It's not rose tinted glasses (I guess it could be for some). MMOs... heck, games in general, have become much more popular. They're trying to appeal to a more casual kind of gamer. In order to do that they've made the games easier. They've made them more forgiving. Overcoming adversity is a pretty central role in gaming. It's what gives us a sense of accomplishment. This isn't just nostalgia. Games are different. Again, there's a reason why the amount of people playing games I'd going up.
But making a game casual is not the same as "make it easy". It is as silly a notion as making a game hard is the same as getting rid of tutorials and documentation.
It is why participating in these discussions is like pulling teeth: Many people cannot make a distinction between complexity and depth, arduous and hard, casual-friendly and easy.
Except you and I have been through this before and you just end up getting out of dodge. You can't separate complexity from depth and you can't separate ease from casual.
if I recall, our last discussion about games being casual friendly had you claiming that it was all about the length of play sessions. You claimed sc2 was more casual friendly than LoL because the games were shorter. A simply ridiculous claim. Casual friendly games go at least somewhat hand in hand with forgiving gameplay and easy gameplay.
The difference between depth and complexity can be explained through chess and go, which have a very simple set of rules, but the games themselves are incredibly deep.
And the comparison you present between SC2 and LoL doesn't make sense to me. Likely you have misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I don't remember making a comparison between LoL and SC2, only between MMOs and games similar to LoL and SC2 where you have a matchmaking system to que up, and matches end well within an hour (generally).
This is opposed by the gaming sessions in old school MMORPGs where you had to spend much of your time preparing for the main activity compared to the main activity itself, not to mention those gaming sessions could last many hours.
You can play a match of LoL or SC2 within a half-hour, but you cannot do a dungeon run in some of the older MMORPG within that time, because by the time you are set to go, the half-hour is up. The 30-minute-mark, to which you directed your whole attention to at one point, is arbitrary and unimportant to the point I was trying to make. A game is casual-friendly when you can achieve something meaningful within a relatively short amount of time.
But you started talking about how hard it is to graps SC2's metagame and what not... I get it. It is hard. But so it is hard in nearly every other e-sport game out there! I know what you mean. I've been there myself! There is a huge skill gap between a hardcore e-sports player and a casual player.
These games are still a lot more casual friendly than many of the old school games. You can play LoL and SC2 casually. In many of of the old-school MMOs, you couldn't.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Wait, are you trying to say that Chess and Bridge are not casual friendly games?
Are you SERIOUSLY trying to say that?
Are you joking or not?
If you have that attitude then every game on earth is casual friendly as long as you don't mind losing to everyone with an iota of skill. Likewise, I can drop into any MMO and get killed.
Wait, are you trying to say that Chess and Bridge are not casual friendly games?
Are you SERIOUSLY trying to say that?
Are you joking or not?
If you have that attitude then every game on earth is casual friendly as long as you don't mind losing to everyone with an iota of skill. Likewise, I can drop into any MMO and get killed.
It is casual.
Casual is about the time it takes to do something, not about how hard it is.
Complexity = the number of decisions
Depth = the number of meaningful decisions
Chess has depth as all the decisions are meaningfull. It has some complexity however the number of available decisions is not hugely more than the number of meaningfull decisions so it does not have unnecessary complexity. The rules are simple and explained on a single page.
And it can be played in very very very short and meaningful sessions making it casual.
Therefore chess can be a very casual game.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
It's not rose tinted glasses (I guess it could be for some). MMOs... heck, games in general, have become much more popular. They're trying to appeal to a more casual kind of gamer. In order to do that they've made the games easier. They've made them more forgiving. Overcoming adversity is a pretty central role in gaming. It's what gives us a sense of accomplishment. This isn't just nostalgia. Games are different. Again, there's a reason why the amount of people playing games I'd going up.
But making a game casual is not the same as "make it easy". It is as silly a notion as making a game hard is the same as getting rid of tutorials and documentation.It is why participating in these discussions is like pulling teeth: Many people cannot make a distinction between complexity and depth, arduous and hard, casual-friendly and easy.
Except you and I have been through this before and you just end up getting out of dodge. You can't separate complexity from depth and you can't separate ease from casual. if I recall, our last discussion about games being casual friendly had you claiming that it was all about the length of play sessions. You claimed sc2 was more casual friendly than LoL because the games were shorter. A simply ridiculous claim. Casual friendly games go at least somewhat hand in hand with forgiving gameplay and easy gameplay.
I am inclined to agree. Chess or Bridge are complex, hard and certainly not casual friendly; they require time and practice to master. Top Trumps is easy and shallow. Most other (board) games fit somewhere on a spectrum between the two.
That is the way games work, you increase depth by increasing the options available to the player which requires increased complexity; arduous and hard are synonymous; to be casual-friendly it needs to be grasped and accessible in short bursts and therefore easy.
If you stick to casual opponents chess is not that hard its easy even.
Only when you realy wanne know the real tactics and depthness of chess then is its hard to master.
P.S Oh almost forgot to tell you ive played chess for 20years tournament lvl so i know a littlebit about chess:)
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
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But making a game casual is not the same as "make it easy". It is as silly a notion as making a game hard is the same as getting rid of tutorials and documentation.It is why participating in these discussions is like pulling teeth: Many people cannot make a distinction between complexity and depth, arduous and hard, casual-friendly and easy.
That problem is not new. It seems there's some kind of vocal minority which is thinking that "difficult" means "tedious", and "convenient, fun and accessible" means "easy".
I think this goes both ways. People assume that you want a grind because you mention old school. UO was minimal grind and what was could be macro'd while you slept. I find quest hub themepark MMORPGs to be very tedious and they're not hard at all, just repetitive, stale and boring.
Wait, are you trying to say that Chess and Bridge are not casual friendly games?
Are you SERIOUSLY trying to say that?
Are you joking or not?
If you have that attitude then every game on earth is casual friendly as long as you don't mind losing to everyone with an iota of skill. Likewise, I can drop into any MMO and get killed.
It is casual.
Casual is about the time it takes to do something, not about how hard it is.
Complexity = the number of decisions
Depth = the number of meaningful decisions
Chess has depth as all the decisions are meaningfull. It has some complexity however the number of available decisions is not hugely more than the number of meaningfull decisions so it does not have unnecessary complexity. The rules are simple and explained on a single page.
And it can be played in very very very short and meaningful sessions making it casual.
Therefore chess can be a very casual game.
And do not forget, since it is turn-based, you can leave it, and continue at a later time.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
But making a game casual is not the same as "make it easy". It is as silly a notion as making a game hard is the same as getting rid of tutorials and documentation.
It is why participating in these discussions is like pulling teeth: Many people cannot make a distinction between complexity and depth, arduous and hard, casual-friendly and easy.
That problem is not new. It seems there's some kind of vocal minority which is thinking that "difficult" means "tedious", and "convenient, fun and accessible" means "easy".
I think this goes both ways. People assume that you want a grind because you mention old school. UO was minimal grind and what was could be macro'd while you slept. I find quest hub themepark MMORPGs to be very tedious and they're not hard at all, just repetitive, stale and boring.
Pretty much this. For both of you.
Of all the MMO's I've played I don't think any were hard. Every one had some part of the game that was more challenging than the majority of the game, but overall they were not difficult. The only question was whether I could stand whatever type of grind that game had. Repeated dungeon runs with end game (although I've never actually done the end game) or long sit in spot for hours camp grind.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Quirhid Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Quirhid
It's not rose tinted glasses (I guess it could be for some). MMOs... heck, games in general, have become much more popular. They're trying to appeal to a more casual kind of gamer. In order to do that they've made the games easier. They've made them more forgiving. Overcoming adversity is a pretty central role in gaming. It's what gives us a sense of accomplishment. This isn't just nostalgia. Games are different. Again, there's a reason why the amount of people playing games I'd going up.
But making a game casual is not the same as "make it easy". It is as silly a notion as making a game hard is the same as getting rid of tutorials and documentation.
It is why participating in these discussions is like pulling teeth: Many people cannot make a distinction between complexity and depth, arduous and hard, casual-friendly and easy.
Except you and I have been through this before and you just end up getting out of dodge. You can't separate complexity from depth and you can't separate ease from casual.
if I recall, our last discussion about games being casual friendly had you claiming that it was all about the length of play sessions. You claimed sc2 was more casual friendly than LoL because the games were shorter. A simply ridiculous claim. Casual friendly games go at least somewhat hand in hand with forgiving gameplay and easy gameplay.
The difference between depth and complexity can be explained through chess and go, which have a very simple set of rules, but the games themselves are incredibly deep.
And the comparison you present between SC2 and LoL doesn't make sense to me. Likely you have misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I don't remember making a comparison between LoL and SC2, only between MMOs and games similar to LoL and SC2 where you have a matchmaking system to que up, and matches end well within an hour (generally).
This is opposed by the gaming sessions in old school MMORPGs where you had to spend much of your time preparing for the main activity compared to the main activity itself, not to mention those gaming sessions could last many hours.
You can play a match of LoL or SC2 within a half-hour, but you cannot do a dungeon run in some of the older MMORPG within that time, because by the time you are set to go, the half-hour is up. The 30-minute-mark, to which you directed your whole attention to at one point, is arbitrary and unimportant to the point I was trying to make. A game is casual-friendly when you can achieve something meaningful within a relatively short amount of time.
But you started talking about how hard it is to graps SC2's metagame and what not... I get it. It is hard. But so it is hard in nearly every other e-sport game out there! I know what you mean. I've been there myself! There is a huge skill gap between a hardcore e-sports player and a casual player.
These games are still a lot more casual friendly than many of the old school games.
Your point was that casual friendliness is tied to how long it takes to do something, not to difficulty. I brought up the comparison between sc2 and LoL. You agreed that sc2 is more casual friendly than LoL because the matches are shorter. That's what you said. It's a position that almost nobody would take if they had played those two games. LoL is more casual friendly because it is easier mechanically. That's it.
You can't have a casual friendly game that takes a large amount of time. So in that regard you're right to say that it plays a part in what makes a game casual friendly. But you're wrong to say that difficulty doesn't play a part. That's why I deliberately say you can't separate the two.
as far as depth vs complexity, I'd love to hear an example of a game that has depth but no complexity. As I've pointed out before, competitive games can (and should) have simple rules because the complexity comes from the complexity of the human mind which you are playing against.
I do understand your post and feel it for you. It is not and probably won't be the last post that someone loving and fondly reminisces about days gone by. I suppose it is the right of passage in a way.
However, I find myself starting to shore up these old feelings by simply looking at myself as a gamer, not a creator of games. I have actually typed out an entire design scenario, I suppose you could call it, about "my game" . This helped my frustration some and it was an exercise that saw me researching much as I did back in my post-graduate days when I was working every brain cell I had to obtain the mythical Master's Degree...now well not such a big deal with the way kids experience university going 6 rather than the old 4 years. But, of course, I digress, writing down how I would create my "perfect game" and what it would look like was daunting. Needless to say, I didn't or couldn't actually finish. After all, tis not my bailiwick. It did though give me a healthy respect for game designers have to do before they actually graphically draw content or write out lore for their mmo.
Most of us here on this forum or any other for that matter do not actually work on games. Thus we are sort of like, in my state, Cowboy fans thinking they could run a multi-million dollar operation themselves "better'n than ol' Jerry could", "Hell he jest needs tah go back to Arkansas, dadburnit!" Now, while that seems a bit "fur-fetched" and most Texans don't actually speak that way any more, well at least in the cities..., you'd be surprised when listening to an old 80+ year "sod-buster" out in West Texas! So, I make this comparison to the many combustive posts I have seen here, most recently about what we actually DON"T know about EQ Next as an example. Sort of the, "Well sonny, back in the day we had tah find them thar quests and such all by ourselves, dagnabit! None of this pansy hand-holding crap we got today! Why you young whipper-snappers just don't know..." All this from well I would wager 20 or 30-something forum "Ol' timers". I'm a babyboomer myself, so it's kind of funny to hear all this from the younger generation!
The point here, is patience. The point is no game will EVER be that game you first played. This is not a earth-shattering nor new concept. This has been shared several times before. How do we, then, as consumers/gamers join in this conversation? Research, look some stuff up. Have the patience and fortitude to find blogs created by actual game designers. You'd be surprised how many of them feel somewhat similar to you! You see, I think it's not necessarily the fault of the humble guy or gal out there that has a great idea of creating an mmo with old and new aspects we can ALL enjoy. I would have to say look to the money. Follow that trail my friend, Bear, follow that trail. Sadly that's what creates mmo's right now. Unfortunately that's what is driving what we see and feel as uninspired mmo's that we just can not, no matter how hard we try, be able to play and stay, as it were.
Thus, I pay attention to the writings of folks actually trained or gifted in the art of game creation to learn and understand what it takes in this modern age of the mmo genre. "The problem here is a failure to communicate...!" (Easy Rider- 1968). Try and arm yourself with a bit knowledge shared by designers themselves and folks like yourself, Bear. Not sure how much it matters to greedy conglomerate corporations, but at least we can stand united!
Salutes BearKnight!
Alyn
All I want is the truth Just gimme some truth John Lennon
Originally posted by LittleBoot Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard Wait, are you trying to say that Chess and Bridge are not casual friendly games?Are you SERIOUSLY trying to say that?
Are you joking or not?
If you have that attitude then every game on earth is casual friendly as long as you don't mind losing to everyone with an iota of skill. Likewise, I can drop into any MMO and get killed.
You pretty much helped making the point that being accessible, aka casual friendly, doesn't mean being easy. I'd like to thank you for that.
I was introduced to chess when I was very young by my grandfather, it took me very little time to understand the basics. There was no tedious mechanic involved to be able to move the different pieces around. You didn't have to grind 10 levels to be able to move a pawn, 10 more levels to move a bishop, and 20 more levels along with some reputation to be able to move your queen. The difficulty was in the opponent, and not about the accessibility, not about being casual unfriendly.
This needs to end. There are two comparisons: depth and complexity; difficulty and casual friendliness. The gameplay in chess IS easy... because it's a board game. It's not hard to move the pieces. Anybody can do it. Broodwar was mechanically difficult to even navigate the map. Not anybody can do that.
I know what people want; they want to repeat their first experience of an mmo. People become world-weary as they get older; it is why time seems to speed up; because there are fewer new experiences and less of your faculties/ attention required to comprehend them. Those early experiences of new things are usually the best.
Oh to be young again!
Early experiences shape your preferences of course. But it's not an unattainable thing to want to recapture those feelings. Dark Souls did it for me in single player games. It's basically like saying I can't like brunettes simply because my first kiss was with a brunette.
No, it's not like saying that at all. It's saying once you've kissed her, you'll never have that blissful ignorance and expectation with anyone else. Every kiss after that will always be compaired mentally to the first one. You can never have a second first kiss.
It doesn't mean the second, third or forth wont be good. It just can never be the same. Same goes for mmos....and everything else.
Sometimes I think you guys argue just to argue because this is quite obviously wrong once you think about it. We're not saying we want to play an MMO that is our first MMO. We're saying we want one like that. How is my analogy incorrect?
I sometimes think you quote posts just to misrepresent what they saying so you can get into these stupid arguments. You are someone that needs to go onto an ignore list. Reading your other posts in this thread and my own previous...painful attempts to explain things to you is obviously something that is just going to keep happening. If you're not trolling people...you've got something seriously wrong with you.
Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by DamonVile Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by LittleBoot I know what people want; they want to repeat their first experience of an mmo. People become world-weary as they get older; it is why time seems to speed up; because there are fewer new experiences and less of your faculties/ attention required to comprehend them. Those early experiences of new things are usually the best. Oh to be young again!
Early experiences shape your preferences of course. But it's not an unattainable thing to want to recapture those feelings. Dark Souls did it for me in single player games. It's basically like saying I can't like brunettes simply because my first kiss was with a brunette.
No, it's not like saying that at all. It's saying once you've kissed her, you'll never have that blissful ignorance and expectation with anyone else. Every kiss after that will always be compaired mentally to the first one. You can never have a second first kiss.
It doesn't mean the second, third or forth wont be good. It just can never be the same. Same goes for mmos....and everything else.
Sometimes I think you guys argue just to argue because this is quite obviously wrong once you think about it. We're not saying we want to play an MMO that is our first MMO. We're saying we want one like that. How is my analogy incorrect?
I sometimes think you quote posts just to misrepresent what they saying so you can get into these stupid arguments. You are someone that needs to go onto an ignore list. Reading your other posts in this thread and my own previous...painful attempts to explain things to you is obviously something that is just going to keep happening. If you're not trolling people...you've got something seriously wrong with you.
Still waiting on an explanation for why my brunette analogy was invalid.
The Old school MMORPG used to be a simple concept, the concept of taking Pen and Paper RPG and make it online where instead of a small group of friends, you have the whole world playing with you.
But at the time, the other Pen and Paper RPG players is all that made up that world, they were all used to all the punishments and rule sets of Pen and Paper RPG. For those just getting to the MMORPG world at that time understands that to play those games, they have to learn the rules before they start enjoying the game.
Time is very different now, MMORPG is no longer Pen and Paper with Internet, its just Online Gaming
The old school players wants the Pen and Paper feel back to their MMO, but all the new generation of Online gamers doesn't understand the thrills of Pen and Paper. They don't understand the feeling of getting a group of friends together and getting lost in the world of fantasy/scify
The new generation of gamers wants the feeling of becoming the first to get that shiny sword or the first to conquer that dungeon that everyone else will eventually get to. They don't care of the history of that shiny sword, they just want it to be higher damage than the last one they got.
If I remember correctly from days before, certain uber items come with negatives that offset its power, so they can't be abused. Like limited uses or once every hour or so.
But its not that way anymore, characters no longer have history, they are one of millions of heroes that will eventually kill that same super bad dude over there , who sits and waits for people to come and beat on them.
The old school MMORPG were limited in their technology to create that Pen and Paper World of fantasy and scify , but as technology improves, we lost our ways. Instead of continuing in creating that world of fantasy, we got used to the world of 1 2 3 , Old school games were not necessary better, they were just closer to the main reason for the first MMORPG.
I think what many Older gamer wants is for developers to go back to the original reasons for the creation of MMORPG, not to recreate the old games, but instead to keep moving forward toward that final goal. The goal of the Ultimate Pen and Paper MMORPG with the technology of today.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
I didn't even mention a grind in my post, just tedium. You are extrapolating about what I've said.
To make it more simple, "difficult" could be said about a single boss, alone in a single dungeon, with nothing to block access to him with artificial tedious mechanisms. Tedious mechanisms you have to complete to access the finally challenging content don't increase difficulty, they only increase tedium.
I think you're both right in a way, but do you really think the trash before a boss is just tedium and it would be more fun if it was removed ?
Originally posted by Cephus404 No, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the MMO genre was originally intended to be, it only matters what it is now. [mod edit] It's entirely irrelevant to the modern day MMO which are driven by market forces and what the majority of people actually want to play now.
Not so sure about that. Modern marketing is adept at "creating demand" for what they want people to buy. I think what is happening instead is that the mechanics of games are created to ensure maximum profit for minimal outlay. This is very logical economically. It is what has made McDonalds and Wal-Mart giants. It also has downsides, as we are now seeing...
its been overly steamlined where features and conveniences slowly remove gameplay, challenges, community, downtime, unique starting areas, open worlds, travel, etc. My belief why players request for streamed line gaming the progression mechanisms in the game become redundant and just road blocks to the end game and have no value to the players.
Removing ....
gameplay - sure .. remove the boring (to me) gameplay like slow travel, or looking for group
challenges - this is not good ... but there are still hard mode stuff, and games like PoE (which is listed as a MMO here) is pretty challenging
community - i don't play games for community
downtime - good .. the less the better (for me)
unique starting areas - well ... more content is better ... so i agree with this one
open world - meh ... instanced gameplay is better (for me)
travel - i don't play games to walk around .. so yeah!
... and progression mechanism redundant? Just see ARPGs for streamline gameplay and nothing but progression. It can be done ... MMORPGs can learn from ARPGs. Just put in random dungeons, and good loot system.
I don't really know what your desire is because apparently your MMORPG needs arr being meet. But for those waiting for change the genre is lacking.
uh? I think i stated my preferences very clearly.
And so what if my needs are being met? Don't tell me you think only people whose needs are NOT met are allowed to discuss their preferences on an internet forum.
And yes, of course by definition those waiting for change, the genre is lacking. What is your point?
The Old school MMORPG used to be a simple concept, the concept of taking Pen and Paper RPG and make it online where instead of a small group of friends, you have the whole world playing with you.
But at the time, the other Pen and Paper RPG players is all that made up that world, they were all used to all the punishments and rule sets of Pen and Paper RPG. For those just getting to the MMORPG world at that time understands that to play those games, they have to learn the rules before they start enjoying the game.
Time is very different now, MMORPG is no longer Pen and Paper with Internet, its just Online Gaming
The old school players wants the Pen and Paper feel back to their MMO, but all the new generation of Online gamers doesn't understand the thrills of Pen and Paper. They don't understand the feeling of getting a group of friends together and getting lost in the world of fantasy/scify
The new generation of gamers wants the feeling of becoming the first to get that shiny sword or the first to conquer that dungeon that everyone else will eventually get to. They don't care of the history of that shiny sword, they just want it to be higher damage than the last one they got.
Best post in thread. This person gets perfectly the disconnect between the old and new generation in RPG players and why we will never probably all enjoy the same game. Beautiful summary.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard Originally posted by Quirhid
But making a game casual is not the same as "make it easy". It is as silly a notion as making a game hard is the same as getting rid of tutorials and documentation.It is why participating in these discussions is like pulling teeth: Many people cannot make a distinction between complexity and depth, arduous and hard, casual-friendly and easy.
That problem is not new. It seems there's some kind of vocal minority which is thinking that "difficult" means "tedious", and "convenient, fun and accessible" means "easy".
I think this goes both ways. People assume that you want a grind because you mention old school. UO was minimal grind and what was could be macro'd while you slept. I find quest hub themepark MMORPGs to be very tedious and they're not hard at all, just repetitive, stale and boring.
Pretty much this. For both of you.
Of all the MMO's I've played I don't think any were hard. Every one had some part of the game that was more challenging than the majority of the game, but overall they were not difficult. The only question was whether I could stand whatever type of grind that game had. Repeated dungeon runs with end game (although I've never actually done the end game) or long sit in spot for hours camp grind.
I would say EQ was very hard. It was unforgiving and tedious. One wrong pull or just bad luck could leave you naked. You could easily die as a level 1 character. Neverwinter for example I died for the first time at level 30 due to horrible lag during a boss fight.
Best post in thread. This person gets perfectly the disconnect between the old and new generation in RPG players and why we will never probably all enjoy the same game. Beautiful summary.
Very incomplete though. He doesn't include those of us, like me, who enjoyed the old school and still enjoy the newer games. As someone who plays computer RPGs since the early days of the Ultima games in the 80s, and who still enjoys many of those "modern" games, I feel left out in that very "black and white" vision of reality.
For comparison's sake, I absolutely love the 60s/early 70s "Ford Mustang" cars, but I'm fully aware that today's car are way superior in every aspect, security, economy, design, etc...
one of the largest issues i have had in these types of discussions is the gaping lack of nuance either in understanding or argumentation. it's discouraging really.
in my previous post i tried to point out some places of agreement and disagreement, but i think it was read as an attack.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Originally posted by Cephus404 No, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the MMO genre was originally intended to be, it only matters what it is now. Intentions are like assholes, everyone has them and all of them stink. Who cares what some people playing UO or Meridian 59 wanted 15 years ago? It's entirely irrelevant to the modern day MMO which are driven by market forces and what the majority of people actually want to play now.
I think you're missing the point completely then, because an MMO is very specific in nature, and it has been bastardized by big company producers thinking they can get away with labeling their product an MMO without it actually being one.
I disagree but based upon the history of "everything".
There was a point in western music where you weren't supposed to have polyphony because it "supposedly" obscured the text. There was a point in time where people questioned sound in movies. There was a point in time where women were not allowed to act on the stage. There was a point in time in certain areas of the world where the use of bright colors and symbolism as well as heightened detail in a painting was considered "over the top" and avant garde.
There is always a point in time when something different is added to a previously established medium and people freak out and then come to realize that medium is just evolving and changing.
mmo's aren't a specific thing. They happened the way they happened because that was what was being done at that time with the few people working in the genre.
There's nothing to say that if different people had made these first mmo's that they would be different yet again.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I would say EQ was very hard. It was unforgiving and tedious. One wrong pull or just bad luck could leave you naked. You could easily die as a level 1 character. Neverwinter for example I died for the first time at level 30 due to horrible lag during a boss fight.
"unforgiving" is not hard. "tedious" is not hard.
I died much less (per unit time) in EQ then in Diablo 3 inferno high MP runs. Diablo 3 is much more challenging. How can farming a static spawn which lives for less than 10 second challenging?
Sure, if you die in EQ, it takes a lot longer to recover .. but that is not challenging, just unforgiving. I like challenging games, but unforgiving games that waste my time redoing my progress, no thanks.
Best post in thread. This person gets perfectly the disconnect between the old and new generation in RPG players and why we will never probably all enjoy the same game. Beautiful summary.
Very incomplete though. He doesn't include those of us, like me, who enjoyed the old school and still enjoy the newer games. As someone who plays computer RPGs since the early days of the Ultima games in the 80s, and who still enjoys many of those "modern" games, I feel left out in that very "black and white" vision of reality.
I never said that the Old School Gamers doesn't enjoy the New games, I am just saying that we are further and further away from the original concept of MMORPG that a lot of the Old School MMO players are now feeling it.
I myself enjoys modern day MMO, but they do not give that same longing that players used to get in the old days.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Originally posted by Cephus404 No, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the MMO genre was originally intended to be, it only matters what it is now. Intentions are like assholes, everyone has them and all of them stink. Who cares what some people playing UO or Meridian 59 wanted 15 years ago? It's entirely irrelevant to the modern day MMO which are driven by market forces and what the majority of people actually want to play now.
I think you're missing the point completely then, because an MMO is very specific in nature, and it has been bastardized by big company producers thinking they can get away with labeling their product an MMO without it actually being one.
I disagree but based upon the history of "everything".
There was a point in western music where you weren't supposed to have polyphony because it "supposedly" obscured the text. There was a point in time where people questioned sound in movies. There was a point in time where women were not allowed to act on the stage. There was a point in time in certain areas of the world where the use of bright colors and symbolism as well as heightened detail in a painting was considered "over the top" and avant garde.
There is always a point in time when something different is added to a previously established medium and people freak out and then come to realize that medium is just evolving and changing.
mmo's aren't a specific thing. They happened the way they happened because that was what was being done at that time with the few people working in the genre.
There's nothing to say that if different people had made these first mmo's that they would be different yet again.
Reasons for what the MMO genre was suppose to be is no longer the question, the question we should be asking us is why aren't Modern MMORPG doing what WOW did back the day.
What is missing, what can be done, and what should change so that the juggernaut of a genre ( MMORPG) can once again take over our lives.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Originally posted by BearKnight Originally posted by Cephus404 No, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the MMO genre was originally intended to be, it only matters what it is now. Intentions are like assholes, everyone has them and all of them stink. Who cares what some people playing UO or Meridian 59 wanted 15 years ago? It's entirely irrelevant to the modern day MMO which are driven by market forces and what the majority of people actually want to play now.
I think you're missing the point completely then, because an MMO is very specific in nature, and it has been bastardized by big company producers thinking they can get away with labeling their product an MMO without it actually being one.
I disagree but based upon the history of "everything".
There was a point in western music where you weren't supposed to have polyphony because it "supposedly" obscured the text. There was a point in time where people questioned sound in movies. There was a point in time where women were not allowed to act on the stage. There was a point in time in certain areas of the world where the use of bright colors and symbolism as well as heightened detail in a painting was considered "over the top" and avant garde.
There is always a point in time when something different is added to a previously established medium and people freak out and then come to realize that medium is just evolving and changing.
mmo's aren't a specific thing. They happened the way they happened because that was what was being done at that time with the few people working in the genre.
There's nothing to say that if different people had made these first mmo's that they would be different yet again.
The problem is that there was growth in the playerbase. That's not going to be sustainable so it's not just business as usual. It's not just the industry changing in the same way it has always changed and the same way it always will change, because that wouldnt be sustainable.
A lot of our concerns really boil down to the genre's distinct shift away from niche and towards mainstream. You can argue whether that's good or bad, but you can't argue that it's a fundamental change.
Best post in thread. This person gets perfectly the disconnect between the old and new generation in RPG players and why we will never probably all enjoy the same game. Beautiful summary.
Very incomplete though. He doesn't include those of us, like me, who enjoyed the old school and still enjoy the newer games. As someone who plays computer RPGs since the early days of the Ultima games in the 80s, and who still enjoys many of those "modern" games, I feel left out in that very "black and white" vision of reality.
I never said that the Old School Gamers doesn't enjoy the New games, I am just saying that we are further and further away from the original concept of MMORPG that a lot of the Old School MMO players are now feeling it.
I myself enjoys modern day MMO, but they do not give that same longing that players used to get in the old days.
I agree they don't but I can't say it's because they don't offer it or it's because they've changed. Younger ppl I play mmos with still seem to have it. I assume it's my age and experience that has dimished that "longing" I used to get from them.
Comments
The difference between depth and complexity can be explained through chess and go, which have a very simple set of rules, but the games themselves are incredibly deep.
And the comparison you present between SC2 and LoL doesn't make sense to me. Likely you have misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I don't remember making a comparison between LoL and SC2, only between MMOs and games similar to LoL and SC2 where you have a matchmaking system to que up, and matches end well within an hour (generally).
This is opposed by the gaming sessions in old school MMORPGs where you had to spend much of your time preparing for the main activity compared to the main activity itself, not to mention those gaming sessions could last many hours.
You can play a match of LoL or SC2 within a half-hour, but you cannot do a dungeon run in some of the older MMORPG within that time, because by the time you are set to go, the half-hour is up. The 30-minute-mark, to which you directed your whole attention to at one point, is arbitrary and unimportant to the point I was trying to make. A game is casual-friendly when you can achieve something meaningful within a relatively short amount of time.
But you started talking about how hard it is to graps SC2's metagame and what not... I get it. It is hard. But so it is hard in nearly every other e-sport game out there! I know what you mean. I've been there myself! There is a huge skill gap between a hardcore e-sports player and a casual player.
These games are still a lot more casual friendly than many of the old school games. You can play LoL and SC2 casually. In many of of the old-school MMOs, you couldn't.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Are you joking or not?
If you have that attitude then every game on earth is casual friendly as long as you don't mind losing to everyone with an iota of skill. Likewise, I can drop into any MMO and get killed.
It is casual.
Casual is about the time it takes to do something, not about how hard it is.
Complexity = the number of decisions
Depth = the number of meaningful decisions
Chess has depth as all the decisions are meaningfull. It has some complexity however the number of available decisions is not hugely more than the number of meaningfull decisions so it does not have unnecessary complexity. The rules are simple and explained on a single page.
And it can be played in very very very short and meaningful sessions making it casual.
Therefore chess can be a very casual game.
If you stick to casual opponents chess is not that hard its easy even.
Only when you realy wanne know the real tactics and depthness of chess then is its hard to master.
P.S Oh almost forgot to tell you ive played chess for 20years tournament lvl so i know a littlebit about chess:)
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That problem is not new. It seems there's some kind of vocal minority which is thinking that "difficult" means "tedious", and "convenient, fun and accessible" means "easy".
I think this goes both ways. People assume that you want a grind because you mention old school. UO was minimal grind and what was could be macro'd while you slept. I find quest hub themepark MMORPGs to be very tedious and they're not hard at all, just repetitive, stale and boring.And do not forget, since it is turn-based, you can leave it, and continue at a later time.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Pretty much this. For both of you.
Of all the MMO's I've played I don't think any were hard. Every one had some part of the game that was more challenging than the majority of the game, but overall they were not difficult. The only question was whether I could stand whatever type of grind that game had. Repeated dungeon runs with end game (although I've never actually done the end game) or long sit in spot for hours camp grind.
But making a game casual is not the same as "make it easy". It is as silly a notion as making a game hard is the same as getting rid of tutorials and documentation.
It is why participating in these discussions is like pulling teeth: Many people cannot make a distinction between complexity and depth, arduous and hard, casual-friendly and easy.
Except you and I have been through this before and you just end up getting out of dodge. You can't separate complexity from depth and you can't separate ease from casual.if I recall, our last discussion about games being casual friendly had you claiming that it was all about the length of play sessions. You claimed sc2 was more casual friendly than LoL because the games were shorter. A simply ridiculous claim. Casual friendly games go at least somewhat hand in hand with forgiving gameplay and easy gameplay.
The difference between depth and complexity can be explained through chess and go, which have a very simple set of rules, but the games themselves are incredibly deep.
And the comparison you present between SC2 and LoL doesn't make sense to me. Likely you have misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I don't remember making a comparison between LoL and SC2, only between MMOs and games similar to LoL and SC2 where you have a matchmaking system to que up, and matches end well within an hour (generally).
This is opposed by the gaming sessions in old school MMORPGs where you had to spend much of your time preparing for the main activity compared to the main activity itself, not to mention those gaming sessions could last many hours.
You can play a match of LoL or SC2 within a half-hour, but you cannot do a dungeon run in some of the older MMORPG within that time, because by the time you are set to go, the half-hour is up. The 30-minute-mark, to which you directed your whole attention to at one point, is arbitrary and unimportant to the point I was trying to make. A game is casual-friendly when you can achieve something meaningful within a relatively short amount of time.
But you started talking about how hard it is to graps SC2's metagame and what not... I get it. It is hard. But so it is hard in nearly every other e-sport game out there! I know what you mean. I've been there myself! There is a huge skill gap between a hardcore e-sports player and a casual player.
These games are still a lot more casual friendly than many of the old school games.
Your point was that casual friendliness is tied to how long it takes to do something, not to difficulty. I brought up the comparison between sc2 and LoL. You agreed that sc2 is more casual friendly than LoL because the matches are shorter. That's what you said. It's a position that almost nobody would take if they had played those two games. LoL is more casual friendly because it is easier mechanically. That's it.You can't have a casual friendly game that takes a large amount of time. So in that regard you're right to say that it plays a part in what makes a game casual friendly. But you're wrong to say that difficulty doesn't play a part. That's why I deliberately say you can't separate the two.
as far as depth vs complexity, I'd love to hear an example of a game that has depth but no complexity. As I've pointed out before, competitive games can (and should) have simple rules because the complexity comes from the complexity of the human mind which you are playing against.
Greetings mighty Bear!
I do understand your post and feel it for you. It is not and probably won't be the last post that someone loving and fondly reminisces about days gone by. I suppose it is the right of passage in a way.
However, I find myself starting to shore up these old feelings by simply looking at myself as a gamer, not a creator of games. I have actually typed out an entire design scenario, I suppose you could call it, about "my game" . This helped my frustration some and it was an exercise that saw me researching much as I did back in my post-graduate days when I was working every brain cell I had to obtain the mythical Master's Degree...now well not such a big deal with the way kids experience university going 6 rather than the old 4 years. But, of course, I digress, writing down how I would create my "perfect game" and what it would look like was daunting. Needless to say, I didn't or couldn't actually finish. After all, tis not my bailiwick. It did though give me a healthy respect for game designers have to do before they actually graphically draw content or write out lore for their mmo.
Most of us here on this forum or any other for that matter do not actually work on games. Thus we are sort of like, in my state, Cowboy fans thinking they could run a multi-million dollar operation themselves "better'n than ol' Jerry could", "Hell he jest needs tah go back to Arkansas, dadburnit!" Now, while that seems a bit "fur-fetched" and most Texans don't actually speak that way any more, well at least in the cities..., you'd be surprised when listening to an old 80+ year "sod-buster" out in West Texas! So, I make this comparison to the many combustive posts I have seen here, most recently about what we actually DON"T know about EQ Next as an example. Sort of the, "Well sonny, back in the day we had tah find them thar quests and such all by ourselves, dagnabit! None of this pansy hand-holding crap we got today! Why you young whipper-snappers just don't know..." All this from well I would wager 20 or 30-something forum "Ol' timers". I'm a babyboomer myself, so it's kind of funny to hear all this from the younger generation!
The point here, is patience. The point is no game will EVER be that game you first played. This is not a earth-shattering nor new concept. This has been shared several times before. How do we, then, as consumers/gamers join in this conversation? Research, look some stuff up. Have the patience and fortitude to find blogs created by actual game designers. You'd be surprised how many of them feel somewhat similar to you! You see, I think it's not necessarily the fault of the humble guy or gal out there that has a great idea of creating an mmo with old and new aspects we can ALL enjoy. I would have to say look to the money. Follow that trail my friend, Bear, follow that trail. Sadly that's what creates mmo's right now. Unfortunately that's what is driving what we see and feel as uninspired mmo's that we just can not, no matter how hard we try, be able to play and stay, as it were.
Thus, I pay attention to the writings of folks actually trained or gifted in the art of game creation to learn and understand what it takes in this modern age of the mmo genre. "The problem here is a failure to communicate...!" (Easy Rider- 1968). Try and arm yourself with a bit knowledge shared by designers themselves and folks like yourself, Bear. Not sure how much it matters to greedy conglomerate corporations, but at least we can stand united!
Salutes BearKnight!
Alyn
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
Are you joking or not?
If you have that attitude then every game on earth is casual friendly as long as you don't mind losing to everyone with an iota of skill. Likewise, I can drop into any MMO and get killed.
You pretty much helped making the point that being accessible, aka casual friendly, doesn't mean being easy. I'd like to thank you for that.
I was introduced to chess when I was very young by my grandfather, it took me very little time to understand the basics. There was no tedious mechanic involved to be able to move the different pieces around. You didn't have to grind 10 levels to be able to move a pawn, 10 more levels to move a bishop, and 20 more levels along with some reputation to be able to move your queen. The difficulty was in the opponent, and not about the accessibility, not about being casual unfriendly.
This needs to end. There are two comparisons: depth and complexity; difficulty and casual friendliness. The gameplay in chess IS easy... because it's a board game. It's not hard to move the pieces. Anybody can do it. Broodwar was mechanically difficult to even navigate the map. Not anybody can do that.I sometimes think you quote posts just to misrepresent what they saying so you can get into these stupid arguments. You are someone that needs to go onto an ignore list. Reading your other posts in this thread and my own previous...painful attempts to explain things to you is obviously something that is just going to keep happening. If you're not trolling people...you've got something seriously wrong with you.
Early experiences shape your preferences of course. But it's not an unattainable thing to want to recapture those feelings. Dark Souls did it for me in single player games. It's basically like saying I can't like brunettes simply because my first kiss was with a brunette.No, it's not like saying that at all. It's saying once you've kissed her, you'll never have that blissful ignorance and expectation with anyone else. Every kiss after that will always be compaired mentally to the first one. You can never have a second first kiss.
It doesn't mean the second, third or forth wont be good. It just can never be the same. Same goes for mmos....and everything else.
Sometimes I think you guys argue just to argue because this is quite obviously wrong once you think about it. We're not saying we want to play an MMO that is our first MMO. We're saying we want one like that. How is my analogy incorrect?I sometimes think you quote posts just to misrepresent what they saying so you can get into these stupid arguments. You are someone that needs to go onto an ignore list. Reading your other posts in this thread and my own previous...painful attempts to explain things to you is obviously something that is just going to keep happening. If you're not trolling people...you've got something seriously wrong with you.
Still waiting on an explanation for why my brunette analogy was invalid.The Old school MMORPG used to be a simple concept, the concept of taking Pen and Paper RPG and make it online where instead of a small group of friends, you have the whole world playing with you.
But at the time, the other Pen and Paper RPG players is all that made up that world, they were all used to all the punishments and rule sets of Pen and Paper RPG. For those just getting to the MMORPG world at that time understands that to play those games, they have to learn the rules before they start enjoying the game.
Time is very different now, MMORPG is no longer Pen and Paper with Internet, its just Online Gaming
The old school players wants the Pen and Paper feel back to their MMO, but all the new generation of Online gamers doesn't understand the thrills of Pen and Paper. They don't understand the feeling of getting a group of friends together and getting lost in the world of fantasy/scify
The new generation of gamers wants the feeling of becoming the first to get that shiny sword or the first to conquer that dungeon that everyone else will eventually get to. They don't care of the history of that shiny sword, they just want it to be higher damage than the last one they got.
If I remember correctly from days before, certain uber items come with negatives that offset its power, so they can't be abused. Like limited uses or once every hour or so.
But its not that way anymore, characters no longer have history, they are one of millions of heroes that will eventually kill that same super bad dude over there , who sits and waits for people to come and beat on them.
The old school MMORPG were limited in their technology to create that Pen and Paper World of fantasy and scify , but as technology improves, we lost our ways. Instead of continuing in creating that world of fantasy, we got used to the world of 1 2 3 , Old school games were not necessary better, they were just closer to the main reason for the first MMORPG.
I think what many Older gamer wants is for developers to go back to the original reasons for the creation of MMORPG, not to recreate the old games, but instead to keep moving forward toward that final goal. The goal of the Ultimate Pen and Paper MMORPG with the technology of today.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
I think you're both right in a way, but do you really think the trash before a boss is just tedium and it would be more fun if it was removed ?
Not so sure about that. Modern marketing is adept at "creating demand" for what they want people to buy. I think what is happening instead is that the mechanics of games are created to ensure maximum profit for minimal outlay. This is very logical economically. It is what has made McDonalds and Wal-Mart giants. It also has downsides, as we are now seeing...
uh? I think i stated my preferences very clearly.
And so what if my needs are being met? Don't tell me you think only people whose needs are NOT met are allowed to discuss their preferences on an internet forum.
And yes, of course by definition those waiting for change, the genre is lacking. What is your point?
Best post in thread. This person gets perfectly the disconnect between the old and new generation in RPG players and why we will never probably all enjoy the same game. Beautiful summary.
That problem is not new. It seems there's some kind of vocal minority which is thinking that "difficult" means "tedious", and "convenient, fun and accessible" means "easy".
I think this goes both ways. People assume that you want a grind because you mention old school. UO was minimal grind and what was could be macro'd while you slept. I find quest hub themepark MMORPGs to be very tedious and they're not hard at all, just repetitive, stale and boring.Pretty much this. For both of you.
Of all the MMO's I've played I don't think any were hard. Every one had some part of the game that was more challenging than the majority of the game, but overall they were not difficult. The only question was whether I could stand whatever type of grind that game had. Repeated dungeon runs with end game (although I've never actually done the end game) or long sit in spot for hours camp grind.
I would say EQ was very hard. It was unforgiving and tedious. One wrong pull or just bad luck could leave you naked. You could easily die as a level 1 character. Neverwinter for example I died for the first time at level 30 due to horrible lag during a boss fight.one of the largest issues i have had in these types of discussions is the gaping lack of nuance either in understanding or argumentation. it's discouraging really.
in my previous post i tried to point out some places of agreement and disagreement, but i think it was read as an attack.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I disagree but based upon the history of "everything".
There was a point in western music where you weren't supposed to have polyphony because it "supposedly" obscured the text. There was a point in time where people questioned sound in movies. There was a point in time where women were not allowed to act on the stage. There was a point in time in certain areas of the world where the use of bright colors and symbolism as well as heightened detail in a painting was considered "over the top" and avant garde.
There is always a point in time when something different is added to a previously established medium and people freak out and then come to realize that medium is just evolving and changing.
mmo's aren't a specific thing. They happened the way they happened because that was what was being done at that time with the few people working in the genre.
There's nothing to say that if different people had made these first mmo's that they would be different yet again.
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
"unforgiving" is not hard. "tedious" is not hard.
I died much less (per unit time) in EQ then in Diablo 3 inferno high MP runs. Diablo 3 is much more challenging. How can farming a static spawn which lives for less than 10 second challenging?
Sure, if you die in EQ, it takes a lot longer to recover .. but that is not challenging, just unforgiving. I like challenging games, but unforgiving games that waste my time redoing my progress, no thanks.
I never said that the Old School Gamers doesn't enjoy the New games, I am just saying that we are further and further away from the original concept of MMORPG that a lot of the Old School MMO players are now feeling it.
I myself enjoys modern day MMO, but they do not give that same longing that players used to get in the old days.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Reasons for what the MMO genre was suppose to be is no longer the question, the question we should be asking us is why aren't Modern MMORPG doing what WOW did back the day.
What is missing, what can be done, and what should change so that the juggernaut of a genre ( MMORPG) can once again take over our lives.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
I think you're missing the point completely then, because an MMO is very specific in nature, and it has been bastardized by big company producers thinking they can get away with labeling their product an MMO without it actually being one.
I disagree but based upon the history of "everything".
There was a point in western music where you weren't supposed to have polyphony because it "supposedly" obscured the text. There was a point in time where people questioned sound in movies. There was a point in time where women were not allowed to act on the stage. There was a point in time in certain areas of the world where the use of bright colors and symbolism as well as heightened detail in a painting was considered "over the top" and avant garde.
There is always a point in time when something different is added to a previously established medium and people freak out and then come to realize that medium is just evolving and changing.
mmo's aren't a specific thing. They happened the way they happened because that was what was being done at that time with the few people working in the genre.
There's nothing to say that if different people had made these first mmo's that they would be different yet again.
The problem is that there was growth in the playerbase. That's not going to be sustainable so it's not just business as usual. It's not just the industry changing in the same way it has always changed and the same way it always will change, because that wouldnt be sustainable.A lot of our concerns really boil down to the genre's distinct shift away from niche and towards mainstream. You can argue whether that's good or bad, but you can't argue that it's a fundamental change.
I agree they don't but I can't say it's because they don't offer it or it's because they've changed. Younger ppl I play mmos with still seem to have it. I assume it's my age and experience that has dimished that "longing" I used to get from them.