A large part of this is the game's sheer popularity. Even if—as I said earlier—a significant percentage of the player-hours are spent below the level cap, they cannot afford to distribute new content all the way across the whole progress spectrum. The content is tiered and gated; anything that they place beyond a certain gearscore requirement (or however you want to measure progress) won't be experienced by as many people.
That is a design "waste" problem which was solved by GW2 by downscaling and lack of stupidly inflated stats. Don't want content to be badly distributed? Don't tier and gate.
BUT, the people towards the end of the curve are also the ones most likely to stay or quit based on whether they're being catered to.
Which makes them a terrible group to aim at. Why would you aim all your content on this unstable whiny entitled group of people with ADD?
With this in mind, it would be suicide to create an expansion with lots of new content for low levels and low tiers. Even if that new content is available to a much larger audience, it would cause the maximum amount of upset.
WoW Cataclysm was suicide? I haven't heard a single raider complain about the Cataclysm re-design. And it made a lot of people happy.
All over WoW I keep reading things like "I play until max level" or "I'll reroll to try these new areas".
So instead, as the years have gone by, they've had to actively try to concentrate the playerbase... almost like merging servers. They want people to be closer together in level/score/whatever so that they can produce mainly endgame content and have everyone benefit from it.
If you are going to make a game designed around raids, REMOVE leveling, make it ONLY about raids, and call it a lobby game, because that is what it is. Sitting in a city queuing up for dungeons is not an MMO and never will be, it's a multiplayer RPG.
The problem is that they're not designing worlds but lobby games and then wonder why their entire system breaks down.
But WoW would be nothing without the world, trust me.
Well you can't dispute the statement. From Tetris to Mario to LoL to TF2 to MMORPGs, all games are Skinner Boxes in that they reward the player for playing in certain ways.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If I didn't like skinner boxes, I'd stop pressing the lever.
Yeah, show me a game which isn't a skinner box in one way or another and you'll have shown me a very bad game.
Activity -> Fun Gained -> Behavior Reinforced is pretty much what every good game is about. It's inescapable.
I think there are a lot of games that would be hard-pressed to fit under the Skinner Box umbrella, unless you're talking strictly MMORPGs. This genre seems to be much more proned to it, however that mold is starting to break. Games that stray away from linear advancement are a pretty big step. Some of the MMOFPSs, like Planetside 2 or Firefall, have really limited linear progression in favor lateral progression. Even Guild Wars 2 is stepping away from it, to a degree; there are still levels, but it doesn't take long to level up and there is no treadmill at the endgame.
The MMO genre is going through some wacky changes right now. I think it will eventually settle, but there won't be some monolith that reigns over all, like WoW does now. I think there just going to be a variety that fits into the carrying capacity, meaning a lot of older or cheaply made games we have now will die out. F2P seems to be the future; with companies recognizing this, a higher-quality breed of games is being produced. There will totally be games with raiding, because I tihnk that there are enough people that enjoy it where there is a market for it, but it definitely won't be the expected norm of AAA games like it is now. My prediction is that there will be fewer, higher-quality MMOs than there are now; it will just take some time for the market to stabilize. With that will come a better variety, though. At least, that's my hope. With no single game to emulate, more original ideas will sprout up.
I had to vote no because I don't think that devs need to switch focus as much as realize they need to add more from the start. A game like TOR would be doing much better if they could satisfy the primarily pvp players much like wow has done from it's inception.
I've said this many times before there will not be another "elephant" in this room until someone can engage pvp players and to a lesser extent roleplayers as well.
Having said all that though I don't think that designing less pve content is really the answer because they would just be alienating the people who are accepting the games as they are being released.
Ultimately my thought is the pvp crowd accounts for more players than either the pve crowd or the rp crowd combined but I don't think devs should forsake either for the other which is what I see as the problem with almost every mmorpg that is being released.
I think there are a lot of games that would be hard-pressed to fit under the Skinner Box umbrella, unless you're talking strictly MMORPGs. This genre seems to be much more proned to it, however that mold is starting to break. Games that stray away from linear advancement are a pretty big step. Some of the MMOFPSs, like Planetside 2 or Firefall, have really limited linear progression in favor lateral progression.
Yeah, but linear progression has nothing to do with a game being a Skinner Box. Skinner Box is about a game providing pleasure, which then motivates the participant to keep playing or behaving in a certain way.
Every good game ever has been a Skinner Box.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah, but linear progression has nothing to do with a game being a Skinner Box. Skinner Box is about a game providing pleasure, which then motivates the participant to keep playing or behaving in a certain way.
Every good game ever has been a Skinner Box.
It's an overly simplistic analogy, but those are best for message boards.
The Skinner reward is success of a short-term goal of some kind regularly, and/or a more long-term goal more rarely. And yes, it's a formula that's fairly common to games (of nearly all varieties) and even puzzles to a lesser extent. Common to work, achievement, life too.
But people aren't rats; our behavior is many times more complex, and the analogy breaks down because of it.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
It's an overly simplistic analogy, but those are best for message boards.
The Skinner reward is success of a short-term goal of some kind regularly, and/or a more long-term goal more rarely. And yes, it's a formula that's fairly common to games (of nearly all varieties) and even puzzles to a lesser extent. Common to work, achievement, life too.
But people aren't rats; our behavior is many times more complex, and the analogy breaks down because of it.
"Nearly" all varities? No. Every. single. good. game.
There is no game out there which survives completely devoid of rewards.
That's why "Skinner Box" used as criticism makes no sense, because a game without a Skinner Box is devoid of graphics, music, art, or gameplay. It's nothing. It's not even a game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
We know devs can't make this type of content faster than what players can use it, and this creates the problem of people getting bored for not having anything to do besides wait for more. Unfortunatly, this can cause players to just leave for the next shinny new mmo with new content (not saying the games fail).
Devs have all the control in the world over their game. This includes creating ways to make the PvE content last longer.
Becoming stronger one way or the other is the underlying concept behind every progression most players care about. Simply becoming different (through cosmetic options) can be interesting, but not really the main driving factor for most players.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Thing is there is too much of them on the market and there is not enough playerbase for it.
Many players that played mmorpg's in past and some of which still do, want either very diffrent design of a mmorpg or diffrent group just don't care about mmo and rpg part of game and escape into lobby multiplayer games like MOBA.
Some people want mmo, but does not necessarily want rpg, and those will go towards mmorts and mmofps and other mmo not-rpg variants.
=============
Mmorpg need to become more varied in order to survive (mmorpg sub-genre will take a hit anyway but...) and one type of variety which is heavy-story focus & many single player elements did not work out so well.
Thing is part of industry bet on this kind of gameplay heavily. That's why full-VO, movie-like personal experience went into mmorpg's - TSW will be next one.
I bet many of you don't remember or just haven't read, but there were interviews with many devs / managment in first 10 years of XXI century that were saying about cinematic-like, personal experience and soloing, etc
While it had relatively moderate success in single player field, it ultimately failed and imo will continue to fail in mmorpg's if It will be used as main game feature.
It is good as support secondary one, but that's it.
Anyway - mmorpg's need 2 things:
1. new innovative concepts & taking risks
2. reusing old forgotten concepts - just executing them difffently and avoiding flaws they had in past (like if you decide to have open world housing you need to implement a system to succesfully get rid of unused ones from day 1 or if there is collision detection in game then game need to have short-long cooldown non-combat pass through other players body option since day 1 - to avoid block-griefing, if you want to do players-economy then you need non-full-loot item sink since day 1, etc)
More players will go play non-rpg mmo's and non-mmo multiplayer games, so using standard casual-coveniant mmorpg template for everyone aka WoW or it's story-focused modification will NOT work anymore.
Correction - few games like that will surive since there certainly is quite big group of players that like that kind of design, but as history shows there is not enough space in market for more than 2-3 AAA succesful productions following this design.
Well you can't dispute the statement. From Tetris to Mario to LoL to TF2 to MMORPGs, all games are Skinner Boxes in that they reward the player for playing in certain ways.
I'm not disputing it at all. In fact, given a few scripts, I'm pretty confident that a trained chimp can play these games today the same way players are being rewarded to play.
Edit to add: From his very own Skinner Box, of course.
I do think PVE themeparks are flawed, but not for the same reasons. The largest issue I see is that they become top-heavy after a while. That shifts priority to endgame content, which in turn creates the need to rush to level cap destroying the "fun" of the leveling process.
As far as PVE longevity, the issue I see is replayability. Either the developer keeps cranking out new expansions (think EQ) or the playerbase will eventually get bored doing the same content over and over again. Even with new content, after a while the same basic game concept gets tired.
I think non-combat content is far under-prioritized in MMORPGs. Diversity in gameplay helps offset boredom.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
I'm not disputing it at all. In fact, given a few scripts, I'm pretty confident that a trained chimp can play these games today the same way players are being rewarded to play.
Edit to add: From his very own Skinner Box, of course.
Well it's unlikely a trained chimp is going to play a complicated game like Starcraft 2 successfully, but at its core it's still a skinner box where a certain style of play is rewarded, which steers players towards not only playing the game repeatedly but behaving in a specific manner.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well you can't dispute the statement. From Tetris to Mario to LoL to TF2 to MMORPGs, all games are Skinner Boxes in that they reward the player for playing in certain ways.
I'm not disputing it at all. In fact, given a few scripts, I'm pretty confident that a trained chimp can play these games today the same way players are being rewarded to play.
Edit to add: From his very own Skinner Box, of course.
DING!
And yet it takes a rocket scientist to farm the exact same things in order to buy the exact same items from Owen?
Suuuuuuure it does.
Read the sig....MMO sandboxes are the epitome of boring. I am thankful EQ kicked UO/SWG both back into the stone ages.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
The problem isn't PVE......The problem is making every game the same and using quest hubs until our brains fall out...... I just cant believe more people in the genre havent burnt out on this type of MMO.
Well you can't dispute the statement. From Tetris to Mario to LoL to TF2 to MMORPGs, all games are Skinner Boxes in that they reward the player for playing in certain ways.
I'm not disputing it at all. In fact, given a few scripts, I'm pretty confident that a trained chimp can play these games today the same way players are being rewarded to play.
Edit to add: From his very own Skinner Box, of course.
DING!
And yet it takes a rocket scientist to farm the exact same things in order to buy the exact same items from Owen?
Suuuuuuure it does.
Read the sig....MMO sandboxes are the epitome of boring. I am thankful EQ kicked UO/SWG both back into the stone ages.
I can see you have trouble accepting reality on this issue, but let me explain it yet again.
Raph Koster explained it very well in a presentation at GDCOnline 10 years ago. There's a link in his most recent blog to the PDF that's very easy to follow. You know Raph, he's the guy you've been belittling around here recently.
In it he explains that games are fun because of the little puzzles, and people like to "beat" those little puzzles. In a Raid that comes in the form of figuring out how to beat it. And that's all good up to a point. That point is when we solve the little puzzles, and then it becomes boring to us. We already know it. No more thrill, no more fun.
He compares Tic Tac Toe to Chess. In Tic Tac Toe, there's just a few moves you can make, and the patterns quickly emerge. It's fun at first, but then it gets boring. In Chess however, there are so many options that each move becomes an entirely new game. Each move requires a new effort to determine the opponents strategy. Each game is a new game that's not like the previous games. Chess never gets boring, although you may wish to "log out" often. But if you like playing Chess, you always like playing Chess and it's never boring.
The very limited randomness in Tic Tac Toe quickly disolves, and playing it quickly becomes boring. And you never get that in Chess.
So, in MMO design, it's not the hard coded aspects. It's neither the WoW clone quests nor the Farmville crops nor the UO trade skills. It's the emergent game play.
What it's really about is the emergent game play.
In UO, players actually made trade contracts to supply gear and resources. Without any code to support it.
In UO, players would go to the banks where players were always going, to hawk their goods. This created a "Merchant's Square" atmosphere. Without any code.
In UO player formed auction companies, where an organized group would auction off other player's rare items and mass quantities of goods. Without code designed for it.
-----------Aw hell, I'm tired of taking about it. The point is that UO was the best "Sandbox" game ever made, and it was infinitely more interesting and therefore infinitely more fun to play in, than any game since. It had it's issues, big enough issues to drive players away (rampant PKing, then a bend towards gear grind), but the idea of the game was so much better than where MMOs have gone since. It was the first major MMO, and had a long ways to go in it's own right. But still, the idea is there if anyone wants to take up the challenge.
You, of course, don't want to see that, and you can no longer deny that you are a Themepark Hard-on'er like you were.
The very limited randomness in Tic Tac Toe quickly disolves, and playing it quickly becomes boring. And you never get that in Chess.
So, in MMO design, it's not the hard coded aspects. It's neither the WoW clone quests nor the Farmville crops nor the UO trade skills. It's the emergent game play.
There isn't randomness in either Tic Tac Toe or Chess.
It's not about whether things are hard-coded or not, but whether the game produces a wide enough dynamic.
WOW was a "new puzzle" just as much as UO was (and definitely seems like players felt it was more interesting a puzzle than UO; WOW lasted a lot longer.) And central to the success of that puzzle was the PVE gameplay the OP questions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The very limited randomness in Tic Tac Toe quickly disolves, and playing it quickly becomes boring. And you never get that in Chess.
So, in MMO design, it's not the hard coded aspects. It's neither the WoW clone quests nor the Farmville crops nor the UO trade skills. It's the emergent game play.
There isn't randomness in either Tic Tac Toe or Chess.
It's not about whether things are hard-coded or not, but whether the game produces a wide enough dynamic.
WOW was a "new puzzle" just as much as UO was (and definitely seems like players felt it was more interesting a puzzle than UO; WOW lasted a lot longer.) And central to the success of that puzzle was the PVE gameplay the OP questions.
There's randomness in not knowing what the other player is going to do.
But you guys keep fighting the good fight, man. The RMT scripters are counting on ya.
Oh, and you won this battle. I'm outa here, done. This crap is for losers, and I ain't no loser. I've been suckered back in several times hoping for some intelligence to come around, but it's pretty clear things aren't going to change. To the victor the spoils, and all that.
I think there are a lot of games that would be hard-pressed to fit under the Skinner Box umbrella, unless you're talking strictly MMORPGs. This genre seems to be much more proned to it, however that mold is starting to break. Games that stray away from linear advancement are a pretty big step. Some of the MMOFPSs, like Planetside 2 or Firefall, have really limited linear progression in favor lateral progression.
Yeah, but linear progression has nothing to do with a game being a Skinner Box. Skinner Box is about a game providing pleasure, which then motivates the participant to keep playing or behaving in a certain way.
Every good game ever has been a Skinner Box.
I wouldn't say has nothing to do with it. I mean, look at most linear questing systems. You do the mindless deed, you get a little treat. It's predictable and repetitive. At least when you're carving your own path, you're breaking that cycle a little. I'm not saying that's always the case, but I think over all it's less applicable to the Skinner box stamp than a linear system.
Every good game ever has been a Skinner Box.
I'm not sure I agree with this. Boiling it down like that, it could then be said that the Skinner Box can be applied to everything in life. As humans, we're motivated by some kind of reward, and we usually won't do things that are harmful or that won't benefit us. I think the Skinner box refers to a more extreme set of conditions, where we're doing not-fun tasks for a potential reward. If you're having legitmate fun with a game, I don't think it falls under that category.
I do think PVE themeparks are flawed, but not for the same reasons. The largest issue I see is that they become top-heavy after a while. That shifts priority to endgame content, which in turn creates the need to rush to level cap destroying the "fun" of the leveling process.
As far as PVE longevity, the issue I see is replayability. Either the developer keeps cranking out new expansions (think EQ) or the playerbase will eventually get bored doing the same content over and over again. Even with new content, after a while the same basic game concept gets tired.
I think non-combat content is far under-prioritized in MMORPGs. Diversity in gameplay helps offset boredom.
Every game with progression gets top heavy* and every game gets old. Hardly a problem for PvE themeparks only.
*(unless there's a way to lose that progression)
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Well you can't dispute the statement. From Tetris to Mario to LoL to TF2 to MMORPGs, all games are Skinner Boxes in that they reward the player for playing in certain ways.
I'm not disputing it at all. In fact, given a few scripts, I'm pretty confident that a trained chimp can play these games today the same way players are being rewarded to play.
Edit to add: From his very own Skinner Box, of course.
DING!
And yet it takes a rocket scientist to farm the exact same things in order to buy the exact same items from Owen?
Suuuuuuure it does.
Read the sig....MMO sandboxes are the epitome of boring. I am thankful EQ kicked UO/SWG both back into the stone ages.
I can see you have trouble accepting reality on this issue, but let me explain it yet again.
Raph Koster explained it very well in a presentation at GDCOnline 10 years ago. There's a link in his most recent blog to the PDF that's very easy to follow. You know Raph, he's the guy you've been belittling around here recently.
In it he explains that games are fun because of the little puzzles, and people like to "beat" those little puzzles. In a Raid that comes in the form of figuring out how to beat it. And that's all good up to a point. That point is when we solve the little puzzles, and then it becomes boring to us. We already know it. No more thrill, no more fun.
He compares Tic Tac Toe to Chess. In Tic Tac Toe, there's just a few moves you can make, and the patterns quickly emerge. It's fun at first, but then it gets boring. In Chess however, there are so many options that each move becomes an entirely new game. Each move requires a new effort to determine the opponents strategy. Each game is a new game that's not like the previous games. Chess never gets boring, although you may wish to "log out" often. But if you like playing Chess, you always like playing Chess and it's never boring.
The very limited randomness in Tic Tac Toe quickly disolves, and playing it quickly becomes boring. And you never get that in Chess.
So, in MMO design, it's not the hard coded aspects. It's neither the WoW clone quests nor the Farmville crops nor the UO trade skills. It's the emergent game play.
What it's really about is the emergent game play.
In UO, players actually made trade contracts to supply gear and resources. Without any code to support it.
In UO, players would go to the banks where players were always going, to hawk their goods. This created a "Merchant's Square" atmosphere. Without any code.
In UO player formed auction companies, where an organized group would auction off other player's rare items and mass quantities of goods. Without code designed for it.
-----------Aw hell, I'm tired of taking about it. The point is that UO was the best "Sandbox" game ever made, and it was infinitely more interesting and therefore infinitely more fun to play in, than any game since. It had it's issues, big enough issues to drive players away (rampant PKing, then a bend towards gear grind), but the idea of the game was so much better than where MMOs have gone since. It was the first major MMO, and had a long ways to go in it's own right. But still, the idea is there if anyone wants to take up the challenge.
You, of course, don't want to see that, and you can no longer deny that you are a Themepark Hard-on'er like you were.
Lets set the record straight shall we?
I havent "been on Kostor recently", I have been calling the man out as not understanding PVE is an important thing to a large segment of gamers for yrs now. That he wouldnt understand it if someone bitch smacked him with the idea. He feels gaming should be all about players affecting others, and what do you know? Not all of us feel the same. What is even more earth shattering is that his ideas just dont sell well in the MMO arena.
Did I ever say I wasnt a themepark gamer? I have been enjoying PVE content in video games since the 70s. I was never into PnP, nor was I ever into PVP, which these 2 gaming styles most seem attracted to sandbox MMOs. I think they are boring as shit. What is even more boring is the contention that sandbox MMO gamers are somehow "smarter", or that they are the only "real gamers". Wrong.
I have no clue if UO was the best sandbox MMO ever made. I do know EQ smacked it around so hard that the UO devs threw in Trammal, and the games population grew thanks to it. If Kostor wasnt so full of himself, he would realize there is a huge market of gamers not wanting to deal with others bullshit.
Had EQ not come along, gamers would be forced to deal with Kostors ideas on gaming. The genre is a better place thanks to him being shown the door. If you want a real dev, get Brad into rehab, and let someone else run the games finances.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Well you can't dispute the statement. From Tetris to Mario to LoL to TF2 to MMORPGs, all games are Skinner Boxes in that they reward the player for playing in certain ways.
I'm not disputing it at all. In fact, given a few scripts, I'm pretty confident that a trained chimp can play these games today the same way players are being rewarded to play.
Edit to add: From his very own Skinner Box, of course.
DING!
And yet it takes a rocket scientist to farm the exact same things in order to buy the exact same items from Owen?
Suuuuuuure it does.
Read the sig....MMO sandboxes are the epitome of boring. I am thankful EQ kicked UO/SWG both back into the stone ages.
I can see you have trouble accepting reality on this issue, but let me explain it yet again.
Raph Koster explained it very well in a presentation at GDCOnline 10 years ago. There's a link in his most recent blog to the PDF that's very easy to follow. You know Raph, he's the guy you've been belittling around here recently.
In it he explains that games are fun because of the little puzzles, and people like to "beat" those little puzzles. In a Raid that comes in the form of figuring out how to beat it. And that's all good up to a point. That point is when we solve the little puzzles, and then it becomes boring to us. We already know it. No more thrill, no more fun.
He compares Tic Tac Toe to Chess. In Tic Tac Toe, there's just a few moves you can make, and the patterns quickly emerge. It's fun at first, but then it gets boring. In Chess however, there are so many options that each move becomes an entirely new game. Each move requires a new effort to determine the opponents strategy. Each game is a new game that's not like the previous games. Chess never gets boring, although you may wish to "log out" often. But if you like playing Chess, you always like playing Chess and it's never boring.
The very limited randomness in Tic Tac Toe quickly disolves, and playing it quickly becomes boring. And you never get that in Chess.
So, in MMO design, it's not the hard coded aspects. It's neither the WoW clone quests nor the Farmville crops nor the UO trade skills. It's the emergent game play.
What it's really about is the emergent game play.
In UO, players actually made trade contracts to supply gear and resources. Without any code to support it.
In UO, players would go to the banks where players were always going, to hawk their goods. This created a "Merchant's Square" atmosphere. Without any code.
In UO player formed auction companies, where an organized group would auction off other player's rare items and mass quantities of goods. Without code designed for it.
-----------Aw hell, I'm tired of taking about it. The point is that UO was the best "Sandbox" game ever made, and it was infinitely more interesting and therefore infinitely more fun to play in, than any game since. It had it's issues, big enough issues to drive players away (rampant PKing, then a bend towards gear grind), but the idea of the game was so much better than where MMOs have gone since. It was the first major MMO, and had a long ways to go in it's own right. But still, the idea is there if anyone wants to take up the challenge.
You, of course, don't want to see that, and you can no longer deny that you are a Themepark Hard-on'er like you were.
Lets set the record straight shall we?
I havent "been on Kostor recently", I have been calling the man out as not understanding PVE is an important thing to a large segment of gamers for yrs now. That he wouldnt understand it if someone bitch smacked him with the idea. He feels gaming should be all about players affecting others, and what do you know? Not all of us feel the same. What is even more earth shattering is that his ideas just dont sell well in the MMO arena.
Did I ever say I wasnt a themepark gamer? I have been enjoying PVE content in video games since the 70s. I was never into PnP, nor was I ever into PVP, which these 2 gaming styles most seem attracted to sandbox MMOs. I think they are boring as shit. What is even more boring is the contention that sandbox MMO gamers are somehow "smarter", or that they are the only "real gamers". Wrong.
I have no clue if UO was the best sandbox MMO ever made. I do know EQ smacked it around so hard that the UO devs threw in Trammal, and the games population grew thanks to it. If Kostor wasnt so full of himself, he would realize there is a huge market of gamers not wanting to deal with others bullshit.
Had EQ not come along, gamers would be forced to deal with Kostors ideas on gaming. The genre is a better place thanks to him being shown the door. If you want a real dev, get Brad into rehab, and let someone else run the games finances.
Actually, he was on the right track really. His problem was belief in the players. Sandbox needs content almost as much as a themepark do. EQ simply had the D&D model, safe PvE gameplay and appeared at the right time. It also had the grind and levels which in large part is the bain of MMORPG's lean on. UO was highly unpolished as was EQ. WoW took EQ's methods, put a good story behind t it. and made the grind more quest based than mob killing, polished it and casualized it.
If WoW was a casualized Sandbox with the same storyline it would have likely been just as sucessful. You design Azeroth with space for player housing in mind and you'd have an awesome sandbox.
To me levels in MMORPG's need to go. They're too divisive and push teir/hub based content instead of content based on locations shared by the community. Thats why you have so many low level area's ghost towns because everyone is leveled up past the content. In a skill based game without magic barrier's from levels and extreme HP/MANA/StAM or whatever differences preventing combatants from battle you can do a lot more with content.
Answer to the original question is no, Themepark games are working as intended, they are nothing more than story driven RPG's that are children of a marriage of Final Fanasy type games from consoles and MMOG's like UO. Only problem is that MMOS go through an evolution. Thats why they are failing for the most part at this time. And new ideas like Archage and Guild Wars 2 will set a new standard even if they dont reach 10 million subscribers like WOW did.
Comments
Yeah, show me a game which isn't a skinner box in one way or another and you'll have shown me a very bad game.
Activity -> Fun Gained -> Behavior Reinforced is pretty much what every good game is about. It's inescapable.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yessiree, MMO's have a very bright future indeed.
Once upon a time....
Well you can't dispute the statement. From Tetris to Mario to LoL to TF2 to MMORPGs, all games are Skinner Boxes in that they reward the player for playing in certain ways.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think there are a lot of games that would be hard-pressed to fit under the Skinner Box umbrella, unless you're talking strictly MMORPGs. This genre seems to be much more proned to it, however that mold is starting to break. Games that stray away from linear advancement are a pretty big step. Some of the MMOFPSs, like Planetside 2 or Firefall, have really limited linear progression in favor lateral progression. Even Guild Wars 2 is stepping away from it, to a degree; there are still levels, but it doesn't take long to level up and there is no treadmill at the endgame.
The MMO genre is going through some wacky changes right now. I think it will eventually settle, but there won't be some monolith that reigns over all, like WoW does now. I think there just going to be a variety that fits into the carrying capacity, meaning a lot of older or cheaply made games we have now will die out. F2P seems to be the future; with companies recognizing this, a higher-quality breed of games is being produced. There will totally be games with raiding, because I tihnk that there are enough people that enjoy it where there is a market for it, but it definitely won't be the expected norm of AAA games like it is now. My prediction is that there will be fewer, higher-quality MMOs than there are now; it will just take some time for the market to stabilize. With that will come a better variety, though. At least, that's my hope. With no single game to emulate, more original ideas will sprout up.
I had to vote no because I don't think that devs need to switch focus as much as realize they need to add more from the start. A game like TOR would be doing much better if they could satisfy the primarily pvp players much like wow has done from it's inception.
I've said this many times before there will not be another "elephant" in this room until someone can engage pvp players and to a lesser extent roleplayers as well.
Having said all that though I don't think that designing less pve content is really the answer because they would just be alienating the people who are accepting the games as they are being released.
Ultimately my thought is the pvp crowd accounts for more players than either the pve crowd or the rp crowd combined but I don't think devs should forsake either for the other which is what I see as the problem with almost every mmorpg that is being released.
Yeah, but linear progression has nothing to do with a game being a Skinner Box. Skinner Box is about a game providing pleasure, which then motivates the participant to keep playing or behaving in a certain way.
Every good game ever has been a Skinner Box.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's an overly simplistic analogy, but those are best for message boards.
The Skinner reward is success of a short-term goal of some kind regularly, and/or a more long-term goal more rarely. And yes, it's a formula that's fairly common to games (of nearly all varieties) and even puzzles to a lesser extent. Common to work, achievement, life too.
But people aren't rats; our behavior is many times more complex, and the analogy breaks down because of it.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
"Nearly" all varities? No. Every. single. good. game.
There is no game out there which survives completely devoid of rewards.
That's why "Skinner Box" used as criticism makes no sense, because a game without a Skinner Box is devoid of graphics, music, art, or gameplay. It's nothing. It's not even a game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Devs have all the control in the world over their game. This includes creating ways to make the PvE content last longer.
Becoming stronger one way or the other is the underlying concept behind every progression most players care about. Simply becoming different (through cosmetic options) can be interesting, but not really the main driving factor for most players.
PvE themepark is not necessarily flawed itself.
Thing is there is too much of them on the market and there is not enough playerbase for it.
Many players that played mmorpg's in past and some of which still do, want either very diffrent design of a mmorpg or diffrent group just don't care about mmo and rpg part of game and escape into lobby multiplayer games like MOBA.
Some people want mmo, but does not necessarily want rpg, and those will go towards mmorts and mmofps and other mmo not-rpg variants.
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Mmorpg need to become more varied in order to survive (mmorpg sub-genre will take a hit anyway but...) and one type of variety which is heavy-story focus & many single player elements did not work out so well.
Thing is part of industry bet on this kind of gameplay heavily. That's why full-VO, movie-like personal experience went into mmorpg's - TSW will be next one.
I bet many of you don't remember or just haven't read, but there were interviews with many devs / managment in first 10 years of XXI century that were saying about cinematic-like, personal experience and soloing, etc
While it had relatively moderate success in single player field, it ultimately failed and imo will continue to fail in mmorpg's if It will be used as main game feature.
It is good as support secondary one, but that's it.
Anyway - mmorpg's need 2 things:
1. new innovative concepts & taking risks
2. reusing old forgotten concepts - just executing them difffently and avoiding flaws they had in past (like if you decide to have open world housing you need to implement a system to succesfully get rid of unused ones from day 1 or if there is collision detection in game then game need to have short-long cooldown non-combat pass through other players body option since day 1 - to avoid block-griefing, if you want to do players-economy then you need non-full-loot item sink since day 1, etc)
More players will go play non-rpg mmo's and non-mmo multiplayer games, so using standard casual-coveniant mmorpg template for everyone aka WoW or it's story-focused modification will NOT work anymore.
Correction - few games like that will surive since there certainly is quite big group of players that like that kind of design, but as history shows there is not enough space in market for more than 2-3 AAA succesful productions following this design.
Yes, and it has everything to do with the promotion of longevity and freedom for players.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
I'm not disputing it at all. In fact, given a few scripts, I'm pretty confident that a trained chimp can play these games today the same way players are being rewarded to play.
Edit to add: From his very own Skinner Box, of course.
DING!
Once upon a time....
I do think PVE themeparks are flawed, but not for the same reasons. The largest issue I see is that they become top-heavy after a while. That shifts priority to endgame content, which in turn creates the need to rush to level cap destroying the "fun" of the leveling process.
As far as PVE longevity, the issue I see is replayability. Either the developer keeps cranking out new expansions (think EQ) or the playerbase will eventually get bored doing the same content over and over again. Even with new content, after a while the same basic game concept gets tired.
I think non-combat content is far under-prioritized in MMORPGs. Diversity in gameplay helps offset boredom.
Well it's unlikely a trained chimp is going to play a complicated game like Starcraft 2 successfully, but at its core it's still a skinner box where a certain style of play is rewarded, which steers players towards not only playing the game repeatedly but behaving in a specific manner.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And yet it takes a rocket scientist to farm the exact same things in order to buy the exact same items from Owen?
Suuuuuuure it does.
Read the sig....MMO sandboxes are the epitome of boring. I am thankful EQ kicked UO/SWG both back into the stone ages.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
The problem isn't PVE......The problem is making every game the same and using quest hubs until our brains fall out...... I just cant believe more people in the genre havent burnt out on this type of MMO.
I can see you have trouble accepting reality on this issue, but let me explain it yet again.
Raph Koster explained it very well in a presentation at GDCOnline 10 years ago. There's a link in his most recent blog to the PDF that's very easy to follow. You know Raph, he's the guy you've been belittling around here recently.
In it he explains that games are fun because of the little puzzles, and people like to "beat" those little puzzles. In a Raid that comes in the form of figuring out how to beat it. And that's all good up to a point. That point is when we solve the little puzzles, and then it becomes boring to us. We already know it. No more thrill, no more fun.
He compares Tic Tac Toe to Chess. In Tic Tac Toe, there's just a few moves you can make, and the patterns quickly emerge. It's fun at first, but then it gets boring. In Chess however, there are so many options that each move becomes an entirely new game. Each move requires a new effort to determine the opponents strategy. Each game is a new game that's not like the previous games. Chess never gets boring, although you may wish to "log out" often. But if you like playing Chess, you always like playing Chess and it's never boring.
The very limited randomness in Tic Tac Toe quickly disolves, and playing it quickly becomes boring. And you never get that in Chess.
So, in MMO design, it's not the hard coded aspects. It's neither the WoW clone quests nor the Farmville crops nor the UO trade skills. It's the emergent game play.
What it's really about is the emergent game play.
Once upon a time....
There isn't randomness in either Tic Tac Toe or Chess.
It's not about whether things are hard-coded or not, but whether the game produces a wide enough dynamic.
WOW was a "new puzzle" just as much as UO was (and definitely seems like players felt it was more interesting a puzzle than UO; WOW lasted a lot longer.) And central to the success of that puzzle was the PVE gameplay the OP questions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There's randomness in not knowing what the other player is going to do.
But you guys keep fighting the good fight, man. The RMT scripters are counting on ya.
Oh, and you won this battle. I'm outa here, done. This crap is for losers, and I ain't no loser. I've been suckered back in several times hoping for some intelligence to come around, but it's pretty clear things aren't going to change. To the victor the spoils, and all that.
Once upon a time....
I wouldn't say has nothing to do with it. I mean, look at most linear questing systems. You do the mindless deed, you get a little treat. It's predictable and repetitive. At least when you're carving your own path, you're breaking that cycle a little. I'm not saying that's always the case, but I think over all it's less applicable to the Skinner box stamp than a linear system.
Every good game ever has been a Skinner Box.
I'm not sure I agree with this. Boiling it down like that, it could then be said that the Skinner Box can be applied to everything in life. As humans, we're motivated by some kind of reward, and we usually won't do things that are harmful or that won't benefit us. I think the Skinner box refers to a more extreme set of conditions, where we're doing not-fun tasks for a potential reward. If you're having legitmate fun with a game, I don't think it falls under that category.
Every game with progression gets top heavy* and every game gets old. Hardly a problem for PvE themeparks only.
*(unless there's a way to lose that progression)
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Lets set the record straight shall we?
I havent "been on Kostor recently", I have been calling the man out as not understanding PVE is an important thing to a large segment of gamers for yrs now. That he wouldnt understand it if someone bitch smacked him with the idea. He feels gaming should be all about players affecting others, and what do you know? Not all of us feel the same. What is even more earth shattering is that his ideas just dont sell well in the MMO arena.
Did I ever say I wasnt a themepark gamer? I have been enjoying PVE content in video games since the 70s. I was never into PnP, nor was I ever into PVP, which these 2 gaming styles most seem attracted to sandbox MMOs. I think they are boring as shit. What is even more boring is the contention that sandbox MMO gamers are somehow "smarter", or that they are the only "real gamers". Wrong.
I have no clue if UO was the best sandbox MMO ever made. I do know EQ smacked it around so hard that the UO devs threw in Trammal, and the games population grew thanks to it. If Kostor wasnt so full of himself, he would realize there is a huge market of gamers not wanting to deal with others bullshit.
Had EQ not come along, gamers would be forced to deal with Kostors ideas on gaming. The genre is a better place thanks to him being shown the door. If you want a real dev, get Brad into rehab, and let someone else run the games finances.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Actually, he was on the right track really. His problem was belief in the players. Sandbox needs content almost as much as a themepark do. EQ simply had the D&D model, safe PvE gameplay and appeared at the right time. It also had the grind and levels which in large part is the bain of MMORPG's lean on. UO was highly unpolished as was EQ. WoW took EQ's methods, put a good story behind t it. and made the grind more quest based than mob killing, polished it and casualized it.
If WoW was a casualized Sandbox with the same storyline it would have likely been just as sucessful. You design Azeroth with space for player housing in mind and you'd have an awesome sandbox.
To me levels in MMORPG's need to go. They're too divisive and push teir/hub based content instead of content based on locations shared by the community. Thats why you have so many low level area's ghost towns because everyone is leveled up past the content. In a skill based game without magic barrier's from levels and extreme HP/MANA/StAM or whatever differences preventing combatants from battle you can do a lot more with content.
Answer to the original question is no, Themepark games are working as intended, they are nothing more than story driven RPG's that are children of a marriage of Final Fanasy type games from consoles and MMOG's like UO. Only problem is that MMOS go through an evolution. Thats why they are failing for the most part at this time. And new ideas like Archage and Guild Wars 2 will set a new standard even if they dont reach 10 million subscribers like WOW did.