Originally posted by judex99 Small group are a waste of developer and content creator time, solo is much more fun and require more dynamic tactics... My god, what happened to this f***ing genre? Ten years ago we were looking for something more than singleplayer or lan gameplay... seem that most of you guys are proud with the "devolution" of the genre.
Wow, what an absurd thing to say. There's a huge difference between solo and grouping.
Basically:
I enjoy team games.
5+ teamates gives me the sensation of being part of a team.
15+ teammates does not improve this sensation, but does start to introduce negative things.
Negative things being:
your contribution gradually becomes less important as player count rises
others' contribution gradually becomes more likely to screw up the fight
others' presence gradually becomes more likely to screw up your overall gaming experience (jerks, micspam, immature people, that sort of thing)
scheduling game time
for PVP games, population balance sometimes becomes an issue (not with WOW's old 40vs40 Alterac Valley, but for certain with WAR's and similar games' open RVR.)
for PVP games, the relative balance of classes and abilities becomes warped (ranged DPS tends to become dominant as player count increases)
For games that have a definitive answer to "why have more than 15 players?" I typically have no problem playing them and enjoying them (Planetside's epic PVP.) But in a typical MMO, there isn't a reason to have more than 15 players.
As I've said before, I'm not against some one-off event which has me and 74 others kill some rampaging demon, but if it becomes any sort of a common thing it'll just be a big hassle.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
for PVP games, the relative balance of classes and abilities becomes warped (ranged DPS tends to become dominant as player count increases)
A bit offtopic, but I think the the amount of players is not the reason. Actually I think the reason is the design of the map. The bigger the amount of players the bigger the maps with more opportunities for range seem to get. Imaging 40vs40 in a huge castle with lots of corridors where players are spread out all around. I bet close combat classes would have an advantage.
Anyway, I, too, do not like huge raids very much. The most important reason for me, though, is the tank-spank-heal setup. 40+ players beeting on one big boss is rather boring imho. I think, encounters with lots of NPC groups would be much more fun. But this would not work for most MMORPGs where there is a huge difference between tanks and non-tanks.
Originally posted by Axehilt Negative things being:
your contribution gradually becomes less important as player count rises others' contribution gradually becomes more likely to screw up the fight others' presence gradually becomes more likely to screw up your overall gaming experience (jerks, micspam, immature people, that sort of thing) scheduling game time for PVP games, population balance sometimes becomes an issue (not with WOW's old 40vs40 Alterac Valley, but for certain with WAR's and similar games' open RVR.) for PVP games, the relative balance of classes and abilities becomes warped (ranged DPS tends to become dominant as player count increases)
If a raid can be scaled to accommodate 10 or 25 players, there is no reason why it can't be scaled to accommodate 48 or 72 players. You contribution only becomes less important if you bring more people than it was designed for.
Jerks are everywhere but a good community will weed them out eventually so they don't have such a negative impact on your gaming experience.
Originally posted by judex99 Small group are a waste of developer and content creator time, solo is much more fun and require more dynamic tactics... My god, what happened to this f***ing genre? Ten years ago we were looking for something more than singleplayer or lan gameplay... seem that most of you guys are proud with the "devolution" of the genre.
Wow, what an absurd thing to say. There's a huge difference between solo and grouping.
Basically:
I enjoy team games.
5+ teamates gives me the sensation of being part of a team.
15+ teammates does not improve this sensation, but does start to introduce negative things.
Negative things being:
your contribution gradually becomes less important as player count rises
others' contribution gradually becomes more likely to screw up the fight
others' presence gradually becomes more likely to screw up your overall gaming experience (jerks, micspam, immature people, that sort of thing)
scheduling game time
for PVP games, population balance sometimes becomes an issue (not with WOW's old 40vs40 Alterac Valley, but for certain with WAR's and similar games' open RVR.)
for PVP games, the relative balance of classes and abilities becomes warped (ranged DPS tends to become dominant as player count increases)
For games that have a definitive answer to "why have more than 15 players?" I typically have no problem playing them and enjoying them (Planetside's epic PVP.) But in a typical MMO, there isn't a reason to have more than 15 players.
As I've said before, I'm not against some one-off event which has me and 74 others kill some rampaging demon, but if it becomes any sort of a common thing it'll just be a big hassle.
on the button! and when they say it needs to be organized, well then thats the moment when fun disappears in my gaming.
I never liked raids. I'm glad to see them go. Next, there needs to be less use of instancing, and more detailed player interaction with the environment (with consequences that stick both on the environment and the player). Then I might consider resubscribing to an MMO. Otherwise, I'll just stick to TF2 and my stack of golden oldie single player games. :-P
Good luck finding a modern game with that kind of raiding mechanic. EverQuest lost millions of subscribers during the height of popularity precisely because of this kind of game play. That's why they came out with EverQuest 2, to try and grab those 2 million plus who abandoned EverQuest due to it's hardcore focus and bias. Gaming companies just aren't going to go back to 75 man raids, it doesn't pay and it alienates a huge percentage of the gaming population. Hell, 40 man raids in World of Warcraft alienated a lot of players so they ditched it quickly.
Umm EQ never broke a million even at it's peak.
Also one thing I have always found strange, EQ had a fraction of WoW's player base but we could feild these huge raids. Now WoW came along and I saw 40 man raids and I was like, "wow this will be no sweat to organize.." boy was I wrong.
Can't even get a 25 man most of the time without trying to fill spots out of guild. And I swear I have been in spots where even a 10 man was hard to get going!?! I just can't wrap my head around that. Everquest with multiple servers maybe 500k subs and we could raid 70 people deep everynight. WoW 15 million and can't even get a decent 10 man sometimes.
It's all about loot rewards and the fastest easiest way to get them. Pretty soon all dungeons will be soloable and will drop entire sets in one run. Epic!
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Good luck finding a modern game with that kind of raiding mechanic. EverQuest lost millions of subscribers during the height of popularity precisely because of this kind of game play. That's why they came out with EverQuest 2, to try and grab those 2 million plus who abandoned EverQuest due to it's hardcore focus and bias. Gaming companies just aren't going to go back to 75 man raids, it doesn't pay and it alienates a huge percentage of the gaming population. Hell, 40 man raids in World of Warcraft alienated a lot of players so they ditched it quickly.
That's odd because I feel alot more alienated, pushed aside, don't count with all the 10-25 man dungeons than I ever did in EQ or Molten Core raids. I understand why raid leaders ask for stats and armory links before you join a raid nowadays, but It's just my opinion that making encounters hard just for the sake of being hard, was a really dumb move. I mean, I'm sure the elitist jerks enjoy it, because for them, challenge means beating tough content at all costs. The big raids were more fun and alot more relaxing for me though. I didn't have to read ten pages of WoWhead so that I wouldn't get kicked out of a raid and blacklisted. That's never actually happened to me, but it does happen alot, and it has pretty much convinced me that it's not even worth it to try. I've never been to any raids past BWL for this reason alone.
I have exactly the opposite experience. BC raids are hard and cannot be PUG .. so i just cannot get it. WOTLK raids are much easier and so i raid a lot more. Sure, sometimes raid leaders will do a DPS check, but seldom they will kick players for not knowing the fight, unless you really cannot learn.
Plus, you can gear up enough to do those raids by doing 5-man and reputation grind/crafting. It has become a lot easier to get into raids these days.
Why would you want to sit around and try and gather that many people for a raid? And can you imagine WoW's loot system in a 75 man raid? Obviously the loot would be in larger quantities, but still... I wouldnt want to roll against half the raid for a piece of loot. As for what games have raids.. I only know of WoW.
See, back in EQ, you didn't raid for the items.
No wonder the game never got as popular as WOW. You need reward to motivate people. That is human nature. It is hard enoguh to get 25 people WITH REWARDS. WIthout items, why would i want to come?
Originally posted by nariusseldon Plus, do you really want to schedule and organize 40-75 people? 25 is hard enough.
Honestly? Hell yes I do We did it for years and although it was a nightmare to organize at times, it made winning all that much sweeter. I'm sorry but if you need 10 people to kill something thats not a raid, thats just a group and a half of people.
Well, you are obviously in the far minority. In fact, before WOTLK, less than a few percentage of the WOW players would raid exactly because of this nightmarish problem of logistic.
Why would you want to sit around and try and gather that many people for a raid? And can you imagine WoW's loot system in a 75 man raid? Obviously the loot would be in larger quantities, but still... I wouldnt want to roll against half the raid for a piece of loot. As for what games have raids.. I only know of WoW.
See, back in EQ, you didn't raid for the items.
No wonder the game never got as popular as WOW. You need reward to motivate people. That is human nature. It is hard enoguh to get 25 people WITH REWARDS. WIthout items, why would i want to come?
You see, this last reply sums up the problem of todays audience. You simply cannot see beyond epic items anymore, and its not even your fault.... the entire game genre has been reduced to it in most games.
To answer your question: Because we had fun, and because back then, progression wasnt measured only on your individual character, but as your guilds progress as a whole. The goal, the reward, was killing for example Lord Nagafen (the first red dragon in classic EQ), or later on clear Veeshans Peak, kill Quarm in PoTime and so on. I actually had more fun helping our main enchantress back then get her epic staff than working on my own.
These were team-spirit/community games, with most of the playerbase having at least a modicum of social skills. That does work a lot better, and especially a lot longer, than the current way.
Raids are a waste of developer and content creator time. Small groups are much more fun and require more dynamic tactics.
Small group are a waste of developer and content creator time, solo is much more fun and require more dynamic tactics...
My god, what happened to this f***ing genre? Ten years ago we were looking for something more than singleplayer or lan gameplay... seem that most of you guys are proud with the "devolution" of the genre.
Because 10 years ago, developers haven't figured out what is really fun for players yet. It is really much better experience to have the best of SP and MP, as opposed to force to do massive raids.
Just look at the popularity of the newer, easier, smaller WOW raids and that says a lot about what is fun for people.
Originally posted by judex99 Small group are a waste of developer and content creator time, solo is much more fun and require more dynamic tactics... My god, what happened to this f***ing genre? Ten years ago we were looking for something more than singleplayer or lan gameplay... seem that most of you guys are proud with the "devolution" of the genre.
Nothing has happened to this genre except maybe raids getting more popular. Small groups have ALWAYS been the core mechanic that the majority of players engaged in. Raids were something a small percentage of players had enough time to get to.
There is nothing except your personal opinion that would make 80 people banging on a dragon the apex of the MMORPG experience.
Well, you are obviously in the far minority. In fact, before WOTLK, less than a few percentage of the WOW players would raid exactly because of this nightmarish problem of logistic. Thank GOD they change it.
Yes we know a very small percentage of the WoW population actually enjoyed raiding compared to the majority of the EQ population. Hmmm I think that says something about the popularity of the tiny raids.
Why would you want to sit around and try and gather that many people for a raid? And can you imagine WoW's loot system in a 75 man raid? Obviously the loot would be in larger quantities, but still... I wouldnt want to roll against half the raid for a piece of loot. As for what games have raids.. I only know of WoW.
See, back in EQ, you didn't raid for the items.
No wonder the game never got as popular as WOW. You need reward to motivate people. That is human nature. It is hard enoguh to get 25 people WITH REWARDS. WIthout items, why would i want to come?
You see, this last reply sums up the problem of todays audience. You simply cannot see beyond epic items anymore, and its not even your fault.... the entire game genre has been reduced to it in most games.
To answer your question: Because we had fun, and because back then, progression wasnt measured only on your individual character, but as your guilds progress as a whole. The goal, the reward, was killing for example Lord Nagafen (the first red dragon in classic EQ), or later on clear Veeshans Peak, kill Quarm in PoTime and so on. I actually had more fun helping our main enchantress back then get her epic staff than working on my own.
These were team-spirit/community games, with most of the playerbase having at least a modicum of social skills. That does work a lot better, and especially a lot longer, than the current way.
Why is the a problem? It is just human nature. Games are there to entertain us, not to force us into any behavioral mode. There is no good or bad about it .. it is just .. it.
Obviously if u r more interested in helping someone to get her epic staff, then your own, you are NOT a representive human being, and there is no reason why developers should cater to your need, and ignore the other 999 of their customers.
Even back in the days of EQ, i don't believe ALL of the player base was in the big raiding close-knit guilds. I was there and i know plenty of "casuals" then who have no where to go at the end game.
WOW is a huge step forward for the larger player base.
Well, you are obviously in the far minority. In fact, before WOTLK, less than a few percentage of the WOW players would raid exactly because of this nightmarish problem of logistic. Thank GOD they change it.
Yes we know a very small percentage of the WoW population actually enjoyed raiding compared to the majority of the EQ population. Hmmm I think that says something about the popularity of the tiny raids.
First of all, it is not clear that more than a few percentage of the EQ player base raids. I was there and i, and i know quite a few others who did not.
Second, there are a lot more people raiding in WOW now precisely because they have downsized the raids.
Second, there are a lot more people raiding in WOW now precisely because they have downsized the raids.
And there are a lot more people not raiding in WoW now precisely because they have downsized the raids.
Why can't there be room for both? I have nothing against WoW's 1-2 group sized raids, if you like them thats great, but there is plenty of room for both.
Personally i have yet to have as much fun raiding in WoW as i did playing EQ1. The closest was probally back in vanilla WoW doing 40 man MC,Naxx,BWL and AQ40. I enjoyed the large raids myself to me they actually felt like raids not just a party and people actually seemed less emo during the raids and had more fun it's hard to do a raid in WoW now without someone getting butt hurt over something.
The trend seems to be raids are getting smaller and smaller at what point does it stop it went from 60+ raids -> 40 man Raids -> 25 man raids -> 10 man raids what's next 5 man is going to be the new raid then solo raids after that? Might as well just stop playing mmo's all together at that point and just stick to FPS or the like.
There was another post where someone said it was easier back then to get 60+ people together in EQ1 for raids then the smaller raids now and i would have to agree we had no issues back in the day getting that many people together every night 5 nights a week for raids in EQ1. We also didn't have a issue getting 40 people together back in vanilla WoW but as soon as it dropped down to 25 man raids then 10 man raids it just seemed to start getting harder and harder.
Personally i have yet to have as much fun raiding in WoW as i did playing EQ1. The closest was probally back in vanilla WoW doing 40 man MC,Naxx,BWL and AQ40. I enjoyed the large raids myself to me they actually felt like raids not just a party and people actually seemed less emo during the raids and had more fun it's hard to do a raid in WoW now without someone getting butt hurt over something. The trend seems to be raids are getting smaller and smaller at what point does it stop it went from 60+ raids -> 40 man Raids -> 25 man raids -> 10 man raids what's next 5 man is going to be the new raid then solo raids after that? Might as well just stop playing mmo's all together at that point and just stick to FPS or the like. There was another post where someone said it was easier back then to get 60+ people together in EQ1 for raids then the smaller raids now and i would have to agree we had no issues back in the day getting that many people together every night 5 nights a week for raids in EQ1. We also didn't have a issue getting 40 people together back in vanilla WoW but as soon as it dropped down to 25 man raids then 10 man raids it just seemed to start getting harder and harder.
Originally posted by nariusseldon Why is the a problem? It is just human nature. Games are there to entertain us, not to force us into any behavioral mode. There is no good or bad about it .. it is just .. it. Obviously if u r more interested in helping someone to get her epic staff, then your own, you are NOT a representive human being, and there is no reason why developers should cater to your need, and ignore the other 999 of their customers. Even back in the days of EQ, i don't believe ALL of the player base was in the big raiding close-knit guilds. I was there and i know plenty of "casuals" then who have no where to go at the end game. WOW is a huge step forward for the larger player base.
Well better make that 998 i was one of those people who enjoyed helping other's first over myself back in EQ1 and you know what almost ever person i helped was there to help me when i was working on my Ragebringer on my rogue and my water sprinkler on my cleric.
And there are a lot more people not raiding in WoW now precisely because they have downsized the raids.
I doubt that "plenty" is correct. The amount of hardcore people who enjoy/miss the mssaive raids is pretty small comoared to the millions that enjoy the 10/25 variety. No contest really. I bet less than 20,000 people ever did an epic EQ raid.
Originally posted by Murashu
Why can't there be room for both? I have nothing against WoW's 1-2 group sized raids, if you like them thats great, but there is plenty of room for both.
It comes down to development costs. Companies have limited resources and time and they have to choose where to put it. Creating MMO content of any sort is expensive in time and money.
A bit offtopic, but I think the the amount of players is not the reason //for massive PVP tending towards ranged DPS classes -axe// Actually I think the reason is the design of the map. The bigger the amount of players the bigger the maps with more opportunities for range seem to get. Imaging 40vs40 in a huge castle with lots of corridors where players are spread out all around. I bet close combat classes would have an advantage.
Damnit, you're absolutely right! Should've realized this myself, when I was ORVRing in WAR earlier today, and intentionally avoided some trees so that a melee class had to approach me over coverless terrain.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If a raid can be scaled to accommodate 10 or 25 players, there is no reason why it can't be scaled to accommodate 48 or 72 players. You contribution only becomes less important if you bring more people than it was designed for. Jerks are everywhere but a good community will weed them out eventually so they don't have such a negative impact on your gaming experience.
Scaling isn't the problem.
There are two things which are important:
I want the gameplay feedback loop to be as strong as possible. Feedback loop meaning, "If I play well, I succeed. If I play poorly, I fail." This is one of the basics of game design.
I want to be part of a team. This necessitates weakening the feedback loop (because I won't be 100% in control of my success/failure.)
As player count increases, the gameplay feedback loop weakens but the sensation of being part of a team doesn't increase after you've hit ~6 members or so.
Solo: 100% feedback loop strength (1 out of 1 players)
5-man: 20% feedback loop strength (1/5th)
10-man: 10% feedback loop strength (1/10th)
75-man: 1.3% feedback loop strength (1/75th)
So yes, your contribution is less meaningful in a 75-man. By a lot.
This is without delving into the style of fights where 1 person can screw it up for everyone, which become a drastically bigger hassle as raid size increases.
Again, I'm not totally against the occasional 75-man event, and even 10-15 man content doesn't really bother me that much (because my contribution is still somewhat important.) But beyond that, my contribution becomes much less meaningful.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by Axehilt Scaling isn't the problem. There are two things which are important:
I want the gameplay feedback loop to be as strong as possible. Feedback loop meaning, "If I play well, I succeed. If I play poorly, I fail." This is one of the basics of game design. I want to be part of a team. This necessitates weakening the feedback loop (because I won't be 100% in control of my success/failure.)
As player count increases, the gameplay feedback loop weakens but the sensation of being part of a team doesn't increase after you've hit ~6 members or so.
So yes, your contribution is less meaningful in a 75-man. By a lot. This is without delving into the style of fights where 1 person can screw it up for everyone, which become a drastically bigger hassle as raid size increases. Again, I'm not totally against the occasional 75-man event, and even 10-15 man content doesn't really bother me that much (because my contribution is still somewhat important.) But beyond that, my contribution becomes much less meaningful.
Your contribution would only be less meaningful if the encounter wasn't scaled properly. It's up to the devs to decide how much each player needs to contribute in order for the raid to be successful and I don't understand why you think the devs would make go thru the trouble of making a large scale event then just dumb it down with massive numbers without increasing the difficulty.
If you are part of a group that requires each member to put forth 90% effort to achieve success then join a raid and only have to put forth 50% effort then yes I would agree your contribution is less meaningful and that the devs failed to scale the encounter to the appropriate number of players.
Comments
Wow, what an absurd thing to say. There's a huge difference between solo and grouping.
Basically:
Negative things being:
For games that have a definitive answer to "why have more than 15 players?" I typically have no problem playing them and enjoying them (Planetside's epic PVP.) But in a typical MMO, there isn't a reason to have more than 15 players.
As I've said before, I'm not against some one-off event which has me and 74 others kill some rampaging demon, but if it becomes any sort of a common thing it'll just be a big hassle.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
A bit offtopic, but I think the the amount of players is not the reason. Actually I think the reason is the design of the map. The bigger the amount of players the bigger the maps with more opportunities for range seem to get. Imaging 40vs40 in a huge castle with lots of corridors where players are spread out all around. I bet close combat classes would have an advantage.
Anyway, I, too, do not like huge raids very much. The most important reason for me, though, is the tank-spank-heal setup. 40+ players beeting on one big boss is rather boring imho. I think, encounters with lots of NPC groups would be much more fun. But this would not work for most MMORPGs where there is a huge difference between tanks and non-tanks.
If a raid can be scaled to accommodate 10 or 25 players, there is no reason why it can't be scaled to accommodate 48 or 72 players. You contribution only becomes less important if you bring more people than it was designed for.
Jerks are everywhere but a good community will weed them out eventually so they don't have such a negative impact on your gaming experience.
Wow, what an absurd thing to say. There's a huge difference between solo and grouping.
Basically:
Negative things being:
For games that have a definitive answer to "why have more than 15 players?" I typically have no problem playing them and enjoying them (Planetside's epic PVP.) But in a typical MMO, there isn't a reason to have more than 15 players.
As I've said before, I'm not against some one-off event which has me and 74 others kill some rampaging demon, but if it becomes any sort of a common thing it'll just be a big hassle.
on the button! and when they say it needs to be organized, well then thats the moment when fun disappears in my gaming.
m0lly likes your writing too
agreeing way!
Umm EQ never broke a million even at it's peak.
Also one thing I have always found strange, EQ had a fraction of WoW's player base but we could feild these huge raids. Now WoW came along and I saw 40 man raids and I was like, "wow this will be no sweat to organize.." boy was I wrong.
Can't even get a 25 man most of the time without trying to fill spots out of guild. And I swear I have been in spots where even a 10 man was hard to get going!?! I just can't wrap my head around that. Everquest with multiple servers maybe 500k subs and we could raid 70 people deep everynight. WoW 15 million and can't even get a decent 10 man sometimes.
Or even a decent 5 man team for WoW's arena ;-)
MMORPG games are more and more becoming offline games with a multiplayer option to show off your e-p...
It's all about loot rewards and the fastest easiest way to get them. Pretty soon all dungeons will be soloable and will drop entire sets in one run. Epic!
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
That's odd because I feel alot more alienated, pushed aside, don't count with all the 10-25 man dungeons than I ever did in EQ or Molten Core raids. I understand why raid leaders ask for stats and armory links before you join a raid nowadays, but It's just my opinion that making encounters hard just for the sake of being hard, was a really dumb move. I mean, I'm sure the elitist jerks enjoy it, because for them, challenge means beating tough content at all costs. The big raids were more fun and alot more relaxing for me though. I didn't have to read ten pages of WoWhead so that I wouldn't get kicked out of a raid and blacklisted. That's never actually happened to me, but it does happen alot, and it has pretty much convinced me that it's not even worth it to try. I've never been to any raids past BWL for this reason alone.
I have exactly the opposite experience. BC raids are hard and cannot be PUG .. so i just cannot get it. WOTLK raids are much easier and so i raid a lot more. Sure, sometimes raid leaders will do a DPS check, but seldom they will kick players for not knowing the fight, unless you really cannot learn.
Plus, you can gear up enough to do those raids by doing 5-man and reputation grind/crafting. It has become a lot easier to get into raids these days.
See, back in EQ, you didn't raid for the items.
No wonder the game never got as popular as WOW. You need reward to motivate people. That is human nature. It is hard enoguh to get 25 people WITH REWARDS. WIthout items, why would i want to come?
Honestly? Hell yes I do
We did it for years and although it was a nightmare to organize at times, it made winning all that much sweeter. I'm sorry but if you need 10 people to kill something thats not a raid, thats just a group and a half of people.
Well, you are obviously in the far minority. In fact, before WOTLK, less than a few percentage of the WOW players would raid exactly because of this nightmarish problem of logistic.
Thank GOD they change it.
See, back in EQ, you didn't raid for the items.
No wonder the game never got as popular as WOW. You need reward to motivate people. That is human nature. It is hard enoguh to get 25 people WITH REWARDS. WIthout items, why would i want to come?
You see, this last reply sums up the problem of todays audience. You simply cannot see beyond epic items anymore, and its not even your fault.... the entire game genre has been reduced to it in most games.
To answer your question: Because we had fun, and because back then, progression wasnt measured only on your individual character, but as your guilds progress as a whole. The goal, the reward, was killing for example Lord Nagafen (the first red dragon in classic EQ), or later on clear Veeshans Peak, kill Quarm in PoTime and so on. I actually had more fun helping our main enchantress back then get her epic staff than working on my own.
These were team-spirit/community games, with most of the playerbase having at least a modicum of social skills. That does work a lot better, and especially a lot longer, than the current way.
Small group are a waste of developer and content creator time, solo is much more fun and require more dynamic tactics...
My god, what happened to this f***ing genre? Ten years ago we were looking for something more than singleplayer or lan gameplay... seem that most of you guys are proud with the "devolution" of the genre.
Because 10 years ago, developers haven't figured out what is really fun for players yet. It is really much better experience to have the best of SP and MP, as opposed to force to do massive raids.
Just look at the popularity of the newer, easier, smaller WOW raids and that says a lot about what is fun for people.
Nothing has happened to this genre except maybe raids getting more popular. Small groups have ALWAYS been the core mechanic that the majority of players engaged in. Raids were something a small percentage of players had enough time to get to.
There is nothing except your personal opinion that would make 80 people banging on a dragon the apex of the MMORPG experience.
Yes we know a very small percentage of the WoW population actually enjoyed raiding compared to the majority of the EQ population. Hmmm I think that says something about the popularity of the tiny raids.
See, back in EQ, you didn't raid for the items.
No wonder the game never got as popular as WOW. You need reward to motivate people. That is human nature. It is hard enoguh to get 25 people WITH REWARDS. WIthout items, why would i want to come?
You see, this last reply sums up the problem of todays audience. You simply cannot see beyond epic items anymore, and its not even your fault.... the entire game genre has been reduced to it in most games.
To answer your question: Because we had fun, and because back then, progression wasnt measured only on your individual character, but as your guilds progress as a whole. The goal, the reward, was killing for example Lord Nagafen (the first red dragon in classic EQ), or later on clear Veeshans Peak, kill Quarm in PoTime and so on. I actually had more fun helping our main enchantress back then get her epic staff than working on my own.
These were team-spirit/community games, with most of the playerbase having at least a modicum of social skills. That does work a lot better, and especially a lot longer, than the current way.
Why is the a problem? It is just human nature. Games are there to entertain us, not to force us into any behavioral mode. There is no good or bad about it .. it is just .. it.
Obviously if u r more interested in helping someone to get her epic staff, then your own, you are NOT a representive human being, and there is no reason why developers should cater to your need, and ignore the other 999 of their customers.
Even back in the days of EQ, i don't believe ALL of the player base was in the big raiding close-knit guilds. I was there and i know plenty of "casuals" then who have no where to go at the end game.
WOW is a huge step forward for the larger player base.
Yes we know a very small percentage of the WoW population actually enjoyed raiding compared to the majority of the EQ population. Hmmm I think that says something about the popularity of the tiny raids.
First of all, it is not clear that more than a few percentage of the EQ player base raids. I was there and i, and i know quite a few others who did not.
Second, there are a lot more people raiding in WOW now precisely because they have downsized the raids.
And there are a lot more people not raiding in WoW now precisely because they have downsized the raids.
Why can't there be room for both? I have nothing against WoW's 1-2 group sized raids, if you like them thats great, but there is plenty of room for both.
Personally i have yet to have as much fun raiding in WoW as i did playing EQ1. The closest was probally back in vanilla WoW doing 40 man MC,Naxx,BWL and AQ40. I enjoyed the large raids myself to me they actually felt like raids not just a party and people actually seemed less emo during the raids and had more fun it's hard to do a raid in WoW now without someone getting butt hurt over something.
The trend seems to be raids are getting smaller and smaller at what point does it stop it went from 60+ raids -> 40 man Raids -> 25 man raids -> 10 man raids what's next 5 man is going to be the new raid then solo raids after that? Might as well just stop playing mmo's all together at that point and just stick to FPS or the like.
There was another post where someone said it was easier back then to get 60+ people together in EQ1 for raids then the smaller raids now and i would have to agree we had no issues back in the day getting that many people together every night 5 nights a week for raids in EQ1. We also didn't have a issue getting 40 people together back in vanilla WoW but as soon as it dropped down to 25 man raids then 10 man raids it just seemed to start getting harder and harder.
The reality of your post crushed me, so I made a rant of it on my blog sadfacegamer.blogspot.com/
Well better make that 998 i was one of those people who enjoyed helping other's first over myself back in EQ1 and you know what almost ever person i helped was there to help me when i was working on my Ragebringer on my rogue and my water sprinkler on my cleric.
I doubt that "plenty" is correct. The amount of hardcore people who enjoy/miss the mssaive raids is pretty small comoared to the millions that enjoy the 10/25 variety. No contest really. I bet less than 20,000 people ever did an epic EQ raid.
It comes down to development costs. Companies have limited resources and time and they have to choose where to put it. Creating MMO content of any sort is expensive in time and money.
Damnit, you're absolutely right!
Should've realized this myself, when I was ORVRing in WAR earlier today, and intentionally avoided some trees so that a melee class had to approach me over coverless terrain.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Scaling isn't the problem.
There are two things which are important:
As player count increases, the gameplay feedback loop weakens but the sensation of being part of a team doesn't increase after you've hit ~6 members or so.
So yes, your contribution is less meaningful in a 75-man. By a lot.
This is without delving into the style of fights where 1 person can screw it up for everyone, which become a drastically bigger hassle as raid size increases.
Again, I'm not totally against the occasional 75-man event, and even 10-15 man content doesn't really bother me that much (because my contribution is still somewhat important.) But beyond that, my contribution becomes much less meaningful.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Your contribution would only be less meaningful if the encounter wasn't scaled properly. It's up to the devs to decide how much each player needs to contribute in order for the raid to be successful and I don't understand why you think the devs would make go thru the trouble of making a large scale event then just dumb it down with massive numbers without increasing the difficulty.
If you are part of a group that requires each member to put forth 90% effort to achieve success then join a raid and only have to put forth 50% effort then yes I would agree your contribution is less meaningful and that the devs failed to scale the encounter to the appropriate number of players.