Yes, you do commonly return to the straw man of "non-stop action". And every time you bring up that fallacy, I point out that it's about unlimited decision-making, and not action. Successful games like Civ4 are turn-based. They're not "non-stop action". But they're an unrestricted flow of decisions, and any pause in the flow of decisions is the result of you as a player deciding not to make decisions as fast.
Immersion is mostly about immersing the player in the experience. "Here enjoy this tedious travel with infrequent, shallow decisions" is not the path to an immersive game. The most immersive experiences in gaming and entertainment are those which focus on the most engaging situations.
The things you're implying are emotion-driven design decisions were in fact business-driven (excessive timesinks to sell subscriptions) or team size-driven ("well we just don't have a big enough team for basic minimap tech, let's just not do it"). Though personally I think it's equally likely that I'm giving those early teams too much benefit by assuming they thought about having minimap tech; it's equally possible they simply didn't know that it was an obviously superior way to design games that would prevent many players from falling through the cracks into a game system that has never been a significant source of fun for players.
I do look at things like a formula. Life is patterns. Glorifying the idea of being deliberately blind to those patterns is knowledge-rejection.
I said "adventure games" are a distinct thing from RPGs. If you wish to avoid poor communication, you'll avoid combining those two words as "adventure games". That's all I said. You made the jump to somehow assume I meant that adventure never happens except in adventure games.
A game's 'character' is not reliant on race-locked classes. Why would you possibly field that idea? Do you really not understand how wrong it is? Are you really going to ignore the fact that Wood Elves still live in the woods when all races can be Rangers? They still have a distinct culture. They still have character.
The fact is, you don't even need to have different races in a RPG for that RPG to ooze character, and for its characters to be distinct interesting individuals whose stories are interesting to follow.
This is generally what I am talking about. You are confident in your idea that you are correct and reiterated the same things not accepting that some people don't agree.
As I've pointed out in terms of travel it can add a much more immersive experience if added and is part of an adventure.
You basically said adventure wasn't part of an RPG when it is the basis of an RPG. It is not just a part of an RPG.
Adventures involved a lot of things. I don't recall Gandalf having a GPS in his travels. I also don't recall any travelers in the past using a GPS to guide them around. At best they had a map with vague markers if they were lucky. This is part of immersion. You can't have modern day helper tools in an environment that is supposed to be devoid of them and retain immersion. Part of and adventure is the ability to get lost, navigate via landmarks, and ultimately get through many triggering situations to get to your goal. You can't have triggering situations if you are always able to easily find your way. You also can't get attached to the environments at all because you never spend much time in any one of them.
You don't seem to have a problem confusing terms when it suits your needs.
Actually Wood Elves would live in the woods, but their culture is defined by being at one with nature and their race would only be involved in such things as being Rangers, Druids, etc. that tends towards nature.
A human Ranger on the other hand would not start in the Wood Elf environment because it's closed off to human culture in many ways similar to how Asia has been closed off in real life history. There are actually many cultures that have been closed off and live very differently then others. Most of the cultures retain the same race due to the closed nature. Human Rangers in Everquest lived in Surefall Glade. They were friendly to Wood Elves, but there is no way such a segregated culture that resides deep in the woods would accept them in their city except on perhaps a very special occasion like Strider in Lord of the Rings.
This is the basis of that magical feeling you get exploring this unique culture. It's what makes visiting the wood elf city so mysterious and magical. It's the fact that they are so secluded from the rest of the world. In the time period these types of games take place in it makes sense for societies to be segregated and made up of one race in most cases unless it is a place like Freeport where a large variety of cultures are accepted. That is not much different from the real world even today. There are very closed cultures and there are cultures like USA which accept and assimilate people into it.
I do look at things like a formula. Life is patterns. Glorifying the idea of being deliberately blind to those patterns is knowledge-rejection.
Are you serious?
1. Formula's only apply to one taste. Even something like a soda with a literal formula only applies to one taste. I switch soda's all the time. I would be disappointed if everything was literally coke or pepsi because it was the popular formula. More than soda, water is often my choice of drink with no formula.
2. Sticking to the formula is not knowledge rejection. WoW didn't become on top by following the same formula. It broken the trend. WoW clones didn't succeed following WoW's formula because that audience was satisfied. This genre being one of the most formulaic since RTS(which also waned badly) never reach its potential in my opinion. That WoW formula has been refined until its just not profitable for western developers to create anymore. The audience and gameplay don't fit the genre.
Now, for $100m budget you can create a AAA sandbox with a good IP and systems in place to keep it interesting for years. Assuming you made it accessible to the masses (like WoW was in comparison to its competitors at the time) then 500k subs is easily achievable.
well .. if it is a massively risk, you may ask well just spend your $100M budget on a game like The Division, which net $330M in its first week.
Why bother with long term when you can do a 3x ROI in a week? Plus, the longer the time frame is, the more risk you are bearing. Competition changes. Technology changes. Taste changes. TOR sold 2M boxes in its first month, but sub dwindles, and have to go to f2p to survive. May be they should just make KOTOR 3,4,5 and so on .. and make money off those 2-3M sales.
This is generally what I am talking about. You are confident in your idea that you are correct and reiterated the same things not accepting that some people don't agree.
As I've pointed out in terms of travel it can add a much more immersive experience if added and is part of an adventure.
You basically said adventure wasn't part of an RPG when it is the basis of an RPG. It is not just a part of an RPG.
Adventures involved a lot of things. I don't recall Gandalf having a GPS in his travels. I also don't recall any travelers in the past using a GPS to guide them around. At best they had a map with vague markers if they were lucky. This is part of immersion. You can't have modern day helper tools in an environment that is supposed to be devoid of them and retain immersion. Part of and adventure is the ability to get lost, navigate via landmarks, and ultimately get through many triggering situations to get to your goal. You can't have triggering situations if you are always able to easily find your way. You also can't get attached to the environments at all because you never spend much time in any one of them.
You don't seem to have a problem confusing terms when it suits your needs.
Actually Wood Elves would live in the woods, but their culture is defined by being at one with nature and their race would only be involved in such things as being Rangers, Druids, etc. that tends towards nature.
A human Ranger on the other hand would not start in the Wood Elf environment because it's closed off to human culture in many ways similar to how Asia has been closed off in real life history. There are actually many cultures that have been closed off and live very differently then others. Most of the cultures retain the same race due to the closed nature. Human Rangers in Everquest lived in Surefall Glade. They were friendly to Wood Elves, but there is no way such a segregated culture that resides deep in the woods would accept them in their city except on perhaps a very special occasion like Strider in Lord of the Rings.
This is the basis of that magical feeling you get exploring this unique culture. It's what makes visiting the wood elf city so mysterious and magical. It's the fact that they are so secluded from the rest of the world. In the time period these types of games take place in it makes sense for societies to be segregated and made up of one race in most cases unless it is a place like Freeport where a large variety of cultures are accepted. That is not much different from the real world even today. There are very closed cultures and there are cultures like USA which accept and assimilate people into it.
Why wouldn't I be confident?
Your disagreements are illogical and not backed by evidence.
My arguments are logical and backed by evidence.
My arguments are backed by personal experience designing games.
My arguments are backed by other well-known designers who say the same thing as I do.
There is nowhere where I even remotely said adventure wasn't part of RPGs. (This is an example of a disagreement which isn't backed by evidence.)
Did the Lord of the Rings movies portray 20+ minutes of uneventfully, frustratingly being lost in a forest? Or did the movies directly move from eventful situation to eventful situation? If there were any scenes about getting lost in LOTR, they were portrayed succinctly and efficiently. This is the movie equivalent of a GPS (you aren't shown the actual full duration of them being lost, you're shown a couple scenes where the party doesn't seem to have a clear direction, and then the very next scene is some event (good or bad) which puts them back on course (though it may not be their intended course.))
When a game has poor directional features ("GPS" being one form), players generally quit, because "Where do I go?" is generally not considered to be an interesting challenge, and is usually considered a quit-worthy source of frustration.
If you're confused by the terms I use or feel I've mis-used a term, speak up about it. Until then we can write this comment of yours off as just another disagreement which isn't backed by evidence.
Who said anything about the human ranger living in the elf city? Nobody. You've fabricated an imaginary/irrelevant concern.
Meanwhile in WOW there are both blood elf and human paladins, and each has a distinct story of how they interact with the class. Meaning: more races having access to a class in fact increases the potential for story and culture elements to exist!
At no point have you described any actual problem with removing race-locks on classes. You've alluded to vague culture concerns which are completely unfounded. Meanwhile all cultures in a game can still be extremely distinct (if not more distinct, as seen above) when there are no race-locks on classes. It's just like how in the real world there are Indian cops and American cops and Brazilian cops, and each of those cultures is very unique, but being from a different culture hasn't prevented them all from having cop as a profession.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This is generally what I am talking about. You are confident in your idea that you are correct and reiterated the same things not accepting that some people don't agree.
As I've pointed out in terms of travel it can add a much more immersive experience if added and is part of an adventure.
You basically said adventure wasn't part of an RPG when it is the basis of an RPG. It is not just a part of an RPG.
Adventures involved a lot of things. I don't recall Gandalf having a GPS in his travels. I also don't recall any travelers in the past using a GPS to guide them around. At best they had a map with vague markers if they were lucky. This is part of immersion. You can't have modern day helper tools in an environment that is supposed to be devoid of them and retain immersion. Part of and adventure is the ability to get lost, navigate via landmarks, and ultimately get through many triggering situations to get to your goal. You can't have triggering situations if you are always able to easily find your way. You also can't get attached to the environments at all because you never spend much time in any one of them.
You don't seem to have a problem confusing terms when it suits your needs.
Actually Wood Elves would live in the woods, but their culture is defined by being at one with nature and their race would only be involved in such things as being Rangers, Druids, etc. that tends towards nature.
A human Ranger on the other hand would not start in the Wood Elf environment because it's closed off to human culture in many ways similar to how Asia has been closed off in real life history. There are actually many cultures that have been closed off and live very differently then others. Most of the cultures retain the same race due to the closed nature. Human Rangers in Everquest lived in Surefall Glade. They were friendly to Wood Elves, but there is no way such a segregated culture that resides deep in the woods would accept them in their city except on perhaps a very special occasion like Strider in Lord of the Rings.
This is the basis of that magical feeling you get exploring this unique culture. It's what makes visiting the wood elf city so mysterious and magical. It's the fact that they are so secluded from the rest of the world. In the time period these types of games take place in it makes sense for societies to be segregated and made up of one race in most cases unless it is a place like Freeport where a large variety of cultures are accepted. That is not much different from the real world even today. There are very closed cultures and there are cultures like USA which accept and assimilate people into it.
Why wouldn't I be confident?
Your disagreements are illogical and not backed by evidence.
My arguments are logical and backed by evidence.
My arguments are backed by personal experience designing games.
My arguments are backed by other well-known designers who say the same thing as I do.
There is nowhere where I even remotely said adventure wasn't part of RPGs. (This is an example of a disagreement which isn't backed by evidence.)
Did the Lord of the Rings movies portray 20+ minutes of uneventfully, frustratingly being lost in a forest? Or did the movies directly move from eventful situation to eventful situation? If there were any scenes about getting lost in LOTR, they were portrayed succinctly and efficiently. This is the movie equivalent of a GPS (you aren't shown the actual full duration of them being lost, you're shown a couple scenes where the party doesn't seem to have a clear direction, and then the very next scene is some event (good or bad) which puts them back on course (though it may not be their intended course.))
When a game has poor directional features ("GPS" being one form), players generally quit, because "Where do I go?" is generally not considered to be an interesting challenge, and is usually considered a quit-worthy source of frustration.
If you're confused by the terms I use or feel I've mis-used a term, speak up about it. Until then we can write this comment of yours off as just another disagreement which isn't backed by evidence.
Who said anything about the human ranger living in the elf city? Nobody. You've fabricated an imaginary/irrelevant concern.
Meanwhile in WOW there are both blood elf and human paladins, and each has a distinct story of how they interact with the class. Meaning: more races having access to a class in fact increases the potential for story and culture elements to exist!
At no point have you described any actual problem with removing race-locks on classes. You've alluded to vague culture concerns which are completely unfounded. Meanwhile all cultures in a game can still be extremely distinct (if not more distinct, as seen above) when there are no race-locks on classes. It's just like how in the real world there are Indian cops and American cops and Brazilian cops, and each of those cultures is very unique, but being from a different culture hasn't prevented them all from having cop as a profession.
He did prove it to you, it was very clear in his reply your just choosing to ignore his logical points, you know very well your only here to make yourself feel better.
This is generally what I am talking about. You are confident in your idea that you are correct and reiterated the same things not accepting that some people don't agree.
As I've pointed out in terms of travel it can add a much more immersive experience if added and is part of an adventure.
You basically said adventure wasn't part of an RPG when it is the basis of an RPG. It is not just a part of an RPG.
Adventures involved a lot of things. I don't recall Gandalf having a GPS in his travels. I also don't recall any travelers in the past using a GPS to guide them around. At best they had a map with vague markers if they were lucky. This is part of immersion. You can't have modern day helper tools in an environment that is supposed to be devoid of them and retain immersion. Part of and adventure is the ability to get lost, navigate via landmarks, and ultimately get through many triggering situations to get to your goal. You can't have triggering situations if you are always able to easily find your way. You also can't get attached to the environments at all because you never spend much time in any one of them.
You don't seem to have a problem confusing terms when it suits your needs.
Actually Wood Elves would live in the woods, but their culture is defined by being at one with nature and their race would only be involved in such things as being Rangers, Druids, etc. that tends towards nature.
A human Ranger on the other hand would not start in the Wood Elf environment because it's closed off to human culture in many ways similar to how Asia has been closed off in real life history. There are actually many cultures that have been closed off and live very differently then others. Most of the cultures retain the same race due to the closed nature. Human Rangers in Everquest lived in Surefall Glade. They were friendly to Wood Elves, but there is no way such a segregated culture that resides deep in the woods would accept them in their city except on perhaps a very special occasion like Strider in Lord of the Rings.
This is the basis of that magical feeling you get exploring this unique culture. It's what makes visiting the wood elf city so mysterious and magical. It's the fact that they are so secluded from the rest of the world. In the time period these types of games take place in it makes sense for societies to be segregated and made up of one race in most cases unless it is a place like Freeport where a large variety of cultures are accepted. That is not much different from the real world even today. There are very closed cultures and there are cultures like USA which accept and assimilate people into it.
Why wouldn't I be confident?
Your disagreements are illogical and not backed by evidence.
My arguments are logical and backed by evidence.
My arguments are backed by personal experience designing games.
My arguments are backed by other well-known designers who say the same thing as I do.
Your disagreement with their disagreement does not render it illogical nor would it discount any evidence provided.
Your arguments are not logical as the evidence you provide is generally very subjective and often misinterpreted.
Your argument being backed by personal experience is also known as "anecdotal" and does not define the actual reality of anything outside your scope.
Your arguments have often been countered by quotes from other well-known designers. Quite often by ones you claim are saying that same things as you, yet we can directly quote to the contrary such as with Cadwell and Koster.
Your confidence can notably be derived from what is known as the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" which is "a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is." It is quite common for people to have a false sense of superiority on a subject they only know a vague amount about. Calling oneself a professional for said knowledge does others a disservice as it brings down the standards.
Also you said "I said "adventure games" are a distinct thing from RPGs." If you don't think that's saying there is a division of the two then you need to review the definition of the terms you are semantically squabbling over (ironic given your argument is exactly a semantic of definition and not addressing the point that had been posed).
The example of the blood elf paladin is actually an example of how the cultural differences that Flyte mentioned adds flavor and variety to things. If they were simply "more paladins" they would not have the elements about leeching the holy energy of a captured creature to drive their background. Tauren similarly wouldn't have the shamanistic elements ascribed to their paladin class with their worship of a sun spirit. IT's the racial differences that have made it not simply so the class is available, but there are distinct reasons for those given races to have them, as Flyte was explaining with the ranger analogy you apparently failed to understand.
"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'd rather get the MMO back into MMORPGs over the RPG. Single player games are great for RPG. Only MMORPGs can do the online thing, but trouble is most of them don't take advantage of it.
I'd rather get the MMO back into MMORPGs over the RPG. Single player games are great for RPG. Only MMORPGs can do the online thing, but trouble is most of them don't take advantage of it.
Or may be devs should just drop mmorpgs. We have single player games for RPGs, and online games for MP.
May be massivly MP is not that fun anyway .. that is way Blizz is now making a 6 vs 6 shooter (though still called a MMO here).
He did prove it to you, it was very clear in his reply your just choosing to ignore his logical points, you know very well your only here to make yourself feel better.
If this happened, you can quote it.
So quote it.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
1. Formula's only apply to one taste. Even something like a soda with a literal formula only applies to one taste. I switch soda's all the time. I would be disappointed if everything was literally coke or pepsi because it was the popular formula. More than soda, water is often my choice of drink with no formula.
2. Sticking to the formula is not knowledge rejection. WoW didn't become on top by following the same formula. It broken the trend. WoW clones didn't succeed following WoW's formula because that audience was satisfied. This genre being one of the most formulaic since RTS(which also waned badly) never reach its potential in my opinion. That WoW formula has been refined until its just not profitable for western developers to create anymore. The audience and gameplay don't fit the genre.
You really don't seem to understand the scope of the concepts we're talking about.
In your analogy:
What YOU think I'm saying: "Here's the formula for Coca-Cola and all drinks should be made with this exact formula."
What I'm ACTUALLY saying: "All of the most successful drinks are sugary, combined with a flavor that goes well with that sugar."
It's unclear why you think we're discussing a specific formula. A specific pattern (the "coke recipe") would be hundreds of documents (spreadsheets, feature specs, etc) that described a specific MMORPG. Do you see those spreadsheets and specs in this thread? No.
The reality is we're discussing a broad pattern. Not a specific formula.
What is the pattern? It's that successful games are about interesting decisions. (The pattern is that players enjoy games about mastering patterns.)
More unclear is how you see virtually every major gaming success (Battlefield, LoL, WOW, Civilization, Tetris, Mario, etc) backs up what I'm saying, yet you insist on disagreeing with me as though these successes don't exist. These are all games fundamentally about offering players "a series of interesting decisions" (as Sid Meier puts it.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
1. Formula's only apply to one taste. Even something like a soda with a literal formula only applies to one taste. I switch soda's all the time. I would be disappointed if everything was literally coke or pepsi because it was the popular formula. More than soda, water is often my choice of drink with no formula.
2. Sticking to the formula is not knowledge rejection. WoW didn't become on top by following the same formula. It broken the trend. WoW clones didn't succeed following WoW's formula because that audience was satisfied. This genre being one of the most formulaic since RTS(which also waned badly) never reach its potential in my opinion. That WoW formula has been refined until its just not profitable for western developers to create anymore. The audience and gameplay don't fit the genre.
You really don't seem to understand the scope of the concepts we're talking about.
In your analogy:
What YOU think I'm saying: "Here's the formula for Coca-Cola and all drinks should be made with this exact formula."
What I'm ACTUALLY saying: "All of the most successful drinks are sugary, combined with a flavor that goes well with that sugar."
It's unclear why you think we're discussing a specific formula. A specific pattern (the "coke recipe") would be hundreds of documents (spreadsheets, feature specs, etc) that described a specific MMORPG. Do you see those spreadsheets and specs in this thread? No.
The reality is we're discussing a broad pattern. Not a specific formula.
What is the pattern? It's that successful games are about interesting decisions. (The pattern is that players enjoy games about mastering patterns.)
More unclear is how you see virtually every major gaming success (Battlefield, LoL, WOW, Civilization, Tetris, Mario, etc) backs up what I'm saying, yet you insist on disagreeing with me as though these successes don't exist. These are all games fundamentally about offering players "a series of interesting decisions" (as Sid Meier puts it.)
Well we already see your analogy doesn't work since in the full breadth of drinks, "sugary" is only one segment. It may be a popular one, but anyone can walk into a store and see just how much more variety there is than that.
And that's where reality comes in. The fact that Tetris, Mario, WoW, Civ, etc all play very differently from another with different mechanics and different pacing using elements of gameplay you seem apt to claim don't exist such as time, travel, long-form strategy, etc. "A series of interesting decisions" does not translate into every second of a game having to offer some manner of choice. Pacing goes quite a long ways in making such choices tolerable and not stressful in the first place.
If we took away the useless jargon around what you want to say with "interesting decisions", all you are repeating is that "games need to be interactive". That's all "interesting decisions" ultimately are, modes of interactivity which can come up in a myriad of manners, not a single concept of what the most "successful" mechanics are.
"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
Actually the worlds most popular drink is water, followed by tea which is made in tons of different ways most of which don't use sugar So much for the formula.
"Americans—who drink the most coffee—can find a Starbucks every few blocks, but tea is the national drink of China and India..."
This kinda parallels a point I've made before that the western gaming market and their metrics are often not compared to the eastern market which is considerably bigger when it comes to MMOs and the subsequent trends we see bleeding over from there.
"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
Actually the worlds most popular drink is water, followed by tea which is made in tons of different ways most of which don't use sugar So much for the formula.
Research and data are used to avoid bias, thats the point of it. When done properly what you personally think and feel is irrelevant, the data tells it's own tale.
Most common methods of making decisions/diagnoses/determination: 1. Scientific data - most accurate, least biased, most time consuming 2. General consensus - less bias, somewhat accurate, time consuming 3. Personal Experience - most biased, most commonly used.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Research and data are used to avoid bias, thats the point of it.
Most common methods of making decisions/diagnoses/determination: 1. Scientific data - most accurate, least biased, most time consuming 2. General consensus - less bias, somewhat accurate, time consuming 3. Personal Experience - most biased, most commonly used.
But from your previous arguments research and data from individuals can have just as much bias considering they are still people and have their own bias. Lol scientific data least biased, I dont think so it isnt any less biased then personal experience, people use scientific tools to base personal experiences as well in the first place, your generalizing.
And scentific experience is just as personal as the people experiencing it.
The individial has bias. Data doesn't have any cognition. It doesn't have a bias. Data is not a person. It doesn't have perception, and therefore doesn't have perceptual filters. It's like a rock, it's just there.
Scientific data is the least biased. That doesn't mean there is no bias, it means it is the least biased. It doesn't rely on personal experience and is self-correcting.
No this is not a generalization.
People screw up all the time, people are biased in how they interpret things. Thats why the data is the least biased and is constantly reviewed.
I may conduct a study and be biased. The data will tell a story regardless of what I think. Others then review it and replicate it, correct things that are wrong and either confirm or deny the results. Over time an accurate picture is formed now free of individual bias.
Scientific experience and data are not the same thing at all.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
The individial has bias. Data doesn't have any cognition. It doesn't have a bias. Data is not a person. It doesn't have perception, and therefore doesn't have perceptual filters. It's like a rock, it's just there.
Scientific data is the least biased. That doesn't mean there is no bias, it means it is the least biased. It doesn't rely on personal experience and is self-correcting.
No this is not a generalization.
People screw up all the time, people are biased in how they interpret things. Thats why the data is the least biased and is constantly reviewed.
I may conduct a study and be biased. The data will tell a story regardless of what I think. Others then review it and replicate it, correct things that are wrong and either confirm or deny the results. Over time an accurate picture is formed now free of individual bias.
Scientific experience and data are not the same thing at all.
You just failed your own argument people are the one making mistakes yet they are the ones using the data tools at hand just like people are capable of doing when it comes to personal experience lol.
No you failed to understand. People are biased the data is not. What people use the data for is their own personal use. The data doesn't have an agenda, it's just data. A well done study will remove as much personal bias as possible and over multiple trials will be bias free.
Scientific data is again the least subjective because it can be tested independent of the individual. It can be reproduced independent of the individual who first reports it, or the 100th individual who tests it. If it cannot be tested or reproduced it is likely biased (we will never know because we can't test or reproduce it), if it can be tested and reproduced it is objective.
So far anyway. Someday something better might come along.
Personal experience cannot be tested or reproduced. You will never get exactly the same conditions, close maybe but that's it.
Post edited by VengeSunsoar on
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
No you failed to understand. People are biased the data is not. What people use the data for is their own personal use. The data doesn't have an agenda, it's just data. A well done study will remove as much personal bias as possible and over multiple trials will be bias free.
Scientific data is again the least objective because it can be tested independent of the individual. It can be reproduced independent of the individual who first reports it, or the 100th individual who tests it. If it cannot be tested or reproduced it is likely biased (we will never know because we can't test or reproduce it), if it can be tested and reproduced it is objective.
So far anyway. Someday something better might come along.
Personal experience cannot be tested or reproduced. You will never get exactly the same conditions, close maybe but that's it.
No you failed to understand. People are biased the data is not. What people use the data for is their own personal use. The data doesn't have an agenda, it's just data. A well done study will remove as much personal bias as possible and over multiple trials will be bias free.
Scientific data is again the least objective because it can be tested independent of the individual. It can be reproduced independent of the individual who first reports it, or the 100th individual who tests it. If it cannot be tested or reproduced it is likely biased (we will never know because we can't test or reproduce it), if it can be tested and reproduced it is objective.
So far anyway. Someday something better might come along.
Personal experience cannot be tested or reproduced. You will never get exactly the same conditions, close maybe but that's it.
Actually you dont get it and your not going to because you dont want to admit when your wrong. So im done wasting my efforts.
Scientific data is such a lifeless and emotionless form. When one is making art it shouldn't be striving to maximize profit by appealing to the lowest common denominator. It should instead strive to bring something a person feels strongly about and share those feelings with others. Thankfully games, books, paintings, and other forms of art were never made with scientific research and many ideas that lead to scientific discoveries were based on pure illogical imagination. I believe that is part of why appealing to an old school crowd fails. The developer can do all the research the want in regards to what an old school player likes, but they lack the personal passion that for those games the developers who created them had.
Comments
As I've pointed out in terms of travel it can add a much more immersive experience if added and is part of an adventure.
You basically said adventure wasn't part of an RPG when it is the basis of an RPG. It is not just a part of an RPG.
Adventures involved a lot of things. I don't recall Gandalf having a GPS in his travels. I also don't recall any travelers in the past using a GPS to guide them around. At best they had a map with vague markers if they were lucky. This is part of immersion. You can't have modern day helper tools in an environment that is supposed to be devoid of them and retain immersion. Part of and adventure is the ability to get lost, navigate via landmarks, and ultimately get through many triggering situations to get to your goal. You can't have triggering situations if you are always able to easily find your way. You also can't get attached to the environments at all because you never spend much time in any one of them.
You don't seem to have a problem confusing terms when it suits your needs.
Actually Wood Elves would live in the woods, but their culture is defined by being at one with nature and their race would only be involved in such things as being Rangers, Druids, etc. that tends towards nature.
A human Ranger on the other hand would not start in the Wood Elf environment because it's closed off to human culture in many ways similar to how Asia has been closed off in real life history. There are actually many cultures that have been closed off and live very differently then others. Most of the cultures retain the same race due to the closed nature. Human Rangers in Everquest lived in Surefall Glade. They were friendly to Wood Elves, but there is no way such a segregated culture that resides deep in the woods would accept them in their city except on perhaps a very special occasion like Strider in Lord of the Rings.
This is the basis of that magical feeling you get exploring this unique culture. It's what makes visiting the wood elf city so mysterious and magical. It's the fact that they are so secluded from the rest of the world. In the time period these types of games take place in it makes sense for societies to be segregated and made up of one race in most cases unless it is a place like Freeport where a large variety of cultures are accepted. That is not much different from the real world even today. There are very closed cultures and there are cultures like USA which accept and assimilate people into it.
Are you serious?
1. Formula's only apply to one taste. Even something like a soda with a literal formula only applies to one taste. I switch soda's all the time. I would be disappointed if everything was literally coke or pepsi because it was the popular formula. More than soda, water is often my choice of drink with no formula.
2. Sticking to the formula is not knowledge rejection. WoW didn't become on top by following the same formula. It broken the trend. WoW clones didn't succeed following WoW's formula because that audience was satisfied. This genre being one of the most formulaic since RTS(which also waned badly) never reach its potential in my opinion. That WoW formula has been refined until its just not profitable for western developers to create anymore. The audience and gameplay don't fit the genre.
Why bother with long term when you can do a 3x ROI in a week? Plus, the longer the time frame is, the more risk you are bearing. Competition changes. Technology changes. Taste changes. TOR sold 2M boxes in its first month, but sub dwindles, and have to go to f2p to survive. May be they should just make KOTOR 3,4,5 and so on .. and make money off those 2-3M sales.
- Your disagreements are illogical and not backed by evidence.
- My arguments are logical and backed by evidence.
- My arguments are backed by personal experience designing games.
- My arguments are backed by other well-known designers who say the same thing as I do.
There is nowhere where I even remotely said adventure wasn't part of RPGs. (This is an example of a disagreement which isn't backed by evidence.)Did the Lord of the Rings movies portray 20+ minutes of uneventfully, frustratingly being lost in a forest? Or did the movies directly move from eventful situation to eventful situation? If there were any scenes about getting lost in LOTR, they were portrayed succinctly and efficiently. This is the movie equivalent of a GPS (you aren't shown the actual full duration of them being lost, you're shown a couple scenes where the party doesn't seem to have a clear direction, and then the very next scene is some event (good or bad) which puts them back on course (though it may not be their intended course.))
When a game has poor directional features ("GPS" being one form), players generally quit, because "Where do I go?" is generally not considered to be an interesting challenge, and is usually considered a quit-worthy source of frustration.
If you're confused by the terms I use or feel I've mis-used a term, speak up about it. Until then we can write this comment of yours off as just another disagreement which isn't backed by evidence.
Who said anything about the human ranger living in the elf city? Nobody. You've fabricated an imaginary/irrelevant concern.
Meanwhile in WOW there are both blood elf and human paladins, and each has a distinct story of how they interact with the class. Meaning: more races having access to a class in fact increases the potential for story and culture elements to exist!
At no point have you described any actual problem with removing race-locks on classes. You've alluded to vague culture concerns which are completely unfounded. Meanwhile all cultures in a game can still be extremely distinct (if not more distinct, as seen above) when there are no race-locks on classes. It's just like how in the real world there are Indian cops and American cops and Brazilian cops, and each of those cultures is very unique, but being from a different culture hasn't prevented them all from having cop as a profession.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
- Your disagreement with their disagreement does not render it illogical nor would it discount any evidence provided.
- Your arguments are not logical as the evidence you provide is generally very subjective and often misinterpreted.
- Your argument being backed by personal experience is also known as "anecdotal" and does not define the actual reality of anything outside your scope.
- Your arguments have often been countered by quotes from other well-known designers. Quite often by ones you claim are saying that same things as you, yet we can directly quote to the contrary such as with Cadwell and Koster.
Your confidence can notably be derived from what is known as the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" which is "a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is." It is quite common for people to have a false sense of superiority on a subject they only know a vague amount about. Calling oneself a professional for said knowledge does others a disservice as it brings down the standards.Also you said "I said "adventure games" are a distinct thing from RPGs." If you don't think that's saying there is a division of the two then you need to review the definition of the terms you are semantically squabbling over (ironic given your argument is exactly a semantic of definition and not addressing the point that had been posed).
The example of the blood elf paladin is actually an example of how the cultural differences that Flyte mentioned adds flavor and variety to things. If they were simply "more paladins" they would not have the elements about leeching the holy energy of a captured creature to drive their background. Tauren similarly wouldn't have the shamanistic elements ascribed to their paladin class with their worship of a sun spirit. IT's the racial differences that have made it not simply so the class is available, but there are distinct reasons for those given races to have them, as Flyte was explaining with the ranger analogy you apparently failed to understand.
"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
May be massivly MP is not that fun anyway .. that is way Blizz is now making a 6 vs 6 shooter (though still called a MMO here).
So quote it.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In your analogy:
- What YOU think I'm saying: "Here's the formula for Coca-Cola and all drinks should be made with this exact formula."
- What I'm ACTUALLY saying: "All of the most successful drinks are sugary, combined with a flavor that goes well with that sugar."
It's unclear why you think we're discussing a specific formula. A specific pattern (the "coke recipe") would be hundreds of documents (spreadsheets, feature specs, etc) that described a specific MMORPG. Do you see those spreadsheets and specs in this thread? No.The reality is we're discussing a broad pattern. Not a specific formula.
What is the pattern? It's that successful games are about interesting decisions. (The pattern is that players enjoy games about mastering patterns.)
More unclear is how you see virtually every major gaming success (Battlefield, LoL, WOW, Civilization, Tetris, Mario, etc) backs up what I'm saying, yet you insist on disagreeing with me as though these successes don't exist. These are all games fundamentally about offering players "a series of interesting decisions" (as Sid Meier puts it.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And that's where reality comes in. The fact that Tetris, Mario, WoW, Civ, etc all play very differently from another with different mechanics and different pacing using elements of gameplay you seem apt to claim don't exist such as time, travel, long-form strategy, etc. "A series of interesting decisions" does not translate into every second of a game having to offer some manner of choice. Pacing goes quite a long ways in making such choices tolerable and not stressful in the first place.
If we took away the useless jargon around what you want to say with "interesting decisions", all you are repeating is that "games need to be interactive". That's all "interesting decisions" ultimately are, modes of interactivity which can come up in a myriad of manners, not a single concept of what the most "successful" mechanics are.
"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
http://onward.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/28/the-worlds-top-drink/
This kinda parallels a point I've made before that the western gaming market and their metrics are often not compared to the eastern market which is considerably bigger when it comes to MMOs and the subsequent trends we see bleeding over from there.
"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
Most common methods of making decisions/diagnoses/determination:
1. Scientific data - most accurate, least biased, most time consuming
2. General consensus - less bias, somewhat accurate, time consuming
3. Personal Experience - most biased, most commonly used.
And scentific experience is just as personal as the people experiencing it.
Scientific data is the least biased. That doesn't mean there is no bias, it means it is the least biased. It doesn't rely on personal experience and is self-correcting.
No this is not a generalization.
People screw up all the time, people are biased in how they interpret things. Thats why the data is the least biased and is constantly reviewed.
I may conduct a study and be biased. The data will tell a story regardless of what I think. Others then review it and replicate it, correct things that are wrong and either confirm or deny the results. Over time an accurate picture is formed now free of individual bias.
Scientific experience and data are not the same thing at all.
Scientific data is again the least subjective because it can be tested independent of the individual. It can be reproduced independent of the individual who first reports it, or the 100th individual who tests it. If it cannot be tested or reproduced it is likely biased (we will never know because we can't test or reproduce it), if it can be tested and reproduced it is objective.
So far anyway. Someday something better might come along.
Personal experience cannot be tested or reproduced. You will never get exactly the same conditions, close maybe but that's it.
Actually you dont get it and your not going to because you dont want to admit when your wrong. So im done wasting my efforts.
Yep, some rpg sure would be great.