second is the iron man jab, as it implies a condition that was never suggested to exist. Certainly people wouldn't disagree, a movie where nothing is achieved would be plenty boring.
Good thing that's not been the point at any moment of any conversations held in this thread. It's only an edge case argument that's made to suggest the alternative is better.
Which entertainingly is why I made the reference to Tarantino and his films, because they are quite often seen as being rather action packed and sometimes even characterized as non-stop.
Yet even in his films like Django where the whole movie was reliably building more and more extreme cases, there was still the drops and the pauses for people to catch a breath.
It's all well and good to talk about concepts, but when it's a commentary about an extreme case that is never true, it more or less just becomes mental masturbation.
This is a great post and has gone pretty much overlooked. What you described here is exactly why I don't mind traveling in my games at all. I like the bit of time between to just throw on autorun and unwind between groups or camps, yet I still have to keep an eye out for dangerous mobs that pose a threat. I like the lows between the highs because without the lows, a constant high just seems bland and blah to me. I love the downtime to just BS and chat and relax with some people. It's what this genre offers that none other does, yet it hasn't since I don't even know when.
I don't have the exact quote, but I saw one that said that travel is just an obstacle that keeps players from playing with each other. I have to somewhat disagree with that. In my experience with EQ, people tended to congregate around the places of value. I think of East Commons, Ill Omen, Overthere ledge, Dreadlands near KC, Outside of Sebillis, Velks, even the upper level Planes of Power when it was still required you had a flag and the like. People tended to stick around where it was worth hunting, which in turn made it a much more sociable and rewarding place to be. You did your business in town and you headed out where you wanted to hunt. A bit of travel usually but it was rewarding once you got there with the social connections you made, the groups you could usually get and the reward that came from that. I leveled up with basically the same group of people from LOIO on, got to know many of them very well and really didn't go groupless at all. Was really an important part in that social web of the game that still draws people back to it.
Bit of a run on but you get the picture, many do at least. I've had a few drinks, back off.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others... Currently Playing: GW2
If an author uses many words to say very little, that's bad writing.
Actually that's not really true.
There are many reasons why an author, poet, playwright, etc would not want to "just come out with it".
Of course the opposite is true as well. If an author can encompass a world of thought in three words then that's quite a feat but usually that would require some sort of set up for the reader to understand why those three words have such great import.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
There are many reasons why an author, poet, playwright, etc would not want to "just come out with it".
Of course the opposite is true as well. If an author can encompass a world of thought in three words then that's quite a feat but usually that would require some sort of set up for the reader to understand why those three words have such great import.
Maybe you should've quoted my whole post. Then you would've reached the part where I said, "Perhaps you mistook this for me criticizing using many words? That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you're saying many things with those words."
You can summarize 1984 or Animal Farm or any classic in a short paragraph. But that paragraph isn't necessarily great writing. What makes a book great (and an author great for writing it) is that words are not wasted. And so the reader's time is not wasted.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok, so it's unintentional then, as you don't seem to know.
More so it's something of a global insult. Art has many forms and many aspects, all of which are elements that contribute to the depth and detail of a game.
A cleaner example would be Journey.
This is a game that was developed very much based on traveling. The interest from the game comes from a lot of relatively passive elements.
You can say it's not that deep a game. Which in a sense it isn't, but a lot of thought went into the setting, the set pieces, and the ambient atmosphere.
This is an element that's in play in many other kinds of games as well. It's not often given the same level of concern, but for a game built with exploration or open worlds in mind, the construction of detailed and beautiful landscapes is effectively the entire job of a few people.
Entire art forms are built around this kind of stuff too, in painting and photography both. And it is very much entertainment for some people to look at, admire, and talk about such things.
When you look at gaming, the way in which a person appreciates a game is pretty varying. The reason graphics are commonly such an important part of AAA titles is because people do look. It may not be what gets them to stay, but creating a visually appealing and involved world "by planting a few trees along the road" is an important factor that garners a lot of attention.
It's similarly part of why there's such a large section of the modding community dedicated to improving the visual quality of games like the TES series.
Similarly there's a lot of the 'fluff' of the games. The lore and the details chucked into the narrative people tend to skip over. There's a wide array of people that share interest in these kind of elements, and even if it doesn't change whether or not the combat and crafting is fun, it goes a long way to contributing to the level of entertainment of plenty of players.
A 'good game' might from a mechanical sense be one that delivers on the basic gameplay elements in the most direct fashion, but that does not make for a good novel. That makes a textbook.
You espouse the idea of having books that are concise though 'rich in content'. Yet you also turn around and say "There's a sucker born every minute and you can sell them a subscription to a game which provides little gameplay but a lot of timesinks..."
You straight up fail to acknowledge the fact that every action in a game, every form of entertainment even, is a time sink. The level of proficiency and quality they each deliver might vary, but by making this assertion as you did, it establishes the notion that certain forms of entertainment are more meaningful than others.
Well I can straight up clarify this for you. Unless you're hobby is curing cancer or some other technical goal, you're not doing anything that's 'meaningful'. To call one action more so than another when neither can even be measured on anything other than a personal scale is facetious.
Your entire argument is still squarely in the redundant category anyway, so why you even take the time to explain a concept that doesn't even need to be said is itself an exercise in and an example of "long-winded authors take forever to reach a point (writing much, but saying little.)"
A good game doesn't have to deliver its core elements in "the most direct fashion" but simply in an efficient fashion. The most direct way for several classic novels would be to come out and say "Relationships are complicated," or whatever point a particular author is trying to say, and be done in 3 words. But that's not necessarily the most apt method.
Therefore you have authors who steer their story through several key concepts which need to be portrayed, in order to make the overarching point or points. But all of those key concepts individually can be made in too many words, with too little eventful situations. The result is a rambling narrative which feels like it never reaches a point.
If a game provides little gameplay with excessive timesinks, I'm not sure under what illusion you would feel such a game is "rich in content." Similarly if the fluff is all densely entertaining I'm not sure why you'd mistake that as not rich in content. We're discussing travel though, where there's no mistaking it for "densely entertaining" because you're just watching a run animation and passively seeing some territory that you've already seen before.
Of course everything is a timesink; that's fundamental to my point! It all costs you time, and are you willing to submit to a game which deliberately wastes your time with excessive travel, or do you demand more?
I mean it sounds like you're implying that because your hobby also isn't curing cancer, you choose to spend your free time in a corner staring at a wall.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
People with no patience and/or a sense of accomplishment at any pace given or taken by that player move on. There are players who can find the fun and entertainment in any given portion of a game. Even if that portion may be considered "non-gameplay" or "not fun" to someone such as yourself.
I mean, "end game" raiding in today's MMORPG's I consider wasting my time. Since you are basically GRINDING (Yes, I said grinding) that same content over and over to get gear that is meaningless once acquired beyond showing it off to other players. At least until an expansion comes out so you can rinse and repeat....and that gear you worked so hard for becomes pointless.
But does that mean I am going to sit here and fight you tooth and nail why it shouldn't exist? No, because for one, everyone like different things. And two, who am I to tell you what you can or can't have, or spew out a bunch of supposed "facts" and/or statistics trying to deter your preferences.
Sure, I never suggested there wasn't a tiny niche of masochistic players out there. There's a sucker born every minute and you can sell them a subscription to a game which provides little gameplay but a lot of timesinks just by planting a few trees along the road of your game world, and telling them to travel back and forth for some Very Important Reason.
Some people are fine with boring books too, whose long-winded authors take forever to reach a point (writing much, but saying little.)
But most of us demand books (and games, and every other form of entertainment) which are rich in content.
Ok, again..."end game" raiding, reputation requirements, Guild prestige, and even the game's quests...what do you think those things all are? I'll tell you, since you seem to over look it...TIMESINKS.
It seems your saying in a round about way, any game you find "not for you" is for masochistic people, who in reality simply enjoy games a different way than you do. Any MMORPG you play has timesinks bud...some just hide them better than others, or present them differently.
I must laugh at the last sentence, because I know I personally haven't seen a MMORPG "rich in content" for MANY years. Most are shallow and fast...hence they have no player retainment nor replayability. I am betting also why the monthly sub system has gone away. They know their games won't hold people long. It's why they milk you via cash shops. Get as much as they can before you move on to the next flavor of the month game.
Just look at the way eg minecraft converts a 3D object world into an interactive and changeable world where players can create their own goals and own expression on content eg crafting, server rule sets, sharing etc.
This is in contrast to a 3d world with set rat runs and variable chance cheeses at the end in between hack and slashing mobs.
One is very linear and 1 dimensional the other actually goes beyond aesthetic 3d and is interactive 3d.
Ok, again..."end game" raiding, reputation requirements, Guild prestige, and even the game's quests...what do you think those things all are? I'll tell you, since you seem to over look it...TIMESINKS.
It seems your saying in a round about way, any game you find "not for you" is for masochistic people, who in reality simply enjoy games a different way than you do. Any MMORPG you play has timesinks bud...some just hide them better than others, or present them differently.
I must laugh at the last sentence, because I know I personally haven't seen a MMORPG "rich in content" for MANY years. Most are shallow and fast...hence they have no player retainment nor replayability. I am betting also why the monthly sub system has gone away. They know their games won't hold people long. It's why they milk you via cash shops. Get as much as they can before you move on to the next flavor of the month game.
The items you list involve gameplay. Decisions. Thinking. Interaction.
Travel doesn't.
This isn't about like or dislike. It's about game mechanics which involve player interaction.
Travel involves minimal player interaction. Minimal gameplay. You mostly watch your character's run animation and see some scenery go by which you've already seen before (because first-time travel is fine, and gameplay-laden travel is fine, but repeat travel without gameplay is where it becomes excessive.) If you're going to have such a low level of interaction, why play a game at all? Why not watch Planet Earth instead? You would see some much more amazing scenery if you did that.
Decide that your free time has value and you'd prefer to play games which might teach you something, rather than games deliberately wasting your time with a mechanic they could allow you to skip, but don't.
Which isn't to say MMORPGs can't intentionally be about low-tier relaxation activities. Players play Farmville intentionally to relax, not to have an intense experience. If there's a market for casual players wanting a Farmville equivalent in MMORPGs, more power to them. But the market of players who wants an active game which engages them mentally seems to be a much larger audience.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok, again..."end game" raiding, reputation requirements, Guild prestige, and even the game's quests...what do you think those things all are? I'll tell you, since you seem to over look it...TIMESINKS.
It seems your saying in a round about way, any game you find "not for you" is for masochistic people, who in reality simply enjoy games a different way than you do. Any MMORPG you play has timesinks bud...some just hide them better than others, or present them differently.
I must laugh at the last sentence, because I know I personally haven't seen a MMORPG "rich in content" for MANY years. Most are shallow and fast...hence they have no player retainment nor replayability. I am betting also why the monthly sub system has gone away. They know their games won't hold people long. It's why they milk you via cash shops. Get as much as they can before you move on to the next flavor of the month game.
The items you list involve gameplay. Decisions. Thinking. Interaction.
Travel doesn't.
This isn't about like or dislike. It's about game mechanics which involve player interaction.
Travel involves minimal player interaction. Minimal gameplay. You mostly watch your character's run animation and see some scenery go by which you've already seen before (because first-time travel is fine, and gameplay-laden travel is fine, but repeat travel without gameplay is where it becomes excessive.) If you're going to have such a low level of interaction, why play a game at all? Why not watch Planet Earth instead? You would see some much more amazing scenery if you did that.
Decide that your free time has value and you'd prefer to play games which might teach you something, rather than games deliberately wasting your time with a mechanic they could allow you to skip, but don't.
Which isn't to say MMORPGs can't intentionally be about low-tier relaxation activities. Players play Farmville intentionally to relax, not to have an intense experience. If there's a market for casual players wanting a Farmville equivalent in MMORPGs, more power to them. But the market of players who wants an active game which engages them mentally seems to be a much larger audience.
Well I was commenting on you mentioning timesinks from older games.
As far as travel...I see no reason a Skyrim type thing can't be added. Meaning you must discover it to use fast travel to the area, or as near as you can to it. Or have portals near all the major hubs, still requiring travel, but at a minimal need. Even though I am an explorer at heart in MMORPG's, that doesn't mean that Iike taking the same beaten path over and over either. Depends on my mood or time restraints for what goals I have for a given day of playtime. So I can agree that quick travel is needed to a degree. Just not overused to the point of making the game world trivial.
But tell me how any MMORPG teaches you something these days too. Don't bother, because I already know the answer...none do, as they are all the same game with different titles. And yes, sadly those that want active fast fun in MMORPG's is the larger audience atm, so we get these MMORPG's with shallow content people speed through to get to the next one.
Eventually it will swing back the other way. May take awhile, but it will.
Comments
Ironically, players who focus on gameplay instead of time-wasting ("instant gratification" players if you will) are the ones who forged the genre into successful gameplay-focused games like WOW. They're the reason the genre even got this big, instead of fizzling out still-born.
If MMOs had retained their classic emptiness, devoid of interesting gameplay, they would have never made much noise.
Doesn't excuse the current rut of mediocrity, but that's mostly designers' fault for not focusing on making the moment-to-moment gameplay in their games amazing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If "instant gratification" means reaching max level in weeks, rather than years, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
If "instant gratification" means no more boring travel, and i can jump into a dungeon instantly, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
If "instant gratification" means no more staring at a spell book, and i don't have to find something to do for 10 min in between interesting gameplay, bring it on. I fully embrace it.
"Instance gratification" is great. No wonder the market will point to that direction.
You're still stating it as the dungeon/quest everyone is gathering around is the main event.
That's a problem all it's own and where a lot of this present issue is coming from. Hence one of my previous posts.
EDIT: Should clarify since I seem to have though of a post in a different thread.
I do not see the way quests are presently built to benefit the concept, and how we approach quests and dungeons is actually a considerable contributing factor to the way games becomes so isolated in it's experiences and the quality of it's content.
The fact that you have so far commented in the manner suggesting the quest and location are of greater importance, it implies that that is a more solid or static element, not something playing with the rest of the game system like I had briefly suggested in my second post.
For example
If we eliminated that element and put the emphasis instead on building narratives via bits of stories that we string together to chronicle events rather than running behind scripted ones, and building the player progress and reward scheme behind collecting these elements, that would take the value out of running canned experiences and help egg people towards the idea that they are actually making them via their play of the game.
"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
While I agree that fast travel is not the immersion-killer and genre-ruiner that people like to call it, I think it would be better for you to concede this point. Forcing slow travel on people does have some value in creating a contrast between low and high moments. There are a lot of things that players want but don't think that they want, or things they don't think they want but they really do. So I don't think you can claim that slow travel is bad due to the fact that players do skip it when given the opportunity.
Plenty of games—especially RPGs—use pacing. It would be a big mistake for a Final Fantasy game to be nothing but dungeons from start to finish. Even if the player has the ability to take a break whenever they want, that's not the same as having a part of the game that's just laid-back. A break in the action can be a part of the experience; you shouldn't have to step back from the game for that.
People with no patience and/or a sense of accomplishment at any pace given or taken by that player move on. There are players who can find the fun and entertainment in any given portion of a game. Even if that portion may be considered "non-gameplay" or "not fun" to someone such as yourself.
I mean, "end game" raiding in today's MMORPG's I consider wasting my time. Since you are basically GRINDING (Yes, I said grinding) that same content over and over to get gear that is meaningless once acquired beyond showing it off to other players. At least until an expansion comes out so you can rinse and repeat....and that gear you worked so hard for becomes pointless.
But does that mean I am going to sit here and fight you tooth and nail why it shouldn't exist? No, because for one, everyone like different things. And two, who am I to tell you what you can or can't have, or spew out a bunch of supposed "facts" and/or statistics trying to deter your preferences.
Oh, i don't disagree that you need some pacing, and have high and low moments.
However, i disagree that slow travel, or any extending stretch of non-fun, boring non-activity is the way to go. You can break up combat by other stuff. Kill some trash between bosses. Have a scripted event. Do some stealth gameplay. Walking from point A to B with no activity is not a way to do it. Particularly when it is the same point A to B that players have done 1000 times.
In fact, if you look at RPG pacing, there is seldom long stretch of walking with nothing in between. Usually we have side quests, NPCs to talk to, and other activities. The noted exception is Skyrim, which i don't like precisely because it requires too much walking on the same looking terrain for a long time. Thank GOD even SKYRIM has fast travel.
I'm not surprised that Guild Wars is your ideal - that game is based upon giving you a cookie every 3 minutes. I know you need "reliable entertainment" - which means you need spoon fed content on a themepark experience on rails. Players interested in immersion are interested in exploring gameworlds and not warping from cookie dispensers to cake dispensers. Guild Wars 2 is basically a feel good slot machine where the only thrill is wondering what is in the chest... never the experience or the journey.
Fictitious? Ok you mentioned "old games" so ill use Everquest and classic World of Warcraft. I met my guild leader (and still current guild leader) while exploring the Karanas and stumbling upon the ultra rare spawn Quillmane for his Epic weapon quest. I kited that darn pegasus to his location and we've been friends since. I also found the Ruins of Old Sebilis by chance and upon entering I was invited to a group that saw a Lamentation drop (when Lammys were super valuable) and I was given it for assisting on a pretty brutal corpse run. I could go on and on.
In World of Warcraft, and this applies to pretty much ANY open world pvp MMO, the best experiences and most rewarding always happen in the open world. You still hear players wistfully remember the awesome fights that used to occur at many different outposts. NONE of this happens... nothing unexpected, nothing surprising or thrilling happens when you teleport straight to your dungeon or battlegrounds. Some players are playing to mow through content, farm currencies FAST AS HUMANLY possible like competitive MMO hotdog eaters. For that... instant travel (oxymoron?) and queues are perfect but I'm not that type. Now, i'm not against sparse and appropriately used fast travel.. but when games like GW2 are pretty much ALL fast travel - I dont enjoy that.
Also, have you heard of the fictitious game UO? AC? Shadowbane? DAOC? DC Universe Online, where exploring the open cities and hunting exobits and investigations and briefings and sightings and hunting villains (or heroes) and hundreds of feats and world bosses is most of the content. There are alot of games where the journey from point A to point B offers different surprises that I dont want to miss.
Instant gratification isn't actually related to the first point much. What matter is that every single session the player has fun. Whether you reach max level in 10 minutes or 10 years is irrelevant.
But yes, the other things you describe are examples of empty, hollow non-gameplay. Games which avoid wasting players' time are clearly what the market expects and deserves.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I know it's in some funny broken English, but you really should go back and re-read the original post, as you're arguing for something that was not an argument.
His first example outlined a case where players are farming instances, not leaving town to explore the game simply because it's more straightforward.
His second one illustrated the idea of exploring places and actually poked at the idea of special encounters fleshing out the game experience instead of you riding to a place with an intended quest.
This is generally why I made the comment about Lobby games in a few of my posts.
It's just in a sense simpler to cut out the world and make little instances you warp to. A single hub to stand about in, like a virtual chat room, between queues for quests.
If we actually tried applying your argument to the thread, we end up noting that such is what you are arguing for. It's not the matter of whether or not you're being delivered an experience while traveling, your argument is against an open world even being there.
"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 type of gameplay isn't the point.
The point is travel time is an obstacle to players playing together.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm not going to talk about a point that's a 'no shit' point. That's pointless.
Stating the obvious achieves nothing.
I'm also going to note as I just did that it's not the point, not according to the OP and not from anything I have had to say on the matter.
My interest is on the things that can be done to change the problems with a game.
EDIT: You want players to be able to instantly play together? Great.
That's not in conflict with the OP as far can I can understand and it's not been in conflict with anyone else's opinions. Running a broken record for an issue that's not an issue makes no sense.
You were the one to establish this dilemma as a question in the first place, it having minimal relations to the OP beyond perhaps you playing off the mention of mounts.
The question the thread posed was effectively "which do you prefer, lobby games or games with worlds".
Making up your own agenda on the thread for an argument that doesn't do anything is not necessary.
EDIT2: This is where the type of gameplay is the point for me. Because when talking about what contributes to the entertainment factor of the game, the gameplay is the core reason.
People can tolerate standing in lines for hours at themeparks, conventions, movies, etc, because they bank on the fun they will experience when they do any of those things. Waiting five minutes for someone to haul their digital ass over to where you're standing might be an inconvenience, but it's not remotely on the scale to ruin somebody's day.
If that can be alleviated by having a group warp mechanic, then there's not even a problem there. People can get their friend into group and over to the action, and then they can all go exploring as a group again.
The part this all hinges on is how the game supports this. What gameplay elements are considered "gameplay" or "non-gameplay" and how does the way they are presented influence your joy at playing the game.
If you're the kind of person that needs a skittle every time they do something, then you probably will have a hard time if the game is open world without a constant trickle of 'you found a rock, here's five xp' type rewards to keep you going.
On the flip-side, if you're the kind of person that thinks warping about to farm the same instanced dungeons all day gets redundant, then the lobby style games are probably not for you.
This isn't an absolute scenario either. Perhaps there's blends of gameplay elements that can find people's interests.
"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 think it becomes a problem when the world itself becomes trivial because of the spot to spot travel to anywhere.
Sure, I never suggested there wasn't a tiny niche of masochistic players out there. There's a sucker born every minute and you can sell them a subscription to a game which provides little gameplay but a lot of timesinks just by planting a few trees along the road of your game world, and telling them to travel back and forth for some Very Important Reason.
Some people are fine with boring books too, whose long-winded authors take forever to reach a point (writing much, but saying little.)
But most of us demand books (and games, and every other form of entertainment) which are rich in content.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Before I can address what's wrong with this commentary, can you answer one question.
Are you just being facetious?
EDIT: I mean seriously, do you even realize how many forms of art and entertainment you just insulted?
"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
We get it, you dont like to explore you have lost the spark of discovery and adventure, you prefer to stand on a mailbox until your queue pops, so you can enter the same dungeon over and over then return to your mailbox. There are allot of people like you as I see more and more lobby games being made and less and less open world free form games.
If an author uses many words to say very little, that's bad writing. So no, I'm not being facetious.
Perhaps you mistook this for me criticizing using many words? That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you're saying many things with those words.
Same goes for games: a game which requires a lot of time is fine, so long as the content is rich and interesting. It's only when it requires a lot of time (and a subscription) and then provides very little in return that things turn sour.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok, so it's unintentional then, as you don't seem to know.
More so it's something of a global insult. Art has many forms and many aspects, all of which are elements that contribute to the depth and detail of a game.
A cleaner example would be Journey.
This is a game that was developed very much based on traveling. The interest from the game comes from a lot of relatively passive elements.
You can say it's not that deep a game. Which in a sense it isn't, but a lot of thought went into the setting, the set pieces, and the ambient atmosphere.
This is an element that's in play in many other kinds of games as well. It's not often given the same level of concern, but for a game built with exploration or open worlds in mind, the construction of detailed and beautiful landscapes is effectively the entire job of a few people.
Entire art forms are built around this kind of stuff too, in painting and photography both. And it is very much entertainment for some people to look at, admire, and talk about such things.
When you look at gaming, the way in which a person appreciates a game is pretty varying. The reason graphics are commonly such an important part of AAA titles is because people do look. It may not be what gets them to stay, but creating a visually appealing and involved world "by planting a few trees along the road" is an important factor that garners a lot of attention.
It's similarly part of why there's such a large section of the modding community dedicated to improving the visual quality of games like the TES series.
Similarly there's a lot of the 'fluff' of the games. The lore and the details chucked into the narrative people tend to skip over. There's a wide array of people that share interest in these kind of elements, and even if it doesn't change whether or not the combat and crafting is fun, it goes a long way to contributing to the level of entertainment of plenty of players.
A 'good game' might from a mechanical sense be one that delivers on the basic gameplay elements in the most direct fashion, but that does not make for a good novel. That makes a textbook.
You espouse the idea of having books that are concise though 'rich in content'. Yet you also turn around and say "There's a sucker born every minute and you can sell them a subscription to a game which provides little gameplay but a lot of timesinks..."
You straight up fail to acknowledge the fact that every action in a game, every form of entertainment even, is a time sink. The level of proficiency and quality they each deliver might vary, but by making this assertion as you did, it establishes the notion that certain forms of entertainment are more meaningful than others.
Well I can straight up clarify this for you. Unless you're hobby is curing cancer or some other technical goal, you're not doing anything that's 'meaningful'. To call one action more so than another when neither can even be measured on anything other than a personal scale is facetious.
Your entire argument is still squarely in the redundant category anyway, so why you even take the time to explain a concept that doesn't even need to be said is itself an exercise in and an example of "long-winded authors take forever to reach a point (writing much, but saying little.)"
"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
This is a great post and has gone pretty much overlooked. What you described here is exactly why I don't mind traveling in my games at all. I like the bit of time between to just throw on autorun and unwind between groups or camps, yet I still have to keep an eye out for dangerous mobs that pose a threat. I like the lows between the highs because without the lows, a constant high just seems bland and blah to me. I love the downtime to just BS and chat and relax with some people. It's what this genre offers that none other does, yet it hasn't since I don't even know when.
I don't have the exact quote, but I saw one that said that travel is just an obstacle that keeps players from playing with each other. I have to somewhat disagree with that. In my experience with EQ, people tended to congregate around the places of value. I think of East Commons, Ill Omen, Overthere ledge, Dreadlands near KC, Outside of Sebillis, Velks, even the upper level Planes of Power when it was still required you had a flag and the like. People tended to stick around where it was worth hunting, which in turn made it a much more sociable and rewarding place to be. You did your business in town and you headed out where you wanted to hunt. A bit of travel usually but it was rewarding once you got there with the social connections you made, the groups you could usually get and the reward that came from that. I leveled up with basically the same group of people from LOIO on, got to know many of them very well and really didn't go groupless at all. Was really an important part in that social web of the game that still draws people back to it.
Bit of a run on but you get the picture, many do at least. I've had a few drinks, back off.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA
Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others...
Currently Playing: GW2
Nytlok Sylas
80 Sylvari Ranger
Actually that's not really true.
There are many reasons why an author, poet, playwright, etc would not want to "just come out with it".
Of course the opposite is true as well. If an author can encompass a world of thought in three words then that's quite a feat but usually that would require some sort of set up for the reader to understand why those three words have such great import.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Maybe you should've quoted my whole post. Then you would've reached the part where I said, "Perhaps you mistook this for me criticizing using many words? That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you're saying many things with those words."
You can summarize 1984 or Animal Farm or any classic in a short paragraph. But that paragraph isn't necessarily great writing. What makes a book great (and an author great for writing it) is that words are not wasted. And so the reader's time is not wasted.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
A good game doesn't have to deliver its core elements in "the most direct fashion" but simply in an efficient fashion. The most direct way for several classic novels would be to come out and say "Relationships are complicated," or whatever point a particular author is trying to say, and be done in 3 words. But that's not necessarily the most apt method.
Therefore you have authors who steer their story through several key concepts which need to be portrayed, in order to make the overarching point or points. But all of those key concepts individually can be made in too many words, with too little eventful situations. The result is a rambling narrative which feels like it never reaches a point.
If a game provides little gameplay with excessive timesinks, I'm not sure under what illusion you would feel such a game is "rich in content." Similarly if the fluff is all densely entertaining I'm not sure why you'd mistake that as not rich in content. We're discussing travel though, where there's no mistaking it for "densely entertaining" because you're just watching a run animation and passively seeing some territory that you've already seen before.
Of course everything is a timesink; that's fundamental to my point! It all costs you time, and are you willing to submit to a game which deliberately wastes your time with excessive travel, or do you demand more?
I mean it sounds like you're implying that because your hobby also isn't curing cancer, you choose to spend your free time in a corner staring at a wall.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok, again..."end game" raiding, reputation requirements, Guild prestige, and even the game's quests...what do you think those things all are? I'll tell you, since you seem to over look it...TIMESINKS.
It seems your saying in a round about way, any game you find "not for you" is for masochistic people, who in reality simply enjoy games a different way than you do. Any MMORPG you play has timesinks bud...some just hide them better than others, or present them differently.
I must laugh at the last sentence, because I know I personally haven't seen a MMORPG "rich in content" for MANY years. Most are shallow and fast...hence they have no player retainment nor replayability. I am betting also why the monthly sub system has gone away. They know their games won't hold people long. It's why they milk you via cash shops. Get as much as they can before you move on to the next flavor of the month game.
Just look at the way eg minecraft converts a 3D object world into an interactive and changeable world where players can create their own goals and own expression on content eg crafting, server rule sets, sharing etc.
This is in contrast to a 3d world with set rat runs and variable chance cheeses at the end in between hack and slashing mobs.
One is very linear and 1 dimensional the other actually goes beyond aesthetic 3d and is interactive 3d.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
The items you list involve gameplay. Decisions. Thinking. Interaction.
Travel doesn't.
This isn't about like or dislike. It's about game mechanics which involve player interaction.
Travel involves minimal player interaction. Minimal gameplay. You mostly watch your character's run animation and see some scenery go by which you've already seen before (because first-time travel is fine, and gameplay-laden travel is fine, but repeat travel without gameplay is where it becomes excessive.) If you're going to have such a low level of interaction, why play a game at all? Why not watch Planet Earth instead? You would see some much more amazing scenery if you did that.
Decide that your free time has value and you'd prefer to play games which might teach you something, rather than games deliberately wasting your time with a mechanic they could allow you to skip, but don't.
Which isn't to say MMORPGs can't intentionally be about low-tier relaxation activities. Players play Farmville intentionally to relax, not to have an intense experience. If there's a market for casual players wanting a Farmville equivalent in MMORPGs, more power to them. But the market of players who wants an active game which engages them mentally seems to be a much larger audience.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well I was commenting on you mentioning timesinks from older games.
As far as travel...I see no reason a Skyrim type thing can't be added. Meaning you must discover it to use fast travel to the area, or as near as you can to it. Or have portals near all the major hubs, still requiring travel, but at a minimal need. Even though I am an explorer at heart in MMORPG's, that doesn't mean that Iike taking the same beaten path over and over either. Depends on my mood or time restraints for what goals I have for a given day of playtime. So I can agree that quick travel is needed to a degree. Just not overused to the point of making the game world trivial.
But tell me how any MMORPG teaches you something these days too. Don't bother, because I already know the answer...none do, as they are all the same game with different titles. And yes, sadly those that want active fast fun in MMORPG's is the larger audience atm, so we get these MMORPG's with shallow content people speed through to get to the next one.
Eventually it will swing back the other way. May take awhile, but it will.