And there are basically 4 things you can improve: 1. Graphics. (art and polygon count as well as effects and so on). 2. Character mechanics (how you gain power as you play, any none combat mechanics including crafting) 3. Combat mechanics (attacks, how you target and hit an opponent, dodges, group dynamics and so on). 4. Lore &Presentation ( long and short turn goals for the players the setting and the players role in that setting). ...
Not to disagree, but why hide behind such reductions: better AI more enjoyable mini-games like crafting new occupations besides killer and crafter group tools like the ability for a hierarchical battle roles where sargents place markers for their men to go to, captains place markers for where the sargents should go and generals spend the battle just looking at a map placing captains change in focus away from violence ability for players to introduce their own content
Actually there is growing trend of disillusion about quests.
Remember strong sentiments about questing in Swtor and Wildstar from initial playerbase?
Even in single player RPGs there is growing trend for better quests.
This puts MMORPGs in very hard position as it is harder to have interesting quest made in MMORPG than in single player / co-op RPG.
Of course there is many millions of gamers so simplistic task-like mass questing is still strong, but there is trend of growing expectations about quality and concept of questing.
There isn't a growing trend of disillusion on the whole. Quest-based gaming is bigger than ever, with quests existing in way more than just RPGs nowadays (been watching a youtube series on a FPS, and it's just a series of objectives like most FPSes, and those objectives are quests even if they aren't called quests.)
As for the "growing trend for better quests", what were you actually trying to say there? That people want things to be better? Doesn't that seem really obvious? Name a product: people want that product to be better. It's human nature to never be 100% satisfied with things (if not in the short-term, certainly in the long-term.)
Meanwhile look around at gaming: quests are more common than ever and they're in the most successful games out there. So any idea that there's a fundamental problem to the design of quests is baseless.
General gaming is definately getting more quests/tasks design than before. Same goes for other MMO elements such as currencies/point based grind-progression, achievement based gaming, MMO-like crafting and more.
So questing/tasking definately is in good shape in overall gaming.
In the sector of MMORPGs it looks tad diffrent though.
In MMO(RPG) specifically playerbases were expecting much higher progress with quality of questing, not only in presentation, but also in mechanics & gameplay. That is why I've mentioned two of last batch of western AAA MMORPGs - Swtor and Wildstar that was trashed by their P2P intitial adopters for their questing (among other issues).
One of reason why certain demographics were/are leaving from MMORPGs into other genres of games and why they are hardly targetted by MMORPG developers anymore. Their expectations are too expensive to try to cater to.
I did not say that improving quests and DEs is the ultimate anything, but the MMOs need new ways to give you short time goals (Quests and DEs are 2 ways doing that) or to be better on making quests and DEs feel more fun.
And I don't exactly get any ideas on how to make a deeper MMO then Wow from you, you are basically just saying that the games should continue like Wow does in this whole thread.
Making a MMO as good and fun as Wow isn't good enough, you need to make it better.
And there are basically 4 things you can improve: 1. Graphics. (art and polygon count as well as effects and so on). 2. Character mechanics (how you gain power as you play, any none combat mechanics including crafting) 3. Combat mechanics (attacks, how you target and hit an opponent, dodges, group dynamics and so on). 4. Lore &Presentation ( long and short turn goals for the players the setting and the players role in that setting).
I think just picking one thing and improve isn't enough, all is preferably but at least 3 of those ways. How a game present you with your character short term goals is one of the things that impact the gaming experience most and yet it is the thing least talked about in threads here.
Well again, whatever system you came up with would mostly just be window-dressing (calling quests "missions"). They're still fundamentally going to be quests. There's little you can do to fool players that they aren't quests (unless you call them crafting I guess.)
I haven't provided ways of making a deeper MMORPG because that hasn't been what the conversation has been about. It's mostly been general comments on what MMORPG designers should do.
As a designer certainly I have a lot of specific ideas for how to make individual abilities deeper, and how to control the abilities any given player has access to, in ways which create deeper gameplay. Stuff like taking the basic fireball and making it a 2-tap affair where the fireball is going to fly straight at your tab target, but it's up to you to detonate it at the right time to cause the most damage. Or taking it a bit further and having fireballs be aimed and act like FPS rockets (this direction would be very deep, but would also take things in a twitch-intensive direction which isn't ideal for an RPG; RPGs typically appeal to a demographic not interested in much twitch skill, which is why tab-targeting and ability bars have made a lot of sense.) Or to turn back the clock to Guild Wars 1 where skills were heavily inspired by Magic the Gathering and they were similarly rewarding of good timing to your skill combos. Mob design factors into it a lot too, since mobs should be designed to deliberately disrupt any 'typical' rotation (like having to avoid a death-dealing overhead swing), and deliberately vary the rotation too (like spell-interrupts, except there should probably be 1-2 similar 'reaction' skills players need to learn to use.) This is already a giant paragraph just scratching the surface. We could go on and on describing how to make combat deeper than WOW's.
What I'm suggesting, both generally and with my specifics above, is to start designing things like Blizzard does. Currently MMORPGs are not designed like WOW. They're cardboard copies -- they vaguely look like WOW because they share some of the skin-deep features, but they're not designed like WOW. This is another reason I feel "WOW clone" is a laughably inaccurate statement, because if someone created a game like Blizzard would make it, they'd do incredibly well.
League of Legends was designed that way. Unsurprising given that at least one major Blizzard designer (Zileas) worked on it at launch, and at least one more (Ghostcrawler) joined later.
I'm not suggesting that games should only improve one aspect, nor did I mean to imply that I believe you did.
But I do view this as the most significant flaw that holds back a lot of games. Plenty of games attract players with nice graphics. Some games do alright with gameplay to give players some fun for a while. But very few games have design strong enough to keep lots of players playing a very long time -- and due to the way the math works out, player retention is a huge part of accumulating a blockbuster-sized audience in the long-haul.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
One of reason why certain demographics were/are leaving from MMORPGs into other genres of games and why they are hardly targetted by MMORPG developers anymore. Their expectations are too expensive to try to cater to.
But mmorpg devs are turning into non-mmorpg devs too.
Look at blizz. It is no longer making a new mmorpg. It is now making MOBAs, CCGs, and soon a shooter.
One of reason why certain demographics were/are leaving from MMORPGs into other genres of games and why they are hardly targetted by MMORPG developers anymore. Their expectations are too expensive to try to cater to.
But mmorpg devs are turning into non-mmorpg devs too.
Look at blizz. It is no longer making a new mmorpg. It is now making MOBAs, CCGs, and soon a shooter.
To be fair they only made one MMORPG vs. the RTS mostly they made before.
They hate questing because it's not like quests are a staple of RPGs or anything. They despise raiding, gear progression, grinding and all things associated with theme parks. Oh and don't even think about making a "MMO" that you can't play solo from beginning to end, because that is just silly talk! In addition, It better also be polished, balanced, free to play with no bugs and constant content releases.
My point is I think the real problem is that a lot of people that play MMOs don't really like MMOs anymore or have never really liked them.
When developers created games like EQ, UO, Shadowbane, Vanilla WoW, etc they weren't trying to please everyone they were just trying to please a small percentage of people that were into fantasy and video games. They basically started with a fantasy based environment, added some cool elements like crafting, building, etc, sold it in a box and charged a monthly fee to play it to support continued development and server costs, and we were all fine with it. There were only a few to chose from so us gamers picked our poison, created our guilds, hopped in voice comms with our guildies, quested until we reached a level previously thought unreachable and neglected our families and friends for months and years.
I feel that most of the original MMO players have either become jaded or have moved on and we are left with a bunch of people that discovered MMOs at a time when developers were chasing the WoW white rabbit and either doing everything the same but not as good as WoW or everything completely different than it, neither methodology has really progressed the genre.
I say it's time for MMOs to get back to their roots! Forget trying to be everything to everyone and just please the people that really love the genre. Charge us to buy the game and to play, make things not so easily accessible, make grouping mandatory for at least 50% of the game, make it hard to really advance if you don't have tons of time to play! This is what we fell in love with all those years ago and I honestly believe that returning to our roots is the only thing that will make it feel right again!
The Genre! Not the fucking community, i will agree with you, community is a problem in some games that dont require the community to bind together naturally. For example, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14, generally Themepark MMO's as a genre have a terrible, lacking, and divided community.
But you have other genre's, go play something like Darkfall or Albion Online (fuck, even Life is Feudal, and thats not even an MMO) these games naturally bring the community together and form bonds. MMO's arent suffering because of Community, Certain genre's are suffering because of lack of community. But as a whole, MMO's are fine (not perfect, nothing is perfect,besides me Stop being so afraid of going away from your safe, comfort zone.
TL:DR- Genre's: ThemePark MMO's are for Mr.Smith that has 4 hours a week to play video games and thats how those games are made.
Hardcore Sandbox MMO's are for your basement dwelling neckbeard gamers that play video games like a full-time job.
I kiddy pool is shallow, a Olympic pool is vast and complex...and usually doesn't have terd floating around.
Well yes, if you define everything that you can possibly receive a reward from as questing then questing is here to stay and not going anywhere.
Though... if you've defined questing so broadly that crafting and PvP can be considered sub categories of questing then the word has effectively lost all meaning and we will need to create a new word to describe what most people consider questing to be.
Essentially I'm trying to educate people that what they're offended by is exactly the same thing as what they're NOT offended by. Only the name has changed.
Only people realize that, they will either (a) realize their dislike of quests is shallow and stop it, or (b) be more specific about what they actually dislike that is specific to the main type of quests they're referring to.
If I call quests "missions", is that window dressing enough for you to enjoy quests again? How about if I call quests "crafting"?
Your answers will determine how narrowly you've defined questing.
If a "mission" isn't a quest in your mind, then what you consider a quest seems rather shallow (it's only the literal name "quest" that makes something a quest to you.)
If crafting isn't a quest then how is that any different from a mission or quest? You assemble the requested ingredients, return to the quest-giver (who's named Forge), and turn-in for a reward.
After walking through that exercise you'll know whether (a) quests aren't actually so bad after all or (b) you know the specific thing that irritates you (which won't be the fact that they're quests, but some other critical detail about how the quests are designed.)
I doubt anyone actually falls into your (a) category though I see how what you're putting forward could distill the conversation into something far more tangible than just "I hate questing."
I believe I would describe things you can do for reward as content not questing. Though I haven't completely worked through if there is possible content that could not be described as doing things for reward. Perhaps it depends on how broadly you define reward.
As someone who found leveling in gw2 noticeably more enjoyable than Wildstar or WoW I'm aware that there was something in the structure of "the traditional WoW style quest grind" that I strongly disliked not in the overall concept of doing things for reward.
As a designer certainly I have a lot of specific ideas for how to make individual abilities deeper, and how to control the abilities any given player has access to, in ways which create deeper gameplay. Stuff like taking the basic fireball and making it a 2-tap affair where the fireball is going to fly straight at your tab target, but it's up to you to detonate it at the right time to cause the most damage. Or taking it a bit further and having fireballs be aimed and act like FPS rockets...
As a designer, you should realize this is talking about the build out of entirely different systems and mechanics versus a system like WoW has... You're talking about alternative gameplay styles more so than any depth.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
One of reason why certain demographics were/are leaving from MMORPGs into other genres of games and why they are hardly targetted by MMORPG developers anymore. Their expectations are too expensive to try to cater to.
But mmorpg devs are turning into non-mmorpg devs too.
Look at blizz. It is no longer making a new mmorpg. It is now making MOBAs, CCGs, and soon a shooter.
And once upon a time they made RTS and sRPGs, then they tried mmorpgs on for size.
Even Blizzard North doing my all-time favorite mecha-stompers.
Not sure where this argument was headed, but Blizzard's always been far more resilient and adaptive than the gamers they served.
As a designer certainly I have a lot of specific ideas for how ... (snip)
You're a designer?
You don't say. After all those denials. LOL, who cares anymore? I know I don't, just wanted you to know that after those years of crap, I saw this. Even with as little as I come around here anymore. Not that you probably care. But someone out there (me) knows what you are whether you care or not. Of course I already knew this. Just sayin'. But again, who cares anymore.
(I wonder if the Mods will delete this? Hrmph, guess we'll see. If I even bother to check, it might be vaguely curious in a time wasting sort of way.)
As a designer certainly I have a lot of specific ideas for how ... (snip)
You're a designer?
You don't say. After all those denials. LOL, who cares anymore? I know I don't, just wanted you to know that after those years of crap, I saw this. Even with as little as I come around here anymore. Not that you probably care. But someone out there (me) knows what you are whether you care or not. Of course I already knew this. Just sayin'. But again, who cares anymore.
(I wonder if the Mods will delete this? Hrmph, guess we'll see. If I even bother to check, it might be vaguely curious in a time wasting sort of way.)
I'm a designer too....not of anything related to gaming...but :P
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
You don't say. After all those denials. LOL, who cares anymore? I know I don't, just wanted you to know that after those years of crap, I saw this. Even with as little as I come around here anymore. Not that you probably care. But someone out there (me) knows what you are whether you care or not. Of course I already knew this. Just sayin'. But again, who cares anymore.
(I wonder if the Mods will delete this? Hrmph, guess we'll see. If I even bother to check, it might be vaguely curious in a time wasting sort of way.)
Do you have any interest in truth?
In many posts I've pointed out I'm a designer. In fewer posts I've pointed out I've never worked on MMORPGs. I can only imagine you turned those latter posts into a wrong belief that I'd claimed I wasn't a game designer.
You have three options:
Realize I'm telling the truth.
Persist in ignorance. To do this it's absolutely critical that you don't dig through my post history. You would find no evidence of your claim, and that would be devastating to ignorant beliefs.
Confirm the truth. Dig through my post history, and realize zero evidence exists for what you're saying (and quite a few posts exist confirming what I've said above.) I welcome you to do this.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well early on Axe did refer to himself as Q/A rather than as a "designer". Given Arman's comment was "after all those denials" it certainly does make things confusing as to what they actually meant on that matter, but the rest of his commentary was more displaying incredulity at the notion.
Doesn't really change the point either though that an argument from authority where the only word on said authority is an anecdotal claim someone makes of themselves, is not credible in the least nor is it meaningful. It's a bid by people who want their opinions validated, not by someone looking for simply laying out logic or "truth". When you want something done rationally, you leave the self out of it.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Agreed on the authority bit, thats always a weak argument, even if you are an expert. . I haven't seen the QA post, not saying it isn't true, just saying I haven't seen that one.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
It's dangerous to call it insightful. The premise of the post was "think like Blizzard" which is itself a loose statement that has seen multiple mistakes and a lot of wasted investment internally that gamers don't tend to be aware of.
Of note that the populous is aware of would be the cancellation of project titan and the prior cancellation of Starcraft Ghost.
Beyond that there was the launch of Diablo 3 that saw great sales, but quite the range of reactions as well as backlash to the game's design that saw many changes once the lead of the team was replaced and expansion developed.
WoW itself has been a lineage of this, as many aspects have been changed, replaced, sometimes backtracked on, and revised many times over in the game's life cycle.
A good amount of what you'd consider the driving intellect of any given title example has been rather transient as well. For example the up and leaving of most the people at Blizzard north in the past to produce the Hellgate title. Similarly there's the likes of Kern that left after being the team lead on the group developing WoW to make the stab at Firefall. Along with these two examples you'll also note that those that did see success while at blizzard, when they moved into a new environment to try and enact their ideas, stumbled hard.
There are some examples of those that saw success, but like in the case of LoL it is first worth noting the original developers (the two founders) were not blizzard employees, and secondly that those that did join them were hopping into a project that had a much more structured and limited feature set that was feasible to develop as an indie company.
Blizzard as an example, if one were to know how they do things, would not actually be a strong one. It's a company and teams that mostly operate successfully in spite of themselves to which they would not survive their own habits if they found themselves in any other circumstance.
The examples given in his post about depth are equally a peculiarity, as the offering was not of systems to create depth but to change the gameplay into a different set of mechanics. It offers a change of pace, but requires a little more than attaching some new scripts to an ability to allow those ideas to be implemented, and in doing so you are putting a new layer for the servers to manage if not more. Certainly adds more depth to the development of the game, but for a marginal return if it wasn't intended to be the core combat mechanics for the game upon which deep player mechanics could be built.
EDIT: There also was a critical assessment of his commentary, perhaps not by amar, but the most immediate glaring flaw in his commentary was highlighted. Besides which, unless there is a necessity for job credentials, then referencing that one is a developer or otherwise is not a necessary action. For example we may have a discussion about data analytics, but the fact that you are a data analyst is inconsequential to the matter of what you can actually provide for the conversation. It also says naught of your aptitude for your job by bringing it up, to which that can vary greatly as I pointed out previously with the fact that there are many that can be classed into a variety of categories when it comes to how they think about and implement things, and the classic dichotomy between a tradesman and a craftsmen within any given field.
To preface a topic with personal credentials is an argument from authority. It does not make your ensuing comments more intelligent, it does not make one's opinions into facts. It's a bid to establish that you're an authority in lieu of rational support for the comments made and is very simply not necessary. Beyond which, by doing so you have introduced personal bias by talking about the self. It becomes a conversation about personal experiences and opinions rather than staying in the realm of observation and fact. Eloquently structuring one's opinion does not change that.
Bringing up such things also comes with the double edge that it introduces a reason for doubt in someone's claims. The very fact that someone felt the need to brandish their expertise as a title can be taken by others as a bluff, more or less by the very fact that it's meaning in being said exists as little more than establishment of where one's thoughts comes from in order to grant it weight, it can be assumed by many that it is a claim made in falsity to give weight to an otherwise unsupported argument. Like there is hardly ever a reason for me to talk about my time working on MMOs and consulting with studios because for the most part I don't expect people to believe those claims even if I sit down and share with them every project I participated in through PM with evidence. It's tiresome and it's pointless, only serving to detract from any focus on dialogue others might learn from.
Post edited by Deivos on
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Thanks for reminding us why its better to avoid appeals to authority.
Thanks for reminding us that modern society completely rejects the expert, even when it clearly isn't an appeal to authority, resulting in the death of expertise, and a world where baseless opinions of inexperienced novices are held in equal value to those of an expert.
Whenever I use my profession to indicate my experience*, I always pair it with evidence of whatever argument I'm making (most often used to argue against people with zero evidence who've made baseless claims.) That way it'll clearly be an entrenched, proven position (because why would I bother arguing any other kind? After all I'm here to educate people, not to make flimsy, incorrect, defeatable arguments...)
(* in discussions about facts, and not merely ideas or opinions)
Post edited by Axehilt on
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Thanks for reminding us why its better to avoid appeals to authority.
It wasn't really a direct appeal to authority. He's not arguing that we should accept his opinion unquestioned because he's a designer. He's relating his job experience and that he has ideas based on that.
As a data analyst and sql developer I'm experience at working with data sets and using t-sql and pl-sql to migrate data between systems. It doesn't mean I know everything or shouldn't be questioned, but if we were having a discussion on that topic I might relate my experience and ideas on how to approach solutions to problems.
I think if there was really a problem with appeal to authority in this case the poster would have highlighted where Axehilt was wrong and how he didn't support his argument with anything but "yes it is, because I'm a designer". Instead he just lashed out at him and made snarky comments.
I think his point about WoW clones and Blizzard design is pretty spot on. A lot of MMO development is a list of checkboxes - the same checkboxes between games - that give them a feeling of "sameness".
Ultimately, this is just about opinions. Which ones people accept and which they won't. After that, come the reasons why. If someone likes your opinion, then you are correct, if they don't you are wrong. After that, it's a simple matter to explain why.
Comments
better AI
more enjoyable mini-games like crafting
new occupations besides killer and crafter
group tools like the ability for a hierarchical battle roles where sargents place markers for their men to go to, captains place markers for where the sargents should go and generals spend the battle just looking at a map placing captains
change in focus away from violence
ability for players to introduce their own content
So questing/tasking definately is in good shape in overall gaming.
In the sector of MMORPGs it looks tad diffrent though.
In MMO(RPG) specifically playerbases were expecting much higher progress with quality of questing, not only in presentation, but also in mechanics & gameplay. That is why I've mentioned two of last batch of western AAA MMORPGs - Swtor and Wildstar that was trashed by their P2P intitial adopters for their questing (among other issues).
One of reason why certain demographics were/are leaving from MMORPGs into other genres of games and why they are hardly targetted by MMORPG developers anymore. Their expectations are too expensive to try to cater to.
I haven't provided ways of making a deeper MMORPG because that hasn't been what the conversation has been about. It's mostly been general comments on what MMORPG designers should do.
As a designer certainly I have a lot of specific ideas for how to make individual abilities deeper, and how to control the abilities any given player has access to, in ways which create deeper gameplay. Stuff like taking the basic fireball and making it a 2-tap affair where the fireball is going to fly straight at your tab target, but it's up to you to detonate it at the right time to cause the most damage. Or taking it a bit further and having fireballs be aimed and act like FPS rockets (this direction would be very deep, but would also take things in a twitch-intensive direction which isn't ideal for an RPG; RPGs typically appeal to a demographic not interested in much twitch skill, which is why tab-targeting and ability bars have made a lot of sense.) Or to turn back the clock to Guild Wars 1 where skills were heavily inspired by Magic the Gathering and they were similarly rewarding of good timing to your skill combos. Mob design factors into it a lot too, since mobs should be designed to deliberately disrupt any 'typical' rotation (like having to avoid a death-dealing overhead swing), and deliberately vary the rotation too (like spell-interrupts, except there should probably be 1-2 similar 'reaction' skills players need to learn to use.) This is already a giant paragraph just scratching the surface. We could go on and on describing how to make combat deeper than WOW's.
What I'm suggesting, both generally and with my specifics above, is to start designing things like Blizzard does. Currently MMORPGs are not designed like WOW. They're cardboard copies -- they vaguely look like WOW because they share some of the skin-deep features, but they're not designed like WOW. This is another reason I feel "WOW clone" is a laughably inaccurate statement, because if someone created a game like Blizzard would make it, they'd do incredibly well.
League of Legends was designed that way. Unsurprising given that at least one major Blizzard designer (Zileas) worked on it at launch, and at least one more (Ghostcrawler) joined later.
I'm not suggesting that games should only improve one aspect, nor did I mean to imply that I believe you did.
But I do view this as the most significant flaw that holds back a lot of games. Plenty of games attract players with nice graphics. Some games do alright with gameplay to give players some fun for a while. But very few games have design strong enough to keep lots of players playing a very long time -- and due to the way the math works out, player retention is a huge part of accumulating a blockbuster-sized audience in the long-haul.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Look at blizz. It is no longer making a new mmorpg. It is now making MOBAs, CCGs, and soon a shooter.
But you have other genre's, go play something like Darkfall or Albion Online (fuck, even Life is Feudal, and thats not even an MMO) these games naturally bring the community together and form bonds.
MMO's arent suffering because of Community, Certain genre's are suffering because of lack of community.
But as a whole, MMO's are fine (not perfect, nothing is perfect,besides me
Stop being so afraid of going away from your safe, comfort zone.
TL:DR- Genre's:
ThemePark MMO's are for Mr.Smith that has 4 hours a week to play video games and thats how those games are made.
Hardcore Sandbox MMO's are for your basement dwelling neckbeard gamers that play video games like a full-time job.
I kiddy pool is shallow, a Olympic pool is vast and complex...and usually doesn't have terd floating around.
I believe I would describe things you can do for reward as content not questing. Though I haven't completely worked through if there is possible content that could not be described as doing things for reward. Perhaps it depends on how broadly you define reward.
As someone who found leveling in gw2 noticeably more enjoyable than Wildstar or WoW I'm aware that there was something in the structure of "the traditional WoW style quest grind" that I strongly disliked not in the overall concept of doing things for reward.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Even Blizzard North doing my all-time favorite mecha-stompers.
Not sure where this argument was headed, but Blizzard's always been far more resilient and adaptive than the gamers they served.
You don't say. After all those denials.
LOL, who cares anymore? I know I don't, just wanted you to know that after those years of crap, I saw this. Even with as little as I come around here anymore.
Not that you probably care.
But someone out there (me) knows what you are whether you care or not. Of course I already knew this.
Just sayin'. But again, who cares anymore.
(I wonder if the Mods will delete this? Hrmph, guess we'll see. If I even bother to check, it might be vaguely curious in a time wasting sort of way.)
Once upon a time....
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
It's only ever brought up to get used as an argument from authority rather than a meaningful tie into anything any ways.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
In many posts I've pointed out I'm a designer. In fewer posts I've pointed out I've never worked on MMORPGs. I can only imagine you turned those latter posts into a wrong belief that I'd claimed I wasn't a game designer.
You have three options:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Doesn't really change the point either though that an argument from authority where the only word on said authority is an anecdotal claim someone makes of themselves, is not credible in the least nor is it meaningful. It's a bid by people who want their opinions validated, not by someone looking for simply laying out logic or "truth". When you want something done rationally, you leave the self out of it.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Of note that the populous is aware of would be the cancellation of project titan and the prior cancellation of Starcraft Ghost.
Beyond that there was the launch of Diablo 3 that saw great sales, but quite the range of reactions as well as backlash to the game's design that saw many changes once the lead of the team was replaced and expansion developed.
WoW itself has been a lineage of this, as many aspects have been changed, replaced, sometimes backtracked on, and revised many times over in the game's life cycle.
A good amount of what you'd consider the driving intellect of any given title example has been rather transient as well. For example the up and leaving of most the people at Blizzard north in the past to produce the Hellgate title. Similarly there's the likes of Kern that left after being the team lead on the group developing WoW to make the stab at Firefall. Along with these two examples you'll also note that those that did see success while at blizzard, when they moved into a new environment to try and enact their ideas, stumbled hard.
There are some examples of those that saw success, but like in the case of LoL it is first worth noting the original developers (the two founders) were not blizzard employees, and secondly that those that did join them were hopping into a project that had a much more structured and limited feature set that was feasible to develop as an indie company.
Blizzard as an example, if one were to know how they do things, would not actually be a strong one. It's a company and teams that mostly operate successfully in spite of themselves to which they would not survive their own habits if they found themselves in any other circumstance.
The examples given in his post about depth are equally a peculiarity, as the offering was not of systems to create depth but to change the gameplay into a different set of mechanics. It offers a change of pace, but requires a little more than attaching some new scripts to an ability to allow those ideas to be implemented, and in doing so you are putting a new layer for the servers to manage if not more. Certainly adds more depth to the development of the game, but for a marginal return if it wasn't intended to be the core combat mechanics for the game upon which deep player mechanics could be built.
EDIT: There also was a critical assessment of his commentary, perhaps not by amar, but the most immediate glaring flaw in his commentary was highlighted. Besides which, unless there is a necessity for job credentials, then referencing that one is a developer or otherwise is not a necessary action. For example we may have a discussion about data analytics, but the fact that you are a data analyst is inconsequential to the matter of what you can actually provide for the conversation. It also says naught of your aptitude for your job by bringing it up, to which that can vary greatly as I pointed out previously with the fact that there are many that can be classed into a variety of categories when it comes to how they think about and implement things, and the classic dichotomy between a tradesman and a craftsmen within any given field.
To preface a topic with personal credentials is an argument from authority. It does not make your ensuing comments more intelligent, it does not make one's opinions into facts. It's a bid to establish that you're an authority in lieu of rational support for the comments made and is very simply not necessary. Beyond which, by doing so you have introduced personal bias by talking about the self. It becomes a conversation about personal experiences and opinions rather than staying in the realm of observation and fact. Eloquently structuring one's opinion does not change that.
Bringing up such things also comes with the double edge that it introduces a reason for doubt in someone's claims. The very fact that someone felt the need to brandish their expertise as a title can be taken by others as a bluff, more or less by the very fact that it's meaning in being said exists as little more than establishment of where one's thoughts comes from in order to grant it weight, it can be assumed by many that it is a claim made in falsity to give weight to an otherwise unsupported argument. Like there is hardly ever a reason for me to talk about my time working on MMOs and consulting with studios because for the most part I don't expect people to believe those claims even if I sit down and share with them every project I participated in through PM with evidence. It's tiresome and it's pointless, only serving to detract from any focus on dialogue others might learn from.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It's Reflexive, on message boards. Hence, you're better off never to mention it at all, ever.
Whenever I use my profession to indicate my experience*, I always pair it with evidence of whatever argument I'm making (most often used to argue against people with zero evidence who've made baseless claims.) That way it'll clearly be an entrenched, proven position (because why would I bother arguing any other kind? After all I'm here to educate people, not to make flimsy, incorrect, defeatable arguments...)
(* in discussions about facts, and not merely ideas or opinions)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Essentially: Do you want to live in a world where EXPERTISE is muted, or where IGNORANCE is muted?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver