pvp requires you to be able to react dynamically to the actions of other players. smaller dungeons (say 6-8 man, whatever a normal group size would be) would also require the players to have more skill, as they don't have half a dozen "healers" (or anything else 6-20 deep). Yea, I would agree. To me, PvP is the most challenging aspect of MMOs, especially if you reduce the level/gear gap. raiding requires a lot of time in most cases, or the ability to put up with 39 egoes on vent for hours on end. it also requires the ability to sit for hours, repeating the same content, over and over and over again. Again...Id have to agree. it's just as farmable as anything else in an mmo, you just have a lot more people to do it with.
i miss earth and beyond raids. I dont see anything wrong with raiding as long as there is stuff to do pre raiding lvl, or if there are raids that mid lvl people can do like in eq2. As I see it raiding is an ultimate challenge to your in game organization or guild,
Because raids are cheaper and easier to create compared to actually content.
QFT
Designing gameplay systems that actually enable players to generate content on their own without endangering the game itself takes too much brains and is a risky business. And the same goes for creating story content that can survive a multiplayer environment.
Why bother when you can keep the drones hooked with a bit of level design that can be performed by an average hobby modder and a 5% chance you'll get a 1% boost to your e-peen at the end?
Because raids are cheaper and easier to create compared to actually content.
can you give me a description of actual content please,
More classes, races, abilities, items, having a story arc and pushing it forward each month with updates, adding features such as TEFs or just fishing, faction based events unrelated to the story arc like a village invasion, fixing bugs.
Having a team of DEVs build a crappy raid dungeon one every 1-3 months is alot easier and cheaper than any of the above, except maybe fishing!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
Raiding holds no interest for me as just one look at the 'Leet Speak Recruitment Threads' for raiding guilds on the EQ2 forums is enough to put me off , e.g."Elite Raiding Guild wants Hardcore Max DPS".
I don't care about never owning the raiding gear with all the 'Disco Spangles' as I play MMOs for my own personal enjoyment not to look uber.
I know that many players do enjoy raiding for hours/days on end, but that doesn't make them better or worse than anyone else, it's all down to personal preference.
A good MMO should always strive to have content for all playing styles.
If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?
then perhaps a game like guildwars and or eve would be great for you guys, there is no raiding to speak of, just pvp and crafting in eve, and guildwars doesnt have raiding either just pvp ore pve and you are not forced to do either one, also a content rich game that has no raiding is dungeons and dragons online, also would look into saga of ryzom when that comes back up if it ever does, that has no raiding that i seen in it either.
Because raids are cheaper and easier to create compared to actually content.
can you give me a description of actual content please,
More classes, races, abilities, items, having a story arc and pushing it forward each month with updates, adding features such as TEFs or just fishing, faction based events unrelated to the story arc like a village invasion, fixing bugs.
Having a team of DEVs build a crappy raid dungeon one every 1-3 months is alot easier and cheaper than any of the above, except maybe fishing!
there are only 2 games that doesnt add content with the existance of adding raids for endgame that i can think of and they are eq and wow, all other games with raiding that i have played has a great mix of everything in it.
Because raids are cheaper and easier to create compared to actually content.
can you give me a description of actual content please,
Well to keep it simple think back to the good old days of pnp. You as the dm have two choices. Think up a well thought out adventure that challenges your players enough (risk vs reward) but isn't to stupidly difficult that it can't be reasonable completed. Or simply throw some big boss at them with a ton of hp or minions again with the same challenge level.
Thinking up multiple challenges is much more difficult and time consuming then beefing up some end boss. And since mmos have become all about getting to end game gear and not actually character developement raids are the easy way out.
Because raids are cheaper and easier to create compared to actually content.
can you give me a description of actual content please,
More classes, races, abilities, items, having a story arc and pushing it forward each month with updates, adding features such as TEFs or just fishing, faction based events unrelated to the story arc like a village invasion, fixing bugs.
Having a team of DEVs build a crappy raid dungeon one every 1-3 months is alot easier and cheaper than any of the above, except maybe fishing!
dev/company-hosted live events
dev/company-supported player events (they spawn some invading hordes or whatever for the player event)
housing + updates to types/modifications of housing and contents of said housing
treasure hunting/maps in both the oceans/lakes and from treasure maps dropped by mobs, or obtained as quests.
having more craftable items and items that are player created which CAN be among the best items in the game, which in turn would require rare mats from gathering/mining/etc, possibly body parts from mystical beasts, potions made by an alchemist, enchants from an enchanter, etc, etc. why not have a series of quests in order to make that truly unique, powerful and personal piece of armor or weapon?
mounts obtainable by all races/classes. mounts obtainable only thru quests by certain classes. pet classes having special pets (and more pet slots/stalls) obtainable thru quest lines.
reasons to pvp -- if you can add a new raid dungeon or zone for raiding; then, why can't a zone/dungeon be added for pvp? if you take over a city, the inhabitants are friendly to you, if you control a zone, then all of your faction on that server obtain a global benefit of some type (5% xp bonus and 5% bonus to damage perhaps). if a new raid can be added every few months, why not new and dynamic pvp content? just going by numbers released by wow... the number of players who participate in pvp VASTLY outnumber the number of raiders. why should raiders be catered to when they are the vast MINORITY and do not, by any stretch of the imagination, pay the bills? that, is stupidity in action.
housing and housing updates, did i mention that? both individual housing and guild housing. perhaps even a stable where folks could leave their mounts and/or pets just for show.
i'm not a fan of classes, they really stifle what you CAN do in a game, but i am all for skills or a system like pre-cu swg. if wow had been released with classes the style of pre-cu swg, do you honestly believe it'd have been any less popular? so, i'm all for new skills and i guess professions/hobbies/whatever
COx is actually changing/updating zones as their story progresses (this is something agricola mentioned) -- why not have updates along those lines as well? in a game like wow, does anyone ever bother to even visit the level 60 dungeons? give a reason to go to those lower level dungeons as you progress. why do you HAVE to outlevel your equipment? why can't you have little sidequests where you seek out the mad hermit of the hills and he makes your rare sword good for another 5 levels? i mean, in a lot of games, you CAN'T lose your equipment; why not make it to where you have dynamic quest lines to enhance the items you enjoy, either giving them new powers, or increasing their level?
pretty much anything that can be fun and doesn't have to be repeated a literal 100 times in order to get everything you "need" from it, which is EXACTLY what comprises raiding.
for people that make millions of dollars every month (which many mmo companies DO make), the content they provide is pretty damn uncreative and pretty small. how many games even have live events any more?
take a look at the crafting systems in UO and pre-cu swg -- those are crafting systems for which to aim.
take a look at the class/level systems in UO and pre-cu swg -- after giving them a fair look over, can anyone honestly say they would not love to be able to have characters which can be EXACTLY what they want them to be?
bleh. give a semi-creative gamer tens of millions of dollars and years and i'm willing to bet they could come up with some pretty creative and fun "visions".
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
the whole thing about raiding is two-fold -- raiders are a teeny tiny portion of the population of any given game AND as such, there are many many more players, who do not raid, but put in many many more hours than your raiders.
raiders don't have a stronger "work ethic" in a game. raiders don't contribute more money to games. raiders don't do anything for a game that would warrant massive amounts of content (or even new content every few months) for them specifically.
as opposed to pvpers, which do make up a much larger section of the playerbase in any game than raiders, yet pvpers don't get new content every update.
why are lots of people dis-satisfied with mmos? because a very teeny tiny, less than a percent portion of the population is catered to, while the other 99+% of the paying public is given scraps.
economically, for a gaming company, that makes no damn sense.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I can understand from the dev's side why raiding... think of the amount of time to beat the content and how many people are occuppied by the content. I can also kind-of (not really, but I'll buy it for aurguments sake) see the argument of trying to satisfy this 'hardcore' element because fighting in a bigger group requires more coordinatetion to be an efficient fighting force. But that's not my question... the question is why is it actually fun?
A lot of what I'm reading is that people raid, not because it's fun for them, but because it's considered 'elite' and that is where the best gear is (people wanting the gear because it's both good and because it's their 'badge' of completing it).
What if the best gear wasn't there... would you (those that do) still raid? I guess that's my real question... do you raid because you enjoy some challenge from raiding (what challenge is that then... just coordinating numbers?), or because that's where the gear is and it's considered 'hardcore'?
Seriously. What is so fun and rewarding about raiding that it is now considered a basic element of any new MMO? Why is that usually the big "end-game" and why is raiding something lower-levels demand be open to them as well? Is it because that's the only thing companies can think of for an "end-game"? I remember in EQ1 it just seemed to eventually happen. I don't think it was anything originally formulated really. Just people got so high, so fast (relatively fast... compared with what Verant thought was fast, not compared to WoW), so they created "impossible" enemies. They turned out not to be so impossible when faced with 10 groups of 6 players each all informally linked. I just thought of this reading through a bunch of unrelated posts... none of them having to do with raiding, but raiding was brought up as something that absolutely must be accomidated for. Why is that?
Because the majority of the people who post on these forums care very little for taking their time and enjoying a game, they care only about how fast they can reach max level.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
Well - thats why I hate the whole "endgame" concept.
There should never be something like an "endgame". You play a game, end of story. There is no "endgame".
Raids are fine. They are a challenge. You have to get a large group of people together and they have to coordinate well enough to manage the raid mobs. In the end, raid bosses are just a variant of the good old boss fight one knows from many other games, even much older ones, such as Tomb Raider.
Originally posted by Neanderthal And now we have to watch developers ruin game after game with that most boring and un-fun playstyle because a tiny fraction of mmorpg players discovered that, because most players don't have the time for it or the willingness to endure the boredom of it, it gives those who do have the time and dull wittedness to endure the boredom an e-peen ego boost.
Raiding is not boring for everyone, some people enjoy the challange of figuring out and overcoming new encounters. Likewise, not all raiders do it for the ego boost. I raid, I raid a lot, and I'll be the first one to tell you that games are just as much fun a low level with mediocre gear as they are at end game.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
the whole thing about raiding is two-fold -- raiders are a teeny tiny portion of the population of any given game AND as such, there are many many more players, who do not raid, but put in many many more hours than your raiders. raiders don't have a stronger "work ethic" in a game. raiders don't contribute more money to games. raiders don't do anything for a game that would warrant massive amounts of content (or even new content every few months) for them specifically. as opposed to pvpers, which do make up a much larger section of the playerbase in any game than raiders, yet pvpers don't get new content every update. why are lots of people dis-satisfied with mmos? because a very teeny tiny, less than a percent portion of the population is catered to, while the other 99+% of the paying public is given scraps. economically, for a gaming company, that makes no damn sense.
Do you really believe this? How many PvPers play EQ1? ... Right, just about 0.
Secondly (I'm going to assume you were talking about WoW since it's pretty much the only game that has both a good amount of raiders and PvPers in the same game), Bliz has added quite a bit of PvP content to the game since BC: Arenas and Season x pvp gear. I would say there's at least an even amount of raid and PvP content in that game...because like it or not you don't need 'new' zones for PvP. You just hack other players to bits over and over. No changes or additions needed dude. But raiding does need new content to beat, because it's not about beating a player (which for PvP never changes, it's just beating the same classes over and over ad-nausea) it's about beating a new boss in a new environment. Each boss is different and has different abilities and surroundings.
Thirdly, add up all the raid zones in the game, and PvP zones, and finally all the regular questing and 5 man zones. You will find that the number of raid zones takes up a tiny percentage of the total. So it sure seems you are not thinking about how much of the actual content is raid content, but thinking about how long that content is useful. Yes you burn through the quest zones in about a month, and then spend years in the raid zones. You're letting the amount of time spent in these zones affect how much of the actual game you think it makes up. In reality raid zones and PvP zones are the smallest part of the game. If you really want to get angry at the amount of space and energy taken up by a section of the player base, you should direct your anger at the 'casual' quest and 5 man stuff because it has a huge percentage of the total zone and content population.
Lastly, what 'new content' could a PvPer possibly want? No matter what map or game they give you, it's still just 1v1 or 2v1 small battles of players or maybe 5v5 on a bigger game. You really don't PvP any different on a different map. The only way they could really add content to WoW's PvP at least would be to add in guild keeps and sieging and crap. That would be a HUGE investment and really a change in the focus of the entire game, because whether or not you want to accept it there are PvM games and there are PvP games. WoW is a PvM game. Always will be. So don't complain that your PvM game has a lack of PvP updates.
nethervoid - Est. '97 [UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1 20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel
Comments
Because raids are cheaper and easier to create compared to actually content.
i miss earth and beyond raids. I dont see anything wrong with raiding as long as there is stuff to do pre raiding lvl, or if there are raids that mid lvl people can do like in eq2. As I see it raiding is an ultimate challenge to your in game organization or guild,
playing eq2 and two worlds
QFT
Designing gameplay systems that actually enable players to generate content on their own without endangering the game itself takes too much brains and is a risky business. And the same goes for creating story content that can survive a multiplayer environment.
Why bother when you can keep the drones hooked with a bit of level design that can be performed by an average hobby modder and a 5% chance you'll get a 1% boost to your e-peen at the end?
can you give me a description of actual content please,
playing eq2 and two worlds
can you give me a description of actual content please,
More classes, races, abilities, items, having a story arc and pushing it forward each month with updates, adding features such as TEFs or just fishing, faction based events unrelated to the story arc like a village invasion, fixing bugs.
Having a team of DEVs build a crappy raid dungeon one every 1-3 months is alot easier and cheaper than any of the above, except maybe fishing!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Raiding holds no interest for me as just one look at the 'Leet Speak Recruitment Threads' for raiding guilds on the EQ2 forums is enough to put me off , e.g."Elite Raiding Guild wants Hardcore Max DPS".
I don't care about never owning the raiding gear with all the 'Disco Spangles' as I play MMOs for my own personal enjoyment not to look uber.
I know that many players do enjoy raiding for hours/days on end, but that doesn't make them better or worse than anyone else, it's all down to personal preference.
A good MMO should always strive to have content for all playing styles.
If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?
Take the Hecatomb? TCG What Is Your Doom? quiz.
then perhaps a game like guildwars and or eve would be great for you guys, there is no raiding to speak of, just pvp and crafting in eve, and guildwars doesnt have raiding either just pvp ore pve and you are not forced to do either one, also a content rich game that has no raiding is dungeons and dragons online, also would look into saga of ryzom when that comes back up if it ever does, that has no raiding that i seen in it either.
playing eq2 and two worlds
can you give me a description of actual content please,
More classes, races, abilities, items, having a story arc and pushing it forward each month with updates, adding features such as TEFs or just fishing, faction based events unrelated to the story arc like a village invasion, fixing bugs.
Having a team of DEVs build a crappy raid dungeon one every 1-3 months is alot easier and cheaper than any of the above, except maybe fishing!
there are only 2 games that doesnt add content with the existance of adding raids for endgame that i can think of and they are eq and wow, all other games with raiding that i have played has a great mix of everything in it.
playing eq2 and two worlds
can you give me a description of actual content please,
Well to keep it simple think back to the good old days of pnp. You as the dm have two choices. Think up a well thought out adventure that challenges your players enough (risk vs reward) but isn't to stupidly difficult that it can't be reasonable completed. Or simply throw some big boss at them with a ton of hp or minions again with the same challenge level.
Thinking up multiple challenges is much more difficult and time consuming then beefing up some end boss. And since mmos have become all about getting to end game gear and not actually character developement raids are the easy way out.
can you give me a description of actual content please,
More classes, races, abilities, items, having a story arc and pushing it forward each month with updates, adding features such as TEFs or just fishing, faction based events unrelated to the story arc like a village invasion, fixing bugs.
Having a team of DEVs build a crappy raid dungeon one every 1-3 months is alot easier and cheaper than any of the above, except maybe fishing!
dev/company-hosted live events
dev/company-supported player events (they spawn some invading hordes or whatever for the player event)
housing + updates to types/modifications of housing and contents of said housing
treasure hunting/maps in both the oceans/lakes and from treasure maps dropped by mobs, or obtained as quests.
having more craftable items and items that are player created which CAN be among the best items in the game, which in turn would require rare mats from gathering/mining/etc, possibly body parts from mystical beasts, potions made by an alchemist, enchants from an enchanter, etc, etc. why not have a series of quests in order to make that truly unique, powerful and personal piece of armor or weapon?
mounts obtainable by all races/classes. mounts obtainable only thru quests by certain classes. pet classes having special pets (and more pet slots/stalls) obtainable thru quest lines.
reasons to pvp -- if you can add a new raid dungeon or zone for raiding; then, why can't a zone/dungeon be added for pvp? if you take over a city, the inhabitants are friendly to you, if you control a zone, then all of your faction on that server obtain a global benefit of some type (5% xp bonus and 5% bonus to damage perhaps). if a new raid can be added every few months, why not new and dynamic pvp content? just going by numbers released by wow... the number of players who participate in pvp VASTLY outnumber the number of raiders. why should raiders be catered to when they are the vast MINORITY and do not, by any stretch of the imagination, pay the bills? that, is stupidity in action.
housing and housing updates, did i mention that? both individual housing and guild housing. perhaps even a stable where folks could leave their mounts and/or pets just for show.
i'm not a fan of classes, they really stifle what you CAN do in a game, but i am all for skills or a system like pre-cu swg. if wow had been released with classes the style of pre-cu swg, do you honestly believe it'd have been any less popular? so, i'm all for new skills and i guess professions/hobbies/whatever
COx is actually changing/updating zones as their story progresses (this is something agricola mentioned) -- why not have updates along those lines as well? in a game like wow, does anyone ever bother to even visit the level 60 dungeons? give a reason to go to those lower level dungeons as you progress. why do you HAVE to outlevel your equipment? why can't you have little sidequests where you seek out the mad hermit of the hills and he makes your rare sword good for another 5 levels? i mean, in a lot of games, you CAN'T lose your equipment; why not make it to where you have dynamic quest lines to enhance the items you enjoy, either giving them new powers, or increasing their level?
pretty much anything that can be fun and doesn't have to be repeated a literal 100 times in order to get everything you "need" from it, which is EXACTLY what comprises raiding.
for people that make millions of dollars every month (which many mmo companies DO make), the content they provide is pretty damn uncreative and pretty small. how many games even have live events any more?
take a look at the crafting systems in UO and pre-cu swg -- those are crafting systems for which to aim.
take a look at the class/level systems in UO and pre-cu swg -- after giving them a fair look over, can anyone honestly say they would not love to be able to have characters which can be EXACTLY what they want them to be?
bleh. give a semi-creative gamer tens of millions of dollars and years and i'm willing to bet they could come up with some pretty creative and fun "visions".
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
the whole thing about raiding is two-fold -- raiders are a teeny tiny portion of the population of any given game AND as such, there are many many more players, who do not raid, but put in many many more hours than your raiders.
raiders don't have a stronger "work ethic" in a game. raiders don't contribute more money to games. raiders don't do anything for a game that would warrant massive amounts of content (or even new content every few months) for them specifically.
as opposed to pvpers, which do make up a much larger section of the playerbase in any game than raiders, yet pvpers don't get new content every update.
why are lots of people dis-satisfied with mmos? because a very teeny tiny, less than a percent portion of the population is catered to, while the other 99+% of the paying public is given scraps.
economically, for a gaming company, that makes no damn sense.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Wow dami that's quite a mouth full, but right on.
I can understand from the dev's side why raiding... think of the amount of time to beat the content and how many people are occuppied by the content. I can also kind-of (not really, but I'll buy it for aurguments sake) see the argument of trying to satisfy this 'hardcore' element because fighting in a bigger group requires more coordinatetion to be an efficient fighting force. But that's not my question... the question is why is it actually fun?
A lot of what I'm reading is that people raid, not because it's fun for them, but because it's considered 'elite' and that is where the best gear is (people wanting the gear because it's both good and because it's their 'badge' of completing it).
What if the best gear wasn't there... would you (those that do) still raid? I guess that's my real question... do you raid because you enjoy some challenge from raiding (what challenge is that then... just coordinating numbers?), or because that's where the gear is and it's considered 'hardcore'?
Because the majority of the people who post on these forums care very little for taking their time and enjoying a game, they care only about how fast they can reach max level.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Well - thats why I hate the whole "endgame" concept.
There should never be something like an "endgame". You play a game, end of story. There is no "endgame".
Raids are fine. They are a challenge. You have to get a large group of people together and they have to coordinate well enough to manage the raid mobs. In the end, raid bosses are just a variant of the good old boss fight one knows from many other games, even much older ones, such as Tomb Raider.
Raiding is not boring for everyone, some people enjoy the challange of figuring out and overcoming new encounters. Likewise, not all raiders do it for the ego boost. I raid, I raid a lot, and I'll be the first one to tell you that games are just as much fun a low level with mediocre gear as they are at end game.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Do you really believe this? How many PvPers play EQ1? ... Right, just about 0.
Secondly (I'm going to assume you were talking about WoW since it's pretty much the only game that has both a good amount of raiders and PvPers in the same game), Bliz has added quite a bit of PvP content to the game since BC: Arenas and Season x pvp gear. I would say there's at least an even amount of raid and PvP content in that game...because like it or not you don't need 'new' zones for PvP. You just hack other players to bits over and over. No changes or additions needed dude. But raiding does need new content to beat, because it's not about beating a player (which for PvP never changes, it's just beating the same classes over and over ad-nausea) it's about beating a new boss in a new environment. Each boss is different and has different abilities and surroundings.
Thirdly, add up all the raid zones in the game, and PvP zones, and finally all the regular questing and 5 man zones. You will find that the number of raid zones takes up a tiny percentage of the total. So it sure seems you are not thinking about how much of the actual content is raid content, but thinking about how long that content is useful. Yes you burn through the quest zones in about a month, and then spend years in the raid zones. You're letting the amount of time spent in these zones affect how much of the actual game you think it makes up. In reality raid zones and PvP zones are the smallest part of the game. If you really want to get angry at the amount of space and energy taken up by a section of the player base, you should direct your anger at the 'casual' quest and 5 man stuff because it has a huge percentage of the total zone and content population.
Lastly, what 'new content' could a PvPer possibly want? No matter what map or game they give you, it's still just 1v1 or 2v1 small battles of players or maybe 5v5 on a bigger game. You really don't PvP any different on a different map. The only way they could really add content to WoW's PvP at least would be to add in guild keeps and sieging and crap. That would be a HUGE investment and really a change in the focus of the entire game, because whether or not you want to accept it there are PvM games and there are PvP games. WoW is a PvM game. Always will be. So don't complain that your PvM game has a lack of PvP updates.
nethervoid - Est. '97
[UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1
20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel