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About to give up.
Ezehiel
Member Posts: 36
I'm about to give the MMO genre up. I just can't find any MMO which is worth playing!
No good crafting mmo's..
No good Pve mmo's..
I mean, there has to be more mmo's out there than Lotro, WoW, AoC and WAR.
I'm becoming very bored with all the mmo's which I know of and I'm kind of desperate after a new game to play..
What games are you playing and why do you find them funny/good?
Comments
ok, here is my advise...
stop trying!
Grab a copy of Dragon age: Origins, or Assassins Creed 2, whatever... MMOs have been so stale in recent years that I find it impossible to find anything that is new, exciting and an actual evolution - gameplay wise. Some ol', same ol'
Join us?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/261008/Having-an-adventure-again.html
Our entire goal is starting a wonderful new community in a PvE game with a lot of other things to do. Take a look and see if this is for you!
How do I "join" you?
Well, we're about to get our own guild forum started. So, keep an eye out for that information and it should be easy enough to jump in.
The idea sounds awesome. I'll will indeed keep an eye out for that.
MMOs are such boring games in general. Stories are tacked on and meaningless; character advancement is the only goal; there's not really much to do. I'll probably be sitting out, watching from the sidelines until some kind of revolution takes place and the way these games are designed changes significantly.
I write for That's a Terrible Idea, a blog about MMO and game design.
lets see you got...
Warhammer= total fail in crafting system, and pve is at best horrid as t3 is empty so get rdy to be alone.
Aion= Crafting system wasn't horrid just takes tons of time to get up to good, only to be undercut by gold buyers selling off the excess they have from masters and have no concept of value yet. It will keep you busy for I'd say......5-6 days to get to 399 ( cap is 449 ) but the lack of materials/prices for the expert quest is just wrong you can blame drop rates on this. Lets see pve for aion is like chewing leather and expecting tender beef jerky.......Bots, bots, bots and then most quests do have good story talking to the giver etc. but alot of them are cookie cutter go there kill X of these come back TY. There is some elite areas like steel rake which is not horrid but for me don't fit in well to the game and be prepared to spend hours in there and hope you have capable people in the groups. Oh and for the most part the communities are rude, immature and down right stupid. With the exception of some nice people in there for the most part you will meet emo rage children who whine 24/7. ( I did meet some nice people there but shadowed by the overall rudeness of people. BTW flawless you are douches.
EVE Online= Starting out trying to craft and make a income you will prolly fail as the player driven market is so competitive and harsh. Don't waste hard earned income on this if you plan to start out and build a dream mining trit as it will be epic fail.
hum.......not played much else so cannot comment on games like AoC, etc. so someone else as I'd like to hear about how the crafting etc. is there.
Everyone is pretty much banking on SWTOR right now to bring the mmo world out of the downward spiral it's in but to go "all in" on it as of yet is very hard even as a starwars fan reading how the game is progressing only makes me wonder more on how it will work. But bioware is a good respectable company and I would like to see the ideas thet progress down the road before it launches to beta defo something to keep a eye on.
Give Guild Wars a try, there is a free trial somewhere on their main website.
If you want something new and fresh then go to the indy games. EVE is a good MMO example of new thinking. In terms of other genres I suggest games like Hinterlands or Trine. As far as trying the same old in diffrent outfit - then go for Torchlight. All these titles focus on gameplay rather than fancy cutshenes and complicated extras. And it works great.
To be honest this thread sickens me. Not only that but its bias too. I dont see where mmos have been stale in recent years. We have had lord of the rings online, age of conan, warhammer online, guild wars expansions, warcraft expansions, releases like the cronicles of spellborn and darkfall that cater to a minority, vanguard:saga of heroes, everquest 2, a few popular free to play ones also. In the words of Dark Vador " I find your lack of faith disturbing". Maybee your mmo nerves/hormones are shot from wow or you taking something for granit because not onl has the las few years not been stale but theres lots of new mmos comming out that are going to be great too. I look at it like geting new players to play mmos it tougher then other online games for the fact that it requires more time generaly speaking, but the mmo world has done a good job of keeping a player base, hence why we still have decent titles like star wars knight of the republic, final fantasy 14, and star trek online.
I don't know that list seems highly subjective and not much of a revolution at all.
Severely limit vertical character progression. A character should not be inherently more powerful the longer he spends playing the game. A character should be more powerful if the player plans its ability use better or plays the game better.
why not? It seems to me that it can be an equalizing force. Especially as many of these games have some sort of twitch based component. Why shouldn't a player who has "trained" longer be the better player? Doesn't have to be but this is just a preference as far as I'm concerned.
Focus on horizontal character progression. More abilities that are of relatively equal power become available as characters progress.
This could be good but I tend to wonder what the use of more powers that are equal to the powers that one already has is going to get players? If a player can be competitive with what he has then I see no reason to get more other than to "get more".
Foster non-combat professions and give players meaningful content that doesn’t involve fighting.
This I can agree with but with a caveat. If a player requires special components from a raid boss then they are going to have to either barter with those who are equipped to combat it or they themselves must get it. Just as the converse would be true and someone who doesn't like to craft would have to seek out a crafter for certain gear and thus paying the prices that crafter would command for his services.
Do not force players into PvP. But reward players for doing it—if it’s a higher risk activity, it should be more rewarding.
I can agree with this to a point. PvP is a higher risk activity so this just seems to me to be pvp players saying "we should get the best rewards because we pvp". I better way would be that all higher risk activities, regardless of whether they are pvp or pve would get better rewards and then allow players to choose their poison.
Death needs to have meaning. The obsession with single-character play has to end. It yields too much investment in one character which leads to severe risk aversion.
Completley disagree on many fronts. First of all, death penalties are subjective. What one person finds to be a risk is another person's easy or "non-risk". As far as risk aversion it also contradicts itself. Any death penalty where the player is going to feel the burn is going to automatically make players who are not risk takers "not take the risks". It assume that all players are the same and react to things the same way. Nothing can be further from the truth. There is a very real reason that some people hang glide, climb everest, race motor cycles and others paint, garden, Sew or spend time reading. Not to say that they are mutually exclusive but there do seem to be differences between the people I've seen who are adrenaline junkies and those who avoid such things. And desiring to invest in one characer seems to be a personal preference. Otherwise it's just another declaration of how one should play. Just someone else's opinion.
Cut down on the role of chance. We can create sophisticated, innovative, strategically deep combat mechanics, we don’t have to rely on random number generators to provide spice in MMORPGs.
Why? chance plays a huge role in many games. Heck, even in Chess having black or white (determined by holding different color pawns in either hand and allowing one to choose the hand) makes a difference in how each side will play. There is chance in football, basketball and cards. There is no reason why chance can 't be a part of mmo's either.
When a player is in-game, he should be doing something meaningful. Gameplay has to have effects, even if they are small, on both other characters and the player’s character. These effects build a story and a living world which reward intelligent action and planning.
The more I read these the more it seems like it's just one persons declaration on how other's should play. Let players decide what is meaningful, even if it is sitting in town chatting or collecting monkey pets. There are players who don't like story nor are interested in "intelligent action or planning". They just want to be social and collect things.
Let the players make the story. The world can have a rich history that rewards thorough reading, but the present needs to be in control of the players. They need to have the power to make game-level stories happen and to record them in a way that is publicly viewable.
Players can always make a story. This is a misconception when faced with games that have storylines. I highly suggest they take some improv lessons/classes because they will find out that all that is needed for a story is for a player to have a decent imagination. The other misconception is that being thrust into a world with a prominent backstory is confining. Improv actors are faced with many such constraints. It acts as the spine for their work. as Stravinsky said, rules can actually set the artist free. I find this to be very true.
Encourage community-building behavior. Reward players for being in groups, guilds, and factions. Give groups experience bonuses, better item drops, and other perks for participating in the social part of the game. If a game encourages socialization, it more quickly engenders social responsibility in its players—this binds players and keeps them playing the game.
This is just pro grouping propaganda. "Since we feel that grouping is the better way to play, allow those who join us to get the better rewards.". Oh, and "people are all the same and all will benefit the same way in social situations". I'm pretty confident that people are not the same and that some enjoy being at the table listening to a conversation and that some enjoy driving the conversation.
Focus on the player’s in-game experience. If you give the player a rich world, rewarding actions to undertake, and well-constructed game mechanics, your game can still fail. It’s crucial that you present the game to the player with the utmost care. The game has to allow the player to plan and make intelligent decisions: the player must be presented with appropriate information, well laid-out and easy to read and understand.
Well that I can agree with, games should be clear and easy to understand and players should have access to everything they need to play.
Otherwise all this seems to me is someones' manifesto on what they like and what they want.
edit: I'll also add that there seems to already have been a revolution. Death penatlies were more strict, grouping seemed to be the norm and games like UO or orginal EQ seem to be different than games that are coming out today.
How many players did those games attract as compared to today. More and more people are joining online games today than ever. And in some cases these are players who are not gamers. If anything, the people have spokent and the average person can now be a part of online games. That seems to be pretty revolutionary to me.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Compare chess to WoW. In chess, you can train for five years and progress significantly, but your progression is actually based on gaining knowledge and capability and required attention, analysis, and dedicated mental activity. In WoW, you play for five years and advance significantly, but it's mostly due to sitting in front of your computer screen and mindlessly pressing buttons. There is no real depth here, just a lot of things to do that conceivably almost anyone can do if given enough free time.
What good are different abilities that are roughly equal in power? Go through an RPG solo and only use offensive fire magic. You'll see that even those other abilities that are technically equal in power have important uses. Once again, I'm aiming for depth here.
Irrelevant to death being meaningless. Death is common and meaningful in life, yet people flout it by doing really stupid stuff all the time. I don't see how the fact that risk aversion is variable should change the point that death should have more meaning in MMOs. I feel the burn when I have to walk for 10 minutes to get back to a dungeon after I've died in [insert themepark mmo here]. Doesn't mean I'm not going to do the dungeon and therefore stop having any shot at having fun.Players have always had fun in the face of risk. The risk makes it more fun to many people. I think that players will take risks if that is the only way to get to their goals. The problem is that the paths of least resistance in themepark MMOs are awful, boring, but there are few alternatives worth exploring that aren't just adding arbitrary difficulty.
People do have different reasons for playing games, as I've written here, and I acknowledge that fact. I think that MMOs can do a better job of satisfying different kinds of gamers, though, by being better games. The current state of MMOs is mediocre (at best) games being held up by social activity.
There are no options among mainstream MMOs, so no one can actually choose to not invest in one character (alt-creation is not relevant here). Every MMO I've played has been designed around the player sticking with one character. In the absence of options, I don't think you can make your criticism. People like things the way they are because they know of nothing else. Just because my idea is different doesn't mean it should be degraded out-of-hand.
REDUCE the role of chance, not eliminate it. Chance is appropriate in many places.
If chance played less of a role in MMOs, they could have more strategic depth and would be less prone to be decided by luck. Of course, if the design of the game sucks, it doesn't matter the amount of chance involved. The amount of chance in MMOs--considering how little failure plays a role in the game--is excessive. Failure isn't punished; in the long term, success is the only possible outcome. If the game had failure scenarios that made sense, then perhaps you could justify chance playing a large role.
I'm providing a framework for many different play-styles to have a meaningful impact on the game instead of allowing combat to reign supreme.I'm interested in making MMOs fun games. The social aspects will always come along for the ride as long as there are people playing the game.
I'm talking about taking the focus off of rigid static storylines that designers force unnaturally into MMOs and instead allowing the players to create stories that are the focus of the game experience.
I'm suggesting that we put mechanics into the game that allow the players to make the story in the game world. So Stravinsky would be in favor of my approach more than he would be in the approach of shoehorning players into a static story in a game full of characters going through the exact same static story at different points.
Pro-grouping propaganda? Through this suggestion, I'm primarily trying to justify social activity in MMOs to all players, including powergamers. Social interaction is one of the biggest reasons to actually play MMOs and THE reason why people continue to play them for so long. It should be a focus of the game and leveraged to its full potential. EVE has taken the first steps down this road and it has paid off handsomely for them.
To some extent, you are definitely right. I don't know enough about how everyone has fun to make definitive statements, but I can offer my analysis and suggestions instead of passively eating whatever I'm given and yelling at people who disagree with me. The most important part is that I did not decide the 10 points will-nilly. I put a lot of thought behind them which you can't really see unless you follow the blog. I wanted to put my mission statement out front, though, to draw in people who are interested in this kind of thing.
It's really easy to go around and spout opinions arbitrarily without moving the conversation forward. My blog tries to contribute the conversation by offering honest analysis, not just baseless opinion... I hope I'm not failing too badly at it.
I think it's an evolutionary movement in a direction that makes marketing/business sense more than it makes ludic sense. Naturally WoW gets a lot of people who otherwise aren't in the market because its a mass market product that has gained cultural pull.
I'm not making a business case with my 10 points, I'm making a game design case. So that could be our disconnect.
I write for That's a Terrible Idea, a blog about MMO and game design.
FFXIV, look it up. You have to wait a year, but time goes fast.
Crafting, PvE are few of it's main focuses.
FFXIV, look it up. You have to wait a year, but time goes fast.
Crafting, PvE are few of it's main focuses.
Please don't make me laugh, the game is still in development for god's sake.
To the OP: Take a good break, or maybe find aspects of game that you never ventured into before.
Compare chess to WoW. In chess, you can train for five years and progress significantly, but your progression is actually based on gaining knowledge and capability and required attention, analysis, and dedicated mental activity. In WoW, you play for five years and advance significantly, but it's mostly due to sitting in front of your computer screen and mindlessly pressing buttons. There is no real depth here, just a lot of things to do that conceivably almost anyone can do if given enough free time.
but that assumes that all people are playing these games as "games" as opposed to a social experience along with story telling narrative. So sure, you want it to be more like a game but I don't believe everyone wants it to be a "game" in the sense that one has to hone skills and learn more. There are many people who approach these games more like toys. So sure it's called a "game" but they have become so much more to so many other people. This is not to say that it shouldn't have elements of gameplay and challenges but I think that people who really desire challenging gameplay to excercise their minds are looking for it in other ways. I know that I do.
What good are different abilities that are roughly equal in power? Go through an RPG solo and only use offensive fire magic. You'll see that even those other abilities that are technically equal in power have important uses. Once again, I'm aiming for depth here.
Irrelevant to death being meaningless. Death is common and meaningful in life, yet people flout it by doing really stupid stuff all the time. I don't see how the fact that risk aversion is variable should change the point that death should have more meaning in MMOsWhen you say "equal power" I read that as being similar skills of equal power as opposed to different skills that could be considered of the same tier of power. Though how do you equate fire using skills with healing skills as being equal in power? Is it just that one balances the damage of the other?
Yet people also do whatever they can to avoid it. Not everyone flouts it or live lives in a way that will bring it on sooner rather than later. My experience with death penalites and watching others with death penalties is that a group or individual might just try something even though it might mean game death and failure. And there are also players who will not try it precisely because there is game death and failure. A perfect example was a time in Vanguard when someone asked for my help. We arrived at the area and he realized that we were overmatched by the mobs. I suggested that we might be able to take them if we were careful and his reply was that it really wasn't worth it to make the attempt. I feel the burn when I have to walk for 10 minutes to get back to a dungeon after I've died in [insert themepark mmo here]. Doesn't mean I'm not going to do the dungeon and therefore stop having any shot at having fun.
Then my point stands. When I have to walk to my corpse or wait around for the death sickness I end up loggin as I find this tedious. But if it's xp loss or xp debt then I tend to continue playing. Yet others find xp loss or xp debt to be more hard core and would prefer the walking. It's all very subjective. I recall a time in Lineage 2 where I died 4 times and dropped items and that was pretty much it for me. But a lot of players would have logged the second time they lost xp and dropped items. And yet some in wow would just go back after the 4th time of failing where I would log after the second time.
There are no options among mainstream MMOs, so no one can actually choose to not invest in one character (alt-creation is not relevant here). Every MMO I've played has been designed around the player sticking with one character. In the absence of options, I don't think you can make your criticism. People like things the way they are because they know of nothing else. Just because my idea is different doesn't mean it should be degraded out-of-hand.
then I'm not clear on what you are saying because you are dismissing the alt issue. I dont' see these games as being games that lean on you sticking with one character. One can clearly make alts in many of these games and have somewhat differnet experiences or rely upon different skills to meet their goals.
REDUCE the role of chance, not eliminate it. Chance is appropriate in many places.
If chance played less of a role in MMOs, they could have more strategic depth and would be less prone to be decided by luck. Of course, if the design of the game sucks, it doesn't matter the amount of chance involved. The amount of chance in MMOs--considering how little failure plays a role in the game--is excessive. Failure isn't punished; in the long term, success is the only possible outcome. If the game had failure scenarios that made sense, then perhaps you could justify chance playing a large role.
fine with the reduction. However, I'm just not convinced that people play these games to be challenging and that they are playing them more for the social/story aspect.
I'm providing a framework for many different play-styles to have a meaningful impact on the game instead of allowing combat to reign supreme.I'm interested in making MMOs fun games. The social aspects will always come along for the ride as long as there are people playing the game.
but that's the thing, You wanting to make a fun game is all well and good and I applaud it. However, as I have said, I don't believe players are approaching these games as actual games where there are challenges that need to be overcome. So yes, social aspects will happen as we are social beings to some extent or another. But I think players aren't interested in these games as games where one applies oneself and either fail or succeed. Heck, even single player games have less of a sting when one considers that there really isn't complete failure. You can always reload a save and try again. Though I will agree with you that combat should not be the only way to play these games.
I'm talking about taking the focus off of rigid static storylines that designers force unnaturally into MMOs and instead allowing the players to create stories that are the focus of the game experience.
I'm suggesting that we put mechanics into the game that allow the players to make the story in the game world. So Stravinsky would be in favor of my approach more than he would be in the approach of shoehorning players into a static story in a game full of characters going through the exact same static story at different points.
And what Im' saying is that regardless of the story that is put in my the devs, players can still make up their own stories. Heck, I've seen it happen in LOTRO where plaeyrs were roleplaying (in general chat) while I was going through moria. I had to smile to myself because they were clearlyy on an adventure and it had nothign to do with anythign that turbine put in other than to have areas in moria with mobs guarding camps. All you need is some imagination and a bit of roleplaying if that is your thing.
Pro-grouping propaganda? Through this suggestion, I'm primarily trying to justify social activity in MMOs to all players, including powergamers. Social interaction is one of the biggest reasons to actually play MMOs and THE reason why people continue to play them for so long. It should be a focus of the game and leveraged to its full potential. EVE has taken the first steps down this road and it has paid off handsomely for them.
I agree that people play these games for the soical aspect, but one can be social without grouping. At all. I am a soloer and I can tell you that at times I am far more social than any group I've been in short of listening to people shoot that shit which drives me nuts. One can group all they want but I can assure you that you are not going to get a warm fuzzy social experience if the players are not predisposed to it. And yet I mostly solo and have done things like take new players on complete tours of the game's world including high level areas where they might never get to. Or solving player's problems in game and even replacing lost gear out of the goodness of my heart. but that doesn't mean I'm going out and grouping.
To some extent, you are definitely right. I don't know enough about how everyone has fun to make definitive statements, but I can offer my analysis and suggestions instead of passively eating whatever I'm given and yelling at people who disagree with me. The most important part is that I did not decide the 10 points will-nilly. I put a lot of thought behind them which you can't really see unless you follow the blog. I wanted to put my mission statement out front, though, to draw in people who are interested in this kind of thing.
It's really easy to go around and spout opinions arbitrarily without moving the conversation forward. My blog tries to contribute the conversation by offering honest analysis, not just baseless opinion... I hope I'm not failing too badly at it.
Not at all I enjoy the discussion ; )
I think it's an evolutionary movement in a direction that makes marketing/business sense more than it makes ludic sense. Naturally WoW gets a lot of people who otherwise aren't in the market because its a mass market product that has gained cultural pull.
I'm not making a business case with my 10 points, I'm making a game design case. So that could be our disconnect.
I can now see that you are truly making a game design case. And yes, you are more than correct in some regards that mmo's are poorly designed games. However I really don't believe that a good many players are approaching them as games as I've mentioned above.
If anything they are more social outlets where players get to experience some sort of fictional flavor. To that end, in the closed beta of LOTRO, the old forest was like what an old forest should be. winding and dangerous. Too many people complained because they didn't want the challenge of getting around it. So it was made easy.
I personally preferred the old way. But players were not interested in getting lost and getting one's self out as a positive game mechanic. They just wanted to experience it more as a tourist attraction.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
If you're satisfied with MMOs being chatrooms with graphics, I guess I can't argue with you. I'm trying to push the genre forward as games, though. So we've reached a impasse here.
I write for That's a Terrible Idea, a blog about MMO and game design.
1. Lateral Progression. I'm a big fan of lateral progression, but you seem to infer it's the only way to do MMORPGs and that's wrong. The MMORPG going for the largest audience wants to cater to everyone, and that means that time investment results in continual (upward) progress.
As amazing as lateral progression is for a PVP-heavy RPG, it's not the catch-all solution.
2. Death Penalty. A game's penalty doesn't provide the meaning. The difficulty does. I can walk across a rope bridge 1000 feet high, or I can juggle on a unicycle while flipping between multiple tightropes 20 feet above a safety net.
The risk of death from falling from the rope bridge doesn't change the fact that the unicyclist doing flips between tightropes is a lot more impressive an accomplishment.
The fact that the juggler might fall off 3 times before doing his routine successfully doesn't make that success any less impressive. I mean...he's doing flips on a unicycle on a tightrope while juggling!
"I feel the burn when I have to walk for 10 minutes to get back to a dungeon after I've died in [insert themepark mmo here]. Doesn't mean I'm not going to do the dungeon and therefore stop having any shot at having fun." -evizaer
The decision isn't whether or not to re-enter the dungeon. For many, the decision is whether or not to continue playing the game at all if the fun isn't seen as being worth the hassle.
3. Reducing Chance. I agree with most of what you've said (particularly after clarifying the "reduce not eliminate" bit.)
But I've played a ton of MMORPGs though, and I don't feel random number generators are significantly influencing any of them. Maybe one fight in a hundred the fight was really damn close and your opponent crit that last hit when you didn't. But that's hardly any influence at all, and the alternative (fights being uniformly the same and incremental gear upgrades being less valuable) is a much larger enemy of fun.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You need to have some degree of vertical progression, because without it there cannot be specialization. Without specialization, character builds become much less interesting. This is another case of "reduce not eliminate," but the reduction here has to be significant: down to Guild Wars level or lower. The issue that holds you back from doing what you want should be your ability as a player more than some amount of time you would need to spend grinding mobs to hit max level.
In short: Characters should level and gain abilities at about the pace that the average player is capable of learning how to use the new abilities effectively.
This has two implications:
1.) The rate at which your character grows should be directly effected by how quickly you learn the game.
2.) There need to be some situations that are actually challenging--situations that test your skill and knowledge. This way, you don't hit end-game and suddenly have to relearn how to play because you were on ez-mode through leveling. I'm not saying all content should be difficult; only that content should prod you towards playing the game better and learning more.
You all really enjoy talking about death penalties. This fixation is a symptom of being stuck in the single-character mindset. Mortal characters that would die anyway would turn this approach on its head and mitigate your worries. If you're going to lose the character in two months anyway, you certainly won't be sitting on your hands because he might die a little sooner.
I know people are going to attack me for even entertaining the idea of perma-death. I understand that there are a lot of issues in MMOs that prevent it from being feasible as MMOs are designed now. But if you start your design process by assuming perma-death and characters that age and inevitably die, I believe you can make it work. You also need to do some serious work on society building, though, to moderate the psychopaths.
As I said before, you didn't feel it because there isn't really a failure condition. it's assumed you'll succeed at almost everything you do in an MMO. There are no complications in situations, everything is clear cut and lined up for you to knock down on your way to max level or that new piece of gear.
I write for That's a Terrible Idea, a blog about MMO and game design.
not a MMORPG
Try Fallen Earth from Icarus and indy developer.
Decent crafting, decent PvE, decent graphics, decent everything.
Is it as polished as WoW right now? No, it's only been out 2 months and having some growing pains(like any other game), but it's a good game with a great, friendly playerbase, and a small development studio that is full of gamers that made a game they would like to play. It's not a game made by beancounters.
Try it out. The Escapist is offering free trial keys right now. Check the forums here for how to get ahold of one.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
There is no chance in those sports. Everything is controllable except for the coin flip (in the case of football). Some sort of randomness is fine but a lot of games take it to extremes. Crit %, Stun % among others needs to be eliminated. Almost everything should be about what you or your opponent does with the decisions they do during a game, not due to a computer generated random number.
The single-character mindset is a result of that being a strong way to design games.
Could I enjoy a game with multiple throw-away Nethack-style characters? Certainly!
Would the magnetism of progression be as strong as in a 1-character game where I can build association and familiarity with a single character? No.
Does a game's entire success hinge upon this magnetism? Not at all, but it's a rather large void to fill. If a dev agreed to make a game with perma-death, they'd have their work seriously cut out for them to make that game as compelling at attracting and retaining players as a typical MMORPG.
As for there not ever being a failure condition in MMORPGs, I don't know which MMORPGs you're playing where you've never (ever) died. Because I'm a damn good player, and I still die on occasion.
Mostly I was referring to PVP. In PVP the factors behind success/failure are much more apparent because even a single advantage over your opponent means victory. And I think "1 fight in 100" vastly overstates the role of random numbers in PVP combat.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There is no chance in those sports. Everything is controllable except for the coin flip (in the case of football). Some sort of randomness is fine but a lot of games take it to extremes. Crit %, Stun % among others needs to be eliminated. Almost everything should be about what you or your opponent does with the decisions they do during a game, not due to a computer generated random number.
There is a lot of chance in those sports that is mitigated by the skill of the players.
It's just on a level that most people don't think about.
It's not as obvious as a dice roll but it takes place in the form of how the players interact, how they come at each other and at what point that ball is thrown, how it spins, where it lands and how one fumble can lead that ball to roll to where it rolls.
It's not a cut and dried "I'll move here and block there and that will cause you to stop". Each body is different and each one will roll off of another in a way that will happen differently with anotherindividual. A blocker steps one way hastily only to have it affect someone rushing in a way that was not anticipted. The Quarterback knows what should happen but the opposing team has other ideas, he has to get rid of the ball and hopefully his skill allows him to assess the field and know who is the best recipient.
Only for them to close in on him and for him to hastily get rid of the ball. Was it a good throw? Did it come off of his glove the correct way? Was his recipient in the same place or will he be in the place that he thought he would be in?
It has as much chance as marbles rolling down a rocky hill or water finding the best paths down a mountain. You might be able to predict where everything will fall but chance plays a part in where things actually do fall.
A ball rolling off of a hand, a cleat not getting enough traction, players blocking but not quite blocking in the right way. There are bits of chance in every action.
It's only the skill of the player that lessens the chance that happens in these games.
there are books and articles written about the role of chance in sports. One may or may not agree with them but I believe that the smallest ideoscyncracies can easily affect these games.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
There are no good MMOs out there, that are worth the time or $$$. Currently I am playing: Risen, CoH, BG II, Mass Effect. Will get Dragon Age after I finish Risen.
I understand about all of that but all of that is controllable. The player's ability, skill, and knowledge of how to play the game are the defining factors of that. What you told there is stating my point, the players themselves determine how the game is played. Yes there are outside factors such as weather but the players ability to deal with those factors is not chance.
Now to take your football analogy and turn it towarding gaming, the quarterback has full control on how hard he throws the ball yes? In an mmo with rng that throw would be random. It could come out 50 mph or 150 mph. The receiver is going to catch the 50 mph (assuming it's on target) while he wouldn't catch the 150 mph rocket. The point of removing rng in a game is so that everything is up to the player. A player chooses a skill versus another player, he knows what it is going to do. The opposing player can counter it or not, it's up to him. If you add rng to that then that rng could very well take that decision or result of it out of either players hand.