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MMO Features for the Man
uquipu
Member Posts: 1,516
At what point do you feel that a feature was put in game just for the sole purpose of getting you to waste time and money?
I'm thinking about the sizeable travel distances in Vanguard. The first time through, you explore. The second time becomes a time sink commute.
Or having to grind 20K boring mobs to build rep. Vanguard had this feature too.
Or a death penalty that knocks you back a level or two, causing you to spend more time leveling back up?
At what point do these features become a ripoff in your mind?
(I should ad, Sony has steadily been removing these features from Vanguard.)
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Comments
Traveling a large world is part of an MMORPG. If you have instant warp everywhere like you do in shit games like WoW, that kind of makes it less of a "World". Maybe buy a horse? I don't know. Id rather have a large world than instant-warp everywhere
And the death penalty, why would you worry about the death penalty unless you sucked?
The world still exists if you have instant warp. It doesn't suddenly disappear, people just realize walking it, is nothing more than a waste of time after doing it once. Not every player likes doing it the first time. If your time is so worthless you can still walk no one is stopping you. I'm sure devs would love it if players artificially extended their game, longer subscriptions!
If this is how you reason, investing your time in a mmo is completely worthless as well. Why play video games and waste time you could have used in RL?
Personally, if I ever feel the need to teleport from one spot to another, I'll be doing it in STO.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
No offence but that's one of the stupidest things ive heard, you really have to be playing a f2p game with 10k worth of gear to never ever die in an MMO.
Traveling a large world is part of an MMORPG. If you have instant warp everywhere like you do in shit games like WoW, that kind of makes it less of a "World". Maybe buy a horse? I don't know. Id rather have a large world than instant-warp everywhere
And the death penalty, why would you worry about the death penalty unless you sucked?
The world still exists if you have instant warp. It doesn't suddenly disappear, people just realize walking it, is nothing more than a waste of time after doing it once. Not every player likes doing it the first time. If your time is so worthless you can still walk no one is stopping you. I'm sure devs would love it if players artificially extended their game, longer subscriptions!
I agree, if you really want to walk go ahead no ones stopping you but please for the other people that don't want to don't make them suffer too. I like having a big world but if its actually filled with loads of content and all the games right now that have a big world aren't and it just makes it a pain to watch 10 miles of grass when you wanna get somewhere.
If this is how you reason, investing your time in a mmo is completely worthless as well. Why play video games and waste time you could have used in RL?
Personally, if I ever feel the need to teleport from one spot to another, I'll be doing it in STO.
I spend time playing games to have fun. That time becomes worthless when I am forced to go through the same 20 min path for the 30th time because I want do something in the game somewhere else.
And I made the worthless quip because not allowing people to warp is removing options. He can spend all the time he wants enjoying the scenery, but why should I have to too.
Ooh, blimey .. there's loads.
Long travel times. Shouldn't I get a discount if I have to spend ages not playing the game .. ?
Regrinding XP/levels. Simply won't play a game with that mechanic.
Low drop rates. Why does that murloc not have a head?
Rep grinds without a fun (repeatable) mechanic. I didn't want to grind mobs to level.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Even WoW has it's timesinks. Weapon leveling? It used to take hours to max your weapon skill. Maxing any skill in WoW is still a timesink in many cases.
Sometimes I just feel that some company bean counter is looking at an excel spreadsheet and rubbing his hands together when he sees that 6.5 million people spent 349,021 hours on weapon leveling last month and that equates to a big chunk of cash.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
It is both,if you only look at the selfish negative,then you miss the point.Without time sinks you have no community and no longevity,it becomes nothing more than a RACE,that is not what gaming is about,unless your playing Need for Speed
.
If it has any benefit at all,then it is good.I see the benefit of being you have to EARN your place in the game,the opposite would be everyone has full faction access?Full access to every recipe/every spell,nothing in the game earned.
This is how games create separation,you could have a MUCH worse design such as WOW.Separation is defined by instancing/raiding GEAR.That makes for quite a shallow game,it is better to have more things you can strive for.
So you have to look at your query and ask if the opposite was true would it be a better game?example super small maps,nothing earned,death with no penalty is not death at all,so where do you draw the line?lose 5 xp?maps are 30x30 grids like the old games used to have?do one quest and you have full rep?
Then the final note,exploration will ALWAYS be non eventful the second time around,i do not see how we could possibly change that,that would be my hero developer if they could pull it off.The ONLY way to pull that off would be a total instance game that self generates new instances,even then it would be VERY simplistic in design and not very exciting.
There is one other way to create a fresh feeling of exploration,but the CPU and GPU power needed would be VERY high.The game would have to utilize BOTH a simulation such as Age of Empires type SIm AND a destruction process,witch again AOE sort of of had a weak one,there is more advanced physics and Agiea phys x to pull of a better destruction theme.This would mean mountains could be destroyed,craters in the ground,trees can be removed and new ones grown,cities/towns built.roads ,the WHOLE SIM theme.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Excessive travel time or death penalty definitely need to go away. MMORPGs should have exactly as much travel time and death penalty as adds to the game, and no more.
In most cases this amounts to noded fast-travel, a normal death penalty, and the ability to recall frequently.
Grinding mobs is slightly different, as it's likely the devs have spent a good portion of their effort making combat fun. 20k mobs is excessive though -- even a fun combat system can't keep things fun for that long (against the same mob.) If we're talking a variety of mobs, with a lot of activity variance while grinding them, then you're starting to be a bit more reasonable.
Even though farming Stratholme/Scholomance for Argent rep in early WOW was ridiculous (you needed hundreds of dungeon runs) at least you were proceeding through dungeons which were somewhat varied with many bosses. This is way different than if the game asked you to kill the same 3 undead mobs in a big field for equivalent hour-investment.
And really that's the root of it: the more interesting twists there are, the longer a gameplay pattern lasts. Too little variance results in faster discovery and mastery. So games have to tweak the nobs to avoid grinding players to death without blowing their content prematurely.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Traveling a large world is part of an MMORPG. If you have instant warp everywhere like you do in shit games like WoW, that kind of makes it less of a "World". Maybe buy a horse? I don't know. Id rather have a large world than instant-warp everywhere
And the death penalty, why would you worry about the death penalty unless you sucked?
Actually, Wow's fast travel was one thing done quite well. It wasm't instant at all, having to ride griffons/wyverns got you there faster (though the ride could still be 10+ minutes) while still preserving the feeling of a large world by letting you see it as you flew over. But by all means, continue the mindless hate.
I agree with your point about travel. Do it once, it's cool. After that, though, there should at least be an option for quick travel. That means you discover a new town and it has a horse merchant in it, whom you can purchase a ticket from that allows you to quick travel to another previously visited location. Or, in more simple terms, WoW's gryphons. You can still have the feeling of traveling through a "world" on the back of a horse or flying... thing. And if you don't like it, then you can choose to walk (or ride on your personal mount) everywhere and explore/travel all you want. Newsflash: No one's stopping you.
Grinding 20K mobs is ridiculous unless you're a superhuman being that can crush dozens of enemies with a single blow.
Death penalty - we can all argue till the cows come home about this. Too weak is bad, too harsh is bad, blah, blah, blah. While death should sting and should be something you want to avoid, it shouldn't be so "realistic" that you end up losing the last 2 hours' (or 2 days') worth of work. Item loss? Fine. I'd even consider the possibility of PvE mobs looting you, not just other players. But experience loss to such a degree that you lose a level or two? No thanks. Hell, I say make it like Runescape where you drop all but your most 3 valuable items and only have a few minutes (literally, no more than 6) to return to your death location and retrieve them. That sure makes death a bad thing, especially when you're wearing very expensive equipment and harder mobs can two or three-shot you if you're not praying for even one brief second.
I don't think they ever really become a "ripoff", but they can sure be an inconvenience. I'm all for realism and immersion, but having an opt-out of the more mundane aspects is not a bad thing. It allows both sides to be happy and brings more subs in.
What is a valid time sink in you mind?
If I'm having fun, pvp, questing, dungeon or whatever. I don't mind the time spent.
But if it's boring in anyway, and part of what defines a grind is boredom, I resent it.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
In some other games they have a solution to this, they rather have a teleportation or use a mount. Like in Atlantica Online, This is not a problem the world is a vast but we have a Teleportation license or a mount and also a newbie can't memorize all the places they should go, so in AO we also have a feature like Auto-Move.
http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm138/Syreange/mysigcopy-1.jpg
Personally i think a large world is a good thing, fun to explore the first few times through if the devs put time into the world and have things to explore and discover. After a few times through and the discovery of all the goodies, i like WoW's wyv/gryf travel system, get to a "check point" basically and then fly back while seeing the world.. still fun cause your going through zones and can see the chat and what not.
Rep grinds are brutal for a reason... its just like RL kinda, a certain group doesnt trust you so you have to gain their trust, grinding sucks i agree but you got to do what you have to do. I dont mind it, its meant to be a time sink to keep you playing longer or you can just skip it and not get what ever you needed from the group your tryin to gain rep with and power level your way to the next good item like everyone does in WoW and Warhammer (which is an awful game all together)
Harsh death penalties are good as long as theres a class or spell or someone in the game that can counter the death penalty. Like EQ's penalty was xp loss and a corpse run, but they had clerics to get your xp back and if the cleric is already in the zone you dont even have to do a corpse run. This death penalty made people play better and not AFK all the time, it also built a community some clerics were known as good people and would do favors and others wouldnt. It made you socialize unlike in WoW where you can die and just get back to the place you were at without having any trouble at all for dieing. Hell you could even travel dead if you had to get some where you couldnt. Whats the point of playing a MMO and not talking to anyone or socializing at all. I understand solo play but to solo from level 1 to max level without having to talk or interact with anyone is stupid, and then you can still get all the same top end gear that others grouped in dungeons for.. its retarded.
Games that are difficult like this are for a certain group of MMO players, not the new MMO players that saw night elf mohawks and decided to start playing the genre and want everything spoon fed to them or want to run solo to max level (warhammer)