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.
Yeah but that's not really an argument. You're not presenting evidence of games without quests outperforming games with quests. You're just describing general stagnation and one specific flop (SWTOR was an objective success.)
It's a bit like having an entire population exposed to the flu, in a population where 90% of people were vaccinated. A bad observer might say "look, many of the vaccinated people are sick! Vaccinations don't work!" However he'd be neglecting the fact that none of the sickness was actually flu, but other ailments. He might also point out that "more vaccinated people are sick than non-vaccinated" which again is a pretty stupid way to slice the data because there are obviously 9 times as many vaccinated people to get sick from other things.
Nobody's saying MMORPGs are in perfect health. What I'm saying is that proportions matter:
only 10% of the vaccinated population was sick while 25% of the non-vaccinated population was sick.
some quest-based MMORPGs fail, but basically every non-quest-based MMORPG has failed or met with weaker success.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
We want the old games. But we want them done better. This isn't a hard concept.
who are "we"? I certainly don't want old games. And you can "want" all you like .. but devs can choose whom they are catering to.
You didn't bother to actually read what I said, did you.
Not really. But hey .. the sentence "we want the old games" is pretty clear. Do I misinterpret it that you want to go back to the old classical mmorpg design, but with modern graphics?
If so, my response remain the same.
Then until you read it, you don't have the right to say anything. Go back and read it so you don't look foolish. If you skip words in what you're reading, you miss important things.
Jean-Luc_Picard said: Being anonymous, some people make up a life which has nothing to do with their real life, just to try to look like they are experts and therefore always right...
And this would again be one of the reasons I pointed out as to why making an argument from authority (not an appeal to authority) is predominantly meaningless. Axe even said it himself, he prefaces his comments with it to give it the image of "an entrenched, proven position". If the dialogue was intelligent and rational, this appeal will not change the results for better or worse.
In addition, as your own sig states this.
"I worked for great gaming companies, I know more than you about development!". - yeah, even great gaming companies need people to empty the trashcans and clean the toilets...
A bit hyperbolic, but the point to draw here is that what one claims they do and what one actively does, even if it's in part true, can be greatly skewed to the reality of the situation or their actual expertise in the matter.
Would also love to see what "the difference between what you post and the nonsense those "wannabes" post" properly entails to you. Seeing as I have put forth dialogue commenting on Blizzard and have done a few counterpoints as well as my own commentary on the matter of the thread.\
The fact that the argument he's held for example has seen continued reduction into an argument against something no one is arguing (his last made statement is quest vs no quest whereas the original argument was others complaining about superfluous quests that act as filler to grind without impacting the player, world, or narrative beyond personal statistic progression). It's a continued collapse of reason that has sometimes seen a snippet of something factual. When someone says they argue "to educate people", they would benefit from making responses that aren't generating misinformation.
Like for example the commentary made about about Riot and Blizzard.
Which also leads me to question, what exactly is it you find yourself in agreement with?
"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
Jean-Luc_Picard said: Being anonymous, some people make up a life which has nothing to do with their real life, just to try to look like they are experts and therefore always right...
Would also love to see what "the difference between what you post and the nonsense those "wannabes" post" properly entails to you. Seeing as I have put forth dialogue commenting on Blizzard and have done a few counterpoints as well as my own commentary on the matter of the thread.\
...
Which also leads me to question, what exactly is it you find yourself in agreement with?
Very simple, being a developer myself, I can easily spot those who are full of it and those who actually have some credibility. I don't ask anyone to believe me, but there are several other developers posting here, and I think we mostly all know who we are.
Same as if you were on a car forum, yourself being a professional veteran car repairer, upgrader, tuner, etc... you'd easily spot those who blow wind and those who talk about things they actually know about.
Ah, you are a software developer, explains so much.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Hello, i have a problem, i cant find an mmorpg i can play any longer Or an mmorpg game i even like.
Played RF Online and Forsaken World, had loads of fun, but they got dated, gameplay, interface&graphic wise, also population was very low.
Was in Neverwinter and Rift, for some time, Rift was really good, but population was quite low, and it bugged me that "Trion" publisher was implementing purchasable endgame gear, ah licence in auction house payable only with cash.
Played Tera grinded 1 year, and failed my enchantments lost all the funds and year of my life, but it doesnt matter since they were about to release next gear tier anyway my gear would become outdated, tried Tera few times more, played month or two, went through all content, got bored.
Was in Archeage and had most fun in it from all other mmorpgs out there, untill the publisher "Trion" made it completely p2w model, left the game with incredible amount of funds and gear since i couldnt upgrade it properly without cash.
Lastly i played GW2 as free to play player, and the restrictions didnt bother me much, except chat and auction, but figured its to stop bots&gold rings/spammers. Guild wars 2 for me has some minor inovations, but its all mostly based on the same system, with exception to pvp being fully balanced. The game doesnt feel rewarding in the slightest, since its rng to get gear, same gear which stats doesnt matter almost at all, i mean its grind for skins mostly, can take years as well. The game gets incredibly borring very fast, except pvp arenas, they feel almost like moba's, almost.
All i ever wanted from a game is to have fun, feel competetive and rewarding system, with some balance and no p2w. Is it really so hard to make a game that lets you be more powerfull, gear-wise, but it is balanced, with no p2w component.. and that it isnt tier based.
For those who don't remember or know, for years Axehilt has posted nothing but negatives in any and all threads about Sandbox design. He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost. As intended. And over those years I've accused him of being an insider in the industry. An industry that doesn't want to produce "Sandbox" games. To which he constantly denied being a part of.
But that's alright. I didn't expect anything other than what we see here for replies to my post. It's not like I have a stake in this anymore. The gaming industry has won this, both by the power of the purse and on message boards where people like me just gave up and any attempts at talking about a different game style have been pretty much crushed.
Axehilt knows what I'm saying. There's one or two other industry people here that know what I'm saying. That's all that counts, for me. Integrity is just a word, isn't it guys? Now, "control", now there's a THANG. Right guys?
He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads...
Definition of "pain in the arse" and also "troll" for most forum posters here: someone who disagrees with me.
The entire sentence was: "He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
By choosing not to quote the whole sentence and taking only part, you are quoting me out of context and losing the meaning.
Why you do that? Just because you didn't like what you heard?
He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads...
Definition of "pain in the arse" and also "troll" for most forum posters here: someone who disagrees with me.
The entire sentence was: "He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
By choosing not to quote the whole sentence and taking only part, you are quoting me out of context and losing the meaning.
Why you do that? Just because you didn't like what you heard?
Ok, let's do it... "For years, he's been disagreeing with me, therefore he's a pain in the arse". Happy now ?
Nope. I didn't say "me". I said: "For those who don't remember or know, for years Axehilt has posted
nothing but negatives in any and all threads about Sandbox design. He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
"Any and all" includes every other poster that tried to talk about Sandbox design ideas.
He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads...
Definition of "pain in the arse" and also "troll" for most forum posters here: someone who disagrees with me.
The entire sentence was: "He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
By choosing not to quote the whole sentence and taking only part, you are quoting me out of context and losing the meaning.
Why you do that? Just because you didn't like what you heard?
Ok, let's do it... "For years, he's been disagreeing with me, therefore he's a pain in the arse". Happy now ?
Nope. I didn't say "me". I said: "For those who don't remember or know, for years Axehilt has posted
nothing but negatives in any and all threads about Sandbox design. He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
"Any and all" includes every other poster that tried to talk about Sandbox design ideas.
What are we gonna do? The macarena? O.o
"Someone had been disagreeing with me and my pals who enjoy Sandbox design, therefore he's a troll and a pain in the arse".
Better translation taking into account that you're not alone.
Pretty darn close. The only thing you are missing is the years worth of constant, the manipulations of said threads into arguments over "what is Sandbox", the constant "no body wants that" (despite the fact that people wanted to talk about it), and the "prove it" (it would be hard to prove there are delicious red apples out there if all you saw were green apples and rotten red apples, and not many people buy rotten red apples). But I guess I didn't say that, so maybe you are closer than just "pretty darn close".
He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads...
Definition of "pain in the arse" and also "troll" for most forum posters here: someone who disagrees with me.
The entire sentence was: "He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
By choosing not to quote the whole sentence and taking only part, you are quoting me out of context and losing the meaning.
Why you do that? Just because you didn't like what you heard?
Ok, let's do it... "For years, he's been disagreeing with me, therefore he's a pain in the arse". Happy now ?
Nope. I didn't say "me". I said: "For those who don't remember or know, for years Axehilt has posted
nothing but negatives in any and all threads about Sandbox design. He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
"Any and all" includes every other poster that tried to talk about Sandbox design ideas.
What are we gonna do? The macarena? O.o
How about focusing on the specific argument and why you agree or disagree and drop the juvenile personal attacks. Other than the fact my stock in Preparation-H has gone up nothing good comes of these sorts of comments and they derail the discussion.
Because of the loooooong history of what Axehilt did to me and those of like mind on these forums.
But you should be happy. All that Prep-H I used over those years must have boosted your stock.
Because he didn't do that. He disagreed with you in those things and gave reasons for that. Many people disagree with these reasons and his use or lack of logic ( depending on your point of view). I would say you were consistently trolling him for simply disagreeing
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Because he didn't do that. He disagreed with you in those things and gave reasons for that. Many people disagree with these reasons and his use or lack of logic ( depending on your point of view). I would say you were consistently trolling him for simply disagreeing
You've been in many of those threads I was talking about. You should know what I'm saying. He didn't just disagree, he hammered away at changing the conversations to arguments over the meaning of anything and unprovable numbers and whatnot. He destroyed those threads. He had help from a few others after the first year or two.
What ever happened to you? You used to be at least partly in with Sandbox? You get "turned" to the dark side?
Eh, it doesn't matter. I'll make all you Themeparkers happy and go away now. It's your forum these days anyways.
Yes I was there. And yes I still play and do like sandboxes. That is not the point. The point is he merely disagreed with you. He gave reasons for this on every single post. You can disagree with the reasons all you want. That doesn't make him a troll. It is just someone that disagrees with you.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
At leas the "changing the conversation" part is pretty accurate. It's a disturbing habit of re-branding things into further and further finite arguments and logic that has less and less to do with the things people actually are addressing.
In this thread for example he has pushed the argument people have been making away from their commentary about questing in MMOs being largely populated by activities that don't really contribute to much other than xp/loot gain and turned it into a much more nonsensical argument of if there should or shouldn't be any quests at all.
It's a re-positioning of the argument into a defensible yet meaningless direction. It doesn't educate people, it only makes it so a claim can be made and proven "right" even though what's right doesn't even have any merit in being said.
What everyone but Axe was arguing for was that quests in MMOs largely bear no weight. They are an engine to be rewarded by with little in the way of making your actions actually feel like they have any value beyond statistical progress. There are occasional moments and exceptions, but by in large even in the most popular titles such as WoW.
The closest anyone came in solutions to "removing quests" was Flyte's suggestion of culling "tasks" (fetch quests, kill quests, delivery quests) from the quest list with the reasoning that those components can be directly utilized to drive economy mechanics (turning them over to vendors or players for item crafting).
Even though the post where the latter half talked about still having quests, just they would mostly be the bigger and more narrative-involved arcs.
Other responses on the matter being along the same vein.
" I would rather them be couched as "jobs" or "tasks" where someone could be hired to do some such thing but if a game is going to have a quest then it should have some substance."
"Jobs, task, missions, adventures and more that are nothing like a quest. Quest should be important or large like the quest for the grail."
"But they've been refined to near reflex mechanics for leveling. Dumb small task for a man trying to save the world."
"Instead of spawning 10 000 hopeless quests I rather have 500 larger well written quests that isn't just about delivering a letter to a guy 5 yards away."
Axe took that as a prompt to ignore most the subject and to misinterpret one part into a tirade on quest vs no quest. Every time any of these people breached the subject again in a response where they would point out that they wanted less questing that exists solely for the sake of numeric progress and more focus on the development of strong quest chains that contribute to player experience, he has turned to repeat the same argument of "games with quests versus games without quests".
His argument that games with quests are more successful than those without quests might be true, but it's a response that has no bearing on what quite literally anyone else was saying. It's an argument made that scores points only for the sake of being an argument, and fails to offer a meaningful counterpoint on the subject that was actually broached.
And the extended problem is, he does this a lot with most all subjects. A change of the core argument into a subject that is fundamentally a non-issue or a side point that may or may not be right, but either way does not actually expand, counterpoint, or explain the subject that was being addressed let alone have value in being "proven". It's always been frustrating for me to see it happen, and then be placed under the pretense of "education" as well as "I'm a developer".
"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
He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads...
Definition of "pain in the arse" and also "troll" for most forum posters here: someone who disagrees with me.
The entire sentence was: "He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
By choosing not to quote the whole sentence and taking only part, you are quoting me out of context and losing the meaning.
Why you do that? Just because you didn't like what you heard?
Ok, let's do it... "For years, he's been disagreeing with me, therefore he's a pain in the arse". Happy now ?
Nope. I didn't say "me". I said: "For those who don't remember or know, for years Axehilt has posted
nothing but negatives in any and all threads about Sandbox design. He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those
years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into
heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
"Any and all" includes every other poster that tried to talk about Sandbox design ideas.
What are we gonna do? The macarena? O.o
How about focusing on the specific argument and why you agree or disagree and drop the juvenile personal attacks. Other than the fact my stock in Preparation-H has gone up nothing good comes of these sorts of comments and they derail the discussion.
This bugs me to no end on these boards. Naming someone in a negative comment. Especially when they aren't even in the post. It's nothing more than an combo attack of deflection and Ad-Hom.
He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads...
Definition of "pain in the arse" and also "troll" for most forum posters here: someone who disagrees with me.
pretty much this ...
but hey .. it is an open forum. We can just ignore name-calling. Some even call the operators here, who have done us a tremendous service, "stupid" and "silly" just because they don't agree with their classification of MMOs.
I think it is very amusing that some has to resort to personal attacks, just because they are unhappy about the world.
Being an insider does help in some ways with technical know how. Sometimes though you have insular peer reinforced view of how to do things. I think this genre has suffered number pandering, ideological development.
That said I do give developers due respect. The thing is developers have been wrong just like any human and experienced gamers players do have a good idea how games, features snd systems play out.
For those who don't remember or know, for years Axehilt has posted nothing but negatives in any and all threads about Sandbox design. He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost. As intended. And over those years I've accused him of being an insider in the industry. An industry that doesn't want to produce "Sandbox" games. To which he constantly denied being a part of.
But that's alright. I didn't expect anything other than what we see here for replies to my post. It's not like I have a stake in this anymore. The gaming industry has won this, both by the power of the purse and on message boards where people like me just gave up and any attempts at talking about a different game style have been pretty much crushed.
Axehilt knows what I'm saying. There's one or two other industry people here that know what I'm saying. That's all that counts, for me. Integrity is just a word, isn't it guys? Now, "control", now there's a THANG. Right guys?
Ah, so you chose deliberate ignorance. Disappointing, but unsurprising given your post history.
If you were a logical person, my last post would've been a big red flag. If I'd said what you claim, then why would I welcome you to search my post history? If evidence exists, you could find it and link it, proving your point! But of course I'm welcoming you to search my post history because evidence doesn't exist which supports your fantasy that I work in the MMORPG industry.
"An insider in the industry" hasn't been your accusation. "The industry" is uselessly vague: I work in the industry (the games industry), but I don't work in the industry (the MMORPG industry). Don't use useless terms like that.
If you were a logical person, you'd realize there is no "MMORPG insider conspiracy" against sandboxes. You'd realize that people are driven by motivations, and that the most substantial motivation is profit. (A fact more true in expensive MMORPGs than cheaper genres.) You'd realize that sandbox MMORPGs have been either unprofitable or mediocre successes. You'd then put the pieces together to realize that's the obvious reason sandbox games aren't made.
You might even make the logical jump to realize that player desires (not dev decisions) are what's driving this profitability which drives which games are made, and as a result you'd stop saying preposterous things like "the gaming industry has won" when the industry is merely providing players with what they've voted for (with their wallets.)
If you were a logical person, you'd realize my older posts dug into the details of why sandbox MMORPGs mechanics don't sell as well. They never represented some conspiracy against sandboxes, but rather an observation of what games have succeeded and why. If you were logical, you would've paid extra attention to all the times where I said a gameplay-focused Sandbox MMORPG probably would work -- but it'd be very different from the existing sandbox MMORPG model we've seen tried and fail.
If you were a logical person.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They can. And I'm someone that has been in MMORPG's since their inception. When I say they are targeting the wrong crowd with their products I am speaking of trying to garner the attention of the World Of Warcraft player base. The player base that for the majority of them are not fans of MMORPGs in general and only really prefer world of warcraft. You may get some of them to try something new, but most of them scurry back to WoW soon after.
From a development standpoint they are far too concerned with pulling in that particular crowd on the mainstream which creates a sort of silly scenario. Trying to court a WoW player without a game being based off of Warcraft's lore is pretty much a no go and won't ultimately happen. The reason they target it is because they see the large player base of WoW and they want that for themselves. The problem arises though from not having a realistic outlook on MMORPG growth/retention and the like over the years and basing your opinion of what the market wants based off a singular game just because it is outwardly popular.
WoW gained initial popularity because it was a game based off Warcraft which already had a large following from Warcraft 3 and The Frozen Throne expansion pack. Blizzard had this warchest budget wise to advertise heavily, push it out to people and had the good fortune to hit at a time when gaming was basically becoming a more "normal" part of our society and not just something geeks did. This lead to WoW being many people's first experience in the MMORPG genre.
Also, while Wow is an MMORPG it is also an MMORPG that is based around constantly target the lowest common denominator as far as demographics go. They continually simplify the game and it is almost to the point where you need to do almost nothing for yourself. I wouldn't be surprised to see them automatically make your crafting/gathering choices level up as you do at some future date.
I'm a person that actually gives a hoot about this genre and don't want to see the entirety of it based around a single games mechanics and the like simply because that is "easy" and the devs hope they can somehow make some quick cash with lazy game design ques.
If you are targeting a demographic that is otherwise disinterested in your product you are by definition targeting the wrong sort of crowd/demographic.
I agree with some of what you are saying but I think WoWs success was not solely due to the Warcraft franchise and the sun, moon and stars lining up. What a lot of people forget is that vanilla wow was basically a culmination of every MMO prior to it, but more polished and more user friendly.
While I agree that WoW now targets the lowest common denominator it wasn't always that way and in its day it was a hell of a game.
I think Final Fantasy: ARR is a prime example of using the core principles of the genre to create a successful game. FFXIV and WoW at their core are very similar but FFXIV runs on a newer engine and they added their own flavor. I would consider FFXIV very successful based on the fact its a subscription game that has been out for 2 years and has a large playerbase still and they have sold 4 million plus copies.
I think what SE did right was they didn't create a game that was so niche they had almost no chance of being sucesssful, they looked at what worked for successful MMOs. By doing this you allow yourself to attract former and current gamers from other games while having a francise player base to start with. Their approach was very similar to blizzards back in 2004 and it was implemented successfully in 2013.
On the other hand, Pathfinder is a prime example of a terrible implementation even with a successful franchise proving that you cant stray too far from your roots.
I am all for small indie/niche games but the issues with these are almost always the same. How do I attract players when I don't have a recognizable name? How do you pay to build a large immersive game when you are limiting your playerbase down to lets say people who like full loot PvP (just using as an example)? How do you pay for future content development when the game is free to play without creating a pay to win type of game?
I am all for small indie/niche games but the issues with these are almost always the same. How do I attract players when I don't have a recognizable name? How do you pay to build a large immersive game when you are limiting your playerbase down to lets say people who like full loot PvP (just using as an example)? How do you pay for future content development when the game is free to play without creating a pay to win type of game?
i highly doubt indie efforts have enough resources to build a large game. More than likely they have not thought through this stuff.
Indie games are much more likely to be successful if they focus and limit the scopes.
Comments
And i think, with their success, clearly they are an example for other AAA devs to follow.
It's a bit like having an entire population exposed to the flu, in a population where 90% of people were vaccinated. A bad observer might say "look, many of the vaccinated people are sick! Vaccinations don't work!" However he'd be neglecting the fact that none of the sickness was actually flu, but other ailments. He might also point out that "more vaccinated people are sick than non-vaccinated" which again is a pretty stupid way to slice the data because there are obviously 9 times as many vaccinated people to get sick from other things.
Nobody's saying MMORPGs are in perfect health. What I'm saying is that proportions matter:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In addition, as your own sig states this.
"I worked for great gaming companies, I know more than you about development!". - yeah, even great gaming companies need people to empty the trashcans and clean the toilets...
A bit hyperbolic, but the point to draw here is that what one claims they do and what one actively does, even if it's in part true, can be greatly skewed to the reality of the situation or their actual expertise in the matter.
Would also love to see what "the difference between what you post and the nonsense those "wannabes" post" properly entails to you. Seeing as I have put forth dialogue commenting on Blizzard and have done a few counterpoints as well as my own commentary on the matter of the thread.\
The fact that the argument he's held for example has seen continued reduction into an argument against something no one is arguing (his last made statement is quest vs no quest whereas the original argument was others complaining about superfluous quests that act as filler to grind without impacting the player, world, or narrative beyond personal statistic progression). It's a continued collapse of reason that has sometimes seen a snippet of something factual. When someone says they argue "to educate people", they would benefit from making responses that aren't generating misinformation.
Like for example the commentary made about about Riot and Blizzard.
Which also leads me to question, what exactly is it you find yourself in agreement with?
"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
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"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
Or an mmorpg game i even like.
Played RF Online and Forsaken World, had loads of fun, but they got dated, gameplay, interface&graphic wise, also population was very low.
Was in Neverwinter and Rift, for some time, Rift was really good, but population was quite low, and it bugged me that "Trion" publisher was implementing purchasable endgame gear, ah licence in auction house payable only with cash.
Played Tera grinded 1 year, and failed my enchantments lost all the funds and year of my life, but it doesnt matter since they were about to release next gear tier anyway my gear would become outdated, tried Tera few times more, played month or two, went through all content, got bored.
Was in Archeage and had most fun in it from all other mmorpgs out there, untill the publisher "Trion" made it completely p2w model, left the game with incredible amount of funds and gear since i couldnt upgrade it properly without cash.
Lastly i played GW2 as free to play player, and the restrictions didnt bother me much, except chat and auction, but figured its to stop bots&gold rings/spammers.
Guild wars 2 for me has some minor inovations, but its all mostly based on the same system, with exception to pvp being fully balanced.
The game doesnt feel rewarding in the slightest, since its rng to get gear, same gear which stats doesnt matter almost at all, i mean its grind for skins mostly, can take years as well. The game gets incredibly borring very fast, except pvp arenas, they feel almost like moba's, almost.
All i ever wanted from a game is to have fun, feel competetive and rewarding system, with some balance and no p2w.
Is it really so hard to make a game that lets you be more powerfull, gear-wise, but it is balanced, with no p2w component.. and that it isnt tier based.
And over those years I've accused him of being an insider in the industry. An industry that doesn't want to produce "Sandbox" games.
To which he constantly denied being a part of.
But that's alright. I didn't expect anything other than what we see here for replies to my post. It's not like I have a stake in this anymore. The gaming industry has won this, both by the power of the purse and on message boards where people like me just gave up and any attempts at talking about a different game style have been pretty much crushed.
Axehilt knows what I'm saying. There's one or two other industry people here that know what I'm saying. That's all that counts, for me.
Integrity is just a word, isn't it guys? Now, "control", now there's a THANG. Right guys?
Once upon a time....
"He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
By choosing not to quote the whole sentence and taking only part, you are quoting me out of context and losing the meaning.
Why you do that? Just because you didn't like what you heard?
Once upon a time....
I said:
"For those who don't remember or know, for years Axehilt has posted nothing but negatives in any and all threads about Sandbox design. He's been a complete pain in the arse in those threads, over those years, as typical trolling them to the point that discussion turned into heated arguments and the points of those threads was completely lost."
"Any and all" includes every other poster that tried to talk about Sandbox design ideas.
What are we gonna do? The macarena? O.o
Once upon a time....
But I guess I didn't say that, so maybe you are closer than just "pretty darn close".
Once upon a time....
For gamers without imagination and designers who paint by numbers. Or is it the other way round?
But you should be happy. All that Prep-H I used over those years must have boosted your stock.
Once upon a time....
He didn't just disagree, he hammered away at changing the conversations to arguments over the meaning of anything and unprovable numbers and whatnot. He destroyed those threads. He had help from a few others after the first year or two.
What ever happened to you? You used to be at least partly in with Sandbox?
You get "turned" to the dark side?
Eh, it doesn't matter. I'll make all you Themeparkers happy and go away now. It's your forum these days anyways.
Once upon a time....
In this thread for example he has pushed the argument people have been making away from their commentary about questing in MMOs being largely populated by activities that don't really contribute to much other than xp/loot gain and turned it into a much more nonsensical argument of if there should or shouldn't be any quests at all.
It's a re-positioning of the argument into a defensible yet meaningless direction. It doesn't educate people, it only makes it so a claim can be made and proven "right" even though what's right doesn't even have any merit in being said.
What everyone but Axe was arguing for was that quests in MMOs largely bear no weight. They are an engine to be rewarded by with little in the way of making your actions actually feel like they have any value beyond statistical progress. There are occasional moments and exceptions, but by in large even in the most popular titles such as WoW.
The closest anyone came in solutions to "removing quests" was Flyte's suggestion of culling "tasks" (fetch quests, kill quests, delivery quests) from the quest list with the reasoning that those components can be directly utilized to drive economy mechanics (turning them over to vendors or players for item crafting).
Even though the post where the latter half talked about still having quests, just they would mostly be the bigger and more narrative-involved arcs.
Other responses on the matter being along the same vein.
" I would rather them be couched as "jobs" or "tasks" where someone could be hired to do some such thing but if a game is going to have a quest then it should have some substance."
"Jobs, task, missions, adventures and more that are nothing like a quest. Quest should be important or large like the quest for the grail."
"But they've been refined to near reflex mechanics for leveling. Dumb small task for a man trying to save the world."
"Instead of spawning 10 000 hopeless quests I rather have 500 larger well written quests that isn't just about delivering a letter to a guy 5 yards away."
Axe took that as a prompt to ignore most the subject and to misinterpret one part into a tirade on quest vs no quest. Every time any of these people breached the subject again in a response where they would point out that they wanted less questing that exists solely for the sake of numeric progress and more focus on the development of strong quest chains that contribute to player experience, he has turned to repeat the same argument of "games with quests versus games without quests".
His argument that games with quests are more successful than those without quests might be true, but it's a response that has no bearing on what quite literally anyone else was saying. It's an argument made that scores points only for the sake of being an argument, and fails to offer a meaningful counterpoint on the subject that was actually broached.
And the extended problem is, he does this a lot with most all subjects. A change of the core argument into a subject that is fundamentally a non-issue or a side point that may or may not be right, but either way does not actually expand, counterpoint, or explain the subject that was being addressed let alone have value in being "proven". It's always been frustrating for me to see it happen, and then be placed under the pretense of "education" as well as "I'm a developer".
"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
Naming someone in a negative comment. Especially when they aren't even in the post.
It's nothing more than an combo attack of deflection and Ad-Hom.
That said I do give developers due respect. The thing is developers have been wrong just like any human and experienced gamers players do have a good idea how games, features snd systems play out.
If you were a logical person, my last post would've been a big red flag. If I'd said what you claim, then why would I welcome you to search my post history? If evidence exists, you could find it and link it, proving your point! But of course I'm welcoming you to search my post history because evidence doesn't exist which supports your fantasy that I work in the MMORPG industry.
"An insider in the industry" hasn't been your accusation. "The industry" is uselessly vague: I work in the industry (the games industry), but I don't work in the industry (the MMORPG industry). Don't use useless terms like that.
If you were a logical person, you'd realize there is no "MMORPG insider conspiracy" against sandboxes. You'd realize that people are driven by motivations, and that the most substantial motivation is profit. (A fact more true in expensive MMORPGs than cheaper genres.) You'd realize that sandbox MMORPGs have been either unprofitable or mediocre successes. You'd then put the pieces together to realize that's the obvious reason sandbox games aren't made.
You might even make the logical jump to realize that player desires (not dev decisions) are what's driving this profitability which drives which games are made, and as a result you'd stop saying preposterous things like "the gaming industry has won" when the industry is merely providing players with what they've voted for (with their wallets.)
If you were a logical person, you'd realize my older posts dug into the details of why sandbox MMORPGs mechanics don't sell as well. They never represented some conspiracy against sandboxes, but rather an observation of what games have succeeded and why. If you were logical, you would've paid extra attention to all the times where I said a gameplay-focused Sandbox MMORPG probably would work -- but it'd be very different from the existing sandbox MMORPG model we've seen tried and fail.
If you were a logical person.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
While I agree that WoW now targets the lowest common denominator it wasn't always that way and in its day it was a hell of a game.
I think what SE did right was they didn't create a game that was so niche they had almost no chance of being sucesssful, they looked at what worked for successful MMOs. By doing this you allow yourself to attract former and current gamers from other games while having a francise player base to start with. Their approach was very similar to blizzards back in 2004 and it was implemented successfully in 2013.
On the other hand, Pathfinder is a prime example of a terrible implementation even with a successful franchise proving that you cant stray too far from your roots.
I am all for small indie/niche games but the issues with these are almost always the same. How do I attract players when I don't have a recognizable name? How do you pay to build a large immersive game when you are limiting your playerbase down to lets say people who like full loot PvP (just using as an example)? How do you pay for future content development when the game is free to play without creating a pay to win type of game?
Indie games are much more likely to be successful if they focus and limit the scopes.