I would say that finding out how to level with the many different factors that could get you killed is far more like walking over a tightrope then a game where you are pretty much set up to win until the end of the game. You really don't need any skill to level up in most of these games. I think my math pretty much proves that. It takes zero skill and that is why it is both boring and repetitive. It is also why so many people play MMOs now.
I believe that having setbacks is exactly what makes something difficult. If you can overcome setbacks then you are doing something many others can't. The many others who will instead give up and quit the game.
Another major factor is problem solving. Having to figure out where to go, what to do, and how to do it on your own with no guidance is something that again makes it more challenging.
What I don't believe makes a game challenging is that you have to execute a combination of buttons during a fight. That requires a small amount of invested time. You will quickly figure it out (especially with no death penalty and overpowered equipment). Then you just have to repeat for the rest of the game. You are basically saying this is what makes a game challenging. This is like walking on a tightrope. It is not.
The difficulty comes from many factors that I have pointed out.
Time (no one has patience or can handle any long term goals)
Interaction (trains, trading in person, helping others, hindering others, ect.)
Death penalty (you can't level up if you can't figure out how)
Item power (with powerful items and underpowered mobs anyone can level easily)
Monster persistence (mobs with leashes are easy to escape from and lower agro radius also makes things easier)
Lack of need for CC in anything means you generally just have to figure out how to kill it
Quests/Maps Figuring out where to go and what to do is again part of basic problem solving that most people lack
These are all factors that add into preventing you from gaining a level or causing you to quit from frustration. Frustration is part of difficulty and something to overcome.
You can belittle the difficulty of old games and continue to say the only thing that shows skill is pushing a few buttons accurately during a fight, but this seems to me like someone just trying to justify that games today are indeed just as hard or harder even though they are not. If that makes people feel better about playing these games then more power to them. I consider games today to be much more of a leisure activity. In the days of early MMOs they were more of a job, but like a job were more rewarding when you completed something.
I'm not saying any of this is rocket science, but in general many people lack some of the most simple skills in life. That is why games have been made easier to appeal to the masses. The niche players are not geniuses, but they are a step up in their ability to problem solve, look at long term goals, and in general just have the patience to work things out for themselves.
I find in life that most things can be done if you are willing to put the time and effort in. Most things are not something only a few people are capable of. Generally it is just a matter of patience, persistence, dedication, and discipline which many people are lacking.
Setbacks aren't exactly what makes things difficult. A short hurdle where you're forced to go back 5 hurdles if you miss one aren't harder than tall hurdles where you have to repeat the hurdle you missed.
We're talking about the overall skill involved, not in simply leveling. Offhanded comments like that it's 'easy to level' allude that you're more of a destination-only sort of player only interested in traveling to the foot of the mountain (where the mile-markers end) and yeah if you don't continue onward then you're not going to experience a game's toughest challenges where the skill depth really emerges.
Gaining levels was never difficult in early MMORPGs. You had to avoid too much aggro, but apart from that the real limitation was time which doesn't involve skill (it just involves time.) "Pushing a few buttons" is decision-making. Those buttons represent the game's decision-making, and decision-making is the biggest aspect of skill there is.
In current MMOs there are far less decisions to make. If you read my post I've pointed out how problem solving was far more in use in those older games then in games today. The games today are practically made to play themselves aside from combat. There aren't really any meaningful decisions.
This conversion is going away from mathematical data which favors you IMO. You can just post a few words and say it's fact even if it's not. Then we can go back and forth endlessly with no real proof other then our words either way. I've already provided some proof, but you have not..
If you want me to go in depth on the shallowness of today's MMOs I'm sure I can come up with some mathematical analysis of that as well.
In current MMOs there are far less decisions to make. If you read my post I've pointed out how problem solving was far more in use in those older games then in games today. The games today are practically made to play themselves aside from combat. There aren't really any meaningful decisions.
This conversion is going away from mathematical data which favors you IMO. You can just post a few words and say it's fact even if it's not. Then we can go back and forth endlessly with no real proof other then our words either way. I've already provided some proof, but you have not..
If you want me to go in depth on the shallowness of today's MMOs I'm sure I can come up with some mathematical analysis of that as well.
Well if combat is where all of the depth is, and where you spent most of your time, then it's rather irrelevant that games "play themselves apart from combat".
The math you presented was split about even between these concepts:
Some of it helped answer the core question (how many mistakes are allowed?) which determines skill.
Some of it simply revealed how little content those games had (far fewer items, so they arbitrarily made it take longer to get each one. (The fact that drops were extremely random and not soulbound are key design flaws, but we probably don't need to cover those here.))
Some of it revealed how shallow those games were (being easily solved, mathematically, is indication of shallowness.)
Aggro is the mechanic you mathematically solve (minus patrols; we'll pretend you did a fabulous writeup on that part too; great job!) So we know it's shallow because it was easy to solve mathematically apart from the limited variation of patrols. But clearly aggro is the same between games and is only at most about a month's worth of learning tops.
Aggro was doomed as a mechanic because it was less interesting than combat to start with, and harder to vary. I'm sorry you liked it, but it was objectively shallow (as you've shown by your simple proof) and making it deeper basically requires giant re-writes whereas combat is designed to be very extendable with mobs being given new abilities and behaviors. Combined with player rotations being quite deep on their own (and boss mechanics deliberately being designed to disrupt the typical rotation), the result is quite a lot more depth (and thus quite a lot more skill requirement) than older MMORPGs where the major challenge was a simple matter of not pulling too many mobs.
So yes, I'm unable to write a mathematical solution which accounts for the convoluted, difficult-to-master rotations and enemy abilities in modern MMORPGs. The fact that they are not easily mathematically solved is testament to their depth.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
A complex rotation on its own is not depth, its a complicated rotation of time key presses, nothing more nothing less. In fact it's a depth retarder since success in a rotation based games is about simplifying and normalising to achieve the single optimal 'minnax' rotation. Further to this skill diversity causes balancing issues in these Games where you can see that simplification is applied to maintain balance.
Depth is having different forms of play that may or may no interact with each other and will contribute to a cohesive game system. Good depth you can see in games like eve and eso where there are multiple forms of viable gameplay that compliment each other - e.g viable hybrid builds and user defined roles e.g a tanking staff Mage that can switch to long range archer in plate to support a small force with no healing, then switching to siege support to heal snd shield siege operators. a pilot who switches to the frigate to defeat the vet in the battleship, before switching to a high specced attack miner to lure in the unsuspecting opportunist pirate, then switching to a stealth freighter to transport important goods for their federation. poor depth is where everything boils down to a couple stats, you gear up, you run garrisons, you pvp, you raid all to get bigger numbers to feed into a semi static rotation you constantly drive over and over and over and over week after week month after month etc etc.
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
Originally posted by Bladestrom A complex rotation on its own is not depth, its a complicated rotation of time key presses, nothing more nothing less. In fact it's a depth retarder since success in a rotation based games is about simplifying and normalising to achieve the single optimal 'minnax' rotation. Further to this skill diversity causes balancing issues in these Games where you can see that simplification is applied to maintain balance.
Depth is having different forms of play that may or may no interact with each other and will contribute to a cohesive game system. Good depth you can see in games like eve and eso where there are multiple forms of viable gameplay that compliment each other - e.g viable hybrid builds and user defined roles e.g a tanking staff Mage that can switch to long range archer in plate to support a small force with no healing, then switching to siege support to heal snd shield siege operators. a pilot who switches to the frigate to defeat the vet in the battleship, before switching to a high specced attack miner to lure in the unsuspecting opportunist pirate, then switching to a stealth freighter to transport important goods for their federation. poor depth is where everything boils down to a couple stats, you gear up, you run garrisons, you pvp, you raid all to get bigger numbers to feed into a semi static rotation you constantly drive over and over and over and over week after week month after month etc etc.
Depth is about having a broad gap between unskilled and skilled players. So it makes no sense for you to claim complex rotations don't create depth. Of course they're depth.
It's about opportunities for failure. A simple rotation (toggle autoattack) provides almost no opportunity to fail and creates shallow combat. A complicated rotation provides lots of opportunities to fail which creates deep combat. An even deeper design will create encounters which deliberately disrupt the typical rotation.
The only time a deep mechanic isn't depth is if it's trumped by a shallower one (like bringing 20 players to kill 5 players in world PVP.) At that point the shallower mechanic prevents the deeper one from mattering.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I played for 4 months as a half-elf rouge to get to level 19 on my paper card in a party session of 8, with two super cool DM's.
It was a big deal at level 17 when I snuck into a venerable dragon's lair in the water entrance to steal a "Shortsword of Quickness" from his Hoard.
That character died in an orc lair by a tumble into a spike pit during a battle in which I had slain eight of the NPC monsters by backstabbing.
I cried for two weeks, and contemplated suicide, but then I found a DnD computer game called "Darksun", and rays of hope began to shine!
The reason for this post is to identify with the thread maker. I know what it was to really EARN ones in-game prizes.
The concept of Pay-to-Win is a total capitalist elitist microcosm of the mentality of nothing being more powerful than money. You have money, you gain gear and victory. You lack money, you feel bad and likely get nicked by bosses and PvP hounds who bought lvl 80 and all purple gear before they ever entered the world.
It teaches kids with money that they can pay for success, and nothing will happen but fun, fun, fun.
That is a danger in and of itself, but the real casualty in all of that is designer integrity.
Designers make games to make money, teaching the money for power ethic without realizing the moral compromise, when we all began as kid gammer's, who wanted to make an awesome game players will like.
Somewhere along the line, we sell our souls, and loose that basic focus, because we are greedy by design, and we tell ourselves that we grew up, just to sound less wicked in summation of our banishment of our own values.
I think the next gen MMO's should get back to player skill from 1-100 or whatever cap you want to levy, because earned success is a far better lesson then the one we currently teach.
Just my opinion.
"Investment firms do not have that outlook on life. They need to know there is not only a return on their investment but also a solid profit at the end of it." tawess-
In current MMOs there are far less decisions to make. If you read my post I've pointed out how problem solving was far more in use in those older games then in games today. The games today are practically made to play themselves aside from combat. There aren't really any meaningful decisions.
This conversion is going away from mathematical data which favors you IMO. You can just post a few words and say it's fact even if it's not. Then we can go back and forth endlessly with no real proof other then our words either way. I've already provided some proof, but you have not..
If you want me to go in depth on the shallowness of today's MMOs I'm sure I can come up with some mathematical analysis of that as well.
Well if combat is where all of the depth is, and where you spent most of your time, then it's rather irrelevant that games "play themselves apart from combat".
The math you presented was split about even between these concepts:
Some of it helped answer the core question (how many mistakes are allowed?) which determines skill.
Some of it simply revealed how little content those games had (far fewer items, so they arbitrarily made it take longer to get each one. (The fact that drops were extremely random and not soulbound are key design flaws, but we probably don't need to cover those here.))
Some of it revealed how shallow those games were (being easily solved, mathematically, is indication of shallowness.)
Aggro is the mechanic you mathematically solve (minus patrols; we'll pretend you did a fabulous writeup on that part too; great job!) So we know it's shallow because it was easy to solve mathematically apart from the limited variation of patrols. But clearly aggro is the same between games and is only at most about a month's worth of learning tops.
Aggro was doomed as a mechanic because it was less interesting than combat to start with, and harder to vary. I'm sorry you liked it, but it was objectively shallow (as you've shown by your simple proof) and making it deeper basically requires giant re-writes whereas combat is designed to be very extendable with mobs being given new abilities and behaviors. Combined with player rotations being quite deep on their own (and boss mechanics deliberately being designed to disrupt the typical rotation), the result is quite a lot more depth (and thus quite a lot more skill requirement) than older MMORPGs where the major challenge was a simple matter of not pulling too many mobs.
So yes, I'm unable to write a mathematical solution which accounts for the convoluted, difficult-to-master rotations and enemy abilities in modern MMORPGs. The fact that they are not easily mathematically solved is testament to their depth.
This is such a silly post. Again all you say is words that are meant to insult and belittle old games without any real proof.
I covered a fair amount more then just aggro in my post and a could come up with more then that I'm sure. I'm generally just to lazy to do so.
You have yet to prove this amazing skill that current MMOs take. The skill that is so complex that it can't be solved via math in a simple manner for an example. In reality it is not complex. You are guided on a direct path from start to finish, told where to go, and told what to do. There are not skills involved other then being able to click a few buttons at the right time in some battles at the end of the game when you say the game is supposedly harder (more skill required) than any MMO that ever existed (still not proven).
The truth is there was a lot more you had to deal with then Aggro in older MMOs. There was also a lot more to deal with then just grinding. As I said in my post already (via math) is that there were many factors that contirbuted the fact that it at least somewhat diffuclt (not rocket science) to level up and accomplish things. You had to have a lot of basic human skills to get anywhere in the game without rage quiting. Generally people will come up with a lot of excuses for their quiting to make themsleves feel better about having done it. The truth is they just didn't have certain skills required to make it to the end of the game let alone beat some of the most difficult bosses in events that required massive teamwork and patience.
I don't need you to reply as I'm sure you will right the following again.
Skills are not patience, general problem solving, or anything that isn't almost instantly solvable (wast of time for you I know).
Old games were simply grind
Developers were to lazy to put in items and content
Games today require so much skill to beat a monster it baffles the mind.
Figuring out where to go (traveling) is not a skill (problem solving). It's a waste of time.
Aggro is so simple it's been removed from current games (I'm sure that is the reason ).
More people playing games means it's harder. (A grand concept, but I think it's the opposite).
There is probably something I missed in there, but I believe I have refuted all those points with mathematics, but it was generally ignored or not accepted because you seem to have a certain notion you will not give up regardless if it's wrong or not.
Developers were to lazy to put in items and content
Games today require so much skill to beat a monster it baffles the mind.
Figuring out where to go (traveling) is not a skill (problem solving). It's a waste of time.
Aggro is so simple it's been removed from current games (I'm sure that is the reason ).
More people playing games means it's harder. (A grand concept, but I think it's the opposite).
There is probably something I missed in there, but I believe I have refuted all those points with mathematics, but it was generally ignored or not accepted because you seem to have a certain notion you will not give up regardless if it's wrong or not.
I disagree with this portion.
Grinding was the point to the progenator games from the 70's-80's PnP era. Games like "Diablo" missed the mark on that by being nothing but grinding with no skill or social elements outside of PvP, but games like "Bard's Tale", "Daggerfall", "Darksun", "EverQuest" were genius in incorporating it.
Developers were not lazy in the early years, they were catering to masses and diminishing the algorithm because of budget and time constraints levied by the admin at production.
Monsters/bosses need to be challenging aspects of a game, it's what makes the accomplishment of killing it so cool. But if you bought cheater gear to do it and came into a game at max lvl because you paid for the leap to mighty on character creation, it is like'soooo". You didn't really work up too the power you abuse and scoff at, thus you don't respect the achievement other "grinders" took weeks, months, or years to build up to.
Figuring out where to go is problem solving and that is the main skill needed in the old DnD realms. DM's would drop subtle hints to players to help them find quests and directions, but if you were a DA you never made it past lvl 5 and likely hated the geeks who were lvl 25.
Aggro is very cool in party battles and was pioneered not as a cheat, but as a tool in boss slaying, it also stands to reason if you hit a thing or burn a thing it gets mad at you and wants you dead more than the other guy.
More people playing a game makes it harder in certain ways. Like waiting for tapped out monsters to respawn, and makes it easier to kill monsters. If a game is just PvP it makes it hard to be a new player, if you aren't paying to win, and tends to create a higher quiter rate.
I leave you and whoever to the final point, I'm just interjecting my own point of view from a pre-MMO perspective.
"Investment firms do not have that outlook on life. They need to know there is not only a return on their investment but also a solid profit at the end of it." tawess-
There are MMOs with Perma death and Full Loot PvP... currently, so that seems pretty hard. As for sharing accounts... not too bright. Even for the 'glory days.'
Patience is a key ( or should be ) a key element in RPG players.
If you are too busy day-to-day to devote time in segments to a months long pursuit, maybe your heart is truly in the RTS, ACTION, or FPS genres.
RPG's at their core are methodical undertakings.
"Investment firms do not have that outlook on life. They need to know there is not only a return on their investment but also a solid profit at the end of it." tawess-
Developers were to lazy to put in items and content
Games today require so much skill to beat a monster it baffles the mind.
Figuring out where to go (traveling) is not a skill (problem solving). It's a waste of time.
Aggro is so simple it's been removed from current games (I'm sure that is the reason ).
More people playing games means it's harder. (A grand concept, but I think it's the opposite).
There is probably something I missed in there, but I believe I have refuted all those points with mathematics, but it was generally ignored or not accepted because you seem to have a certain notion you will not give up regardless if it's wrong or not.
I disagree with this portion.
Grinding was the point to the progenator games from the 70's-80's PnP era. Games like "Diablo" missed the mark on that by being nothing but grinding with no skill or social elements outside of PvP, but games like "Bard's Tale", "Daggerfall", "Darksun", "EverQuest" were genius in incorporating it.
Developers were not lazy in the early years, they were catering to masses and diminishing the algorithm because of budget and time constraints levied by the admin at production.
Monsters/bosses need to be challenging aspects of a game, it's what makes the accomplishment of killing it so cool. But if you bought cheater gear to do it and came into a game at max lvl because you paid for the leap to mighty on character creation, it is like'soooo". You didn't really work up too the power you abuse and scoff at, thus you don't respect the achievement other "grinders" took weeks, months, or years to build up to.
Figuring out where to go is problem solving and that is the main skill needed in the old DnD realms. DM's would drop subtle hints to players to help them find quests and directions, but if you were a DA you never made it past lvl 5 and likely hated the geeks who were lvl 25.
Aggro is very cool in party battles and was pioneered not as a cheat, but as a tool in boss slaying, it also stands to reason if you hit a thing or burn a thing it gets mad at you and wants you dead more than the other guy.
More people playing a game makes it harder in certain ways. Like waiting for tapped out monsters to respawn, and makes it easier to kill monsters. If a game is just PvP it makes it hard to be a new player, if you aren't paying to win, and tends to create a higher quiter rate.
I leave you and whoever to the final point, I'm just interjecting my own point of view from a pre-MMO perspective.
I agree with you, the only reason why older mmorpgs where a grind because leveling was literally in killing mobs and not much questing in games like everquest 1, could I go back after playing quest lines like the secret world? Hek no! But at the same time it did so many other things right where you did not care if you where only killing things without quests. like group mechanics, your unique class jobs, the challenge, the danger, and so much more.
Developers were to lazy to put in items and content
Games today require so much skill to beat a monster it baffles the mind.
Figuring out where to go (traveling) is not a skill (problem solving). It's a waste of time.
Aggro is so simple it's been removed from current games (I'm sure that is the reason ).
More people playing games means it's harder. (A grand concept, but I think it's the opposite).
There is probably something I missed in there, but I believe I have refuted all those points with mathematics, but it was generally ignored or not accepted because you seem to have a certain notion you will not give up regardless if it's wrong or not.
I disagree with this portion.
Grinding was the point to the progenator games from the 70's-80's PnP era. Games like "Diablo" missed the mark on that by being nothing but grinding with no skill or social elements outside of PvP, but games like "Bard's Tale", "Daggerfall", "Darksun", "EverQuest" were genius in incorporating it.
Developers were not lazy in the early years, they were catering to masses and diminishing the algorithm because of budget and time constraints levied by the admin at production.
Monsters/bosses need to be challenging aspects of a game, it's what makes the accomplishment of killing it so cool. But if you bought cheater gear to do it and came into a game at max lvl because you paid for the leap to mighty on character creation, it is like'soooo". You didn't really work up too the power you abuse and scoff at, thus you don't respect the achievement other "grinders" took weeks, months, or years to build up to.
Figuring out where to go is problem solving and that is the main skill needed in the old DnD realms. DM's would drop subtle hints to players to help them find quests and directions, but if you were a DA you never made it past lvl 5 and likely hated the geeks who were lvl 25.
Aggro is very cool in party battles and was pioneered not as a cheat, but as a tool in boss slaying, it also stands to reason if you hit a thing or burn a thing it gets mad at you and wants you dead more than the other guy.
More people playing a game makes it harder in certain ways. Like waiting for tapped out monsters to respawn, and makes it easier to kill monsters. If a game is just PvP it makes it hard to be a new player, if you aren't paying to win, and tends to create a higher quiter rate.
I leave you and whoever to the final point, I'm just interjecting my own point of view from a pre-MMO perspective.
I agree with you, the only reason why older mmorpgs where a grind because leveling was literally in killing mobs and not much questing in games like everquest 1, could I go back after playing quest lines like the secret world? Hek no! But at the same time it did so many other things right where you did not care if you where only killing things without quests. like group mechanics, your unique class jobs, the challenge, the danger, and so much more.
That all came in the development phase before the corporate rush to completion.
Thank the design team for holding out against the grain as long as they did.
And adverse to many thoughtless MMO fans, WoW, ruined the quality of the games that followed it. ;(
"Investment firms do not have that outlook on life. They need to know there is not only a return on their investment but also a solid profit at the end of it." tawess-
This is such a silly post. Again all you say is words that are meant to insult and belittle old games without any real proof.
I covered a fair amount more then just aggro in my post and a could come up with more then that I'm sure. I'm generally just to lazy to do so.
You have yet to prove this amazing skill that current MMOs take. The skill that is so complex that it can't be solved via math in a simple manner for an example. In reality it is not complex. You are guided on a direct path from start to finish, told where to go, and told what to do. There are not skills involved other then being able to click a few buttons at the right time in some battles at the end of the game when you say the game is supposedly harder (more skill required) than any MMO that ever existed (still not proven).
The truth is there was a lot more you had to deal with then Aggro in older MMOs. There was also a lot more to deal with then just grinding. As I said in my post already (via math) is that there were many factors that contirbuted the fact that it at least somewhat diffuclt (not rocket science) to level up and accomplish things. You had to have a lot of basic human skills to get anywhere in the game without rage quiting. Generally people will come up with a lot of excuses for their quiting to make themsleves feel better about having done it. The truth is they just didn't have certain skills required to make it to the end of the game let alone beat some of the most difficult bosses in events that required massive teamwork and patience.
I don't need you to reply as I'm sure you will right the following again.
Skills are not patience, general problem solving, or anything that isn't almost instantly solvable (wast of time for you I know).
Old games were simply grind
Developers were to lazy to put in items and content
Games today require so much skill to beat a monster it baffles the mind.
Figuring out where to go (traveling) is not a skill (problem solving). It's a waste of time.
Aggro is so simple it's been removed from current games (I'm sure that is the reason ).
More people playing games means it's harder. (A grand concept, but I think it's the opposite).
There is probably something I missed in there, but I believe I have refuted all those points with mathematics, but it was generally ignored or not accepted because you seem to have a certain notion you will not give up regardless if it's wrong or not.
I see great many strawmen here.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
the good old days where you were at the entrance to mistmoore castle and you hear a shout "TRAIN" and every. single. mob. in the entire zone was on its way to you, sometimes through walls, and people who were not in the zone were coming in and promptly getting flattened..... this went on for a bit until every character was dead and you had to wait for the mobs to go back where they belonged, and some poor bastard would have to zone in to check them. you gave available rogues /consent to drag your corpses so you could get your gear back, and you would pray they didn't loot it off you..... good times good times
In otherwords, you agree with myself and Flyte27, and disagree with axehilt (sadly, an mmorpg developer who is either afraid or ashamed to say which company he works for).
Axe's occupation is immaterial. He has presented history, given examples and explained his reasons. Flyte has made up examples and created formulas using arbitrary numbers to fit his argument. You now take that one step further in trying to support your argument simply by discrediting the other person. Unnecessary and unconstructive.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I remember back in the day playing games like Dragon Warrior on the NES...
In order to go to area X you had to be at least level Y, and even then you also had to save enough $ to buy gear Z or you couldn't win.
Like, you couldn't win. There was zero chance to win. It was all hard, cold, and logical numbers.
So what did you do?
You "grind."
Run in a little pattern, waiting for that battle screen to pop, kill, kill, kill. Loot, loot, loot. Level!
10 years later, playing SWG on the PC, in order to go to planet W in order to do X you had to have Y progress in your profession(s) and you had to save enough $ to buy gear Z.
Or you couldn't win. You'd just get stomped, and more so, no party would take you unless you had progress Y and gear Z.
So what did you do?
You grind.
Repeat combat missions, over and over, hopefully with a group due to the XP bonus, and you could only get into said group if you spent $ on the Doctor buffs, oh and you had to have a certain pet from Creature Handler so you had to have Y progress in CH too.
A few years after that, in order to get into dungeon X in WoW you had to be level Y, and you wanted to go to dungeon X so you could get to max level and get the gear in order to do the attunement to do raid Z.
So what did you do?
You grind.
In this game, it was either solo by doing quests, which were btw really the same thing has doing circles killing mobs or repeating missions or standing around killing respawning mobs - they just gave you a little XP boost for finishing the quest's often very, very simple objectives.
So it was a bit less of a grind.
And the death penalty had much less sting, so really it just cost you some $ and a little bit of time. In the end though, it was really the same thing.
Now, somewhere in there... there was a little game called Ultima Online. In that game, there was some grinding, but "leveling" up most of your stats and skills was really quick, and you could even use a macro program to do it while you slept and it wasn't against the ToS!
Anyone who knew anything could get a new character or a new skill build leveled up enough to be useful quite quickly. Now in this game, there was no "end game." There really wasn't any gear that was any better than what you could buy off a vendor or craft yourself. Even the drops you could get were a nice convenience buff but nothing game changing.
A silver sword +1 was like, about the only "holy grail" of loot, and they dropped pretty regularly.
So what did you do?
Well, you explored. See this was a large, wide open world without borders and full of dangers. There was a lot to do besides combat to! You could craft, fish, hunt treasures, build and race boats, you could tame pets and mounts and sell them, you could create runebooks and sell them so others could fast travel easier.
See, there were a LOT of convenience features in this game. There were a lot of fast travel options, so you never wasted time traveling.
Sure you'd drop all of your inventory on your corpse when you died, but because the gear was so easy to come by and nothing was really more powerful than anything else, even dying and losing your corpse wasn't that big of a deal.
You'd go back for it if you had friends with you, or if you had a ton of gold on you when you died in the bottom level of a dungeon, but even then... well, your completely customized house was just full of gold and chests of loot so...
The PvE and PvP were entirely separate.
You didn't PvP for loot, you fought for a realm, for control of the cities and towns, for a shot at leading your faction with enough votes.
UO was an easy game. It was 2.5D. There was no ability bar, just a ton of icons and key macros but you clicked everywhere and everything.
There were no complex stats. You had 3 stats and 7 active skills. That's it.
Despite its ease. Despite its simplicity. Despite its archaic interface and graphics. Despite all of this...
There has NEVER been another MMO like it. There probably never will be again.
It was a game about adventure, about exploration, about discovery, and about freedom.
They realized over 15 years ago now that PvP gankfests don't maintain either a healthy population or an inviting community.
They realized over 15 years ago now that you don't need thousands of pointless quests and a generic story line, that if you gave players the tools they'd craft their own legacies.
They realized over 15 years ago now that the grind, the progression and the stats were not the fun part, they were the barrier that kept you from fun.
They realized over 15 years ago now that less is more. That if you put more into the players hands they take ownership and connect to your world.
They realized that graphics aren't everything.
And, yet, 15 years later - no dev studio really seems to get it.
There is room in this genre for a PvE focused sandbox without the barriers created by a long grind. Without the frustration and inconvenience of poorly thought out travel mechanics and high death penalties.
I mean, imagine a modern day UO with graphics similar to say a Diablo 3, with the open world and freedom of UO, with the completely separate PvE and PvP of UO following the Trammel/Felucca split.
With a housing/city building system like SWG but with the block by block creation and creativity of a Minecraft.
With the endless proceedureal generation of caves and dungeons and adventures from a mix of Diablo 3 and No Man's Sky.
With the crafting and non-combat mechanics and gameplay systems found in UO and in SWG, which was one thing SWG did really well in making crafting interesting and non-combat professions - but they completely screwed up with locking everything behind a massive grind and unbalanced RPG stat progression.
That's the game I've been dreaming about since I started playing UO over 15 years ago.
I remember back in the day playing games like Dragon Warrior on the NES...
In order to go to area X you had to be at least level Y, and even then you also had to save enough $ to buy gear Z or you couldn't win.
Like, you couldn't win. There was zero chance to win. It was all hard, cold, and logical numbers.
So what did you do?
You "grind."
Run in a little pattern, waiting for that battle screen to pop, kill, kill, kill. Loot, loot, loot. Level!
10 years later, playing SWG on the PC, in order to go to planet W in order to do X you had to have Y progress in your profession(s) and you had to save enough $ to buy gear Z.
Or you couldn't win. You'd just get stomped, and more so, no party would take you unless you had progress Y and gear Z.
So what did you do?
You grind.
Repeat combat missions, over and over, hopefully with a group due to the XP bonus, and you could only get into said group if you spent $ on the Doctor buffs, oh and you had to have a certain pet from Creature Handler so you had to have Y progress in CH too.
A few years after that, in order to get into dungeon X in WoW you had to be level Y, and you wanted to go to dungeon X so you could get to max level and get the gear in order to do the attunement to do raid Z.
So what did you do?
You grind.
In this game, it was either solo by doing quests, which were btw really the same thing has doing circles killing mobs or repeating missions or standing around killing respawning mobs - they just gave you a little XP boost for finishing the quest's often very, very simple objectives.
So it was a bit less of a grind.
And the death penalty had much less sting, so really it just cost you some $ and a little bit of time. In the end though, it was really the same thing.
Now, somewhere in there... there was a little game called Ultima Online. In that game, there was some grinding, but "leveling" up most of your stats and skills was really quick, and you could even use a macro program to do it while you slept and it wasn't against the ToS!
Anyone who knew anything could get a new character or a new skill build leveled up enough to be useful quite quickly. Now in this game, there was no "end game." There really wasn't any gear that was any better than what you could buy off a vendor or craft yourself. Even the drops you could get were a nice convenience buff but nothing game changing.
A silver sword +1 was like, about the only "holy grail" of loot, and they dropped pretty regularly.
So what did you do?
Well, you explored. See this was a large, wide open world without borders and full of dangers. There was a lot to do besides combat to! You could craft, fish, hunt treasures, build and race boats, you could tame pets and mounts and sell them, you could create runebooks and sell them so others could fast travel easier.
See, there were a LOT of convenience features in this game. There were a lot of fast travel options, so you never wasted time traveling.
Sure you'd drop all of your inventory on your corpse when you died, but because the gear was so easy to come by and nothing was really more powerful than anything else, even dying and losing your corpse wasn't that big of a deal.
You'd go back for it if you had friends with you, or if you had a ton of gold on you when you died in the bottom level of a dungeon, but even then... well, your completely customized house was just full of gold and chests of loot so...
The PvE and PvP were entirely separate.
You didn't PvP for loot, you fought for a realm, for control of the cities and towns, for a shot at leading your faction with enough votes.
UO was an easy game. It was 2.5D. There was no ability bar, just a ton of icons and key macros but you clicked everywhere and everything.
There were no complex stats. You had 3 stats and 7 active skills. That's it.
Despite its ease. Despite its simplicity. Despite its archaic interface and graphics. Despite all of this...
There has NEVER been another MMO like it. There probably never will be again.
It was a game about adventure, about exploration, about discovery, and about freedom.
They realized over 15 years ago now that PvP gankfests don't maintain either a healthy population or an inviting community.
They realized over 15 years ago now that you don't need thousands of pointless quests and a generic story line, that if you gave players the tools they'd craft their own legacies.
They realized over 15 years ago now that the grind, the progression and the stats were not the fun part, they were the barrier that kept you from fun.
They realized over 15 years ago now that less is more. That if you put more into the players hands they take ownership and connect to your world.
They realized that graphics aren't everything.
And, yet, 15 years later - no dev studio really seems to get it.
There is room in this genre for a PvE focused sandbox without the barriers created by a long grind. Without the frustration and inconvenience of poorly thought out travel mechanics and high death penalties.
I mean, imagine a modern day UO with graphics similar to say a Diablo 3, with the open world and freedom of UO, with the completely separate PvE and PvP of UO following the Trammel/Felucca split.
With a housing/city building system like SWG but with the block by block creation and creativity of a Minecraft.
With the endless proceedureal generation of caves and dungeons and adventures from a mix of Diablo 3 and No Man's Sky.
With the crafting and non-combat mechanics and gameplay systems found in UO and in SWG, which was one thing SWG did really well in making crafting interesting and non-combat professions - but they completely screwed up with locking everything behind a massive grind and unbalanced RPG stat progression.
That's the game I've been dreaming about since I started playing UO over 15 years ago.
It's the game we'll never get.
Theoretically a lot of old games were similar to that.
Dragon Warrior didn't tell you where to go or what to do. There were certain places that theoretically were to difficult for you, but I've seen some people speed run the game by fleeing from difficult many of the battles. When I played it I didn't really know where to go or what to do at the time. I got killed a lot before realizing I needed to level up. Then I had to figure out where to go based mostly on trial and error. Sometimes the NPCs would drop a hint about something, but it was often intentionally cryptic so you wouldn't know exactly where to go.
A lot of early MMOs followed this path, but also added the difficulty of having to interact with others and deal with a game that where grouping is a lot more rewarding then soloing. It was still very level based in many games, but gear was not very powerful. You generally had to learn to coexist with everyone in a world where the developers didn't put you in a bubble that prevented others from potentially doing bad things to you. That alone IMO was more challenging then any fight you could come across in an MMO.
I do feel Ultima Online is probably the best example of a simulated world that has ever come out. It was as close to what it was like to live in the middle ages as you can probably get. There were thieves, killers, bandits, crafters, beggars, adventurers, mercenaries, hunter gatherers, etc. I wouldn't say everything was based on skill though. Generally in the early days of Ultima Online there was an optimal build to PvP and an optimal build for other doing other tasks in the game. This was good in some ways as it gave more flavors to the game instead of just combat builds that were equally good. There were people who did things completely non combat oriented like sneaking around and stealing, mining, or even taming creatures/people with singing (Bard).
Generally there were a lot more options in that game then most other MMOs. Most people don't want to be outside of their protective bubble though. They don't want to deal with frustrating circumstances or having to deal with other people. They don't want anything that takes time and work in a game. I don't really blame then for that. There is a time to just relax and enjoy yourself and for many people that is in games. I just don't like people claiming that it is just as difficult or more so then now then it was in x game when you are generally held by the hand each step of the way intentionally and setup to win easily through most of the game.
In current MMOs there are far less decisions to make.
Ah yes, it's true those old MMORPGs had important decisions to make, like "where are the next best XP/hour mobs to grind ?".
That's one of the decisions in many cases, but at least it is a decision you had to make. It may not seem so simple when you don't know where to go. That is one of many simple factors that add to up to something more complex.
In current MMOs there are far less decisions to make.
Ah yes, it's true those old MMORPGs had important decisions to make, like "where are the next best XP/hour mobs to grind ?".
I would much rather have the where do I go next to grind than what linear instance should I queue up for to run thru next with nobody ever saying a word.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
In current MMOs there are far less decisions to make.
Ah yes, it's true those old MMORPGs had important decisions to make, like "where are the next best XP/hour mobs to grind ?".
That's one of the decisions in many cases, but at least it is a decision you had to make. It may not seem so simple when you don't know where to go. That is one of many simple factors that add to up to something more complex.
Most people didn't decide this on their own as there were usually guides listed on the web as to the best places to farm. So, no, usually you were just following the crowd on this one.
In current MMOs there are far less decisions to make.
Ah yes, it's true those old MMORPGs had important decisions to make, like "where are the next best XP/hour mobs to grind ?".
That's one of the decisions in many cases, but at least it is a decision you had to make. It may not seem so simple when you don't know where to go. That is one of many simple factors that add to up to something more complex.
Most people didn't decide this on their own as there were usually guides listed on the web as to the best places to farm. So, no, usually you were just following the crowd on this one.
Exactly. The best spots were known, and everybody was going there.
Generally there were no guides in those days. I recall for Everquest there was allakhazam and that was not always easy to read. It was made up almost entirely by fan data and comments (another simple thing that made it more complex). Generally all you had was word of mouth in game or on message boards, but most people just went out and explored. Sometimes the best spot for exp was already taken and you had to decide where else to go. Not all people were interested in the best spot as there generally was a variety of different places to go level up for a level range.
Originally posted by Flyte27 Originally posted by AntiquatedOriginally posted by Flyte27It is hard to accomplish a long term goal that isn't always enjoyable, but I think in my post I showed that it is not just time, but many other factors that made the game hard. Time was just one factor that when combined with other factors made it difficult to level up. It wasn't grinding all day that made it difficult. It was all the things that could prevent you from leveling up in general if you didn't figure out how to exist in the world.
And in the previous era, if you couldn't write a decent macro, the critturs would eat you alive. The best coders, naturally, didn't have any difficulty writing or customizing their own scripts.So coding skill was a factor in "difficulty"?Some players obviously invest tons of ego in "my game was harder than yours".But in the end, it was just time invested and buttons pushed. And occasionally, communications skills and/or reflexes.That's an enormous ego load being carried by a relatively small set of "skills".---- False superiority is constant work to justify, right?Generally this is just a discussion about weather or not leveling was more difficult and that's all I aimed to prove. It had little to do with ego. It had all to do with mathematical facts.
Indeed, and I think for Antiquated to say someone is egotistical for thinking their view is correct; while at the same time contending that his view is correct; commits the greater sin of hypocracy.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Originally posted by Antiquated Originally posted by RollgunnerSo when you won a tough fight, it was a real triumph. The reward was meaningful because you actually risked something tangible to get it.
If you failed, developers came to your house and punched your mother?
Or is the definition of "tangible risk" somewhat different?
At worst, a reset cost you more time. Something you were (and are, by definition) always spending liberally in any mmo anywhere, ever.
Nightmare mode one-death-and-you're-done games just might, might present a tangible risk. But in point of fact, most of them just create hyper-risk-averse players dragging their buffbots behind them and generally never risking much of anything.
Which is what kept them out of coveted zones; freeing them up for the risk takers. Nowadays, people just zerg; so the Instance feature had to be added; which moved the game towards a solo experience instead of a social one.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Originally posted by RollgunnerSo when you won a tough fight, it was a real triumph. The reward was meaningful because you actually risked something tangible to get it.
If you failed, developers came to your house and punched your mother?
Or is the definition of "tangible risk" somewhat different?
At worst, a reset cost you more time. Something you were (and are, by definition) always spending liberally in any mmo anywhere, ever.
Nightmare mode one-death-and-you're-done games just might, might present a tangible risk. But in point of fact, most of them just create hyper-risk-averse players dragging their buffbots behind them and generally never risking much of anything.
Which is what kept them out of coveted zones; freeing them up for the risk takers. Nowadays, people just zerg; so the Instance feature had to be added; which moved the game towards a solo experience instead of a social one.
I believe instances were created to remove the need to wait like a lot of things in new MMOs. It just shows again a lack of patience that is often passed off as a waste of time. Generally people would use their problem solving skills and find somewhere else to go, something to entertain themselves while waiting, or a way to get involved in the camping spot. The decisions may not have been complex, but they are at least a decision to make and generally there were a fair amount of these small decisions.
Originally posted by RollgunnerSo when you won a tough fight, it was a real triumph. The reward was meaningful because you actually risked something tangible to get it.
If you failed, developers came to your house and punched your mother?Or is the definition of "tangible risk" somewhat different?At worst, a reset cost you more time. Something you were (and are, by definition) always spending liberally in any mmo anywhere, ever.Nightmare mode one-death-and-you're-done games just might, might present a tangible risk. But in point of fact, most of them just create hyper-risk-averse players dragging their buffbots behind them and generally never risking much of anything.
Which is what kept them out of coveted zones; freeing them up for the risk takers. Nowadays, people just zerg; so the Instance feature had to be added; which moved the game towards a solo experience instead of a social one.
I believe instances were created to remove the need to wait like a lot of things in new MMOs. It just shows again a lack of patience that is often passed off as a waste of time. Generally people would use their problem solving skills and find somewhere else to go, something to entertain themselves while waiting, or a way to get involved in the camping spot. The decisions may not have been complex, but they are at least a decision to make and generally there were a fair amount of these small decisions.
Of course they were created so people didn't have to wait. As the game(s) became easier, and player power continued to increase; coveted areas became more accessible and hence more crowded.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Comments
In current MMOs there are far less decisions to make. If you read my post I've pointed out how problem solving was far more in use in those older games then in games today. The games today are practically made to play themselves aside from combat. There aren't really any meaningful decisions.
This conversion is going away from mathematical data which favors you IMO. You can just post a few words and say it's fact even if it's not. Then we can go back and forth endlessly with no real proof other then our words either way. I've already provided some proof, but you have not..
If you want me to go in depth on the shallowness of today's MMOs I'm sure I can come up with some mathematical analysis of that as well.
Well if combat is where all of the depth is, and where you spent most of your time, then it's rather irrelevant that games "play themselves apart from combat".
The math you presented was split about even between these concepts:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Depth is having different forms of play that may or may no interact with each other and will contribute to a cohesive game system. Good depth you can see in games like eve and eso where there are multiple forms of viable gameplay that compliment each other - e.g viable hybrid builds and user defined roles e.g a tanking staff Mage that can switch to long range archer in plate to support a small force with no healing, then switching to siege support to heal snd shield siege operators. a pilot who switches to the frigate to defeat the vet in the battleship, before switching to a high specced attack miner to lure in the unsuspecting opportunist pirate, then switching to a stealth freighter to transport important goods for their federation. poor depth is where everything boils down to a couple stats, you gear up, you run garrisons, you pvp, you raid all to get bigger numbers to feed into a semi static rotation you constantly drive over and over and over and over week after week month after month etc etc.
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
Depth is about having a broad gap between unskilled and skilled players. So it makes no sense for you to claim complex rotations don't create depth. Of course they're depth.
It's about opportunities for failure. A simple rotation (toggle autoattack) provides almost no opportunity to fail and creates shallow combat. A complicated rotation provides lots of opportunities to fail which creates deep combat. An even deeper design will create encounters which deliberately disrupt the typical rotation.
The only time a deep mechanic isn't depth is if it's trumped by a shallower one (like bringing 20 players to kill 5 players in world PVP.) At that point the shallower mechanic prevents the deeper one from mattering.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Back in 1992......(the Stone Age).
I played for 4 months as a half-elf rouge to get to level 19 on my paper card in a party session of 8, with two super cool DM's.
It was a big deal at level 17 when I snuck into a venerable dragon's lair in the water entrance to steal a "Shortsword of Quickness" from his Hoard.
That character died in an orc lair by a tumble into a spike pit during a battle in which I had slain eight of the NPC monsters by backstabbing.
I cried for two weeks, and contemplated suicide, but then I found a DnD computer game called "Darksun", and rays of hope began to shine!
The reason for this post is to identify with the thread maker. I know what it was to really EARN ones in-game prizes.
The concept of Pay-to-Win is a total capitalist elitist microcosm of the mentality of nothing being more powerful than money. You have money, you gain gear and victory. You lack money, you feel bad and likely get nicked by bosses and PvP hounds who bought lvl 80 and all purple gear before they ever entered the world.
It teaches kids with money that they can pay for success, and nothing will happen but fun, fun, fun.
That is a danger in and of itself, but the real casualty in all of that is designer integrity.
Designers make games to make money, teaching the money for power ethic without realizing the moral compromise, when we all began as kid gammer's, who wanted to make an awesome game players will like.
Somewhere along the line, we sell our souls, and loose that basic focus, because we are greedy by design, and we tell ourselves that we grew up, just to sound less wicked in summation of our banishment of our own values.
I think the next gen MMO's should get back to player skill from 1-100 or whatever cap you want to levy, because earned success is a far better lesson then the one we currently teach.
Just my opinion.
"Investment firms do not have that outlook on life. They need to know there is not only a return on their investment but also a solid profit at the end of it." tawess-
This is such a silly post. Again all you say is words that are meant to insult and belittle old games without any real proof.
I covered a fair amount more then just aggro in my post and a could come up with more then that I'm sure. I'm generally just to lazy to do so.
You have yet to prove this amazing skill that current MMOs take. The skill that is so complex that it can't be solved via math in a simple manner for an example. In reality it is not complex. You are guided on a direct path from start to finish, told where to go, and told what to do. There are not skills involved other then being able to click a few buttons at the right time in some battles at the end of the game when you say the game is supposedly harder (more skill required) than any MMO that ever existed (still not proven).
The truth is there was a lot more you had to deal with then Aggro in older MMOs. There was also a lot more to deal with then just grinding. As I said in my post already (via math) is that there were many factors that contirbuted the fact that it at least somewhat diffuclt (not rocket science) to level up and accomplish things. You had to have a lot of basic human skills to get anywhere in the game without rage quiting. Generally people will come up with a lot of excuses for their quiting to make themsleves feel better about having done it. The truth is they just didn't have certain skills required to make it to the end of the game let alone beat some of the most difficult bosses in events that required massive teamwork and patience.
I don't need you to reply as I'm sure you will right the following again.
Skills are not patience, general problem solving, or anything that isn't almost instantly solvable (wast of time for you I know).
Old games were simply grind
Developers were to lazy to put in items and content
Games today require so much skill to beat a monster it baffles the mind.
Figuring out where to go (traveling) is not a skill (problem solving). It's a waste of time.
Aggro is so simple it's been removed from current games (I'm sure that is the reason
).
More people playing games means it's harder. (A grand concept, but I think it's the opposite).
There is probably something I missed in there, but I believe I have refuted all those points with mathematics, but it was generally ignored or not accepted because you seem to have a certain notion you will not give up regardless if it's wrong or not.
I disagree with this portion.
Grinding was the point to the progenator games from the 70's-80's PnP era. Games like "Diablo" missed the mark on that by being nothing but grinding with no skill or social elements outside of PvP, but games like "Bard's Tale", "Daggerfall", "Darksun", "EverQuest" were genius in incorporating it.
Developers were not lazy in the early years, they were catering to masses and diminishing the algorithm because of budget and time constraints levied by the admin at production.
Monsters/bosses need to be challenging aspects of a game, it's what makes the accomplishment of killing it so cool. But if you bought cheater gear to do it and came into a game at max lvl because you paid for the leap to mighty on character creation, it is like'soooo". You didn't really work up too the power you abuse and scoff at, thus you don't respect the achievement other "grinders" took weeks, months, or years to build up to.
Figuring out where to go is problem solving and that is the main skill needed in the old DnD realms. DM's would drop subtle hints to players to help them find quests and directions, but if you were a DA you never made it past lvl 5 and likely hated the geeks who were lvl 25.
Aggro is very cool in party battles and was pioneered not as a cheat, but as a tool in boss slaying, it also stands to reason if you hit a thing or burn a thing it gets mad at you and wants you dead more than the other guy.
More people playing a game makes it harder in certain ways. Like waiting for tapped out monsters to respawn, and makes it easier to kill monsters. If a game is just PvP it makes it hard to be a new player, if you aren't paying to win, and tends to create a higher quiter rate.
I leave you and whoever to the final point, I'm just interjecting my own point of view from a pre-MMO perspective.
"Investment firms do not have that outlook on life. They need to know there is not only a return on their investment but also a solid profit at the end of it." tawess-
I self identify as a monkey.
P.S.
Patience is a key ( or should be ) a key element in RPG players.
If you are too busy day-to-day to devote time in segments to a months long pursuit, maybe your heart is truly in the RTS, ACTION, or FPS genres.
RPG's at their core are methodical undertakings.
"Investment firms do not have that outlook on life. They need to know there is not only a return on their investment but also a solid profit at the end of it." tawess-
I agree with you, the only reason why older mmorpgs where a grind because leveling was literally in killing mobs and not much questing in games like everquest 1, could I go back after playing quest lines like the secret world? Hek no! But at the same time it did so many other things right where you did not care if you where only killing things without quests. like group mechanics, your unique class jobs, the challenge, the danger, and so much more.
That all came in the development phase before the corporate rush to completion.
Thank the design team for holding out against the grain as long as they did.
And adverse to many thoughtless MMO fans, WoW, ruined the quality of the games that followed it. ;(
"Investment firms do not have that outlook on life. They need to know there is not only a return on their investment but also a solid profit at the end of it." tawess-
I see great many strawmen here.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Axe's occupation is immaterial. He has presented history, given examples and explained his reasons. Flyte has made up examples and created formulas using arbitrary numbers to fit his argument. You now take that one step further in trying to support your argument simply by discrediting the other person. Unnecessary and unconstructive.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I remember back in the day playing games like Dragon Warrior on the NES...
In order to go to area X you had to be at least level Y, and even then you also had to save enough $ to buy gear Z or you couldn't win.
Like, you couldn't win. There was zero chance to win. It was all hard, cold, and logical numbers.
So what did you do?
You "grind."
Run in a little pattern, waiting for that battle screen to pop, kill, kill, kill. Loot, loot, loot. Level!
10 years later, playing SWG on the PC, in order to go to planet W in order to do X you had to have Y progress in your profession(s) and you had to save enough $ to buy gear Z.
Or you couldn't win. You'd just get stomped, and more so, no party would take you unless you had progress Y and gear Z.
So what did you do?
You grind.
Repeat combat missions, over and over, hopefully with a group due to the XP bonus, and you could only get into said group if you spent $ on the Doctor buffs, oh and you had to have a certain pet from Creature Handler so you had to have Y progress in CH too.
A few years after that, in order to get into dungeon X in WoW you had to be level Y, and you wanted to go to dungeon X so you could get to max level and get the gear in order to do the attunement to do raid Z.
So what did you do?
You grind.
In this game, it was either solo by doing quests, which were btw really the same thing has doing circles killing mobs or repeating missions or standing around killing respawning mobs - they just gave you a little XP boost for finishing the quest's often very, very simple objectives.
So it was a bit less of a grind.
And the death penalty had much less sting, so really it just cost you some $ and a little bit of time. In the end though, it was really the same thing.
Now, somewhere in there... there was a little game called Ultima Online. In that game, there was some grinding, but "leveling" up most of your stats and skills was really quick, and you could even use a macro program to do it while you slept and it wasn't against the ToS!
Anyone who knew anything could get a new character or a new skill build leveled up enough to be useful quite quickly. Now in this game, there was no "end game." There really wasn't any gear that was any better than what you could buy off a vendor or craft yourself. Even the drops you could get were a nice convenience buff but nothing game changing.
A silver sword +1 was like, about the only "holy grail" of loot, and they dropped pretty regularly.
So what did you do?
Well, you explored. See this was a large, wide open world without borders and full of dangers. There was a lot to do besides combat to! You could craft, fish, hunt treasures, build and race boats, you could tame pets and mounts and sell them, you could create runebooks and sell them so others could fast travel easier.
See, there were a LOT of convenience features in this game. There were a lot of fast travel options, so you never wasted time traveling.
Sure you'd drop all of your inventory on your corpse when you died, but because the gear was so easy to come by and nothing was really more powerful than anything else, even dying and losing your corpse wasn't that big of a deal.
You'd go back for it if you had friends with you, or if you had a ton of gold on you when you died in the bottom level of a dungeon, but even then... well, your completely customized house was just full of gold and chests of loot so...
The PvE and PvP were entirely separate.
You didn't PvP for loot, you fought for a realm, for control of the cities and towns, for a shot at leading your faction with enough votes.
UO was an easy game. It was 2.5D. There was no ability bar, just a ton of icons and key macros but you clicked everywhere and everything.
There were no complex stats. You had 3 stats and 7 active skills. That's it.
Despite its ease. Despite its simplicity. Despite its archaic interface and graphics. Despite all of this...
There has NEVER been another MMO like it. There probably never will be again.
It was a game about adventure, about exploration, about discovery, and about freedom.
They realized over 15 years ago now that PvP gankfests don't maintain either a healthy population or an inviting community.
They realized over 15 years ago now that you don't need thousands of pointless quests and a generic story line, that if you gave players the tools they'd craft their own legacies.
They realized over 15 years ago now that the grind, the progression and the stats were not the fun part, they were the barrier that kept you from fun.
They realized over 15 years ago now that less is more. That if you put more into the players hands they take ownership and connect to your world.
They realized that graphics aren't everything.
And, yet, 15 years later - no dev studio really seems to get it.
There is room in this genre for a PvE focused sandbox without the barriers created by a long grind. Without the frustration and inconvenience of poorly thought out travel mechanics and high death penalties.
I mean, imagine a modern day UO with graphics similar to say a Diablo 3, with the open world and freedom of UO, with the completely separate PvE and PvP of UO following the Trammel/Felucca split.
With a housing/city building system like SWG but with the block by block creation and creativity of a Minecraft.
With the endless proceedureal generation of caves and dungeons and adventures from a mix of Diablo 3 and No Man's Sky.
With the crafting and non-combat mechanics and gameplay systems found in UO and in SWG, which was one thing SWG did really well in making crafting interesting and non-combat professions - but they completely screwed up with locking everything behind a massive grind and unbalanced RPG stat progression.
That's the game I've been dreaming about since I started playing UO over 15 years ago.
It's the game we'll never get.
Theoretically a lot of old games were similar to that.
Dragon Warrior didn't tell you where to go or what to do. There were certain places that theoretically were to difficult for you, but I've seen some people speed run the game by fleeing from difficult many of the battles. When I played it I didn't really know where to go or what to do at the time. I got killed a lot before realizing I needed to level up. Then I had to figure out where to go based mostly on trial and error. Sometimes the NPCs would drop a hint about something, but it was often intentionally cryptic so you wouldn't know exactly where to go.
A lot of early MMOs followed this path, but also added the difficulty of having to interact with others and deal with a game that where grouping is a lot more rewarding then soloing. It was still very level based in many games, but gear was not very powerful. You generally had to learn to coexist with everyone in a world where the developers didn't put you in a bubble that prevented others from potentially doing bad things to you. That alone IMO was more challenging then any fight you could come across in an MMO.
I do feel Ultima Online is probably the best example of a simulated world that has ever come out. It was as close to what it was like to live in the middle ages as you can probably get. There were thieves, killers, bandits, crafters, beggars, adventurers, mercenaries, hunter gatherers, etc. I wouldn't say everything was based on skill though. Generally in the early days of Ultima Online there was an optimal build to PvP and an optimal build for other doing other tasks in the game. This was good in some ways as it gave more flavors to the game instead of just combat builds that were equally good. There were people who did things completely non combat oriented like sneaking around and stealing, mining, or even taming creatures/people with singing (Bard).
Generally there were a lot more options in that game then most other MMOs. Most people don't want to be outside of their protective bubble though. They don't want to deal with frustrating circumstances or having to deal with other people. They don't want anything that takes time and work in a game. I don't really blame then for that. There is a time to just relax and enjoy yourself and for many people that is in games. I just don't like people claiming that it is just as difficult or more so then now then it was in x game when you are generally held by the hand each step of the way intentionally and setup to win easily through most of the game.
That's one of the decisions in many cases, but at least it is a decision you had to make. It may not seem so simple when you don't know where to go. That is one of many simple factors that add to up to something more complex.
I would much rather have the where do I go next to grind than what linear instance should I queue up for to run thru next with nobody ever saying a word.
"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/Most people didn't decide this on their own as there were usually guides listed on the web as to the best places to farm. So, no, usually you were just following the crowd on this one.
Generally there were no guides in those days. I recall for Everquest there was allakhazam and that was not always easy to read. It was made up almost entirely by fan data and comments (another simple thing that made it more complex). Generally all you had was word of mouth in game or on message boards, but most people just went out and explored. Sometimes the best spot for exp was already taken and you had to decide where else to go. Not all people were interested in the best spot as there generally was a variety of different places to go level up for a level range.
"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/Generally this is just a discussion about weather or not leveling was more difficult and that's all I aimed to prove. It had little to do with ego. It had all to do with mathematical facts.
Indeed, and I think for Antiquated to say someone is egotistical for thinking their view is correct; while at the same time contending that his view is correct; commits the greater sin of hypocracy.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
If you failed, developers came to your house and punched your mother?Or is the definition of "tangible risk" somewhat different?
At worst, a reset cost you more time. Something you were (and are, by definition) always spending liberally in any mmo anywhere, ever.
Nightmare mode one-death-and-you're-done games just might, might present a tangible risk. But in point of fact, most of them just create hyper-risk-averse players dragging their buffbots behind them and generally never risking much of anything.
Which is what kept them out of coveted zones; freeing them up for the risk takers. Nowadays, people just zerg; so the Instance feature had to be added; which moved the game towards a solo experience instead of a social one.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
I believe instances were created to remove the need to wait like a lot of things in new MMOs. It just shows again a lack of patience that is often passed off as a waste of time. Generally people would use their problem solving skills and find somewhere else to go, something to entertain themselves while waiting, or a way to get involved in the camping spot. The decisions may not have been complex, but they are at least a decision to make and generally there were a fair amount of these small decisions.
Of course they were created so people didn't have to wait. As the game(s) became easier, and player power continued to increase; coveted areas became more accessible and hence more crowded.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit