I will admit I was baiting you to respond by being deliberatly simplistic and perhaps extreme when I asked how you saw things.
Anyway, about focus and what happens when you die. Well I wanted to know what you meant by focus.. Is it like: "The Hardcore MMO™ - The game with EXITING Corpse Runs and some other stuff", or did you mean the developers shouldnt spend any thought on what happens to your characters when they die in their game.. I mean come on.. its been an important part of games forever. What happens when a knight takes a pawn or when the ghost catch pacman.
It is definatly about pacing though on that we agree 100%, although we may disaggree on the merits of actually having to travel in the world over teleporting everywhere.
I hope the red text isnt too hard to reed.. didnt feel green was distinct enough with you using turqoise though.
Weird that you'd address the "not about action" point by saying you didn't see the relevance. I mean you pretty much cited the exact reason it was worded that way earlier, by mentioning a preference for slower pacing (because it's not about a game being action, it's about a game not ceasing its stream of interesting decisions.)
Are you also attempting to bait a response by saying everything "should be considered to be PVP"? Because there are more players interested solely in PVE than there are MMO PVPers. Fights are puzzles to be solved -- they don't need to reflect "real" (PVP-like) combat situations (in fact that imposes an undesirable limitation to the types of bosses which can exist.)
The word focus was used in a sentence, implying what it means: that a game should focus on providing deep/interesting challenges rather than expend extra effort building out its penalties. Basically if you have 500 dev hours to do something in a game, why would you spend them increasing a game's penalties when you could spend them increasing a game's depth instead? The latter will make the game deeper (a more interesting challenge) while the former will simply make the game more penalizing to play. Better to create the richer game than the penalizing one.
Thank you for getting back to me on this.
I didnt see the relevance at the time, so thats why I didnt want to comment on it. My focus at that time was on your other comments but it seems I worked myself onto that point from another angle.
Again thank you clarifying what you meant about focus.
While we dissagree on the merits of death penalties. I would point out that it is a decission that is made in any game at some point. Deciding what it is to be takes the same time no matter what the result is.. Only factor is if the lead developers can agree or not. (well the publisher might have a say too).
After that it could be a matter of a few hours tops to implement a corpse looting system to an existing game or an insignificant amount of time if no coding for the game was started. Depending on when in the development phase the decission was made. If they change their mind at the last minute, ofcourse, it could be dreadful bother taking weeks to get right.
And I am sure you will agree with me that, what happens when players die, is an important decission to make.. so why not set down the ground rules at the start.
Now that you have clarified what you meant by focus, perhaps you would care to elaborate on what you consider to be " deep/interesting challenges " and what you mean by " richer game "?
It sounds great.. But what is do you see behind those buzz words? It would be interesting to know if we see the same thing.
I will admit I was baiting you to respond by being deliberatly simplistic and perhaps extreme when I asked how you saw things.
Are you also attempting to bait a response by saying everything "should be considered to be PVP"? Because there are more players interested solely in PVE than there are MMO PVPers. Fights are puzzles to be solved -- they don't need to reflect "real" (PVP-like) combat situations (in fact that imposes an undesirable limitation to the types of bosses which can exist.)
Oops overlooked this in my last reply.
What I mean by everything is PvP or should be, is simply that MMOs should be about interacting with other players at some level. Doing something with them or to them. Or simply having them be something to move around because they are in your way.
The way I see modern MMOs playing out, is that they are full of tools to avoid player interaction and when you actually play with others it is in a way where they could just as easily be replaced by allied npcs following simple rules.
And I think I even said it should be considered PvP or PwithP, even in PvE-only MMOs.
Because if there is no meaningful player to player interaction, then I think the developement cost would have been put to better used making a true single player game.
Originally posted by Damon I miss consequences with impact in contemporary gaming. It's not necessarily the corpse run that I miss, but what it represents. It's the same reason I disdain queuing for game content (ie: dungeons) with random strangers. There should be a need to communicate with others, and there should be danger in the game. What lies over the next dune should not be certain. It could be empty sand, a fight you could win, or your demise. Verant had this in mind with EverQuest, but that was long ago.
I agree with this.
I didn't necessarily like running back naked to claim my gear, or begging for a rez to regain my level, but having a consequence for death certainly made me care more about my character and made the overall experience of the game more fun.
I wouldn't say necessarily to bring back corpse runs, but I think character death should have a meaningful consequence.
Corpse runs made people who didn't have enough time to get into something that might involve a corpse run not get involved with certain things.
A very important problem is raised here.
So they added that new dungeon yesterday in a patch. I only have one hour to play today. What will I do?
- Game with risk of corpse run and xp/level/item loss:
Well, i'm not even going to log in. If I get killed, or just even get disconnected or a lag spike because of an Internet problem, I may lose all my stuff and/or a level because I won't have the time to do a corpse run.
- Game with no risk of xp/level/item loss:
I'm going to play for one hour, visit a bit of that new dungeon and have fun exploring. If I die, well, shit happens, I will lose some gold because of the repairs but at least I won't be punished for only having one hour to play today.
Too harsh death penalties discourage people from playing the game and/or from taking any risk. Too harsh death penalties are also incompatible with the very nature of the Internet, where technical problems can make you lose way too much even though it's not your fault at all.
How long your corpse lasts is a balance issue. And perhaps a performance and anti clutter issue.
I mean in EQ it used to be that you had a week to get your stuff back.. So unless you died in the last hour before going on a vacation, you would have plenty of time to get it back.
Of course if you wanted to get some of the XP back too you had to get a rez within 3 hours of play time.
Those durations could be set to anything from minutes to infinity..
But the point would be, you could go and get it the corpse and rezz the next day or 5 days later if that was when you had time to play again.
Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard Too harsh death penalties discourage people from playing the game and/or from taking any risk. Too harsh death penalties are also incompatible with the very nature of the Internet, where technical problems can make you lose way too much even though it's not your fault at all.
That is a good point. I ultimately stopped playing Eve because people would lagbomb the jump gates. I lost a lot of ships and implants that way, none of it was refunded - a petition comes back "Sorry to hear about your loss but that's the game"
So ok - if a crappy internet connection (or crappy game engine) limits my ability to play fairly, I don't care to play. It wasn't that I didn't agree with Eve's death penalty - I perfectly understood it. But I mistakenly assumed it was to be player versus player, not player versus technical problem. So I eliminated the technical problem by eliminating the game from my system.
To me to die is just ANNOYANCE. Nothing more nothing less. I will do what ever I can to not die or to bring with me as many as possible ... but after i really HATE spending my time looking for corpse instead of playing.
I don't miss corpse runs, I miss harsh death penalties. I almost feel if those were in place, people would actually be far more inclined to play... well... less stupidly.
The sad thing? This goes for me too. I admit death is so trivial I do suicidal stuff on purpose without worry which is... dumb.
I was just trying to give you a glimpse of real men who enjoy death penalties. And i can assure you that isn't me but i won't be surprised if that is you.
One has to be really insecure about their masculinity if they they need to attach it to harsh death penalty.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
I don't miss corpse runs, I miss harsh death penalties. I almost feel if those were in place, people would actually be far more inclined to play... well... less stupidly.
The sad thing? This goes for me too. I admit death is so trivial I do suicidal stuff on purpose without worry which is... dumb.
Nope. They will play much more risk aversely and don't try anything.
In fact, D3 is a good example. You can have perma-death and people are extremely careful and don't try anything new (or try in softcore first).
You know, your opener summed up the entire reason corpse runs were great. Because, in fact, without a more substantial penalty for death than just a reset, killing a mob boss is indeed just a zerg.
Tell me if I am being truthful here or lying.
In many games today people don't even wait for a rez anymore, they just click to respawn or even worse, in some games, pop right back up on the spot. This almost nullifies the reason for having a resurrecting class in the group for anything other than to facilitate more forward momentum through heals. This, in turn, makes players far less dependent on each other to do the particular tasks that each of them were built to do as there is no longer a reason to protect one another and THIS nullifies the need for almost any social interaction.
All you really need to do is get into a group, zerg your way through the content, and leave once you've accomplished whatever task you came to accomplish.
I see this happening all the time now, and it really takes a LOT away from the idea that these are supposed to be actual characters living in an actual world. Setting up alternatives like timed events and other things like you have stated, only serves then to remove the player yet another step away from being able to enjoy the purpose that many people enter these games to fulfill, which is to play make believe.
Now we just have another game like any other game. May as well play on your console, because you have about as much chance or opportunity of feeling like a character in a 3d shooter or in a fighting game is representative of you (actually more at that point) than you do in a game where you are nothing but extra dps or heals.
Actual death penalties however, change all of that. If for no other reason than they prevent forward momentum until the group either reconfigures or addresses the death. Sure, in a world where people are going to be impatient, are working with limited time, or are just plain not smart enough to know when to stop spamming their biggest damage spell, this in inconvenient. But I, for one, believe that people can be taught to be better at these things, and that in the learning and overcoming of such shortcomings there are greater rewards such as a sense of accomplishment, a sense of improvement, a sense of community etc.... all the things that people come here and complain that they don't feel anymore.
Right now the devs are just trying to make it so that everyone, young or old, smart or dumb, impatient or patient can play. I don't hate on that because I know that they do this in order to make as much money as possible. But just like your argument that they only had corpse runs in order to make money, the same can be said for not having them as well.
The devs are going to get paid no matter what they do. They don't do things that don't get them paid. That's why they are devs. Taking corpse runs, or other heavier death penalties out of the game however, shortchanges YOU, the player.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, I could go on in about 5 different ways.
A reset is (wait for it) a reset. Which means (wait for it) the boss is reset. Which means the boss can't be zerged. So by definition what I'm describing is unzergable. (And while I don't think you're lying, it makes me wonder if you've played a MMORPG in the last decade that you'd even consider the possibility of zergable bosses.)
As for waiting for rezzes, resurrection is busywork. It's not deep gameplay. It doesn't add significantly to immersion. In PVE if your entire party/raid automatically rezzed for free in the boss' chamber (or slightly prior to it, with a few trash mobs respawning) then that wouldn't impact the challenge of MMORPGs at all but would dramatically improve the pacing of death (which even in the best MMORPGs nowadays is still clunky.)
The fact that you'd imply rezzing classes are relied upon to rez and not to perform their primary role (healing, etc) also makes me wonder if you've played an MMORPG in the past decade. The complete removal of rez spells (apart from battle rezzing, naturally) would have no effect on the desire to take these players into the dungeon.
In MMORPGs you either play skillfully enough to beat the challenge, or you wipe. There is no "zerging through content", because until you exhibit enough skill you're going to keep wiping. And while improved difficulty options are something more MMORPGs need (to ensure the challenge is actually challenging) increasing the death penalties wouldn't really make things any better (you'd either have easy content which is still too easy and zergable, or you'd have challenging content which is a complete hassle to engage with because some random asshat can screw up and waste you a lot of time, money, XP, or whatever.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I don't miss corpse runs, I miss harsh death penalties. I almost feel if those were in place, people would actually be far more inclined to play... well... less stupidly.
The sad thing? This goes for me too. I admit death is so trivial I do suicidal stuff on purpose without worry which is... dumb.
Nope. They will play much more risk aversely and don't try anything.
In fact, D3 is a good example. You can have perma-death and people are extremely careful and don't try anything new (or try in softcore first).
Good point, but I think it is a slider bar sort of mechanic to the concept (assume Risk = Severity of Penalty in the chart below):
No Risk Some Risk Moderate Risk Heavy Risk Extreme Risk
Zerg Play Some tactics Lots of forethought, tactics Risk Adverse Gameplay
There is an optimal sweet spot somewhere in there.
I disagree. I think tactics is driven by the challenge, not the level of risks.
Take D3 (again) as an example. In low MP, you just faceroll and DPS. Any build, and any tactics will work. At high MP, you need to be careful and optimize. When i play archon in low MP, i just stand there and DPS. When i am in high MP, i pay attention, use terrain to my advantage (for example, standing in corner to counter vortex), and use hit-and-run tactics.
The tactics is caused by the challenge, not risk. The risk is the same.
In hard core, everything changes ... people becomes very risk averse, even in non-challenging situations.
No.. I don't miss corpse runs at all.. I favor death penalties in my games, but not masochism.. I still have nightmares about a few more "interesting" AC corpse runs.. *shudder*
..because we're gamers, damn it!! - William Massachusetts (Log Horizon)
Boredom Basic Tactics Tactics and Strategy Lots of Tactics Frustration
Thank you for illustrating what i tried to say in the post above so well.
Indeed it is about the level of challenge, not risk. In addition, in high risk case, players often seek out LOW level of challenge (if they can control it) to avoid the hefty penalty. Case in point, hardcore D3 players are more likely to level in low MP than high ones.
Personally, i prefer more challenge, less risk, than more risk and less challenge. Because that is more fun to me.
all these new fangled post eq 1 games dont have real corpse runs or even potential losses from death.
in eq 1 you could delevel from dieing (you lost xp each time you died) and the best res only gave back 96%, and odds are 90% was the only res you might find, corpses res timers also eroded over time and expired within 24 hours of being logged in if i recall right.
if you started in freeport, and traversed the great plains of karana, and braved the vast deserts and crossed the great wastes (or found a druid or wizard to teleport you) and eventually made the ship crossing to the elvish lands to hunt clan crushbone orcs (my human shadow knight and iksar monk both did this back in the day) you had to find someone to bind you so that you literally didnt come back to live, and have to make that entire journey, again, naked, and it took 4-6 hours to run that guantlet.
and you had to get a bind out of range of the kill on sight high level gaurds, until you killed enough orcs that they would tolerate you at least.
you can make jokes that you cut yourself instead or whatever, but gaming back in the day in the first real 3d world, with consequences for poor choices, built online character into your characters. yould join up with strangers just to teach each other to talk the same languages, even if you were born blood enemies, then you could at least trade insults in a proper civilized fashion.
When you're a subscription game, you create a lot of arbitrary ways for players to be forced to subscribe longer. The intent of those features isn't to make the game deeper or more fun, but to take longer.
If I'd been a designer on early MMORPGs, I would get a big laugh about how players a decade later are steadfastly defending design decisions made not because they were in players' best interests, but in order to make more money from them.
You mean like end game raid content in today's MMORPG's that make you do the same dungeons over and over for gear? Or rep? Or to gain access to the next raid dungeon?
If you think the same doesn't take place now for the same reasons...you are delusional. However.. it's more about taking more money from players via cash shops with items that entice the player to stay longer and spend more money.
To answer the OP's question...yes. Miss the fear, excitement, and the friendships and comradery it produced.
Originally posted by WW4BW ...Agent Smith: "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
Great quote.
Originally posted by jesad ...let me just say that I remember why they took them out of the game as well. Corpse runs made people who didn't have enough time to get into something that might involve a corpse run not get involved with certain things.
I wish it was that noble a reason, but I believe it was just another example of SOE copying WoW.
Originally posted by Torvaldr Originally posted by PurutzilI don't miss corpse runs, I miss harsh death penalties. I almost feel if those were in place, people would actually be far more inclined to play... well... less stupidly....
The thing is it doesn't make people play less stupidly. It makes people less risk inclined.
People play less stupidly *and* are less risk inclined, but I think the former moreso than the latter.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
I never saw someone zerg in EQ1, when it had its stinging death penalty. Never saw a boss fight there were there wasn't some discussion of tactics beforehand.
Bottom line, when the penalty for messing up is extreme, folks stop and pay attention real fast.
I like the highwire example. All wind conditions the same, set one 3 feet off the ground, and folks might casually attempt it repeatedly, laughing and not caring if they misstep. Set one 1,000 feet in the air, and the folks who do attempt (some won't due to RISK AVERSION) will only do so with much forethought and care. This is true, you cannot ignore it with any credibility.
Now, it may be argued that harsh penalty and challenge warrant their own axes (plural for axis, not axe), and the diagram might look more like the quadrant of a graph. But, the topic was corpse runs, which implies harsh death penalty, not so much challenge, right?
And you also never saw someone zerg in a game with high challenge but no penalty/risk.
Of course players pay attention when the game kicks them in the groin each time they screw up. Nobody's disputing that torture victims know they're being tortured!
Your highwire example couldn't have better portrayed the core purpose to gaming (playing with it, repeatedly, to practice it) and the antithesis of gaming (tremendous risk of pain, with barely anyone trying it.) Gaming's primary purpose is to allow someone to practice something in a low-risk environment. Why do you think people play-fight? To practice combat in a low-risk environment.
It's hard-wired into us to enjoy that form of play. Thus, we engage in it repeatedly. "Casually," you might say. And when we're done with low-challenge activities we move on to high-challenge activities in order to better ourselves. But the point is never risk; the point (what our minds derive pleasure from, as an evolutionary advantage over species who don't derive pleasure from learning) is bettering ourselves through practice -- which is best accomplished without risk.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You mean like end game raid content in today's MMORPG's that make you do the same dungeons over and over for gear? Or rep? Or to gain access to the next raid dungeon?
If you think the same doesn't take place now for the same reasons...you are delusional. However.. it's more about taking more money from players via cash shops with items that entice the player to stay longer and spend more money.
To answer the OP's question...yes. Miss the fear, excitement, and the friendships and comradery it produced.
Similar, but not quite.
That form of repetition isn't great. However it's repetition centered around the deepest activity in the game, which is the best thing that can happen. Whereas activities like corpse runs (shallow feature) and slow travel (shallowest feature) are some of the shallowest activities in a game. This makes it obviously much worse.
It's also about progress:
Designers of last decade probably laugh at players this decade who defend design choices they made to keep players subscribed (wasting time traveling or corpse-running)
Designers of this decade will probably laugh at players next decade who defend boss-repeating (...assuming next decade's designers find a way to solve a content problem which has existed for more than 2 decades now...)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yes I miss corpseruns, they made me care about dieing, and they made me aswell as everyone else think twice about what they did.
Death penalties have gotten lamer and lamer ever since wow, these days I am suprised if your gear even takes dmg when dieing.
If something dosnt happen soon, I wouldnt be suprised if we started seeing mmo's with a infinite healthbar.. *Sigh*.
I'm not sure I get why people need a punishment to make them care about dieing. I know we all have different personalities, and thus like different things. I have just always gotten really pissed off and embarrassed when I died to an AI controlled monster that I do all I can to avoid it. I mean, if you think about it in a pve game, if you die, you lost to code. I try to avoid that at all cost no matter what, it doesn't take an additional penalty to make it matter to me.
You mean like end game raid content in today's MMORPG's that make you do the same dungeons over and over for gear? Or rep? Or to gain access to the next raid dungeon?
If you think the same doesn't take place now for the same reasons...you are delusional. However.. it's more about taking more money from players via cash shops with items that entice the player to stay longer and spend more money.
To answer the OP's question...yes. Miss the fear, excitement, and the friendships and comradery it produced.
Similar, but not quite.
That form of repetition isn't great. However it's repetition centered around the deepest activity in the game, which is the best thing that can happen. Whereas activities like corpse runs (shallow feature) and slow travel (shallowest feature) are some of the shallowest activities in a game. This makes it obviously much worse.
It's also about progress:
Designers of last decade probably laugh at players this decade who defend design choices they made to keep players subscribed (wasting time traveling or corpse-running)
Designers of this decade will probably laugh at players next decade who defend boss-repeating (...assuming next decade's designers find a way to solve a content problem which has existed for more than 2 decades now...)
As compared to quest hubs from lvl 1 to 50-60 in today's MMORPG's? That seems like a much worse and longer period of shallow features.
Corpse runs aren't constant...unless of course the person plays like a twit. Nor even the slow travel (Depending on the game in question). But again....in most MMORPG's today they are all built the same. Around shallow quest hubs that lead you from one to the next via map GPS or minimal NPC dialog very quickly just to get you to that "deep feature".
The last part about designers is probably going to end up being correct. Just as those who play these themeparks now and tell us old schoolers to "move on" will probably (Some anyways) be in our shoes when the market finds a new way.
As compared to quest hubs from lvl 1 to 50-60 in today's MMORPG's? That seems like a much worse and longer period of shallow features.
Corpse runs aren't constant...unless of course the person plays like a twit. Nor even the slow travel (Depending on the game in question). But again....in most MMORPG's today they are all built the same. Around shallow quest hubs that lead you from one to the next via map GPS or minimal NPC dialog very quickly just to get you to that "deep feature".
The last part about designers is probably going to end up being correct. Just as those who play these themeparks now and tell us old schoolers to "move on" will probably (Some anyways) be in our shoes when the market finds a new way.
The leveling process is a failure of MMORPGs not learning from City of Heroes that you can do a difficulty slider and offer every player their sweet spot of challenge.
So again, it's a little different from the overtly time-wasting, shallow activities of slow travel and corpse runs. It is close though, because without sufficient challenge even a deep game mechanic loses the tension it needs to be deep in actual practice.
Pointing out the places where today's games are poorly implemented does not rationalize the even shallower mechanics of the past. (I can keep saying this each time you try to poke another hole in modern games, but it'd be nice if you got the point and realized that as bad as modern mechanics can be in places, they're not overtly time-wasting, shallow activities.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
Thank you for getting back to me on this.
I didnt see the relevance at the time, so thats why I didnt want to comment on it. My focus at that time was on your other comments but it seems I worked myself onto that point from another angle.
Again thank you clarifying what you meant about focus.
While we dissagree on the merits of death penalties. I would point out that it is a decission that is made in any game at some point. Deciding what it is to be takes the same time no matter what the result is.. Only factor is if the lead developers can agree or not. (well the publisher might have a say too).
After that it could be a matter of a few hours tops to implement a corpse looting system to an existing game or an insignificant amount of time if no coding for the game was started. Depending on when in the development phase the decission was made. If they change their mind at the last minute, ofcourse, it could be dreadful bother taking weeks to get right.
And I am sure you will agree with me that, what happens when players die, is an important decission to make.. so why not set down the ground rules at the start.
Now that you have clarified what you meant by focus, perhaps you would care to elaborate on what you consider to be " deep/interesting challenges " and what you mean by " richer game "?
It sounds great.. But what is do you see behind those buzz words? It would be interesting to know if we see the same thing.
*Ahem* Axehilt is against.
Yeah, I meant I was in favor against him. Bad syntax I guess.
Oops overlooked this in my last reply.
What I mean by everything is PvP or should be, is simply that MMOs should be about interacting with other players at some level. Doing something with them or to them. Or simply having them be something to move around because they are in your way.
The way I see modern MMOs playing out, is that they are full of tools to avoid player interaction and when you actually play with others it is in a way where they could just as easily be replaced by allied npcs following simple rules.
And I think I even said it should be considered PvP or PwithP, even in PvE-only MMOs.
Because if there is no meaningful player to player interaction, then I think the developement cost would have been put to better used making a true single player game.
I agree with this.
I didn't necessarily like running back naked to claim my gear, or begging for a rez to regain my level, but having a consequence for death certainly made me care more about my character and made the overall experience of the game more fun.
I wouldn't say necessarily to bring back corpse runs, but I think character death should have a meaningful consequence.
How long your corpse lasts is a balance issue. And perhaps a performance and anti clutter issue.
I mean in EQ it used to be that you had a week to get your stuff back.. So unless you died in the last hour before going on a vacation, you would have plenty of time to get it back.
Of course if you wanted to get some of the XP back too you had to get a rez within 3 hours of play time.
Those durations could be set to anything from minutes to infinity..
But the point would be, you could go and get it the corpse and rezz the next day or 5 days later if that was when you had time to play again.
That is a good point. I ultimately stopped playing Eve because people would lagbomb the jump gates. I lost a lot of ships and implants that way, none of it was refunded - a petition comes back "Sorry to hear about your loss but that's the game"
So ok - if a crappy internet connection (or crappy game engine) limits my ability to play fairly, I don't care to play. It wasn't that I didn't agree with Eve's death penalty - I perfectly understood it. But I mistakenly assumed it was to be player versus player, not player versus technical problem. So I eliminated the technical problem by eliminating the game from my system.
No they don't. Not according to devs, and many players. Otherwise, why is corpse run (or at least the EQ harsh brand of corpse run) taken out?
I don't miss corpse runs, I miss harsh death penalties. I almost feel if those were in place, people would actually be far more inclined to play... well... less stupidly.
The sad thing? This goes for me too. I admit death is so trivial I do suicidal stuff on purpose without worry which is... dumb.
I was just trying to give you a glimpse of real men who enjoy death penalties. And i can assure you that isn't me but i won't be surprised if that is you.
One has to be really insecure about their masculinity if they they need to attach it to harsh death penalty.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Nope. They will play much more risk aversely and don't try anything.
In fact, D3 is a good example. You can have perma-death and people are extremely careful and don't try anything new (or try in softcore first).
A reset is (wait for it) a reset. Which means (wait for it) the boss is reset. Which means the boss can't be zerged. So by definition what I'm describing is unzergable. (And while I don't think you're lying, it makes me wonder if you've played a MMORPG in the last decade that you'd even consider the possibility of zergable bosses.)
As for waiting for rezzes, resurrection is busywork. It's not deep gameplay. It doesn't add significantly to immersion. In PVE if your entire party/raid automatically rezzed for free in the boss' chamber (or slightly prior to it, with a few trash mobs respawning) then that wouldn't impact the challenge of MMORPGs at all but would dramatically improve the pacing of death (which even in the best MMORPGs nowadays is still clunky.)
The fact that you'd imply rezzing classes are relied upon to rez and not to perform their primary role (healing, etc) also makes me wonder if you've played an MMORPG in the past decade. The complete removal of rez spells (apart from battle rezzing, naturally) would have no effect on the desire to take these players into the dungeon.
In MMORPGs you either play skillfully enough to beat the challenge, or you wipe. There is no "zerging through content", because until you exhibit enough skill you're going to keep wiping. And while improved difficulty options are something more MMORPGs need (to ensure the challenge is actually challenging) increasing the death penalties wouldn't really make things any better (you'd either have easy content which is still too easy and zergable, or you'd have challenging content which is a complete hassle to engage with because some random asshat can screw up and waste you a lot of time, money, XP, or whatever.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I disagree. I think tactics is driven by the challenge, not the level of risks.
Take D3 (again) as an example. In low MP, you just faceroll and DPS. Any build, and any tactics will work. At high MP, you need to be careful and optimize. When i play archon in low MP, i just stand there and DPS. When i am in high MP, i pay attention, use terrain to my advantage (for example, standing in corner to counter vortex), and use hit-and-run tactics.
The tactics is caused by the challenge, not risk. The risk is the same.
In hard core, everything changes ... people becomes very risk averse, even in non-challenging situations.
Your spectrum is wrong though. It implies the wrong correlation.
The right correlation is "skill used correlates to skill required"
So the challenge spectrum is vastly more important:
No Challenge Some Challenge Moderate Challenge Heavy Challenge Extreme Challenge
<------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
Boredom Basic Tactics Tactics and Strategy Lots of Tactics Frustration
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I don't.
Because games haven't done anything interesting when it comes to "the afterlife". Just another time waster.
..because we're gamers, damn it!! - William Massachusetts (Log Horizon)
Thank you for illustrating what i tried to say in the post above so well.
Indeed it is about the level of challenge, not risk. In addition, in high risk case, players often seek out LOW level of challenge (if they can control it) to avoid the hefty penalty. Case in point, hardcore D3 players are more likely to level in low MP than high ones.
Personally, i prefer more challenge, less risk, than more risk and less challenge. Because that is more fun to me.
You mean like end game raid content in today's MMORPG's that make you do the same dungeons over and over for gear? Or rep? Or to gain access to the next raid dungeon?
If you think the same doesn't take place now for the same reasons...you are delusional. However.. it's more about taking more money from players via cash shops with items that entice the player to stay longer and spend more money.
To answer the OP's question...yes. Miss the fear, excitement, and the friendships and comradery it produced.
Excellent points, ReallyNow10!
Great quote.
I wish it was that noble a reason, but I believe it was just another example of SOE copying WoW.
The thing is it doesn't make people play less stupidly. It makes people less risk inclined.
People play less stupidly *and* are less risk inclined, but I think the former moreso than the latter.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
And you also never saw someone zerg in a game with high challenge but no penalty/risk.
Of course players pay attention when the game kicks them in the groin each time they screw up. Nobody's disputing that torture victims know they're being tortured!
Your highwire example couldn't have better portrayed the core purpose to gaming (playing with it, repeatedly, to practice it) and the antithesis of gaming (tremendous risk of pain, with barely anyone trying it.) Gaming's primary purpose is to allow someone to practice something in a low-risk environment. Why do you think people play-fight? To practice combat in a low-risk environment.
It's hard-wired into us to enjoy that form of play. Thus, we engage in it repeatedly. "Casually," you might say. And when we're done with low-challenge activities we move on to high-challenge activities in order to better ourselves. But the point is never risk; the point (what our minds derive pleasure from, as an evolutionary advantage over species who don't derive pleasure from learning) is bettering ourselves through practice -- which is best accomplished without risk.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Similar, but not quite.
That form of repetition isn't great. However it's repetition centered around the deepest activity in the game, which is the best thing that can happen. Whereas activities like corpse runs (shallow feature) and slow travel (shallowest feature) are some of the shallowest activities in a game. This makes it obviously much worse.
It's also about progress:
"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 sure I get why people need a punishment to make them care about dieing. I know we all have different personalities, and thus like different things. I have just always gotten really pissed off and embarrassed when I died to an AI controlled monster that I do all I can to avoid it. I mean, if you think about it in a pve game, if you die, you lost to code. I try to avoid that at all cost no matter what, it doesn't take an additional penalty to make it matter to me.
As compared to quest hubs from lvl 1 to 50-60 in today's MMORPG's? That seems like a much worse and longer period of shallow features.
Corpse runs aren't constant...unless of course the person plays like a twit. Nor even the slow travel (Depending on the game in question). But again....in most MMORPG's today they are all built the same. Around shallow quest hubs that lead you from one to the next via map GPS or minimal NPC dialog very quickly just to get you to that "deep feature".
The last part about designers is probably going to end up being correct. Just as those who play these themeparks now and tell us old schoolers to "move on" will probably (Some anyways) be in our shoes when the market finds a new way.
The leveling process is a failure of MMORPGs not learning from City of Heroes that you can do a difficulty slider and offer every player their sweet spot of challenge.
So again, it's a little different from the overtly time-wasting, shallow activities of slow travel and corpse runs. It is close though, because without sufficient challenge even a deep game mechanic loses the tension it needs to be deep in actual practice.
Pointing out the places where today's games are poorly implemented does not rationalize the even shallower mechanics of the past. (I can keep saying this each time you try to poke another hole in modern games, but it'd be nice if you got the point and realized that as bad as modern mechanics can be in places, they're not overtly time-wasting, shallow activities.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver