To those who think the Multiplayer in MMORPG doesn't mean teaming with other players, let me ask you this:
If you were in a shop wondering which game to get and spotted a multiplayer game (FPS for example), would you buy it on the assumption that you could play it solo? If not, why then do you think you should be allowed to solo in a massively multiplayer game?
I went and bought Modern Warfare 2 with the knowledge that I could solo in the multi-player mode. It is called free for all. I get to challenge myself playing like this.
Now with that said, There is a big difference between a game like MW2 and any MMORPG. One is small areas to compete against others. The other is a virtual world to explore and grow in. To feel like the hero or just be that hunter out in the wilderness. Or be that craftsman makeing items for other players. My girlfriend who plays EQ2 with me does not even adventure, she just crafts and decorates houses for other players. Something you could never do in just a multiplayer game like you suggest. So the meaning is different for me when you compare multiplayer games to massaive multiplayer online role playing games.
I enjoy both grouping and solo play in mmorpg's depending on my mood and what I would like to do for the evening. I feel there is no wrong or right way to play.
Even back in the day when I played PnP. even though I sat around the table with my friends we still all did our own missions, our own exploring and would ocassionaly group together to do a dungeon that the GM would make up. So even then we still soloed often. And that was considered a multiplayer game.
So no I don't think Multiplayer means teaming with other players.
To those who think the Multiplayer in MMORPG doesn't mean teaming with other players, let me ask you this:
If you were in a shop wondering which game to get and spotted a multiplayer game (FPS for example), would you buy it on the assumption that you could play it solo? If not, why then do you think you should be allowed to solo in a massively multiplayer game?
Ask all you want , the MMO indicates that you are playing in a world in which there is more than one real person upto (insert a number). How you proceed to play the game is then the choice of the subscriber.
The MMOs being released now do not provide in most cases what the originals did the ability to carve your place in a world that everyone played in. And that did not necessarily refer to feeling like ther Hero because again all you do in that instance is create the equivalent of a single player game.
Crafting / Trading / Traveling and a lot more other than just killing MOBs/NPCs , is what made the original MMOs what they were and so much fun.
With most of the Worlds now its not about the Worlds and community , just about how fast can we hit max level , leet loot and are we the top guild today. MMOs used to require players that invested time , in the Worlds and contributed, the current batch are just whack a mole arena fests which just do not hit the mark gameplay and immersion wise.
So if you think MMOs are just about grouping you are miles off, it may be what you believe and want but an MMO should deliver a lot more. And to the OP of this thread , until people realise that it is about community not guilds or end game in a week there really is no need anymore to develop these massive persistant worlds because they arent needed.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Excellent post. You are advanced beyond your years.
Well written post by the OP, but never having experienced the genre when it first came about he will never really understand what the originals had, and a lot of it was raw gaming.
The being made to feel a Hero is not a key to the genre , that is a misconception but Developers like the idea because it is easy. Making you feel like you are part of the world and you want to play in it because you are part of a community is much harder to acheive especially when immersion is required. And to do this you have to remove all the crappy easy mode features that have ruined the genre from my perspective.
These days there is no risk you dont loose anything , you never loose. It is as if the Liberals have taken controll and the MMOs are so politically correct that no one looses.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Excellent post. You are advanced beyond your years.
Well written post by the OP, but never having experienced the genre when it first came about he will never really understand what the originals had, and a lot of it was raw gaming.
The being made to feel a Hero is not a key to the genre , that is a misconception but Developers like the idea because it is easy. Making you feel like you are part of the world and you want to play in it because you are part of a community is much harder to acheive especially when immersion is required. And to do this you have to remove all the crappy easy mode features that have ruined the genre from my perspective.
These days there is no risk you dont loose anything , you never loose. It is as if the Liberals have taken controll and the MMOs are so politically correct that no one looses.
Well the biggest part of it being easy is the last letter in MMORPG, GAME. Games are usually supposed to be fun, that is generally the point. And the newest gen of gamers seems to like things easy. It might suck for the old gens who liked games to be more like work, but devs have to cater to who will make them money.
I like my games to be pseudo easy, but mainly because I work 12 hour night shifts 75 miles away from my house. I tend to like to relax when I'm not working lol. If I was a college kid, or still in high school I might want more of a work-type game, but I am getting too tired to want to work, then come home and pay to work some more.
I'm not saying all games should be easy, not by any means. You worker gamers need to have your fun as well.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
Something that I've notced lately (I'm 14 btw) with these forums and with new MMOs coming out and what it has turned into. Let me explain by starting off with a generation that I missed.
I missed the generation of pen and paper and the old school Dungeons and Dragons. But I have a good idea of why people fell in love with these genre in the first place. It allowed you to be someone you could never hope to be and to go places and go on adventures that you could never hope to take on in real life. It was your imagination doing the work while you had a great time playing with your friends. MMOs now don't require your imagination to do much of anything, because the world your playing in is someone elses imagination. It's pretty awesome in every aspect you look at it.
I read the LoTRO vs. WoW column and when the 'Solo Play' in LoTRO was rated lower because the quests required you to group with other people that made me come to a realization. The whole point of an MMO is to interact directly and indirectly with other people that play the game and having the option to meet new people, join a guild or clan or what have you, and to have a good time. How fun was playing DnD or Diablo by yourself? Definitely not as fun as playing with your friends right? So I can in no way see why grouping with people can take away from a game and the game that encourages you to solo play would be BETTER.
I've also read the 'When did Instant Gratification Usurp Adventure?' thread and that got me thinking. Playing an MMO should make you feel like a hero on an epic adventure and along the way you collect items and gear, trophies or what have you to make you stand out from everyone else.
People are attracted to WoW because you get to the top so fast and it kind of gives the illusion that since you have all these epic items that you're awesome! But are you really? The guy next to you is wearing 6 pieces of the same gear. I guess it works but not for me or anyone else who is seeking more than some shallow gameplay and an easy reward system.
In short I think that MMOs lack a real sense of adventure and fail to make you seem like a hero. I'm not saying that grinding your ass off to feel special is the way to go either. I think that the content should be harder, and longer (I'm talking about dungeons). They should be more difficult and add a sense of adventure, therefore when you finish it and claim your reward it actually feels like you've earned it.
Kill the LK in hard mode, get the L284 weapon and you would be guaranteed to have items very few will have. In fact, that is prob true for most H mode items.
Knowing that some of the other avatars you see on the screen are players and not npc's does not make a game multiplay. That requires interaction of some sort and I don't mean a 'lol' on a spammed chat channel.
Knowing that some of the other avatars you see on the screen are players and not npc's does not make a game multiplay. That requires interaction of some sort and I don't mean a 'lol' on a spammed chat channel.
Nor does it automatically mean teaming.
Buying stuff from them is interacting, fighting for monsters to kill is interacting, killing them is interacting. IF you all exist in a persistant world with some player ruyn economy, then you will almost always be interacting in some way or another.
And technically, if there are multiple players in a game, then it is multiplay (even if you don't wanna admit it).
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
Knowing that some of the other avatars you see on the screen are players and not npc's does not make a game multiplay. That requires interaction of some sort and I don't mean a 'lol' on a spammed chat channel.
Nor does it automatically mean teaming.
Buying stuff from them is interacting, fighting for monsters to kill is interacting, killing them is interacting. IF you all exist in a persistant world with some player ruyn economy, then you will almost always be interacting in some way or another.
And technically, if there are multiple players in a game, then it is multiplay (even if you don't wanna admit it).
Yeah I agree with that. Putting something on the auction house is interaction. It's indirect but you're still interacting with the other players
I read the LoTRO vs. WoW column and when the 'Solo Play' in LoTRO was rated lower because the quests required you to group with other people............
The "requires you to group with other people" statement is the EXCEPTION in LOTRO and not the norm. I would say that 90% of the quests in LOTRO do not require you to be grouped in order to complete them. There are, however, quests that you MUST be grouped just not to the degree suggested.
Yeah I agree with that. Putting something on the auction house is interaction. It's indirect but you're still interacting with the other players
How is that interaction? That's the same interaction you'd get if you left a cookie on the table and left the room, then someone came into the room while you were out and ate it. There is no interaction with the other person, they're just taking your stuff.
Yeah I agree with that. Putting something on the auction house is interaction. It's indirect but you're still interacting with the other players
How is that interaction? That's the same interaction you'd get if you left a cookie on the table and left the room, then someone came into the room while you were out and ate it. There is no interaction with the other person, they're just taking your stuff.
It's indirect there is no face to face interaction. That cookie wouldn't have been there if I didn't put it there.
SgtEcho, found another video for you. Not sure what kind of character you prefer to play. This one is a ranger. He starts off very high above ground, looking out to see if there are any smokes or anything that would signal conflict. If you're interested you might want to peek.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAh1OHBI4uM
Playing now: Cities: Skyline / Ori and the Blind Forest / Banished
OP: I don't think Blizzard missed the point at all. But you missed about everything in there .
They create video games : you know the kind of activity where you sit before a video screen and want to have fun.
Be that in organised group play, in competition play (BG's-arena's-Wintergrasp...), in solo play or co-op play with one or two friends and use the tools as a fill -up.
Making all this with a world of warcraft back drop and a high responsive control of your avatar is in fact ... a shot in the center.
Pen and paper are another kind of games.
14 year olds thinking they know more than Kaplan.
Sure. Everything is possible to get the attention of the masses on mmorpg.com to promote the video game duds.
Yeah I agree with that. Putting something on the auction house is interaction. It's indirect but you're still interacting with the other players
How is that interaction? That's the same interaction you'd get if you left a cookie on the table and left the room, then someone came into the room while you were out and ate it. There is no interaction with the other person, they're just taking your stuff.
Ummm think about your analogy then think again....
Your cookie is gone ,no reward for leaving it there.You sell something on an AH it is open to the ENTIRE gaming populace on that server,and your reward for putting it there is game currency.Your cookie is ONLY open to the person who happens to have acess to that table you left it on.
Another point i often here is preogression intereference because of forced grouping.Well that may hold true if all you are doing is speeding through quests for xp rewards.If you are playing a game thta has content aside from speeding through quests,then there is no need to worry about WHEN or how fast i can complete that quest.
This is the biggest problem MMORPG gamers still have,they just can't sink it into their heads that it is NOT a race,it is NOT a single player game MEANT to be finished,and even when you do finish it so what,not much of a RPG then is it?A MMORPG world should be designed that it never really ends,sure it will become old looking but at least the design will make the journey forever fun until you decide to leave it.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
OP: I don't think Blizzard missed the point at all. But you missed about everything in there .
They create video games : you know the kind of activity where you sit before a video screen and want to have fun.
Be that in organised group play, in competition play (BG's-arena's-Wintergrasp...), in solo play or co-op play with one or two friends and use the tools as a fill -up.
Making all this with a world of warcraft back drop and a high responsive control of your avatar is in fact ... a shot in the center.
Pen and paper are another kind of games.
14 year olds thinking they know more than Kaplan.
Sure. Everything is possible to get the attention of the masses on mmorpg.com to promote the video game duds.
Okay first of all, when did i EVER say that EVERYTHING in WoW is easy to achieve? I never said that, and you made it seem like I did. Sure WoW can be fun, I just don't feel like I've accomplished anything just running through stale gameplay to get a new necklace. Epic gear is not epic. It's pretty much handed to you once you reach level 80.
Yeah I agree with that. Putting something on the auction house is interaction. It's indirect but you're still interacting with the other players
How is that interaction? That's the same interaction you'd get if you left a cookie on the table and left the room, then someone came into the room while you were out and ate it. There is no interaction with the other person, they're just taking your stuff.
You put something up, someone buys it, you get money.
That is an interaction. Indirect interaction, but still an interaction. Another player is getting something they need by paying you for something you found.
You are just trying to tailor definitions to fit your bias. If you quit trying to skew stuff to fit your bias, then you would realize what the wordws actually mean, and not just what you want them to.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
To those who think the Multiplayer in MMORPG doesn't mean teaming with other players, let me ask you this:
If you were in a shop wondering which game to get and spotted a multiplayer game (FPS for example), would you buy it on the assumption that you could play it solo? If not, why then do you think you should be allowed to solo in a massively multiplayer game?
Ask all you want , the MMO indicates that you are playing in a world in which there is more than one real person upto (insert a number). How you proceed to play the game is then the choice of the subscriber.
The MMOs being released now do not provide in most cases what the originals did the ability to carve your place in a world that everyone played in. And that did not necessarily refer to feeling like ther Hero because again all you do in that instance is create the equivalent of a single player game.
Crafting / Trading / Traveling and a lot more other than just killing MOBs/NPCs , is what made the original MMOs what they were and so much fun.
With most of the Worlds now its not about the Worlds and community , just about how fast can we hit max level , leet loot and are we the top guild today. MMOs used to require players that invested time , in the Worlds and contributed, the current batch are just whack a mole arena fests which just do not hit the mark gameplay and immersion wise.
So if you think MMOs are just about grouping you are miles off, it may be what you believe and want but an MMO should deliver a lot more. And to the OP of this thread , until people realise that it is about community not guilds or end game in a week there really is no need anymore to develop these massive persistant worlds because they arent needed.
Underlined is QFE~ What purpose is an overworld if people don't wish to interact with more than a few at a time ^_^
To those who think the Multiplayer in MMORPG doesn't mean teaming with other players, let me ask you this:
If you were in a shop wondering which game to get and spotted a multiplayer game (FPS for example), would you buy it on the assumption that you could play it solo? If not, why then do you think you should be allowed to solo in a massively multiplayer game?
Ask all you want , the MMO indicates that you are playing in a world in which there is more than one real person upto (insert a number). How you proceed to play the game is then the choice of the subscriber.
The MMOs being released now do not provide in most cases what the originals did the ability to carve your place in a world that everyone played in. And that did not necessarily refer to feeling like ther Hero because again all you do in that instance is create the equivalent of a single player game.
Crafting / Trading / Traveling and a lot more other than just killing MOBs/NPCs , is what made the original MMOs what they were and so much fun.
With most of the Worlds now its not about the Worlds and community , just about how fast can we hit max level , leet loot and are we the top guild today. MMOs used to require players that invested time , in the Worlds and contributed, the current batch are just whack a mole arena fests which just do not hit the mark gameplay and immersion wise.
So if you think MMOs are just about grouping you are miles off, it may be what you believe and want but an MMO should deliver a lot more. And to the OP of this thread , until people realise that it is about community not guilds or end game in a week there really is no need anymore to develop these massive persistant worlds because they arent needed.
Underlined is QFE~ What purpose is an overworld if people don't wish to interact with more than a few at a time ^_^
To be part of the world itself. Just becuase I am not grouping does not mean i am not affected by others, or that I am not affecting others. Whether it is buying from them, selling to them, asking for help/advice, teaming, fighting over spawn points, killstealing, ninja looting, scamming, pvping, etc, you are still interacting. Teaming is not the only form of interacting, and people who think that are severely naive/close-minded.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
Yeah I agree with that. Putting something on the auction house is interaction. It's indirect but you're still interacting with the other players
How is that interaction? That's the same interaction you'd get if you left a cookie on the table and left the room, then someone came into the room while you were out and ate it. There is no interaction with the other person, they're just taking your stuff.
You put something up, someone buys it, you get money.
That is an interaction. Indirect interaction, but still an interaction. Another player is getting something they need by paying you for something you found.
You are just trying to tailor definitions to fit your bias. If you quit trying to skew stuff to fit your bias, then you would realize what the wordws actually mean, and not just what you want them to.
This, and many replies like it, are why MMORPG's are not the games they used to be. If this is an example of modern day interaction then is it any surprise that communities no longer grow? Merge this with the fact that most MMORPG's are single player activities now and you realise that until the console gamers go back to their consoles then we're never going to get another decent MMORPG.
Let me go back to this point. A cookie was the first thing that popped into my head. Let me give a more suitable example: You want some money so you go to an ATM, you take some money out, you go on your way. Well done, you just interacted with the person who put the money in there. Didn't you?
Yeah I agree with that. Putting something on the auction house is interaction. It's indirect but you're still interacting with the other players
How is that interaction? That's the same interaction you'd get if you left a cookie on the table and left the room, then someone came into the room while you were out and ate it. There is no interaction with the other person, they're just taking your stuff.
You put something up, someone buys it, you get money.
That is an interaction. Indirect interaction, but still an interaction. Another player is getting something they need by paying you for something you found.
You are just trying to tailor definitions to fit your bias. If you quit trying to skew stuff to fit your bias, then you would realize what the wordws actually mean, and not just what you want them to.
This, and many replies like it, are why MMORPG's are not the games they used to be. If this is an example of modern day interaction then is it any surprise that communities no longer grow? Merge this with the fact that most MMORPG's are single player activities now and you realise that until the console gamers go back to their consoles then we're never going to get another decent MMORPG.
Let me go back to this point. A cookie was the first thing that popped into my head. Let me give a more suitable example: You want some money so you go to an ATM, you take some money out, you go on your way. Well done, you just interacted with the person who put the money in there. Didn't you?
Indirectly, yes. Whether you like it or not, it is an indirect interaction.
More to my point would be pvp, hunting ground competition, asking for help in chat, etc. All forms of interaction besides teaming. Grouping/teaming is not the only form of interaction, and if it was then holy hell it would be a pretty featurless mmorpg.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
This, and many replies like it, are why MMORPG's are not the games they used to be. If this is an example of modern day interaction then is it any surprise that communities no longer grow? Merge this with the fact that most MMORPG's are single player activities now and you realise that until the console gamers go back to their consoles then we're never going to get another decent MMORPG.
This type of gross generalization and stereotyping prevents you from seeing the whole picture. Your straw man is obvious.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Grouping is the best way we have of interacting in MMO’s even though it is plagued by problems. Many of those problems stemming from the solo design philosophy of modern MMO’s.
But grouping is not the only way to interact, you mentioned the auction house. The auction house is a solo alternative to real interaction, its funny you should bring that up as a method of interaction. True, there is some interaction but imagine a MMO where you could put up a tent (or a npc you could put down) to sell your wares and stuff you had picked up. These would be left in a trading area and when you are online and someone visited your tent, you might chose to be in your tent so to speak. Something similar to this happened in UO with shops that players could sell from. Even PW has a ‘trade npc’ of sorts. That’s far more interactive than buying something from someone you have no chance of meeting and don’t even notice their name.
PvP is a strong way of interacting, in a group or not. That is another area where MMO's need to give us more options to interact. Currently we tend to get a free for all bash or limited scenarios.
This type of gross generalization and stereotyping prevents you from seeing the whole picture. Your straw man is obvious.
I AM seeing the big picture. I've been reading the posts on these forums for weeks and every time people distance themselves further from community and working together, focusing instead on lone activities that people somehow think means they're interacting with the people around them.
The people who have been brought into the genre by World of Warcraft have no friggin' idea what an MMO is supposed to be about, they've never even seen a PnP game in action never mind read the rules for one, and now think they know everything there is because they spent a couple of years in a themepark that holds your hand all the way around.
All they know are single player games and in essence that's all World of Warcraft is, cleverly hidden behind an MMORPG mask. These people don't want adventure they want to follow a quest, they don't want to fight for their gains they want a new piece of shiny armor for every quest they do, they don't want team combat they want self sufficient characters such as seen in Guild Wars 2. Hell, there's even one post on the forums now asking if character advancement is really required.
How the hell does the MMORPG genre have a chance with these sort of people now being in the majority? The longer this goes on the worse the games are going to become until they don't even resemble an MMORPG anymore. That is a sad thing, one that, if you can't tell by my post, at the same time makes me friggin' angry.
This, and many replies like it, are why MMORPG's are not the games they used to be. If this is an example of modern day interaction then is it any surprise that communities no longer grow? Merge this with the fact that most MMORPG's are single player activities now and you realise that until the console gamers go back to their consoles then we're never going to get another decent MMORPG.
This type of gross generalization and stereotyping prevents you from seeing the whole picture. Your straw man is obvious.
I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here.
The thing people don't realize is that the Grandfather of modern day MMO games, UO, was almost entirely soloable. There were only a few mobs or dungeon areas that you needed a group to get through, and even those could be soloable if you had the right skills. Even AC was a solo-friendly game. WoW did not invent soloing, just soloing in the EQ style of MMO game.
The thing that made UO group focused was the PvP. You had to group up to survive in a lot of areas, because if you didn't have a group of friends with you, you would probably get ganked and die.
But the genius of this system is that the game itself did not force you to group, you had the option to do everything solo and only play by yourself, but the open world PvP system encouraged grouping.
It was organic grouping. People naturally banded together. There was no game mechanic telling you "this is a solo encounter, we will penalize you for being a group", or "this is a group encounter, there is no way you can do this solo". There was none of that type of thing in UO.
We, the players, were given a world to live in. We decided how to approach encounters. I think this is the big difference between the UO style of game design, and the EQ style of game design.
The UO style is focused on choices, while the EQ style is focused on restrictions.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Comments
I went and bought Modern Warfare 2 with the knowledge that I could solo in the multi-player mode. It is called free for all. I get to challenge myself playing like this.
Now with that said, There is a big difference between a game like MW2 and any MMORPG. One is small areas to compete against others. The other is a virtual world to explore and grow in. To feel like the hero or just be that hunter out in the wilderness. Or be that craftsman makeing items for other players. My girlfriend who plays EQ2 with me does not even adventure, she just crafts and decorates houses for other players. Something you could never do in just a multiplayer game like you suggest. So the meaning is different for me when you compare multiplayer games to massaive multiplayer online role playing games.
I enjoy both grouping and solo play in mmorpg's depending on my mood and what I would like to do for the evening. I feel there is no wrong or right way to play.
Even back in the day when I played PnP. even though I sat around the table with my friends we still all did our own missions, our own exploring and would ocassionaly group together to do a dungeon that the GM would make up. So even then we still soloed often. And that was considered a multiplayer game.
So no I don't think Multiplayer means teaming with other players.
Ask all you want , the MMO indicates that you are playing in a world in which there is more than one real person upto (insert a number). How you proceed to play the game is then the choice of the subscriber.
The MMOs being released now do not provide in most cases what the originals did the ability to carve your place in a world that everyone played in. And that did not necessarily refer to feeling like ther Hero because again all you do in that instance is create the equivalent of a single player game.
Crafting / Trading / Traveling and a lot more other than just killing MOBs/NPCs , is what made the original MMOs what they were and so much fun.
With most of the Worlds now its not about the Worlds and community , just about how fast can we hit max level , leet loot and are we the top guild today. MMOs used to require players that invested time , in the Worlds and contributed, the current batch are just whack a mole arena fests which just do not hit the mark gameplay and immersion wise.
So if you think MMOs are just about grouping you are miles off, it may be what you believe and want but an MMO should deliver a lot more. And to the OP of this thread , until people realise that it is about community not guilds or end game in a week there really is no need anymore to develop these massive persistant worlds because they arent needed.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Well written post by the OP, but never having experienced the genre when it first came about he will never really understand what the originals had, and a lot of it was raw gaming.
The being made to feel a Hero is not a key to the genre , that is a misconception but Developers like the idea because it is easy. Making you feel like you are part of the world and you want to play in it because you are part of a community is much harder to acheive especially when immersion is required. And to do this you have to remove all the crappy easy mode features that have ruined the genre from my perspective.
These days there is no risk you dont loose anything , you never loose. It is as if the Liberals have taken controll and the MMOs are so politically correct that no one looses.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Well the biggest part of it being easy is the last letter in MMORPG, GAME. Games are usually supposed to be fun, that is generally the point. And the newest gen of gamers seems to like things easy. It might suck for the old gens who liked games to be more like work, but devs have to cater to who will make them money.
I like my games to be pseudo easy, but mainly because I work 12 hour night shifts 75 miles away from my house. I tend to like to relax when I'm not working lol. If I was a college kid, or still in high school I might want more of a work-type game, but I am getting too tired to want to work, then come home and pay to work some more.
I'm not saying all games should be easy, not by any means. You worker gamers need to have your fun as well.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
Kill the LK in hard mode, get the L284 weapon and you would be guaranteed to have items very few will have. In fact, that is prob true for most H mode items.
Knowing that some of the other avatars you see on the screen are players and not npc's does not make a game multiplay. That requires interaction of some sort and I don't mean a 'lol' on a spammed chat channel.
Nor does it automatically mean teaming.
Buying stuff from them is interacting, fighting for monsters to kill is interacting, killing them is interacting. IF you all exist in a persistant world with some player ruyn economy, then you will almost always be interacting in some way or another.
And technically, if there are multiple players in a game, then it is multiplay (even if you don't wanna admit it).
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
Yeah I agree with that. Putting something on the auction house is interaction. It's indirect but you're still interacting with the other players
The "requires you to group with other people" statement is the EXCEPTION in LOTRO and not the norm. I would say that 90% of the quests in LOTRO do not require you to be grouped in order to complete them. There are, however, quests that you MUST be grouped just not to the degree suggested.
Let's party like it is 1863!
How is that interaction? That's the same interaction you'd get if you left a cookie on the table and left the room, then someone came into the room while you were out and ate it. There is no interaction with the other person, they're just taking your stuff.
It's indirect there is no face to face interaction. That cookie wouldn't have been there if I didn't put it there.
SgtEcho, found another video for you. Not sure what kind of character you prefer to play. This one is a ranger. He starts off very high above ground, looking out to see if there are any smokes or anything that would signal conflict. If you're interested you might want to peek.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAh1OHBI4uM
Playing now: Cities: Skyline / Ori and the Blind Forest / Banished
OP: I don't think Blizzard missed the point at all. But you missed about everything in there .
They create video games : you know the kind of activity where you sit before a video screen and want to have fun.
Be that in organised group play, in competition play (BG's-arena's-Wintergrasp...), in solo play or co-op play with one or two friends and use the tools as a fill -up.
Making all this with a world of warcraft back drop and a high responsive control of your avatar is in fact ... a shot in the center.
Pen and paper are another kind of games.
14 year olds thinking they know more than Kaplan.
Sure. Everything is possible to get the attention of the masses on mmorpg.com to promote the video game duds.
[Mod Edit]
Ummm think about your analogy then think again....
Your cookie is gone ,no reward for leaving it there.You sell something on an AH it is open to the ENTIRE gaming populace on that server,and your reward for putting it there is game currency.Your cookie is ONLY open to the person who happens to have acess to that table you left it on.
Another point i often here is preogression intereference because of forced grouping.Well that may hold true if all you are doing is speeding through quests for xp rewards.If you are playing a game thta has content aside from speeding through quests,then there is no need to worry about WHEN or how fast i can complete that quest.
This is the biggest problem MMORPG gamers still have,they just can't sink it into their heads that it is NOT a race,it is NOT a single player game MEANT to be finished,and even when you do finish it so what,not much of a RPG then is it?A MMORPG world should be designed that it never really ends,sure it will become old looking but at least the design will make the journey forever fun until you decide to leave it.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Okay first of all, when did i EVER say that EVERYTHING in WoW is easy to achieve? I never said that, and you made it seem like I did. Sure WoW can be fun, I just don't feel like I've accomplished anything just running through stale gameplay to get a new necklace. Epic gear is not epic. It's pretty much handed to you once you reach level 80.
What do you think MMOs came from?
You put something up, someone buys it, you get money.
That is an interaction. Indirect interaction, but still an interaction. Another player is getting something they need by paying you for something you found.
You are just trying to tailor definitions to fit your bias. If you quit trying to skew stuff to fit your bias, then you would realize what the wordws actually mean, and not just what you want them to.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
Underlined is QFE~ What purpose is an overworld if people don't wish to interact with more than a few at a time ^_^
To be part of the world itself. Just becuase I am not grouping does not mean i am not affected by others, or that I am not affecting others. Whether it is buying from them, selling to them, asking for help/advice, teaming, fighting over spawn points, killstealing, ninja looting, scamming, pvping, etc, you are still interacting. Teaming is not the only form of interacting, and people who think that are severely naive/close-minded.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
This, and many replies like it, are why MMORPG's are not the games they used to be. If this is an example of modern day interaction then is it any surprise that communities no longer grow? Merge this with the fact that most MMORPG's are single player activities now and you realise that until the console gamers go back to their consoles then we're never going to get another decent MMORPG.
Let me go back to this point. A cookie was the first thing that popped into my head. Let me give a more suitable example: You want some money so you go to an ATM, you take some money out, you go on your way. Well done, you just interacted with the person who put the money in there. Didn't you?
Indirectly, yes. Whether you like it or not, it is an indirect interaction.
More to my point would be pvp, hunting ground competition, asking for help in chat, etc. All forms of interaction besides teaming. Grouping/teaming is not the only form of interaction, and if it was then holy hell it would be a pretty featurless mmorpg.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
This type of gross generalization and stereotyping prevents you from seeing the whole picture. Your straw man is obvious.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Grouping is the best way we have of interacting in MMO’s even though it is plagued by problems. Many of those problems stemming from the solo design philosophy of modern MMO’s.
But grouping is not the only way to interact, you mentioned the auction house. The auction house is a solo alternative to real interaction, its funny you should bring that up as a method of interaction. True, there is some interaction but imagine a MMO where you could put up a tent (or a npc you could put down) to sell your wares and stuff you had picked up. These would be left in a trading area and when you are online and someone visited your tent, you might chose to be in your tent so to speak. Something similar to this happened in UO with shops that players could sell from. Even PW has a ‘trade npc’ of sorts. That’s far more interactive than buying something from someone you have no chance of meeting and don’t even notice their name.
PvP is a strong way of interacting, in a group or not. That is another area where MMO's need to give us more options to interact. Currently we tend to get a free for all bash or limited scenarios.
I AM seeing the big picture. I've been reading the posts on these forums for weeks and every time people distance themselves further from community and working together, focusing instead on lone activities that people somehow think means they're interacting with the people around them.
The people who have been brought into the genre by World of Warcraft have no friggin' idea what an MMO is supposed to be about, they've never even seen a PnP game in action never mind read the rules for one, and now think they know everything there is because they spent a couple of years in a themepark that holds your hand all the way around.
All they know are single player games and in essence that's all World of Warcraft is, cleverly hidden behind an MMORPG mask. These people don't want adventure they want to follow a quest, they don't want to fight for their gains they want a new piece of shiny armor for every quest they do, they don't want team combat they want self sufficient characters such as seen in Guild Wars 2. Hell, there's even one post on the forums now asking if character advancement is really required.
How the hell does the MMORPG genre have a chance with these sort of people now being in the majority? The longer this goes on the worse the games are going to become until they don't even resemble an MMORPG anymore. That is a sad thing, one that, if you can't tell by my post, at the same time makes me friggin' angry.
I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here.
The thing people don't realize is that the Grandfather of modern day MMO games, UO, was almost entirely soloable. There were only a few mobs or dungeon areas that you needed a group to get through, and even those could be soloable if you had the right skills. Even AC was a solo-friendly game. WoW did not invent soloing, just soloing in the EQ style of MMO game.
The thing that made UO group focused was the PvP. You had to group up to survive in a lot of areas, because if you didn't have a group of friends with you, you would probably get ganked and die.
But the genius of this system is that the game itself did not force you to group, you had the option to do everything solo and only play by yourself, but the open world PvP system encouraged grouping.
It was organic grouping. People naturally banded together. There was no game mechanic telling you "this is a solo encounter, we will penalize you for being a group", or "this is a group encounter, there is no way you can do this solo". There was none of that type of thing in UO.
We, the players, were given a world to live in. We decided how to approach encounters. I think this is the big difference between the UO style of game design, and the EQ style of game design.
The UO style is focused on choices, while the EQ style is focused on restrictions.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I play to have fun
I don't need to be a hero or be better than others
I enjoy playing in small groups and pick up groups
I am enjoying my current subscription
I played a lot of PnP many many years ago and I have no need to harken back or compare the two games to prove any point
I am impartial about different MMO's in terms of participant categorisation