Before MMORPGs, games focused on gameplay. There weren't empty periods of non-gameplay travel.
Two mistakes.
One, you have made the mistake of confusing personal opinion and preference with reality, as "non-gameplay travel" is a very subjective statement in general.
Two, flight and vehicle simulators are exactly about travel with little to nothing in the way of any other gameplay.
The idea that you might counter with "but that's gameplay travel" is a joke before you can even say it because the user experience of the travel in question has little in distinction from each other save for one game isn't a sim dedicated to a single user experience.
As for Nariu's comment. You admitted you have a finite scope of experience in your own post. That's point in case about the fact that there are more games and more variety to gameplay than you have likely experienced or enjoy, but that does not preclude it from existing. That you seem to miss the dialogue on this very forum on the subject yet adamantly post in thread about it is quite remarkable really as that means you either don't read what you respond to or you actively refuse to acknowledge or agree with everything you do read simply for the sake of argument.
"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
As for Nariu's comment. You admitted you have a finite scope of experience in your own post. That's point in case about the fact that there are more games and more variety to gameplay than you have likely experienced or enjoy, but that does not preclude it from existing.
Of course not. Anything may have a small chance to succeed.
But again, all big single player open world games have fast travel.
And i have not seen any idea, nor implementation that makes walking 20 min, or riding the boat for 20 min fun to me.
You can keep on saying there is a chance something can happen. Well, there is a possibility that a meteor falls to earth tomorrow and kill us all too but I am not going to bet my life on it.
Is there any example that waiting for a 20 min boat can be fun? Actual examples in games, not some dream up scenario that may sound good in paper, but boring to the extreme in actual games.
Lol ok. I have been playing games since 1983 at least.
MMORPG generally aren't even fun especially themeparks with their game play. Their gameplay and mechanics are second rate by platform. It's the achievements after completion of menial task and cooperation/competition with other players that is liked the most.
And what we are stating is that games do and can make travel enjoyable and rewarding to people. You're claims that travel is only fun when it means something to you is silly and egotistical. It's also from a WOW view or themepark view that your running through dated content and nothing is happening but you running.
Nobody is forcing you to enjoy MMORPGs. If you dislike them, that's fine. But the bulk of RPG players consider them fun.
WOW has probably retained players longer (on a per-player basis) than literally any other game made in our lifetime. So taking the sub-genre WOW is part of (themeparks) and calling their mechanics "second rate" is stupid.
The examples provided were not games that had enjoyable travel. They were games where travel had the exact same amount of gameplay (ie almost no gameplay) that most other MMORPGs do.
I've never claimed travel is only fun when it "means something to you". (You're part of this discussion, so you should probably read what's being said.) I've said it lacks gameplay. In games the most common way the majority of players are entertained can come in one of two forms: exhibition and gameplay. Exhibition is cutscenes (and similar non-interactive things you watch in games.)
Good exhibition only portrays scenes with strong purpose (you'll see a brief travel montage when a character travels, but a good movie isn't going to waste your time with a camera pointed at the protagonist for the full 3 hours of his plane flight.)
Gameplay is decisions.
Good gameplay also only involves elements with a strong purpose, and involves game depth (which means it takes a long time to master the mechanics.)
Since travel in games nearly always fails to be good gameplay or exhibition, it lacks sufficient purpose to be worth including in the excessive amounts that early MMORPGs (and a few modern ones) use.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Lol ok. I have been playing games since 1983 at least.
MMORPG generally aren't even fun especially themeparks with their game play. Their gameplay and mechanics are second rate by platform. It's the achievements after completion of menial task and cooperation/competition with other players that is liked the most.
And what we are stating is that games do and can make travel enjoyable and rewarding to people. You're claims that travel is only fun when it means something to you is silly and egotistical. It's also from a WOW view or themepark view that your running through dated content and nothing is happening but you running.
Nobody is forcing you to enjoy MMORPGs. If you dislike them, that's fine. But the bulk of RPG players consider them fun.
WOW has probably retained players longer (on a per-player basis) than literally any other game made in our lifetime. So taking the sub-genre WOW is part of (themeparks) and calling their mechanics "second rate" is stupid.
The examples provided were not games that had enjoyable travel. They were games where travel had the exact same amount of gameplay (ie almost no gameplay) that most other MMORPGs do.
I've never claimed travel is only fun when it "means something to you". (You're part of this discussion, so you should probably read what's being said.) I've said it lacks gameplay. In games the most common way the majority of players are entertained can come in one of two forms: exhibition and gameplay. Exhibition is cutscenes (and similar non-interactive things you watch in games.)
Good exhibition only portrays scenes with strong purpose (you'll see a brief travel montage when a character travels, but a good movie isn't going to waste your time with a camera pointed at the protagonist for the full 3 hours of his plane flight.)
Gameplay is decisions.
Good gameplay also only involves elements with a strong purpose, and involves game depth (which means it takes a long time to master the mechanics.)
Since travel in games nearly always fails to be good gameplay or exhibition, it lacks sufficient purpose to be worth including in the excessive amounts that early MMORPGs (and a few modern ones) use.
Nope nobody is forcing me to enjoy them. I would say that MMORPG gameplay is second rate to their single player brothers because they do nothing better individually but multiplayer. The enjoyment from the reward is usually greater than the action itself because the mechanism are boring or bad in MMORPG.
Again your preference and or lack of experience has nothing to do with how fun and viable travel is. You have given nothing but the most basic examples of how travel would work in the themepark genre. Your view point is very narrow-minded.
There is more action in traveling in most games that have it than anything close to MMORPG can put out. Game like racing, platform, side scrollers make point A to B action packed. GTA has heavy and long traveling and one of the most purchased games ever.
Sandbox MMORPG can have a lot of reasons to have travel. Some fun and some are just rewarding. Again MMORPG player play as much for reward as fun. In a themepark you could instance a journey that takes 2 hours realtime segmented into 30 minute checkpoints that is less boring than the typical kill, fetch and click something quest. You just have limited imagination.
Nope nobody is forcing me to enjoy them. I would say that MMORPG gameplay is second rate to their single player brothers because they do nothing better individually but multiplayer. The enjoyment from the reward is usually greater than the action itself because the mechanism are boring or bad in MMORPG.
Again your preference and or lack of experience has nothing to do with how fun and viable travel is. You have given nothing but the most basic examples of how travel would work in the themepark genre. Your view point is very narrow-minded.
There is more action in traveling in most games that have it than anything close to MMORPG can put out. Game like racing, platform, side scrollers make point A to B action packed. GTA has heavy and long traveling and one of the most purchased games ever.
Sandbox MMORPG can have a lot of reasons to have travel. Some fun and some are just rewarding. Again MMORPG player play as much for reward as fun. In a themepark you could instance a journey that takes 2 hours realtime segmented into 30 minute checkpoints that is less boring than the typical kill, fetch and click something quest. You just have limited imagination.
Your claim that they're second rate isn't based on any meaningful outcome. My point that they're not second rate is based on how the best implementation of those features has resulted in the longest-retaining game created in our lifetimes (which is a very meaningful outcome.) But sure, keep calling them second rate, as if those words mean something.
Right my preference doesn't determine how fun travel is. Gameplay does. Perhaps this 32nd time I've pointed this out, you'll read it and understand, and stop creating imaginary straw men.
I'm not sure what examples of themepark travel you're referring to. What I've described is the reality of travel in all MMORPGs, not just themeparks. Travel in these games offers infrequent, shallow decisions. That's the reality.
Travel in the other genres you mention is gameplay-packed. That's why it works in those other genres. Those games offer travel with a good flow of decisions, in some cases fairly deep decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Sure, gameplay determines if something is fun, and your opinion determines what forms of gameplay is funto you. It does not define the quality of every form of gameplay (which is exactly why you have a myriad of player types such as "hardcore" and "casual").
What you described is a narrow window of travel mechanics from the type of MMORPG that focuses on finite scripted content, IE "themeparks", to deliver the entertainment.
Focusing on the MMORPGs that lack the world building aspects and only deliver on finite user experience of course is going to be lacking. There is a much broader variety to game options within the MMORPG genre alone that that however, and acting like what you just claimed is remotely true is simply dishonesty. You have thoroughly neglected the broader genre of MMORPG titles and completely ignored the present trend in eastern MMORPGs that have drifted towards the world building variety (Archeage, BDO, Peria Chronicles, Civ Online, Monster Hunter Online, Deep Down, Bless) That have been gearing towards travel having a play in the gameplay and economy 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
Nope nobody is forcing me to enjoy them. I would say that MMORPG gameplay is second rate to their single player brothers because they do nothing better individually but multiplayer. The enjoyment from the reward is usually greater than the action itself because the mechanism are boring or bad in MMORPG.
Again your preference and or lack of experience has nothing to do with how fun and viable travel is. You have given nothing but the most basic examples of how travel would work in the themepark genre. Your view point is very narrow-minded.
There is more action in traveling in most games that have it than anything close to MMORPG can put out. Game like racing, platform, side scrollers make point A to B action packed. GTA has heavy and long traveling and one of the most purchased games ever.
Sandbox MMORPG can have a lot of reasons to have travel. Some fun and some are just rewarding. Again MMORPG player play as much for reward as fun. In a themepark you could instance a journey that takes 2 hours realtime segmented into 30 minute checkpoints that is less boring than the typical kill, fetch and click something quest. You just have limited imagination.
Your claim that they're second rate isn't based on any meaningful outcome. My point that they're not second rate is based on how the best implementation of those features has resulted in the longest-retaining game created in our lifetimes (which is a very meaningful outcome.) But sure, keep calling them second rate, as if those words mean something.
The gameplay isn't the number 1 factor because frankly if you're takling about WOW the combat isn't that great. The quest aren't that great. There are technical limitations that will effect both of those. its not something new.
What hold people are the "grinds" which in WOW are the reward grinds. Then the mulitplayer; coop, competition and comparison.
Right my preference doesn't determine how fun travel is. Gameplay does. Perhaps this 32nd time I've pointed this out, you'll read it and understand, and stop creating imaginary straw men.
My opinion doesn't determine how fun travel is. My opinion does. Ok...
Travel in the other genres you mention is gameplay-packed. That's why it works in those other genres. Those games offer travel with a good flow of decisions, in some cases fairly deep decisions.
MMORPG can have the same things. This is why people say you're view is a themepark because it comes from a point that whatever a Themepark can't do it can't be done. Even a themepark can be designed with travel in mind with instances control the action and pace.
I'm not sure what examples of themepark travel you're referring to. What I've described is the reality of travel in all MMORPGs, not just themeparks. Travel in these games offers infrequent, shallow decisions. That's the reality.
It was hypothetical. You can instance travel in a themepark MMORPG to be just as you could in a single player game. Its the whole point of instances. Again limited imagination.
Its pretty obvious that WOW is the starting point of what he believes a MMORPG is and should be.
Each time you say that it makes you sound more inexperienced as a gamer.
Before MMORPGs, games focused on gameplay. There weren't empty periods of non-gameplay travel.
Meanwhile in MMORPGs (including all the ones Deivos listed) non-gameplay travel is the norm.
What I'm describing is what players have embraced as acceptable travel (you explore somewhere first, and thereafter you're not forced to retrace your steps.) Games which have strayed away from this ideal have done worse (meaning the more travel they require, the less enjoyable the game will tend to be as it will deliberately waste players' time.) But very few games strayed any significant distance from the ideal -- at least not until subscription-based MMORPGs (games which charged for playtime) sought to expend players' time with meaningless timesinks.
So please recognize and understand your own inexperience here. Recognize my stance for what it is: gameplay-centric. It's not "games should be like WOW". It is "games' purpose is fun." The fact that WOW focused on the fun is purely incidental, and as I've already explained to you even WOW didn't hit the ideal in its travel systems.
Excuse me for asking, but have you no idea of what we had in the 90's?
Did you not walk two or three steps outside of town in Phantasy Star or Xenogears to get aggro'd by the same aggros simply to walk back to a town? Was it just me, or did every RPG have "non-gameplay travel" before MMOs, travel that you couldn't help but do, and get aggro'd every two or three steps for a pittance of XP and gold? Aggro that we all said "oh *yawn* another random combat that I've done for the gorillionth time...why can't the just let me walk the damn five minutes?"
Did you not play Zelda or Metroid? Did you not play Metal Gear Solid? Did you just conveniently forget that a good 75% of that game was simply walking back and forth from places you've already been?
If you want to talk about "empty periods of non-gameplay travel," then the days before MMORPGs are no days to reference. Travel in the MMORPG era was 100x better than what came before...or after, for that matter.
The reason is because the MMORPGs put in the effort to fill the spaces with interesting things...not only MOBs, but player structures and resources. Minecraft and Space Engineers aren't hurting for players, both employ slow travel, and both make the slow travel work by allowing players to fill up the space and utilize it (or not).
And if every game is about fast travelling today, they have done a rather poor job. Because we still have slow travel. Even in state of the art games like Destinty, we have meaningless travel. You still have to hop on your sparrow and traverse the same old maps you traversed 1000 times before, just to do a task force. Now is Destiny hurting for popularity and interest? No. Neither is Grand Theft Auto I might add. Slow, boring, backtracking travel, all of them.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Its pretty obvious that WOW is the starting point of what he believes a MMORPG is and should be.
Each time you say that it makes you sound more inexperienced as a gamer.
Before MMORPGs, games focused on gameplay. There weren't empty periods of non-gameplay travel.
Meanwhile in MMORPGs (including all the ones Deivos listed) non-gameplay travel is the norm.
What I'm describing is what players have embraced as acceptable travel (you explore somewhere first, and thereafter you're not forced to retrace your steps.) Games which have strayed away from this ideal have done worse (meaning the more travel they require, the less enjoyable the game will tend to be as it will deliberately waste players' time.) But very few games strayed any significant distance from the ideal -- at least not until subscription-based MMORPGs (games which charged for playtime) sought to expend players' time with meaningless timesinks.
So please recognize and understand your own inexperience here. Recognize my stance for what it is: gameplay-centric. It's not "games should be like WOW". It is "games' purpose is fun." The fact that WOW focused on the fun is purely incidental, and as I've already explained to you even WOW didn't hit the ideal in its travel systems.
Excuse me for asking, but have you no idea of what we had in the 90's?
Did you not walk two or three steps outside of town in Phantasy Star or Xenogears to get aggro'd by the same aggros simply to walk back to a town? Was it just me, or did every RPG have "non-gameplay travel" before MMOs, travel that you couldn't help but do, and get aggro'd every two or three steps for a pittance of XP and gold? Aggro that we all said "oh *yawn* another random combat that I've done for the gorillionth time...why can't the just let me walk the damn five minutes?"
Did you not play Zelda or Metroid? Did you not play Metal Gear Solid? Did you just conveniently forget that a good 75% of that game was simply walking back and forth from places you've already been?
If you want to talk about "empty periods of non-gameplay travel," then the days before MMORPGs are no days to reference. Travel in the MMORPG era was 100x better than what came before...or after, for that matter.
The reason is because the MMORPGs put in the effort to fill the spaces with interesting things...not only MOBs, but player structures and resources. Minecraft and Space Engineers aren't hurting for players, both employ slow travel, and both make the slow travel work by allowing players to fill up the space and utilize it (or not).
And if every game is about fast travelling today, they have done a rather poor job. Because we still have slow travel. Even in state of the art games like Destinty, we have meaningless travel. You still have to hop on your sparrow and traverse the same old maps you traversed 1000 times before, just to do a task force. Now is Destiny hurting for popularity and interest? No. Neither is Grand Theft Auto I might add. Slow, boring, backtracking travel, all of them.
When I was young and played RPGs I didn't think much about random encounters and wandering around open worlds. Usually you had little guidance other than a few vague tips from NPCs in town on where to go next and how to get there. There was often items to acquire in order to advance past certain points. I remember near the end of Final Fantasy 1 my group members got turned to stone almost every battle and I had to carry lots of the soft item with me. It seemed really easy to die.
I think part of the issue with playing RPGs in general these days is that people know they can make the game easy by grinding for experience and over leveling before visiting the next area.
I don't find that the filler content in RPGs today is more fun. I'd rather play through a game like Legend of Zelda as it has no helper features and in game guidance.
Minecraft is a different type of game. It's not really an RPG so much as a game to build things. It's like playing with a lego set, but more advanced.
One thing that was nice about random encounters was that you didn't know what was coming. If you were on a first trip to somewhere new in the world and hadn't over leveled your character then the trip could often be quite dangerous. You might get attacked from behind. You might start to run low on items/spells to replenish your hp or magic. You might make a wrong turn in a cave you had to go through to get to the next area that adds extra time and random encounters to your trip. I still think these could be fun, but the turn based model that was used at the time is a bit boring. There also has to be a way to limit over leveling areas in a game.
Travel is great if you have puzzles and dangerous areas to traverse in your journeys. The Legend of Zelda had a lot of puzzles to solve. The Final Fantasy games often had dangerous dungeon mazes to pass through and items to acquire to advance to the another area in the game. You might get a boat that lets you travel around to some small island in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn't really point out to you. You might get winged boots like in Dragon Warrior 2 that lets you jump from one tower to another that is separated by water, you might find an air ship, that lets you fly over some mountains or to a floating continent in the sky, You might find some gauntlets of strength that lets you crush a rock blocking your path, or a key to open a door, etc. None of this is spelled out for you and requires you to experiment in game. It is not wasted time. It is exploring and adventuring to find out what you need to do to progress.
The gameplay isn't the number 1 factor because frankly if you're takling about WOW the combat isn't that great. The quest aren't that great. There are technical limitations that will effect both of those. its not something new.
What hold people are the "grinds" which in WOW are the reward grinds. Then the mulitplayer; coop, competition and comparison.
My opinion doesn't determine how fun travel is. My opinion does. Ok...
MMORPG can have the same things. This is why people say you're view is a themepark because it comes from a point that whatever a Themepark can't do it can't be done. Even a themepark can be designed with travel in mind with instances control the action and pace.
It was hypothetical. You can instance travel in a themepark MMORPG to be just as you could in a single player game. Its the whole point of instances. Again limited imagination.
WOW's combat is great. It has combat gameplay deeper than any other MMORPG. The quests send players against a variety of mobs where it's possible to optimize your play against each one (creating even more variation.) Neither is limited by technical limitations in any significant way, as the intent of WOW's combat isn't to be an intensely twitch-driven experience (it has some of that, but it's still an RPG.)
Your claim is WOW holds people with grinds, but the reality is plenty of MMORPGs have grinds but none have WOW's depth. The depth is the difference. There are other factors too, but like grind a lot of those factors are shared with other games and the depth remains one of the key differences.
It's not my opinion that tedious non-gameplay makes for bad games. It's the opinion of the vast majority of gamers. My sharing their opinion is only incidental. But sure, keep burying your head in the sand.
MMORPGs can have good travel, but they don't. I've already told you many of the larger factors in why they don't choose to do this. Quirhid's insightful point earlier was a good one too, where a player just wants to be at some new location and the game better have a damn good justification to prevent their being at that new location in a timely, efficient manner because it's likely that new location has the gameplay the player is actually interested in. But mostly it's the other factors: these games are RPGs and so they're focused on providing an interesting adventure rather than trying to be travel simulators.
The point of instances is to provide gameplay which isn't ruined by players who aren't part of your immediate group. Instant teleports into instances is only incidental (like Quirhid pointed out, it's about immediately getting to the gameplay that matters; and in a group setting this is vastly more important.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Excuse me for asking, but have you no idea of what we had in the 90's?
Did you not walk two or three steps outside of town in Phantasy Star or Xenogears to get aggro'd by the same aggros simply to walk back to a town? Was it just me, or did every RPG have "non-gameplay travel" before MMOs, travel that you couldn't help but do, and get aggro'd every two or three steps for a pittance of XP and gold? Aggro that we all said "oh *yawn* another random combat that I've done for the gorillionth time...why can't the just let me walk the damn five minutes?"
Did you not play Zelda or Metroid? Did you not play Metal Gear Solid? Did you just conveniently forget that a good 75% of that game was simply walking back and forth from places you've already been?
If you want to talk about "empty periods of non-gameplay travel," then the days before MMORPGs are no days to reference. Travel in the MMORPG era was 100x better than what came before...or after, for that matter.
The reason is because the MMORPGs put in the effort to fill the spaces with interesting things...not only MOBs, but player structures and resources. Minecraft and Space Engineers aren't hurting for players, both employ slow travel, and both make the slow travel work by allowing players to fill up the space and utilize it (or not).
And if every game is about fast travelling today, they have done a rather poor job. Because we still have slow travel. Even in state of the art games like Destinty, we have meaningless travel. You still have to hop on your sparrow and traverse the same old maps you traversed 1000 times before, just to do a task force. Now is Destiny hurting for popularity and interest? No. Neither is Grand Theft Auto I might add. Slow, boring, backtracking travel, all of them.
If you can't differentiate between the extremely limited steer-between-mobs for 5+ mins gameplay of MMORPGs and the constant fights-every-screen decision-intensive gameplay of Metroid, Castlevania, etc, then you really aren't capable of participating in the discussion.
MMORPG travel is nearly devoid of gameplay.
Those other games offered fights basically every scene (and when they didn't it was a waste of time (assuming it didn't serve another purpose) and should've been skipped.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Travel is great if you have puzzles and dangerous areas to traverse in your journeys. The Legend of Zelda had a lot of puzzles to solve. The Final Fantasy games often had dangerous dungeon mazes to pass through and items to acquire to advance to the another area in the game. You might get a boat that lets you travel around to some small island in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn't really point out to you. You might get winged boots like in Dragon Warrior 2 that lets you jump from one tower to another that is separated by water, you might find an air ship, that lets you fly over some mountains or to a floating continent in the sky, You might find some gauntlets of strength that lets you crush a rock blocking your path, or a key to open a door, etc. None of this is spelled out for you and requires you to experiment in game. It is not wasted time. It is exploring and adventuring to find out what you need to do to progress.
Right, you seem to understand the distinction between those early games (which offered enough gameplay to remain interesting) and MMORPGs (which didn't.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Travel is great if you have puzzles and dangerous areas to traverse in your journeys. The Legend of Zelda had a lot of puzzles to solve. The Final Fantasy games often had dangerous dungeon mazes to pass through and items to acquire to advance to the another area in the game. You might get a boat that lets you travel around to some small island in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn't really point out to you. You might get winged boots like in Dragon Warrior 2 that lets you jump from one tower to another that is separated by water, you might find an air ship, that lets you fly over some mountains or to a floating continent in the sky, You might find some gauntlets of strength that lets you crush a rock blocking your path, or a key to open a door, etc. None of this is spelled out for you and requires you to experiment in game. It is not wasted time. It is exploring and adventuring to find out what you need to do to progress.
Right, you seem to understand the distinction between those early games (which offered enough gameplay to remain interesting) and MMORPGs (which didn't.)
When I go back and replay some of the old RPGs they were actually quite a bit shorter than most RPGs and MMORPGs I play today. Sometimes I think there is so much filler content to extent games past the point they need to be. If the games were shorter spending time exploring and finding things without guidance and markers would be less of an issue IMO. I'd like to see RPG focus shift back to story, exploration, decision making, and adventure over what they have been in MMORPGs and even in single player RPGs. I could never go back to playing original MMOs even though I had a great deal of fun in UO and EQ. They are to time consuming and consist to much of killing mobs. Modern MMORPGs are no different though. They just add quests to try and make it seem like you are doing more. There is often too much quantity of quests and not enough in the way of quality fun. A game shouldn't be judged by how long it is, but by how much fun it is while you are playing.
If you can't differentiate between the extremely limited steer-between-mobs for 5+ mins gameplay of MMORPGs and the constant fights-every-screen decision-intensive gameplay of Metroid, Castlevania, etc, then you really aren't capable of participating in the discussion.
MMORPG travel is nearly devoid of gameplay.
Those other games offered fights basically every scene (and when they didn't it was a waste of time (assuming it didn't serve another purpose) and should've been skipped.)
Again, you are making a very generic and inaccurate statement for the sake on an argument where you have to do a leap in logic from one point to the next to even rationalize your complaint.
Travel in some MMORPGs is boring because it is an underutilized and neglected feature of the game.
You again completely ignored the present trend in eastern MMORPGs that have drifted towards the world building variety (Archeage, BDO, Peria Chronicles, Civ Online, Monster Hunter Online, Deep Down, Bless) that have been gearing towards travel having a play in the gameplay and economy.
Creating a false dichotomy to say that a game mechanic never works when it's already been proven in other genres as well as by advancements in this one, is very simply dishonest and wrong.
"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
When I go back and replay some of the old RPGs they were actually quite a bit shorter than most RPGs and MMORPGs I play today. Sometimes I think there is so much filler content to extent games past the point they need to be. If the games were shorter spending time exploring and finding things without guidance and markers would be less of an issue IMO. I'd like to see RPG focus shift back to story, exploration, decision making, and adventure over what they have been in MMORPGs and even in single player RPGs. I could never go back to playing original MMOs even though I had a great deal of fun in UO and EQ. They are to time consuming and consist to much of killing mobs. Modern MMORPGs are no different though. They just add quests to try and make it seem like you are doing more. There is often too much quantity of quests and not enough in the way of quality fun. A game shouldn't be judged by how long it is, but by how much fun it is while you are playing.
Well most of that is right, except that when quests take you through a broad variety of activities and killing a broad variety of mob types it actually is "doing more."
I agree with where you end up, that games don't necessarily need to be long-form to be fun, but I also think players and developers alike benefit when a game is worth spending 1000+ hours in.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well most of that is right, except that when quests take you through a broad variety of activities and killing a broad variety of mob types it actually is "doing more."
Please don't fall into the mistake of calling quests the game's content when it's a delivery mechanism. The content has to already exist in the game before a quest can "lead you through it". It's not creating more variety, it's simply enforcing a specific experience 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
Creating a false dichotomy to say that a game mechanic never works when it's already been proven in other genres as well as by advancements in this one, is very simply dishonest and wrong.
yeh .. since fast travel and instant-sleep-for-8-hours works so well in single player open world games, it is simply dishonest & wrong to say that these will never work in a MMORPG.
yeh .. since fast travel and instant-sleep-for-8-hours works so well in single player open world games...
Where in the nine hells did I even say something remotely like that in what you quoted or elsewhere?
Did we ever say they couldn't/don't work in an MMO? No, the argument was that there are other mechanics that relies on travel and means to make virtual worlds in MMOs that can and do add game depth.
Can you at least pretend to know what you're talking about next time.
Making facetious arguments out of nowhere solely for the sake of argument is not useful in any way, shape, or form.
"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
yeh .. since fast travel and instant-sleep-for-8-hours works so well in single player open world games, it is simply dishonest & wrong to say that these will never work in a MMORPG.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Where in the nine hells did I even say something remotely like that in what you quoted or elsewhere?
Did we ever say they couldn't/don't work in an MMO? No, the argument was that there are other mechanics that relies on travel and means to make virtual worlds in MMOs that can and do add game depth.
Did i ever say you said they couldn't work?
I only pointed out that you are reinforcing the argument that they would work. I don't have to be opposite to what you say every time, do I?
You argument CLEARLY applies to these other mechanics that I would like to point out. What is the problem?
When I go back and replay some of the old RPGs they were actually quite a bit shorter than most RPGs and MMORPGs I play today. Sometimes I think there is so much filler content to extent games past the point they need to be. If the games were shorter spending time exploring and finding things without guidance and markers would be less of an issue IMO. I'd like to see RPG focus shift back to story, exploration, decision making, and adventure over what they have been in MMORPGs and even in single player RPGs. I could never go back to playing original MMOs even though I had a great deal of fun in UO and EQ. They are to time consuming and consist to much of killing mobs. Modern MMORPGs are no different though. They just add quests to try and make it seem like you are doing more. There is often too much quantity of quests and not enough in the way of quality fun. A game shouldn't be judged by how long it is, but by how much fun it is while you are playing.
Well most of that is right, except that when quests take you through a broad variety of activities and killing a broad variety of mob types it actually is "doing more."
I agree with where you end up, that games don't necessarily need to be long-form to be fun, but I also think players and developers alike benefit when a game is worth spending 1000+ hours in.
There are different ways to provide 1000+ hours of gameplay. Even though games like Mario and Zelda could be beaten quickly if you knew what to do and skipped some things it's likely you played the game a lot more than that. It had value in exploration and solving patterns. You weren't shown where to go or how to solve a pattern. You had to figure it out for yourself. This is where the time it took to complete the game often increased. I'd rather spend time on things like that then following around markers and following instructions on exactly what to do and where to go. It's because of things like this that we see so much added filler content IMO. It allows people to breeze to quickly through the content that is there instead of actually doing something.
When I go back and replay some of the old RPGs they were actually quite a bit shorter than most RPGs and MMORPGs I play today. Sometimes I think there is so much filler content to extent games past the point they need to be. If the games were shorter spending time exploring and finding things without guidance and markers would be less of an issue IMO. I'd like to see RPG focus shift back to story, exploration, decision making, and adventure over what they have been in MMORPGs and even in single player RPGs. I could never go back to playing original MMOs even though I had a great deal of fun in UO and EQ. They are to time consuming and consist to much of killing mobs. Modern MMORPGs are no different though. They just add quests to try and make it seem like you are doing more. There is often too much quantity of quests and not enough in the way of quality fun. A game shouldn't be judged by how long it is, but by how much fun it is while you are playing.
Well most of that is right, except that when quests take you through a broad variety of activities and killing a broad variety of mob types it actually is "doing more."
I agree with where you end up, that games don't necessarily need to be long-form to be fun, but I also think players and developers alike benefit when a game is worth spending 1000+ hours in.
There are different ways to provide 1000+ hours of gameplay. Even though games like Mario and Zelda could be beaten quickly if you knew what to do and skipped some things it's likely you played the game a lot more than that. It had value in exploration and solving patterns. You weren't shown where to go or how to solve a pattern. You had to figure it out for yourself. This is where the time it took to complete the game often increased. I'd rather spend time on things like that then following around markers and following instructions on exactly what to do and where to go. It's because of things like this that we see so much added filler content IMO. It allows people to breeze to quickly through the content that is there instead of actually doing something.
Except the comment of mine was correcting the misconception another was presenting about a standing issue, whereas your argument was pulling a nonexistent issue from nowhere that didn't even relate to the comment you chose to quote.
"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
Comments
One, you have made the mistake of confusing personal opinion and preference with reality, as "non-gameplay travel" is a very subjective statement in general.
Two, flight and vehicle simulators are exactly about travel with little to nothing in the way of any other gameplay.
The idea that you might counter with "but that's gameplay travel" is a joke before you can even say it because the user experience of the travel in question has little in distinction from each other save for one game isn't a sim dedicated to a single user experience.
As for Nariu's comment. You admitted you have a finite scope of experience in your own post. That's point in case about the fact that there are more games and more variety to gameplay than you have likely experienced or enjoy, but that does not preclude it from existing. That you seem to miss the dialogue on this very forum on the subject yet adamantly post in thread about it is quite remarkable really as that means you either don't read what you respond to or you actively refuse to acknowledge or agree with everything you do read simply for the sake of argument.
"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
And i have not seen any idea, nor implementation that makes walking 20 min, or riding the boat for 20 min fun to me.
You can keep on saying there is a chance something can happen. Well, there is a possibility that a meteor falls to earth tomorrow and kill us all too but I am not going to bet my life on it.
Is there any example that waiting for a 20 min boat can be fun? Actual examples in games, not some dream up scenario that may sound good in paper, but boring to the extreme in actual games.
"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
WOW has probably retained players longer (on a per-player basis) than literally any other game made in our lifetime. So taking the sub-genre WOW is part of (themeparks) and calling their mechanics "second rate" is stupid.
The examples provided were not games that had enjoyable travel. They were games where travel had the exact same amount of gameplay (ie almost no gameplay) that most other MMORPGs do.
I've never claimed travel is only fun when it "means something to you". (You're part of this discussion, so you should probably read what's being said.) I've said it lacks gameplay. In games the most common way the majority of players are entertained can come in one of two forms: exhibition and gameplay.
Exhibition is cutscenes (and similar non-interactive things you watch in games.)
Good exhibition only portrays scenes with strong purpose (you'll see a brief travel montage when a character travels, but a good movie isn't going to waste your time with a camera pointed at the protagonist for the full 3 hours of his plane flight.)
Gameplay is decisions.
Good gameplay also only involves elements with a strong purpose, and involves game depth (which means it takes a long time to master the mechanics.)
Since travel in games nearly always fails to be good gameplay or exhibition, it lacks sufficient purpose to be worth including in the excessive amounts that early MMORPGs (and a few modern ones) use.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Nope nobody is forcing me to enjoy them. I would say that MMORPG gameplay is second rate to their single player brothers because they do nothing better individually but multiplayer. The enjoyment from the reward is usually greater than the action itself because the mechanism are boring or bad in MMORPG.
Again your preference and or lack of experience has nothing to do with how fun and viable travel is. You have given nothing but the most basic examples of how travel would work in the themepark genre. Your view point is very narrow-minded.
There is more action in traveling in most games that have it than anything close to MMORPG can put out. Game like racing, platform, side scrollers make point A to B action packed. GTA has heavy and long traveling and one of the most purchased games ever.
Sandbox MMORPG can have a lot of reasons to have travel. Some fun and some are just rewarding. Again MMORPG player play as much for reward as fun. In a themepark you could instance a journey that takes 2 hours realtime segmented into 30 minute checkpoints that is less boring than the typical kill, fetch and click something quest. You just have limited imagination.
Right my preference doesn't determine how fun travel is. Gameplay does. Perhaps this 32nd time I've pointed this out, you'll read it and understand, and stop creating imaginary straw men.
I'm not sure what examples of themepark travel you're referring to. What I've described is the reality of travel in all MMORPGs, not just themeparks. Travel in these games offers infrequent, shallow decisions. That's the reality.
Travel in the other genres you mention is gameplay-packed. That's why it works in those other genres. Those games offer travel with a good flow of decisions, in some cases fairly deep decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What you described is a narrow window of travel mechanics from the type of MMORPG that focuses on finite scripted content, IE "themeparks", to deliver the entertainment.
Focusing on the MMORPGs that lack the world building aspects and only deliver on finite user experience of course is going to be lacking. There is a much broader variety to game options within the MMORPG genre alone that that however, and acting like what you just claimed is remotely true is simply dishonesty.
You have thoroughly neglected the broader genre of MMORPG titles and completely ignored the present trend in eastern MMORPGs that have drifted towards the world building variety (Archeage, BDO, Peria Chronicles, Civ Online, Monster Hunter Online, Deep Down, Bless) That have been gearing towards travel having a play in the gameplay and economy 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
What hold people are the "grinds" which in WOW are the reward grinds. Then the mulitplayer; coop, competition and comparison.
My opinion doesn't determine how fun travel is. My opinion does. Ok...
MMORPG can have the same things. This is why people say you're view is a themepark because it comes from a point that whatever a Themepark can't do it can't be done. Even a themepark can be designed with travel in mind with instances control the action and pace.
It was hypothetical. You can instance travel in a themepark MMORPG to be just as you could in a single player game. Its the whole point of instances. Again limited imagination.Did you not walk two or three steps outside of town in Phantasy Star or Xenogears to get aggro'd by the same aggros simply to walk back to a town? Was it just me, or did every RPG have "non-gameplay travel" before MMOs, travel that you couldn't help but do, and get aggro'd every two or three steps for a pittance of XP and gold? Aggro that we all said "oh *yawn* another random combat that I've done for the gorillionth time...why can't the just let me walk the damn five minutes?"
Did you not play Zelda or Metroid? Did you not play Metal Gear Solid? Did you just conveniently forget that a good 75% of that game was simply walking back and forth from places you've already been?
If you want to talk about "empty periods of non-gameplay travel," then the days before MMORPGs are no days to reference. Travel in the MMORPG era was 100x better than what came before...or after, for that matter.
The reason is because the MMORPGs put in the effort to fill the spaces with interesting things...not only MOBs, but player structures and resources. Minecraft and Space Engineers aren't hurting for players, both employ slow travel, and both make the slow travel work by allowing players to fill up the space and utilize it (or not).
And if every game is about fast travelling today, they have done a rather poor job. Because we still have slow travel. Even in state of the art games like Destinty, we have meaningless travel. You still have to hop on your sparrow and traverse the same old maps you traversed 1000 times before, just to do a task force. Now is Destiny hurting for popularity and interest? No. Neither is Grand Theft Auto I might add. Slow, boring, backtracking travel, all of them.
__________________________
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--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
"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
I think part of the issue with playing RPGs in general these days is that people know they can make the game easy by grinding for experience and over leveling before visiting the next area.
I don't find that the filler content in RPGs today is more fun. I'd rather play through a game like Legend of Zelda as it has no helper features and in game guidance.
Minecraft is a different type of game. It's not really an RPG so much as a game to build things. It's like playing with a lego set, but more advanced.
One thing that was nice about random encounters was that you didn't know what was coming. If you were on a first trip to somewhere new in the world and hadn't over leveled your character then the trip could often be quite dangerous. You might get attacked from behind. You might start to run low on items/spells to replenish your hp or magic. You might make a wrong turn in a cave you had to go through to get to the next area that adds extra time and random encounters to your trip. I still think these could be fun, but the turn based model that was used at the time is a bit boring. There also has to be a way to limit over leveling areas in a game.
Travel is great if you have puzzles and dangerous areas to traverse in your journeys. The Legend of Zelda had a lot of puzzles to solve. The Final Fantasy games often had dangerous dungeon mazes to pass through and items to acquire to advance to the another area in the game. You might get a boat that lets you travel around to some small island in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn't really point out to you. You might get winged boots like in Dragon Warrior 2 that lets you jump from one tower to another that is separated by water, you might find an air ship, that lets you fly over some mountains or to a floating continent in the sky, You might find some gauntlets of strength that lets you crush a rock blocking your path, or a key to open a door, etc. None of this is spelled out for you and requires you to experiment in game. It is not wasted time. It is exploring and adventuring to find out what you need to do to progress.
Your claim is WOW holds people with grinds, but the reality is plenty of MMORPGs have grinds but none have WOW's depth. The depth is the difference. There are other factors too, but like grind a lot of those factors are shared with other games and the depth remains one of the key differences.
It's not my opinion that tedious non-gameplay makes for bad games. It's the opinion of the vast majority of gamers. My sharing their opinion is only incidental. But sure, keep burying your head in the sand.
MMORPGs can have good travel, but they don't. I've already told you many of the larger factors in why they don't choose to do this. Quirhid's insightful point earlier was a good one too, where a player just wants to be at some new location and the game better have a damn good justification to prevent their being at that new location in a timely, efficient manner because it's likely that new location has the gameplay the player is actually interested in. But mostly it's the other factors: these games are RPGs and so they're focused on providing an interesting adventure rather than trying to be travel simulators.
The point of instances is to provide gameplay which isn't ruined by players who aren't part of your immediate group. Instant teleports into instances is only incidental (like Quirhid pointed out, it's about immediately getting to the gameplay that matters; and in a group setting this is vastly more important.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
MMORPG travel is nearly devoid of gameplay.
Those other games offered fights basically every scene (and when they didn't it was a waste of time (assuming it didn't serve another purpose) and should've been skipped.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Right, you seem to understand the distinction between those early games (which offered enough gameplay to remain interesting) and MMORPGs (which didn't.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Travel in some MMORPGs is boring because it is an underutilized and neglected feature of the game.
You again completely ignored the present trend in eastern MMORPGs that have drifted towards the world building variety (Archeage, BDO, Peria Chronicles, Civ Online, Monster Hunter Online, Deep Down, Bless) that have been gearing towards travel having a play in the gameplay and economy.
Creating a false dichotomy to say that a game mechanic never works when it's already been proven in other genres as well as by advancements in this one, is very simply dishonest and wrong.
"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
I agree with where you end up, that games don't necessarily need to be long-form to be fun, but I also think players and developers alike benefit when a game is worth spending 1000+ hours in.
"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
yeh .. since fast travel and instant-sleep-for-8-hours works so well in single player open world games, it is simply dishonest & wrong to say that these will never work in a MMORPG.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Did we ever say they couldn't/don't work in an MMO? No, the argument was that there are other mechanics that relies on travel and means to make virtual worlds in MMOs that can and do add game depth.
Can you at least pretend to know what you're talking about next time.
Making facetious arguments out of nowhere solely for the sake of argument is not useful in any way, shape, or form.
"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
I only pointed out that you are reinforcing the argument that they would work. I don't have to be opposite to what you say every time, do I?
You argument CLEARLY applies to these other mechanics that I would like to point out. What is the problem?
"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