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What ever happend to camping for xp?
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Most of the games had such areas, but due to miniscule to no usage most/all were converted to solo.
Thats a FACT for you.
There are still some reminiscents of that (heroic 2/2+/4 in SWTOR for example on EVERY planet) but again, most people either skip them or solo them.
Thats aslo another FACT for you.
Malabooga, I'm not sure where you're getting the numbers from that such areas were never popular.
Up to the point where they completely removed most elite quests and mobs in WoW, I had no trouble finding groups for them, in my experience many players did them as a natural way to prepare for the instances in each zone or simply to be well prepared for higher level content. Why they removed the challenge there is still a mystery for me to this day.
Although it's true that most players in TOR skip the heroic areas in favour of more convenient ways of leveling up and getting loot, there's still quite a few people who do them. Again, I've never had real trouble finishing up all the heroic content on planets, except for perhaps the most obscure quests with a lot of prequests leading up to them.
Also, this notion that devs should always develop for the type of content that most people seem to be doing is one of the huge problems in not only MMO's but gaming in general these days.
It ends up with devs making the same thing over and over because they're arrogant enough to think they know what "the public" wants.
It's not because an activity is enjoyed by a smaller number of people that such a thing isn't valuable to have. Similarly, the fact that a large amount of people are playing the game a certain way, doesn't mean that those people are also enjoying themselves immensely. Or that there are no alternatives that would be better.
Now, I'm sure that camping is more and more a thing of the past. But the OP and others that search for it will still find ample opportunities in games like TOR, RIFT, Aion, TERA etc.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I understand what Blade is saying and agree partly with him.. If you don't like grouping, why buy a MMORPG game? That is like going to the local theater to watch the opening night of the new Star Wars movie and bitching that others are sitting next to you..... Well DUH!!!!.. It's a public movie theater dammit.. LOL However, I also understand that at times people may just want to solo or partner up for something less then "full" group content.. But that should not be the focus and majority of the content in a MMORPG game.. Take EQ for an example.. Mobs were either static (camping), or roaming a path, which is damn near obsolete now a days.. I've always felt that anyone should have the ability to effectively defeat roaming trash mobs like snakes, rats, and some "young" animals, even a peon orc.. However, I do support the idea there should be group centered locations such as "Orc camp 1" or "Derv camp 2".. etc etc.. The solo and group content should co-exist in the same zone at a wide variation of levels.. Zones should apply to more players, and YES, there is a chance that a named mob that is 20 levels higher then you is going to wipe your clock.. SHIT HAPPENS..
Go dig up why they converted all elite areas in LOTRO to solo. Turbine has always been most open about it. Just like with raiding.
And if you go against the flow you get - Wildstar.
And again and again they were told those areas still exist, and in most cases grinding those beats other means of leveling, but nooooooo.....lets get 1000 pages of denying the reality.
Edit: just read post above.
And below.
And do you know why? I do.. I played those games as well.. THEY are "one and done" missions with NO reward replay value.. Why on Earth or any planet should a group of people group up to defeat "elite" mobs for less reward then what they can achieve soloing.. That Sir is a FACT.. Players will normally always take the path of least resistance.. This is a problem with those damn quest hub linear games like SWTOR.. Your so called facts don't paint a clear picture like you think they do.. LOL
"no replay value"? are you nuts?
were talking about camping mobs for xp (which additinally beats other ways of leveling in efficiency). of course ot has no replay value and THATS why its gone rofl
WoW.. you really do live in an alternate reality.. I'll pass on your view of facts and reality..
Need means need. Why don't people understand "need" anymore? You can reach 100 and actually do a ton of content in WOW without ever grouping. Grouping is not a need in WOW. It's a want. The majority of WOW players don't bother with grouping.
If you think history hasn't told you anything, then you haven't paid attention to it. Plain and simple. The genre(s) which replaced disco were entertaining music designs in the exact same ways disco was. It was just tweaks to the skin-deep details that changed. But I assure you: people did not suddenly evolve in a single generation to appreciate music in an fundamentally and entirely different way. Their core motivations were the same, and the new music was fundamentally the same. So in how I'm discussing this I'm clearly not talking about crazy unrelated theories like platform shoes killing disco. I'm focused on the fundamental basics of how players have fun. These things haven't changed in all of gaming.
I'm a game designer. I don't work on MMORPGs, but what you're asking isn't really different from the work I do in a significant way. Here are your answers:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
DDO is the most obvious game I can think of that started out as a forced group game. Every instance past 3rd or 4th level required 3+ players. Even if you played a tough class, like a heavily armored fighter, even a level or 2 above the dungeon, you found yourself unable to pass INT/WIS gated puzzles and taking damage from traps that you had pretty much no chance to disarm or save against. It was about 4-5 months before they started adding solo versions of dungeons, and allowing you to rent out NPC adventurers to take with you.
At launch, it was pretty clear what they had designed, and that the very essence of those dungeons was to force grouping. Anybody that thinks they designed those dungeons with the idea that they would eventually make them soloable is in sheer denial. It's pretty clear they had no intention of serving solo players, as that was the only content they had at the time.
They completely pulled a 180 from their pre-launch design principles. You don't do that on a whim; you do that because a ton of post launch data mining and research tells you you should.
Most games I've played generally do offer more XP for group content. But after the inevitable bio breaks and people having to go AFK to deal with some spur of the moment incident, you'd often fall behind.
Big exception: CoX. Crank the difficulty up a couple notches, run instances and ya'd burn through levels like nuthin else, even before people started building the farming missions in the foundry. Once that started up, that killed grouping for me.
Now that I think about it, those farming missions were moreless "camping for XP"... no wonder I despised them.
Its true. Various outdoor areas in LOTRO were populated with many elites and they were not only specifically designed but widely known to be superior for leveling. They were made to be camped and grinded and gave good equipment and very nice xp.
You would occasionally get some people doing it. But even on the RP server with a rather mature community getting a group to go do it was not in anyway dependable.
I am sorry to break it to the diehards but objective data just shows, most people won't do it even when its not just favorable but KNOWN to be favorable.
This is an unpopular feature that people actively avoid even when its more rewarding. You simply can't get away from that.
The DDO stuff is true too, Turbine had to slowly turn the gigantic design ship around. They couldn't actually make most things solo friendly because DDO was designed from the ground up to be a party based game (for various reasons) but even so they started doing all sorts of things to make the game at least less forcefully statically grouped to a certain amount. They didn't do these things because forced grouping is great.
Turbine keeps a lot of metrics. They do a lot of things based on copious data gathering. They also created the Asheron's Call which was the least forced grouping of the major old school games (and the most innovative too). They are not married to ideas one way or the other, they also are not afraid to design a forced grouping game from the ground up. And they are not afraid to go the other direction if they feel they have too.
Make no mistake changing somethings design after implementation is a HUGE pain in the ass. Its often better (both faster and better quality) to start new than to monkey with an existing design.
That Trubine changed two different money making games, one of which was very rigorously forced grouping, is extremely significant. Anyone ignoring this is living in La La Land. I am sorry if these facts punched your nostalgia in the gut. But its just the way it is.
Does it "need" to be made? I think so.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
But what old school crowd do they cater to? It's not one body of people who are like minded. Some want the eq experience, some want the AC experience, some want the shadowbane experience, some want the UO experience, Some want the SWG experience, some want the AO experience, some want the DAOC experience......et cetera
These games were different in many ways, what design would cater to all of these people?
It's not as simple as many here make it out to be..."give me old school game we all love it long time"! it doesn't work that way.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Very flawed way of thinking. There are many many things which you can't get in other genres. If people enjoy those aspects then why should they play something else?
i like how you see it as your way or the highway.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
We're not talking about rare spawns, we're talking about grinding mobs in a group.
Except the stories aren't immersive because the NPCs are static and nothing you do impacts the world. It's the opposite of immersive, especially when you see everyone else doing the same tasks and objectives.
And the story is horribly padded garbage that gets old in 2 levels because they have to write enough story to fill 60 levels of boring and useless questing.
I'd rather choose my own path and kill what I want and make my own objectives than delude myself into believing following a glowing line on my mini map to the mobs that are designated my level to kill, and repeating the process for 5 months.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I'd say it's certainly one of the more important questions on the topic, as these topics almost always come full circle to basically say, "look, we are just saying we want a game with old school features". Considering that those games were fairly diverse in their designs, that want really doesn't say much at all.
There's a lot to pull from in those days, the problem arises in that many of those features/designs are counter to each other. It's not just a matter of group vs solo based, it's also loot vs crafted, PVP vs PVE, FFA vs Faction, theme vs Sand, Quest vs Mob Grind, F2P vs Sub, Open World Vs Zoned, player want vs player want...
Each of those features turns a certain segment of players away while attracting another. Which means even if there is a good chunk of players that want old school design and features, that market is broken down and alienated by each feature added. We see this with a lot of indie "sandbox" MMos today. What you're really left with player wise once all is said and done, is no where near what it was when the discussion began.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's accurate to say there's demand for that type of game. It's not accurate to claim the MMORPG industry needs to provide it.
(Though technically if you leave in those quotation marks, implying a sarcastic or false statement, that actually works.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
No, thats your strawman not mine. Im happy for anyone to play any game. What i said is games that are multiplayer are designed for multiplayer and vice versa. its not rocket science, Being Multiplayer is a boolean, its either true or false.
lets abstract and make it simple:
Game one has feature A & B & C, game two has Features C & D. Lets say feature A is a multiplayer aspect.
An adult who doesn't like A C or D but loves B makes an informed choice, do they feel they will enjoy the first game as it is. A child wants to play the first game but only if they get rid of A and C. Or worse complains about game one, or even worse plays it and complains.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
There is certainly a segment that is currently under-served.
And I agree aiming for this segment is an interesting choice, one would face almost no competition there.
"How much can this segment support?" is the real question. For a big budget title the mass market seems to still be the only option. Then again, not many big budget titles coming in the near future anyway, so somewhat of a moot point.
In any case, several companies are grabbing the opportunity and are targeting the underserved segment now with mid budget games (which doesn't necessarily mean less quality, more focussed design can be a very good thing for a game). We will see how well those games will do. Let's hope they turn out to be good and do well.
It's almost sad that so many are trying to derail the topic to something it isn't.. This isn't about group play vs solo, or whatever side issue people might have.. It is simply about how mobile does a character "HAVE" to be to enjoy the game and level.. I keep hearing the same TIRED excuses and reason why "camping" isn't acceptable.. Camping is nothing more then PERSONAL preference.. Just like real life fishing on a Sunday afternoon.. I have the option to go sit static in a certain area and fish there all day long if I want, or I can go trolling, or jump around the lake.. Neither way is right or wrong..
I fail to see why some are having issues with people wanting to be static and camp vs always pressing the direction keys, always being on the move.. Oh sure you can farm a dungeon like many of us have, but it's a real pain to always have to move from point A > B > C > D >>>>> Z then repeat (since mobs don't respawn in dungeons).. Maybe someone has to deal with real life issues, and has to go afk for a few.. Great.. now someone needs to put their character on follow while the rest of the group moves around or ahead.. At a camping location, that wouldn't be necessary.. The big issue is do you move to the mobs, or do you pull the mobs to you.. Either way, the mobs are dying.. Give players a choice, the only thing I want is equal reward (which sadly isn't happening these days)..
It's not about right or wrong, it's about what people enjoy. More people enjoy the variety questing enforces than the endless repetition camping offered. If a choice is offered, players will always choose the easy repetition, and then will have a worse time because of that decision.
So developers have a choice of whether to create (a) a bad repetitive game, (b) a game where players which lets players choose to play it as a bad repetitive game (which they will, and then they'll blame developers and quit), or (c) a game which is varied and adventurous.
I don't remember if you specifically said it, but many oldschool gamers will argue for excessive travel (calling it adventure) in one thread, and then come in here and argue for static camping (definitely not an adventure) in this thread. It's quite ironic, really.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I recently started playing ESO again and while questing, I hit a spot that was perfect grinding. It just automatically kicked in and an hour or two later I leveled, sold my drops, and continued questing.
I really became addicted to grinding while playing L2 (even though I did the grind in other games). Spending weeks grinding to level and losing xp if you died became second nature. So even if some games don't want players to grind the alternatives are seldom better.
In GW2 dynamic events have taken the place of grinding for me. So you can grind quests, bosses, mobs, raids, strongholds, other players, special events, it's all grinding in the end.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Context. This is what I am using here. Since video games in general and MMOs more specifically have no real "need" to exist, I relax that criteria in order to further a discussion about "needless" things.
I stand by my comment that if a company thinks there is a market for this kind of gameplay, it needs to be made. A sector of the possible playerbase is not being utilized.
The question arises about "market and profitability", to which I have no answers. I do not believe that developers, studios, and publishers have any idea, either. They may have numbers, but the ones I have seen have too many variables to make this kind of claim. I mean how many modern MMOs have this type of feature? Using 10+ year old data and "projecting" it forward is not very scientific.
My opinion, of course
PS: Just a reminder, I'm not a fan of this type of gameplay, but that does not mean I think it should not exist for those who do enjoy it.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR