The solution to all this is easy. We play different games. One game has features that appeal to the old-school players (no instances, meaningful travel, possibly harsher death penalties) and the other game to the newer style games (quick ways to get into the action). I want Narseldon, or whatever his name is, and Axehilt to be happy and play a game they like.
We can agree to disagree on our gaming preferences. Thanks for the discussion, has been interesting.
I think we can safely say none of the EQ fans here want to deprive them of the type of games they like.
The problem is how dead set they are against us having a game we like. Its disgusting. I've never seen such a hostile bombardment of logical fallacies, bogus rationalizations and irrelevant statistics thrown out over something as trivial as a video game in my entire life.
I am all for slow travel. I'd prefer it over instant porting. However, It has to fit. There needs to be a reason for it other than to force me to slow down and become a walking simulator. Travel time is opportunity time. Encounters and such can be inserted there and can be used to make the experience more meaningful. But if it's just a boring walk to restrict my progress, I'll see through it and it won't impress me.
You are totally right guy. This applies to having pretty much anything in a game just for the sake of it. It's needs to be a core design used to amplify the experience. Trade, travel, danger, scope, distance, pacing how these are approached makes for a completely different game.
I wouldn't want to walk around in a desert for 2 hours doing nothing. The game could easily have random encounters spawn just out of view like mobs in minecraft based on player proximity and monster/npc habitat. That and possibly an oasis or mirage, heck dynamic events that start centered on the player via an invisible personal dynamic event manager/creator, that could be a thing.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
The solution to all this is easy. We play different games. One game has features that appeal to the old-school players (no instances, meaningful travel, possibly harsher death penalties) and the other game to the newer style games (quick ways to get into the action). I want Narseldon, or whatever his name is, and Axehilt to be happy and play a game they like.
We can agree to disagree on our gaming preferences. Thanks for the discussion, has been interesting.
I think we can safely say none of the EQ fans here want to deprive them of the type of games they like.
The problem is how dead set they are against us having a game we like. Its disgusting. I've never seen such a hostile bombardment of logical fallacies, bogus rationalizations and irrelevant statistics thrown out over something as trivial as a video game in my entire life.
Wait, let me get this straight, so we don't agree with you we deprive you of the game you want but when you peeps disagrees with us and calls all features of the games we like crap, it's ok. OKAY..........
Ahhh... you want separate play styles in one game. That way, fast travelers get the advantage of getting to the crafting node first, anti-social players can ignore all of the other players while social players get bogged down helping/chatting others, and the rest... Why should I purposely limit myself when others do not have to? *They* certainly will not.
It is not about "forcing others to play "*my* way", it is about having like minded players in the same game. Sorry of you feel "forced" to play in a way you do not desire. With multiple player games, equality, equal footing, and a level playing field is very important. Are you one of those players that feel every game must cater him? Would a handful (for variety) of "EQ-esque" MMOs kill you?
You're in luck. Over 600 MMOs cater to your desires. Some of the rest of us? A mere handful, if that many.
I usually agree with most of what you say, but on this I can only add that "Incentive" is another option to take care of this. Can you fast travel to rare mobs? or rare crafting materials? or special events?. Point is, give the players a good enough reason to explore the world and this issue pretty much takes care of itself. Don't get me wrong, I do understand where your coming from; I just believe there are alternatives.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
You're still not getting it (spoiler: you never will).
Thats great that a WoW boss is difficult. I'm sure many of us would find that fun. The problem to us is that the rest of the game lacks that same difficulty and sense of accomplishment. When we leave the dungeon we don't want to go back into a menu and queue up for something else. We want to fight our way back to the city to repair our armor and buy our rations.
Regarding challenge, I've already made several posts in this thread that every tier of content should provide challenging gameplay if that's what players want.
Regarding walking back home, if that's what you want then do it! Nothing prevents you from walking back home manually in games with fast travel.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Nostalgia isn't the word I'd use. You like the mechanics you like. You want to see them come back in some great game that appeals to you. It may not appeal to someone else, and that's totally fine.
No problem buddy I'll get it right this time! You're wrong.
1. Just like you couldn't have players mail anything to anyone from anywhere. That doesn't remove that fact that you need slow travel to have local economies and you could actually balance automated transports with a cost and slow travel time but instant travel would break local economies instantly.
2. Guild Wars 2 prefect example. Sure your right you can still have in combat movement buffs, but what I said still applies in that the closer you get to instant travel the closer you get to nullifying transportation or the need for faster than walking travel in any form.
3. Great we have a one time use world where nobody ever uses the same road to get back and forth.
4. It does if the emergent game play I'm talking about happens when you travel.
1. Naturally there would be a category of resource that wasn't player-transportable (or mailable) and so localized economies would be purely NPC-transported, including the finished products (which would be bind-on-pickup once purchased from the locale store.)
2. How is GW2 a perfect example? Mounts would've been useful, and combat movement skills were extremely useful.
3. Right, content is consumed on the first pass (including exploration content) and subsequent repetition is inherently less interesting. This of course doesn't prevent new content from being injected into old zones (and in fact I still think this would be a good idea for WOW, with their phasing tech allowing them to create entire high-level phases of zones without disrupting leveling content.)
4. Well if your example is "only the type of emergent gameplay which relies on slow travel" then gosh, I guess that relies on slow travel -- but it's a pretty useless distinction since many interesting forms of emergent gameplay don't rely on travel.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
MMORPGs are made by everyone except people that truly have a genuine appreciation for MMORPGs, especially as their being a continuation of the visions from the Tabletop RPGs.
They will continue to tell us that "the data" says there is no market for the MMORPG genre today, yet there is not a single MMORPG to show just how wrong they are.
Someone will eventually recognize what the majority of the true MMORPG playerbase already knows...
This guy here, he's the One True Scotsman. All those regular MMORPG players aren't real. Their interests in MMORPG gameplay aren't genuine. They aren't really having fun in exactly the same way as players have enjoyed videogame RPGs for a quarter of a century.
I've heard several MMORPGs like Vanguard and Wizardry Online pushed to try to recapture the old guard MMORPG following. And met with a predictable amount of success. I'm sure others could provide at least a handful of other game names which tried the same thing (even Wildstar's hardcore-targeted endgame was an example of this sort of failure.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The crux of my argument is that fast-travel appeals to everyone.
I hope that is not the crux of your argument, because fast travel does not appeal to me. Therefore, you can't say "everyone". And I am not the only one if you read this thread. So that's a rather large flaw in your reasoning. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides of fast-travel, for me. Luckily, we can play different games.
Going back to our 1st MMO experiences, many of us took a look at the possibilities that awaited the future of this genre and the almost limitless potential that was opening up.
lol
THis pretty much. When I played vanilla WoW for the first time, it literally blew me away. I have played 2 other MMOs before it (UO and EQ) but only for a little while and UO didn't impress me as a world as the graphics were very poor. No other game at the time that I have played compared to WoW for me. The idea of a massive world beautifully rendered and having this magical music right from the start (Teldrassil music) was such an overwhelming experience. I was really excited to explore the world of warcraft which I loved from the RTS games but in its full 3d glory. The sheer scope of the game was just overwhelming.
A lot of those feelings when playing and levelling up for the first time CANNOT be replicated again by ANY MMO. The only thing that might impress me on a similar scale would be an MMO which makes a massive leap forward. By massive leap forward I don't mean go to EQ style or something. I mean a world which truly feels like its alive. Examples of this would be virtual reality, completely randomised encounters and events which feel unique and RANDOM. Maybe seeing NPCs going around adventuring and doing their thing like real players. That would be immersive.
But yeah a lot of my first time experiences with my favourite MMO cannot be replicated again. Nothing can. At the time I played a game which was beatiful, magical, set in the world of my favourite game series but most importantly, nothing at the time was comparable to it. I haven't played any other games which were as impressive and the sheer possibilities is what wandered me.
I am guessing this is true of many EQ fans as well.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
1. Naturally there would be a category of resource that wasn't player-transportable (or mailable) and so localized economies would be purely NPC-transported, including the finished products (which would be bind-on-pickup once purchased from the locale store.)
2. How is GW2 a perfect example? Mounts would've been useful, and combat movement skills were extremely useful.
3. Right, content is consumed on the first pass (including exploration content) and subsequent repetition is inherently less interesting. This of course doesn't prevent new content from being injected into old zones (and in fact I still think this would be a good idea for WOW, with their phasing tech allowing them to create entire high-level phases of zones without disrupting leveling content.)
4. Well if your example is "only the type of emergent gameplay which relies on slow travel" then gosh, I guess that relies on slow travel -- but it's a pretty useless distinction since many interesting forms of emergent gameplay don't rely on travel.
1. I want a virtual world, no-drop, bind on pick up, non-player transferable are all nothing I would want in a virtual world. Other than that sure I guess you could do what you said.
2. The waypoint system replaces any form of transportation. (all they have is swiftness )
3. You can make repetition of the same scenery interesting with pvp, as seen by every pvp match played thousands of times on the same map, or with dynamic events, random quests, or other means. This is more about static content than actual travel times. Plus I agree on the injecting old zones to make them new idea.
4. Not just slow travel but travel in general. If everybody only walks down the same road once and it's a static experience then on top of that they never use the road again and just use fast travel how exactly is emergent game play while traveling going to take place in a world where no one spends any time traveling? (Actually I think I might just concede on this point since your right about emergent game play happening anywhere, however why would you want to remove traveling through the world when you could enhance and use it to add to the amount of emergent game play?)
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
The crux of my argument is that fast-travel appeals to everyone.
I hope that is not the crux of your argument, because fast travel does not appeal to me. Therefore, you can't say "everyone". And I am not the only one if you read this thread. So that's a rather large flaw in your reasoning. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides of fast-travel, for me. Luckily, we can play different games.
Fast travel not only doesn't appeal to me, but it destroys the immersion that games once had. The only thing worse than fast travel is instancing, which also provides a form of fast travel as players can now just queue into places from a menu.
Thats what this thread boils down to from the OP and on. The elements that EQ fans like and feel are missing from the genre today are those which were conducive to immersion or the suspension of our disbelief. Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world.
Good points. The 'zone structure' where there was a vast level range in mobs per zone was one thing most modern mmos have dropped. I enjoyed this feature and it added a great deal to the sense of danger giving each zone its own life.
Going back to our 1st MMO experiences, many of us took a look at the possibilities that awaited the future of this genre and the almost limitless potential that was opening up.
lol
But yeah a lot of my first time experiences with my favourite MMO cannot be replicated again. Nothing can. At the time I played a game which was beatiful, magical, set in the world of my favourite game series but most importantly, nothing at the time was comparable to it. I haven't played any other games which were as impressive and the sheer possibilities is what wandered me.
I am guessing this is true of many EQ fans as well.
In my case it was SWG that gave me that feeling. The first time I stood on the balcony of my house on Dantooine, and Luke's theme swelled up as the sun set. All the horrible rubber banding and thoughts of bad skill balancing and awkward vehicle interface(there wasn't one) and Hulk level, rancor decimating doc buffs in a Star Wars IP just floated away in that one amazing moment.
That was a wonderful experience that I don't think can ever be replicated, except maybe in full blown VR.
- The danger. And there was plenty of it, despite what some may say. Get through Kithicor forest at night in one piece, Highhold Pass, Paludal Caverns, Crystal Caverns, Desert of Ro, and MANY other places in EQ1 then tell me there is no danger. Hell! Corpse runs!
Sure, they could suck at times...but if you knew the areas and were in trouble, you knew where you could go to die (if it was going to happen) to make the corpse run easier on yourself. Things like corpse runs, or even just barely being into a level and dying...hence de-leveling...making gear you may of been wearing suddenly unwearable made you think about your actions more.
....
See this is a real problem I have with old EQ1 and their death system. I mentioned this in that DP thread but, this is a more concrete example.
Why did you have to die there? You knew what your were doing and the best you could do was make sure the death was less problematic.
Why would I respect a death penalty mechanics that does this? Why should I stand for arbitrary beatings? Given everything you said you should have had an option(s) for escape generally only correctly executed by knowledgable and skilled people. Instead you MUST DIE.
The crux of my argument is that fast-travel appeals to everyone.
I hope that is not the crux of your argument, because fast travel does not appeal to me. Therefore, you can't say "everyone". And I am not the only one if you read this thread. So that's a rather large flaw in your reasoning. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides of fast-travel, for me. Luckily, we can play different games.
Fast travel not only doesn't appeal to me, but it destroys the immersion that games once had. The only thing worse than fast travel is instancing, which also provides a form of fast travel as players can now just queue into places from a menu.
Thats what this thread boils down to from the OP and on. The elements that EQ fans like and feel are missing from the genre today are those which were conducive to immersion or the suspension of our disbelief. Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world.
Just in case you missed it, also a big fan Loved EQ. EQ had many solid mechanics and features that have kept the game going for many years and also grandfathered much of the modern MMORPG.
This should be the a mission statement or quoted, "Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world."
That's how I want a MMORPG to be made, what a goal.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
I hope that is not the crux of your argument, because fast travel does not appeal to me. Therefore, you can't say "everyone". And I am not the only one if you read this thread. So that's a rather large flaw in your reasoning. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides of fast-travel, for me. Luckily, we can play different games.
Like slow-traveling? Then slow travel!
Fast-travel doesn't prevent you from slow-traveling.
It's only if you absolutely must force others to play your way (mandatory slow-travel) that you would be disappointed. But if your enjoyment of a game was contingent on forcing others to play your way, that'd be kinda messed up..
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Fast travel not only doesn't appeal to me, but it destroys the immersion that games once had. The only thing worse than fast travel is instancing, which also provides a form of fast travel as players can now just queue into places from a menu.
Thats what this thread boils down to from the OP and on. The elements that EQ fans like and feel are missing from the genre today are those which were conducive to immersion or the suspension of our disbelief. Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world.
If this is the way you feel about it, then I have no argument. This is a matter of personal preference, and agreeing to disagree is the only productive option. I will say this though, as others have stated; fast travel can ruin a local economy. That is why, (once again as others have said) making fast travel through item or skill a rare or expensive thing. However, I would probably never use fast travel in a MMORPG even if it was available, as I play MMORPGs in large part because of the vast worlds. But if I can enjoy and play the game the way I want to, and others can enjoy the game the way they want to, why not strive for a balance that can do this? After all it is a MMOG, get as many people in that world as possible. All this to conclude, that I don't believe forcing my gaming preferences on others is the only option.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
The crux of my argument is that fast-travel appeals to everyone.
I hope that is not the crux of your argument, because fast travel does not appeal to me. Therefore, you can't say "everyone". And I am not the only one if you read this thread. So that's a rather large flaw in your reasoning. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides of fast-travel, for me. Luckily, we can play different games.
Fast travel not only doesn't appeal to me, but it destroys the immersion that games once had. The only thing worse than fast travel is instancing, which also provides a form of fast travel as players can now just queue into places from a menu.
Thats what this thread boils down to from the OP and on. The elements that EQ fans like and feel are missing from the genre today are those which were conducive to immersion or the suspension of our disbelief. Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world.
Just in case you missed it, also a big fan Loved EQ. EQ had many solid mechanics and features that have kept the game going for many years and also grandfathered much of the modern MMORPG.
This should be the a mission statement or quoted, "Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world."
That's how I want a MMORPG to be made, what a goal.
LOL, Several years ago when I was perusing the official WoW forums and there was this "Remember When" thread. And people were reminiscing about how the game was before the changes. I believe this was during the Wrath days. Anyway. One of the posts that stuck out at me was when someone said "I remember when you had to actually go somewhere when you wanted to actually do something."
See this is a real problem I have with old EQ1 and their death system. I mentioned this in that DP thread but, this is a more concrete example.
Why did you have to die there? You knew what your were doing and the best you could do was make sure the death was less problematic.
Why would I respect a death penalty mechanics that does this? Why should I stand for arbitrary beatings? Given everything you said you should have had an option(s) for escape generally only correctly executed by knowledgable and skilled people. Instead you MUST DIE.
This reminds me of this one time in Seb when frogs hit the fan due to a runner and I group evac and as I'm casting the cleric divine shields to go invulnerable and I learn you can't group evacuate clerics that are invulnerable and they MUST DIE. (I paid for a res for the guy, but he was unhappy to say the least)
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
The crux of my argument is that fast-travel appeals to everyone.
I hope that is not the crux of your argument, because fast travel does not appeal to me. Therefore, you can't say "everyone". And I am not the only one if you read this thread. So that's a rather large flaw in your reasoning. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides of fast-travel, for me. Luckily, we can play different games.
Fast travel not only doesn't appeal to me, but it destroys the immersion that games once had. The only thing worse than fast travel is instancing, which also provides a form of fast travel as players can now just queue into places from a menu.
Thats what this thread boils down to from the OP and on. The elements that EQ fans like and feel are missing from the genre today are those which were conducive to immersion or the suspension of our disbelief. Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world.
Just in case you missed it, also a big fan Loved EQ. EQ had many solid mechanics and features that have kept the game going for many years and also grandfathered much of the modern MMORPG.
This should be the a mission statement or quoted, "Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world."
That's how I want a MMORPG to be made, what a goal.
LOL, Several years ago when I was perusing the official WoW forums and there was this "Remember When" thread. And people were reminiscing about how the game was before the changes. I believe this was during the Wrath days. Anyway. One of the posts that stuck out at me was when someone said "I remember when you had to actually go somewhere when you wanted to actually do something."
I remember in WoW when you actually had to read the quest to figure out where to go because there was no GPS to follow around. If you couldn't figure it out you had to actually ask for help or listen to the many people shouting in OOC where is x place! Then someone would shout back read the quest text for the 1000th time!. I find everything seems simple in life until you actually have to do it. Then it's not always so easy as it seemed at first glance. I wouldn't say I have nostalgia for WoW though. It just never had the same hold on me as EQ. I did have some fun times in it though. Listening to the people shout at each other in OOC was actually pretty amusing.
1. I want a virtual world, no-drop, bind on pick up, non-player transferable are all nothing I would want in a virtual world. Other than that sure I guess you could do what you said.
2. The waypoint system replaces any form of transportation. (all they have is swiftness )
3. You can make repetition of the same scenery interesting with pvp, as seen by every pvp match played thousands of times on the same map, or with dynamic events, random quests, or other means. This is more about static content than actual travel times. Plus I agree on the injecting old zones to make them new idea.
4. Not just slow travel but travel in general. If everybody only walks down the same road once and it's a static experience then on top of that they never use the road again and just use fast travel how exactly is emergent game play while traveling going to take place in a world where no one spends any time traveling? (Actually I think I might just concede on this point since your right about emergent game play happening anywhere, however why would you want to remove traveling through the world when you could enhance and use it to add to the amount of emergent game play?)
2. GW2's waypoints were just about the perfect Diablo-like implementation of instant travel in an MMORPG, but I guess I'm having trouble seeing why you feel mounts wouldn't have been valuable still, since they absolutely would have. There was still a lot of running around which would have been improved with a mount.
3. Well discussing what travel might be certainly has more possibilities than discussing how travel is. Dynamic world content definitely has some strong upside going for it. Although the major problems to overcome are (a) I get the sense that it's more costly to develop that type of content, pound-for-pound, than typical quest/dungeon content (there are a lot more edge cases) and (b) you almost have to choose one type of content or the other because if I actually want to do some dungeon then dynamic world content sort of isn't what I want to participate in -- it's a bit like if you forced a mandatory PVP battleground before doing a Dungeon. But if the entire game was just traveling, and all the content was these really randomized, dynamic world content, then I could see that working. Because travel wouldn't just be some empty timesink it would be the entire game (and because the entire game would be centered on making travel fun, it would involve enough interesting decisions to actually be fun.)
4. Yes, of course emergent gameplay will take place in a world where nobody is out traveling on the roads. Anywhere players are, that's where the emergent gameplay is going to happen. (For the end question, #3 hopefully answered it already; I think a game which totally fixated on making travel full of interesting decisions could offer fantastic gameplay. I'm not against travel as a concept. I'm against empty non-gameplay as a concept. I find in MMORPGs something like 95% of the travel is empty non-gameplay.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The crux of my argument is that fast-travel appeals to everyone.
I hope that is not the crux of your argument, because fast travel does not appeal to me. Therefore, you can't say "everyone". And I am not the only one if you read this thread. So that's a rather large flaw in your reasoning. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides of fast-travel, for me. Luckily, we can play different games.
Fast travel not only doesn't appeal to me, but it destroys the immersion that games once had. The only thing worse than fast travel is instancing, which also provides a form of fast travel as players can now just queue into places from a menu.
Thats what this thread boils down to from the OP and on. The elements that EQ fans like and feel are missing from the genre today are those which were conducive to immersion or the suspension of our disbelief. Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world.
Problem with that is, most of this stuff is optional... Don't like fast travel, don't use it. Don't wanna queue, then don't, you're essentially concerned about folks having these options who want to use them, as that's the point of their inclusion. It has no effect on those who do not want to use them. I don't buy the line of reasoning that it takes people out of the world you don't need to see everyone who is logged in. That shouldn't effect your immersion, out of sight out of mind.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
I think we can safely say none of the EQ fans here want to deprive them of the type of games they like.
The problem is how dead set they are against us having a game we like. Its disgusting. I've never seen such a hostile bombardment of logical fallacies, bogus rationalizations and irrelevant statistics thrown out over something as trivial as a video game in my entire life.
You are totally right guy. This applies to having pretty much anything in a game just for the sake of it. It's needs to be a core design used to amplify the experience. Trade, travel, danger, scope, distance, pacing how these are approached makes for a completely different game.
I wouldn't want to walk around in a desert for 2 hours doing nothing. The game could easily have random encounters spawn just out of view like mobs in minecraft based on player proximity and monster/npc habitat. That and possibly an oasis or mirage, heck dynamic events that start centered on the player via an invisible personal dynamic event manager/creator, that could be a thing.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Wait, let me get this straight, so we don't agree with you we deprive you of the game you want but when you peeps disagrees with us and calls all features of the games we like crap, it's ok. OKAY..........
I usually agree with most of what you say, but on this I can only add that "Incentive" is another option to take care of this. Can you fast travel to rare mobs? or rare crafting materials? or special events?. Point is, give the players a good enough reason to explore the world and this issue pretty much takes care of itself. Don't get me wrong, I do understand where your coming from; I just believe there are alternatives.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
Regarding challenge, I've already made several posts in this thread that every tier of content should provide challenging gameplay if that's what players want.
Regarding walking back home, if that's what you want then do it! Nothing prevents you from walking back home manually in games with fast travel.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
1. Naturally there would be a category of resource that wasn't player-transportable (or mailable) and so localized economies would be purely NPC-transported, including the finished products (which would be bind-on-pickup once purchased from the locale store.)
2. How is GW2 a perfect example? Mounts would've been useful, and combat movement skills were extremely useful.
3. Right, content is consumed on the first pass (including exploration content) and subsequent repetition is inherently less interesting. This of course doesn't prevent new content from being injected into old zones (and in fact I still think this would be a good idea for WOW, with their phasing tech allowing them to create entire high-level phases of zones without disrupting leveling content.)
4. Well if your example is "only the type of emergent gameplay which relies on slow travel" then gosh, I guess that relies on slow travel -- but it's a pretty useless distinction since many interesting forms of emergent gameplay don't rely on travel.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This guy here, he's the One True Scotsman. All those regular MMORPG players aren't real. Their interests in MMORPG gameplay aren't genuine. They aren't really having fun in exactly the same way as players have enjoyed videogame RPGs for a quarter of a century.
I've heard several MMORPGs like Vanguard and Wizardry Online pushed to try to recapture the old guard MMORPG following. And met with a predictable amount of success. I'm sure others could provide at least a handful of other game names which tried the same thing (even Wildstar's hardcore-targeted endgame was an example of this sort of failure.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I hope that is not the crux of your argument, because fast travel does not appeal to me. Therefore, you can't say "everyone". And I am not the only one if you read this thread. So that's a rather large flaw in your reasoning. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides of fast-travel, for me. Luckily, we can play different games.
THis pretty much. When I played vanilla WoW for the first time, it literally blew me away. I have played 2 other MMOs before it (UO and EQ) but only for a little while and UO didn't impress me as a world as the graphics were very poor. No other game at the time that I have played compared to WoW for me. The idea of a massive world beautifully rendered and having this magical music right from the start (Teldrassil music) was such an overwhelming experience. I was really excited to explore the world of warcraft which I loved from the RTS games but in its full 3d glory. The sheer scope of the game was just overwhelming.
A lot of those feelings when playing and levelling up for the first time CANNOT be replicated again by ANY MMO. The only thing that might impress me on a similar scale would be an MMO which makes a massive leap forward. By massive leap forward I don't mean go to EQ style or something. I mean a world which truly feels like its alive. Examples of this would be virtual reality, completely randomised encounters and events which feel unique and RANDOM. Maybe seeing NPCs going around adventuring and doing their thing like real players. That would be immersive.
But yeah a lot of my first time experiences with my favourite MMO cannot be replicated again. Nothing can. At the time I played a game which was beatiful, magical, set in the world of my favourite game series but most importantly, nothing at the time was comparable to it. I haven't played any other games which were as impressive and the sheer possibilities is what wandered me.
I am guessing this is true of many EQ fans as well.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
1. I want a virtual world, no-drop, bind on pick up, non-player transferable are all nothing I would want in a virtual world. Other than that sure I guess you could do what you said.
2. The waypoint system replaces any form of transportation. (all they have is swiftness )
3. You can make repetition of the same scenery interesting with pvp, as seen by every pvp match played thousands of times on the same map, or with dynamic events, random quests, or other means. This is more about static content than actual travel times. Plus I agree on the injecting old zones to make them new idea.
4. Not just slow travel but travel in general. If everybody only walks down the same road once and it's a static experience then on top of that they never use the road again and just use fast travel how exactly is emergent game play while traveling going to take place in a world where no one spends any time traveling? (Actually I think I might just concede on this point since your right about emergent game play happening anywhere, however why would you want to remove traveling through the world when you could enhance and use it to add to the amount of emergent game play?)
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Fast travel not only doesn't appeal to me, but it destroys the immersion that games once had. The only thing worse than fast travel is instancing, which also provides a form of fast travel as players can now just queue into places from a menu.
Thats what this thread boils down to from the OP and on. The elements that EQ fans like and feel are missing from the genre today are those which were conducive to immersion or the suspension of our disbelief. Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world.
In my case it was SWG that gave me that feeling. The first time I stood on the balcony of my house on Dantooine, and Luke's theme swelled up as the sun set. All the horrible rubber banding and thoughts of bad skill balancing and awkward vehicle interface(there wasn't one) and Hulk level, rancor decimating doc buffs in a Star Wars IP just floated away in that one amazing moment.
That was a wonderful experience that I don't think can ever be replicated, except maybe in full blown VR.
See this is a real problem I have with old EQ1 and their death system. I mentioned this in that DP thread but, this is a more concrete example.
Why did you have to die there? You knew what your were doing and the best you could do was make sure the death was less problematic.
Why would I respect a death penalty mechanics that does this? Why should I stand for arbitrary beatings? Given everything you said you should have had an option(s) for escape generally only correctly executed by knowledgable and skilled people. Instead you MUST DIE.
Just in case you missed it, also a big fan
Loved EQ. EQ had many solid mechanics and features that have kept the game going for many years and also grandfathered much of the modern MMORPG.
This should be the a mission statement or quoted, "Those which make you feel like you aren't just playing another game, but actually entering another world."
That's how I want a MMORPG to be made, what a goal.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Like slow-traveling? Then slow travel!
Fast-travel doesn't prevent you from slow-traveling.
It's only if you absolutely must force others to play your way (mandatory slow-travel) that you would be disappointed. But if your enjoyment of a game was contingent on forcing others to play your way, that'd be kinda messed up..
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If this is the way you feel about it, then I have no argument. This is a matter of personal preference, and agreeing to disagree is the only productive option. I will say this though, as others have stated; fast travel can ruin a local economy. That is why, (once again as others have said) making fast travel through item or skill a rare or expensive thing. However, I would probably never use fast travel in a MMORPG even if it was available, as I play MMORPGs in large part because of the vast worlds. But if I can enjoy and play the game the way I want to, and others can enjoy the game the way they want to, why not strive for a balance that can do this? After all it is a MMOG, get as many people in that world as possible. All this to conclude, that I don't believe forcing my gaming preferences on others is the only option.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
LOL, Several years ago when I was perusing the official WoW forums and there was this "Remember When" thread. And people were reminiscing about how the game was before the changes. I believe this was during the Wrath days. Anyway. One of the posts that stuck out at me was when someone said "I remember when you had to actually go somewhere when you wanted to actually do something."
This reminds me of this one time in Seb when frogs hit the fan due to a runner and I group evac and as I'm casting the cleric divine shields to go invulnerable and I learn you can't group evacuate clerics that are invulnerable and they MUST DIE. (I paid for a res for the guy, but he was unhappy to say the least)
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/I remember in WoW when you actually had to read the quest to figure out where to go because there was no GPS to follow around. If you couldn't figure it out you had to actually ask for help or listen to the many people shouting in OOC where is x place! Then someone would shout back read the quest text for the 1000th time!. I find everything seems simple in life until you actually have to do it. Then it's not always so easy as it seemed at first glance. I wouldn't say I have nostalgia for WoW though. It just never had the same hold on me as EQ. I did have some fun times in it though. Listening to the people shout at each other in OOC was actually pretty amusing.
2. GW2's waypoints were just about the perfect Diablo-like implementation of instant travel in an MMORPG, but I guess I'm having trouble seeing why you feel mounts wouldn't have been valuable still, since they absolutely would have. There was still a lot of running around which would have been improved with a mount.
3. Well discussing what travel might be certainly has more possibilities than discussing how travel is. Dynamic world content definitely has some strong upside going for it. Although the major problems to overcome are (a) I get the sense that it's more costly to develop that type of content, pound-for-pound, than typical quest/dungeon content (there are a lot more edge cases) and (b) you almost have to choose one type of content or the other because if I actually want to do some dungeon then dynamic world content sort of isn't what I want to participate in -- it's a bit like if you forced a mandatory PVP battleground before doing a Dungeon. But if the entire game was just traveling, and all the content was these really randomized, dynamic world content, then I could see that working. Because travel wouldn't just be some empty timesink it would be the entire game (and because the entire game would be centered on making travel fun, it would involve enough interesting decisions to actually be fun.)
4. Yes, of course emergent gameplay will take place in a world where nobody is out traveling on the roads. Anywhere players are, that's where the emergent gameplay is going to happen. (For the end question, #3 hopefully answered it already; I think a game which totally fixated on making travel full of interesting decisions could offer fantastic gameplay. I'm not against travel as a concept. I'm against empty non-gameplay as a concept. I find in MMORPGs something like 95% of the travel is empty non-gameplay.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Problem with that is, most of this stuff is optional... Don't like fast travel, don't use it. Don't wanna queue, then don't, you're essentially concerned about folks having these options who want to use them, as that's the point of their inclusion. It has no effect on those who do not want to use them. I don't buy the line of reasoning that it takes people out of the world you don't need to see everyone who is logged in. That shouldn't effect your immersion, out of sight out of mind.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
"85% of the people travel someplace they've already been. Where's the fun in that?"