@ GuyClinch player freedom is easier to give examples..
Some people want games like Elder Scrolls freedom where you can go to 90 percent of the world from the start. You can explore the nooks and crannies, pick up random quest you bump into, buy a house and fill it with junk, hunt dragons, or follow your dovakin main quest. I think ESO missed it's core audience by leaning more towards a funneled quest grind and MMORPG players. I have seen and heard lots of Elder Scrolls vets complain about this in comparision to Skyrim.
You can also have Sandboxes with themepark content or vice versa. You focus the game on combat, housing, horizontal progression, community building tools, exploring, crafting and resource gather and have hard questing in the developers themepark area.
There is a difference between what players want and what they will play. For majority of players Sandbox and open world MMORPGS is a foreign idea so it's not surprising you're not going to see people clamoring for it. But it its arrogant to say out of millions of people nobody would play anything but themepark quest hub MMORPGS
Also having progression is not limited to mass quest grinding or mass mob grinding vertical climbs. You can have use based advancement, class ability quest or even time based advancement.
If you think that marketing is what Samsung did to grow their business your an idiot, everything you described us sales and not marketing, discounts, promotions is all sales, training and education is sales.
Samsung grew their business by educating their retail sales force then delivering a great marketing message with the s3. It was all sides of the business that drove their message.
Sane thing with WoW great product, great word of mouth followed up with great marketing. It's the process as a whole not one thing or the other. You know nothing about business and you keep disproving your points in your own posts.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal @ GuyClinch player freedom is easier to give examples..
Some people want games like Elder Scrolls freedom where you can go to 90 percent of the world from the start. You can explore the nooks and crannies, pick up random quest you bump into, buy a house and fill it with junk, hunt dragons, or follow your dovakin main quest. I think ESO missed it's core audience by leaning more towards a funneled quest grind and MMORPG players. I have seen and heard lots of Elder Scrolls vets complain about this in comparision to Skyrim.
I get this and so do the directors of ESO. What you don't get though is if they did this - all the people whining about how its not as free as Skyrim would be whining that there is no story or that there is no sense of progression. GW2 is a perfect counter example. Early on they had upscaling and no hearts. This meant you could go anywhere and do any content you wanted. YOu would wander from area to area do mostly dynamic events or you could grind mobs. There were no quest hubs (no hearts) and with the scaling system you had total freedom.
People hated this. It never made it out of Alpha. You can't just look at the changes they could make without thinking about how it would effect the game as a whole. EQ:N is going to the next lesson for 'fans' of the industry - but even then I don't think they are going to get it.
There are always trade offs with the current technology... The tradeoffs are even harsher with 'impact' and even EQ:N is having the changes disappear after a few minutes..as they are not that stupid..
You can also have Sandboxes with themepark content or vice versa. You focus the game on combat, housing, horizontal progression, community building tools, exploring, crafting and resource gather and have hard questing in the developers themepark area.
There is a difference between what players want and what they will play. For majority of players Sandbox and open world MMORPGS is a foreign idea so it's not surprising you're not going to see people clamoring for it. But it its arrogant to say out of millions of people nobody would play anything but themepark quest hub MMORP
Also having progression is not limited to mass quest grinding or mass mob grinding vertical climbs. You can have use based advancement, class ability quest or even time based advancement.
ESO and GW2 have most/many of the features you are clamoring for. Look at the upcoming adventure zones ESO are putting together. Developers understand all this already. Especially the guys who made Skyrim.
The difference is that they also understand some features can really hurt the experience for their players - as there is no free lunch. Open world and Impact both have costs to a game - in expense - but also in quality of experience for many of the players.
I never said that progression is limited to grinding. I said that in game that had absolutely no scripted content it would be. You need to listen to what the fellow sandboxers are saying here..
My point is that design ideas have impact in your game. There are intended and unintended consquences to the ideas. The reason why MMOs are all very simliar is because most ideas have been tried and they have an understanding of what works and what doesn't at this point.
The only way to have the growth that people are really looking for - freedom WITH high quality content and WITH impact is for growth in the underlying technology.. We haven't seen this at all. Its just variations of the old designs with better graphics, sound and with ESO voice acting..
It's totally valid to NOT like what these guys are doing. I get that. But like I said before lets not act like they are holding back because they are being lazy or mean. No - they are withholding those features because they look at the big picture and don't like the impact of those changes down the line..
Freedom is all groovy until people start bitching there is zero progression. Impact is groovy until people start getting griefed. No quests are groovy until people start bitching they don't know what to do.
Game designers need a vision - and they need to stick with it because there will be always dissenting voices. Your problem is you think most people here actually want to play these dream MMOs. In reality they just want to bitch because they aren't the Matrix yet. I don't think a single poster on this thread is willing to put up with the downsides of total open world, freedom and impact.. Otherwise they would be raving about WURM.
I played SWG constantly from 2003 to the end of 2006. Vader was a static spawn in two locations and a random event spawn in the world. At the first static location Vader was inaccessible by the Rebel faction in the Emperor's retreat. You had to to the quest line to gain access to Vader. In the second location he was in an open building the size and complexity of a back yard garden shed. Any Rebel could visit him. SWG Had no danger, you could jump or fall.
Originally posted by brentapps
The worlds were dangerous also, if you made mistakes you could die and it sort of felt like the world didn't care about your existence. Everything existed how it was because that's how it was, and it was the players job to successfully navigate it. It was not the worlds job to make it easy for the player. In addition, you understood that other players mattered. If you grew strong, you could compete with them, work with them, or trade with them. I wanted to be part of the best players... at the time I was merely a peasant, but I wanted to be like those high level players with amazing gear that I saw walking around. People had a way to differentiate themselves and exist as their own entity. You had a chance to interact with others and you had a feeling for your place in the world and theirs.
As for this part, as far as I can tell, you just described WoW. I suppose that will turn your stomach, but it is still the truth. What I can’t tolerate is the overuse of the statement “the freedom to do anything.” You can’t do everything, you can only do what 5 things the programmers add into the engine. Five is an arbitrary number to exemplify the true limits of what the player can do. You can Kill, Craft, Travel, Give, and Take. What else can you do?
Games today are no more, or no less than they ever where.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
What I can’t tolerate is the overuse of the statement “the freedom to do anything.” You can’t do everything, you can only do what 5 things the programmers add into the engine. Five is an arbitrary number to exemplify the true limits of what the player can do. You can Kill, Craft, Travel, Give, and Take. What else can you do?
Games today are no more, or no less than they ever where.
But you have a choice of WHAT to kill and where to kill.
in most video games, you are doing little but kill anyway. The freedom is about how to do that (for example, stealth games give you lots of options to do so).
What I can’t tolerate is the overuse of the statement “the freedom to do anything.” You can’t do everything, you can only do what 5 things the programmers add into the engine. Five is an arbitrary number to exemplify the true limits of what the player can do. You can Kill, Craft, Travel, Give, and Take. What else can you do?
Games today are no more, or no less than they ever where.
But you have a choice of WHAT to kill and where to kill.
in most video games, you are doing little but kill anyway. The freedom is about how to do that (for example, stealth games give you lots of options to do so).
Killing and Moving are the primary activities in most games, but other activities and actions give context to the killing. The more stuff that is happening in the background the better the simulacrum. If that background stuff is actually mutable and driven by players to some extent, the illusion is even more acceptable.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
@ickin Sales are a part of marketing...... Sales staffs and programs are run independent for retailers, dealers. Sales reps train employes. I know I do this everyday. Promotions are run in conjunction with Marketing. Product promotion is done by both. Sales is a separate department You have no idea what your talking about.... Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.... So that's it I am out.
What I can’t tolerate is the overuse of the statement “the freedom to do anything.” You can’t do everything, you can only do what 5 things the programmers add into the engine. Five is an arbitrary number to exemplify the true limits of what the player can do. You can Kill, Craft, Travel, Give, and Take. What else can you do?
Games today are no more, or no less than they ever where.
But you have a choice of WHAT to kill and where to kill.
in most video games, you are doing little but kill anyway. The freedom is about how to do that (for example, stealth games give you lots of options to do so).
Killing and Moving are the primary activities in most games, but other activities and actions give context to the killing. The more stuff that is happening in the background the better the simulacrum. If that background stuff is actually mutable and driven by players to some extent, the illusion is even more acceptable.
Nope. The "killing and moving" only needs to be very fun. Everything else is optional.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
What I can’t tolerate is the overuse of the statement “the freedom to do anything.” You can’t do everything, you can only do what 5 things the programmers add into the engine. Five is an arbitrary number to exemplify the true limits of what the player can do. You can Kill, Craft, Travel, Give, and Take. What else can you do?
Games today are no more, or no less than they ever where.
But you have a choice of WHAT to kill and where to kill.
in most video games, you are doing little but kill anyway. The freedom is about how to do that (for example, stealth games give you lots of options to do so).
Killing and Moving are the primary activities in most games, but other activities and actions give context to the killing. The more stuff that is happening in the background the better the simulacrum. If that background stuff is actually mutable and driven by players to some extent, the illusion is even more acceptable.
"acceptable" is subjective. SP games uses scripting and VO for the illusion and they work great. You don't need other players for the illusion ... for many.
In fact, i would argue a l33t speak a-h*le player makes the illusion WORSE. I prefer a NPC with professional scripting + VO any day.
I get this and so do the directors of ESO. What you don't get though is if they did this - all the people whining about how its not as free as Skyrim would be whining that there is no story or that there is no sense of progression. GW2 is a perfect counter example. Early on they had upscaling and no hearts. This meant you could go anywhere and do any content you wanted. YOu would wander from area to area do mostly dynamic events or you could grind mobs. There were no quest hubs (no hearts) and with the scaling system you had total freedom.
You are still trying to compartmentalize the argument. You talking freedom without compromise which is not what I am talking about. Again I used Skyrim's freedom as an example precisely because it does not come at the cost of the story at all. There is a nearly as much story and side story as there is an MMORPG. You just had choice of what you're doing and found stuff by exploring.
GW2 is not a good example because it had no identity. It was vertical progression core trying to be a horizontal game. You do one or the other. If you give the impression of difficult(high level) encounters being trivial for basically newbies because of upscaling you're going to run into that issue. You are psychologically training the player to level up to what level 80? Then show them levels are largely meaningless by changing their power to match their surroundings. If you had horizontal progression with shallow power gains you would base area's on difficulty so its based on skill + advantage of progression vs. being artificially being inflated/deflated.
ESO and GW2 have most/many of the features you are clamoring for. Look at the upcoming adventure zones ESO are putting together. Developers understand all this already. Especially the guys who made Skyrim.
The difference is that they also understand some features can really hurt the experience for their players - as there is no free lunch. Open world and Impact both have costs to a game - in expense - but also in quality of experience for many of the players.
I never said that progression is limited to grinding. I said that in game that had absolutely no scripted content it would be. You need to listen to what the fellow sandboxers are saying here..
My point is that design ideas have impact in your game. There are intended and unintended consquences to the ideas. The reason why MMOs are all very simliar is because most ideas have been tried and they have an understanding of what works and what doesn't at this point.
The only way to have the growth that people are really looking for - freedom WITH high quality content and WITH impact is for growth in the underlying technology.. We haven't seen this at all. Its just variations of the old designs with better graphics, sound and with ESO voice acting..
It's totally valid to NOT like what these guys are doing. I get that. But like I said before lets not act like they are holding back because they are being lazy or mean. No - they are withholding those features because they look at the big picture and don't like the impact of those changes down the line..
Freedom is all groovy until people start bitching there is zero progression. Impact is groovy until people start getting griefed. No quests are groovy until people start bitching they don't know what to do.
Game designers need a vision - and they need to stick with it because there will be always dissenting voices. Your problem is you think most people here actually want to play these dream MMOs. In reality they just want to bitch because they aren't the Matrix yet. I don't think a single poster on this thread is willing to put up with the downsides of total open world, freedom and impact.. Otherwise they would be raving about WURM.
I have played ESO and its not open world. it just lacks quest hubs and has good phasing when it works. Both of those I do appreciate in an MMORPG. But you're still funneled through level based zones like any other themepark. The world isn't designed to function as a world but as a means to push you through the quest grind. In Skyrim there were no newbie cities or areas. A place's relevance depends on the quest your are given. This is a design choice not a limitation.
Archeage has graphics better then most using the Cryengine 3, themepark that's a typical asian type one with some nice differences because of its openness and mechanics and it has about UO level sandbox and a semi-open world. I am certain this game did not have anywhere near the budget of ESO or STWOR. It is the best thing ever? No. But it proves you can combine both genre.
You talk about MMORPG like I know nothing which simply isn't the case. I've been playing since Dark Sun Online and Meridian 59. I've talked to design philosophy with different developers over the years. I've played mostly every type of MMORPG even just to see how they worked. No, I don't know all that goes into designing an MMORPG but I know as much as any knowledgeable fan. Much of what you're talking about is again compartmentalizing the argument in extreme situations and all or nothing and not talking about realistic compromises expect of most games sandbox, open world or themepark.
Either you're to believe that at 2004, by coincidence, all other types of MMORPG became non-viable designs by all MMORPG developers. Not to mention just by coincidence happened from this point on to be largely similar to WoW... Or you believe that WoW was such a huge unprecedented and 10 years unmatched hit dwarfing the previous giant by 26 times and larger than the entire western market skewed the genre to follow its path.
Comments
Some people want games like Elder Scrolls freedom where you can go to 90 percent of the world from the start. You can explore the nooks and crannies, pick up random quest you bump into, buy a house and fill it with junk, hunt dragons, or follow your dovakin main quest. I think ESO missed it's core audience by leaning more towards a funneled quest grind and MMORPG players. I have seen and heard lots of Elder Scrolls vets complain about this in comparision to Skyrim.
You can also have Sandboxes with themepark content or vice versa. You focus the game on combat, housing, horizontal progression, community building tools, exploring, crafting and resource gather and have hard questing in the developers themepark area.
There is a difference between what players want and what they will play. For majority of players Sandbox and open world MMORPGS is a foreign idea so it's not surprising you're not going to see people clamoring for it. But it its arrogant to say out of millions of people nobody would play anything but themepark quest hub MMORPGS
Also having progression is not limited to mass quest grinding or mass mob grinding vertical climbs. You can have use based advancement, class ability quest or even time based advancement.
Yeh ...
People hates to chat to group, LFD is invented.
People don't want to commit to raiding but want to see the content, LFR is invented.
Diablo 3 inferno is too hard for many, a difficulty slider is put in.
Many complained about D3 RMAH, it was killed.
Many loves the Avenger movie, they are making a sequel.
Many hates the lone ranger movie, they are NOT making a sequel.
.....
IF SWTOR was single player game (with multiplayer option like diablo)
How great the game will turn out if it not MMORPG ?
IF TSW are single player game , will it become big hit ?
In my option , most new AAA MMOGames fail to "become something as great as WOW" because they try to mix water with oil.
They want to capture "massive multiplayer" market while please "solo casual player" crowd in same time.
After all of argument , I ready want to make clean what kind of "fail" in OP ,
because there are a lot type of "fail" you can label on an MMOGame ,
fail to sell , fail to keep the sub model , fail on multiplayer design ... fail to ... whatever lol.
Samsung grew their business by educating their retail sales force then delivering a great marketing message with the s3. It was all sides of the business that drove their message.
Sane thing with WoW great product, great word of mouth followed up with great marketing. It's the process as a whole not one thing or the other. You know nothing about business and you keep disproving your points in your own posts.
It probably would have better quests, and reviewed better. But making $200M+ in a year .. may be may be not.
I get this and so do the directors of ESO. What you don't get though is if they did this - all the people whining about how its not as free as Skyrim would be whining that there is no story or that there is no sense of progression. GW2 is a perfect counter example. Early on they had upscaling and no hearts. This meant you could go anywhere and do any content you wanted. YOu would wander from area to area do mostly dynamic events or you could grind mobs. There were no quest hubs (no hearts) and with the scaling system you had total freedom.
People hated this. It never made it out of Alpha. You can't just look at the changes they could make without thinking about how it would effect the game as a whole. EQ:N is going to the next lesson for 'fans' of the industry - but even then I don't think they are going to get it.
There are always trade offs with the current technology... The tradeoffs are even harsher with 'impact' and even EQ:N is having the changes disappear after a few minutes..as they are not that stupid..
ESO and GW2 have most/many of the features you are clamoring for. Look at the upcoming adventure zones ESO are putting together. Developers understand all this already. Especially the guys who made Skyrim.
The difference is that they also understand some features can really hurt the experience for their players - as there is no free lunch. Open world and Impact both have costs to a game - in expense - but also in quality of experience for many of the players.
I never said that progression is limited to grinding. I said that in game that had absolutely no scripted content it would be. You need to listen to what the fellow sandboxers are saying here..
My point is that design ideas have impact in your game. There are intended and unintended consquences to the ideas. The reason why MMOs are all very simliar is because most ideas have been tried and they have an understanding of what works and what doesn't at this point.
The only way to have the growth that people are really looking for - freedom WITH high quality content and WITH impact is for growth in the underlying technology.. We haven't seen this at all. Its just variations of the old designs with better graphics, sound and with ESO voice acting..
It's totally valid to NOT like what these guys are doing. I get that. But like I said before lets not act like they are holding back because they are being lazy or mean. No - they are withholding those features because they look at the big picture and don't like the impact of those changes down the line..
Freedom is all groovy until people start bitching there is zero progression. Impact is groovy until people start getting griefed. No quests are groovy until people start bitching they don't know what to do.
Game designers need a vision - and they need to stick with it because there will be always dissenting voices. Your problem is you think most people here actually want to play these dream MMOs. In reality they just want to bitch because they aren't the Matrix yet. I don't think a single poster on this thread is willing to put up with the downsides of total open world, freedom and impact.. Otherwise they would be raving about WURM.
I played SWG constantly from 2003 to the end of 2006. Vader was a static spawn in two locations and a random event spawn in the world. At the first static location Vader was inaccessible by the Rebel faction in the Emperor's retreat. You had to to the quest line to gain access to Vader. In the second location he was in an open building the size and complexity of a back yard garden shed. Any Rebel could visit him. SWG Had no danger, you could jump or fall.
As for this part, as far as I can tell, you just described WoW. I suppose that will turn your stomach, but it is still the truth. What I can’t tolerate is the overuse of the statement “the freedom to do anything.” You can’t do everything, you can only do what 5 things the programmers add into the engine. Five is an arbitrary number to exemplify the true limits of what the player can do. You can Kill, Craft, Travel, Give, and Take. What else can you do?
Games today are no more, or no less than they ever where.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
But you have a choice of WHAT to kill and where to kill.
in most video games, you are doing little but kill anyway. The freedom is about how to do that (for example, stealth games give you lots of options to do so).
Killing and Moving are the primary activities in most games, but other activities and actions give context to the killing. The more stuff that is happening in the background the better the simulacrum. If that background stuff is actually mutable and driven by players to some extent, the illusion is even more acceptable.
Nope. The "killing and moving" only needs to be very fun. Everything else is optional.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
"acceptable" is subjective. SP games uses scripting and VO for the illusion and they work great. You don't need other players for the illusion ... for many.
In fact, i would argue a l33t speak a-h*le player makes the illusion WORSE. I prefer a NPC with professional scripting + VO any day.
You are still trying to compartmentalize the argument. You talking freedom without compromise which is not what I am talking about. Again I used Skyrim's freedom as an example precisely because it does not come at the cost of the story at all. There is a nearly as much story and side story as there is an MMORPG. You just had choice of what you're doing and found stuff by exploring.
GW2 is not a good example because it had no identity. It was vertical progression core trying to be a horizontal game. You do one or the other. If you give the impression of difficult(high level) encounters being trivial for basically newbies because of upscaling you're going to run into that issue. You are psychologically training the player to level up to what level 80? Then show them levels are largely meaningless by changing their power to match their surroundings. If you had horizontal progression with shallow power gains you would base area's on difficulty so its based on skill + advantage of progression vs. being artificially being inflated/deflated.
I have played ESO and its not open world. it just lacks quest hubs and has good phasing when it works. Both of those I do appreciate in an MMORPG. But you're still funneled through level based zones like any other themepark. The world isn't designed to function as a world but as a means to push you through the quest grind. In Skyrim there were no newbie cities or areas. A place's relevance depends on the quest your are given. This is a design choice not a limitation.
Archeage has graphics better then most using the Cryengine 3, themepark that's a typical asian type one with some nice differences because of its openness and mechanics and it has about UO level sandbox and a semi-open world. I am certain this game did not have anywhere near the budget of ESO or STWOR. It is the best thing ever? No. But it proves you can combine both genre.
You talk about MMORPG like I know nothing which simply isn't the case. I've been playing since Dark Sun Online and Meridian 59. I've talked to design philosophy with different developers over the years. I've played mostly every type of MMORPG even just to see how they worked. No, I don't know all that goes into designing an MMORPG but I know as much as any knowledgeable fan. Much of what you're talking about is again compartmentalizing the argument in extreme situations and all or nothing and not talking about realistic compromises expect of most games sandbox, open world or themepark.
Either you're to believe that at 2004, by coincidence, all other types of MMORPG became non-viable designs by all MMORPG developers. Not to mention just by coincidence happened from this point on to be largely similar to WoW... Or you believe that WoW was such a huge unprecedented and 10 years unmatched hit dwarfing the previous giant by 26 times and larger than the entire western market skewed the genre to follow its path.