Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by FinalFikusbcbully with the score:)
There definitely seems to be a big divide between the people that need the game to force them to do something other than level/grind and the people that just do it naturally.
We're not all the same. There are people with a much higher tolerance or need for highly focused activities. For instance, there are people who are capable of playing a game through, doing nothing but highly focused activities for hours. Then again, there are people who play for a half hour or an hour and then they're "done".
I am not so sure it's the players that need that down time though. I think it's more of the game that needs players to engage in down time so they become invested in the game. This lets the game provide both the high points and the low points of experience, rather than just high points. Presumably this leads to a greater enjoyment of the game, but even if it didn't, a higher player retention would be beneficial to the game itself.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by FinalFikus bcbully with the score:)
There definitely seems to be a big divide between the people that need the game to force them to do something other than level/grind and the people that just do it naturally.
I have the feeling that the people who want downtime forced by the game think that when it's not forced, it's a waste of their time.
Wrong. Those of us who want ENCOURAGED socializing and downtime are aware of the fact that the average player will do what is best for them at all times.
If there is a system in place that requires down time, like the cantina in SWG, people will seek out those social places.
I love socializing, but if a game is 99% focused on charging through linear instanced singleplayer content, no one else is going to socialize, and I can't socialize alone. Simple. As. That.
The only good feature DDO ever had was that to heal you had to be in a tavern. It was the only time in an MMO where I saw a tavern act as a meet place for groups, and people telling stories and drinking as their HP went back up.
Originally posted by lizardbones Given that developers as a whole have more access to information than anyone here*, and the enforced down time has been whittled down to nearly nothing, I would say that there are many more people who are interested more in the encounters than some sort of socialization between encounters. It could be those people hate other players, don't want to socialize at all, or just that they'd rather socialize in a "social" space like towns. * Sometimes developers post here. Raph Koster has posted here. :-) Developers and people in the industry probably know a lot more than we do, even if they are posting here.
If everything is so fine and dandy and everyone knows what he is doing, why does not wow have 16+ mil subs, Rift 5+ and so on?
Btw, what you are talking about was the result of socialisation in some products in the past, if you had ingame friends, you could kill for hours and hours , no downtime with support chars, more encounter oppotunities in guild dungeons and more.
Flame on!
1) Nothing lasts forever. Just because leveling and then end game raiding attracted twelve million players four years ago doesn't mean that's the ideal solution now.
2) Downtime vs Uptime isn't the only factor that does into players liking a game. It doesn't matter if Eve has the perfect balance between downtime and uptime if I hate the fact that I don't have a player avatar.
1) True, but that was not the point, the point is you had "your" changes and the results are inconclusive at best, so where does that certainty that they were good and that the devs know what they are doing come from? Personal preference? My personal preference (or, lets just say i would not mind it THAT much ) is to have to gather 200k material to max out gathering. But inserting it into wow may kill off the remnants of tradeskills in that game for good
Btw, i am not saying that more people are interested in rpgs than action/arcade games or similar blanket statements, what i dont get is why "we" are desperatly trying to attract the action crowd at the expense the people who actually enjoy things like the open world , skills and socializing.
..and we are once again at the argument that to blend/puree your steak with fries and sauce is a good thing because it happens anyways when you eat it, there is no difference to what arriwes in the stomach, AND it gives the CHOICE to eat your steak with a spoon or straw...
Flame on!
If your analogy in MMO world of "gourmet quality food" is "having to stare at a screen for 5 minutes watching a couple of bars raise back to maximum", then I'm glad to live in a country where we value quality food a bit higher than that standard.
Is there a thought in there somewehere or are you just snubbing the steak ?
Shouldnt you know something about savoring food, anyways? Are you really spearheading the idea that eating 10 cremes au chocolat (sic) in 10 minutes, in a bus, on a bumpy road, is better than eating one in peace watching a sunset ?
Loktofeit has already explained the bars better than i woul be able to, but to bite, so to say, if a 5 minute downtime here and there means a assassin plays as a assassin, not as a warrior, NOW WITH DAGGERS!!! , then it is a price worth considering.
SWG pre-CU had quite a bit of downtime programmed into the game's structure. There was waiting for the next shuttle (although that went away with Jump to Lightspeed), getting wounds healed via watching/listening to entertainers, getting buffed by master musicians and master dancers, getting healed by medics, getting buffed by doctors, taking time to repair broken equipment or purchase new equipment, and finding a player or npc to train new skills. What did this do for the game? It helped build community. People met other players and tended to chat/interact with other players. I joined guilds after meeting the guild leader in the cantina. The game actually felt like a multi-player game because no matter how high a player developed and how unpopulated of an area a person went to earn xp, most had to find their way back to a social hub at some point (exceptions would have been players who had enough accounts for alts to take care of all their needs).
After the NGE hit, I started a new character and was able to get at least to level 40 without ever having to interact with another player. I followed the storyline, log off where ever I was, got everything I needed from loot, and leveled automatically. Like many other MMOs I've played, the only way one knows that others are even in the same game is if they happen to pass them while going from one quest area to another or see them chatting in world or zone chat. Guilds become little more than a group of people to chat with while running around doing quest solo. I've been in several guilds in which I actually met a very small percentage of the guild members (my character and their character being in the same area at the same time with an awareness that the other person was there by actually seeing each other, not just talking about the event in guild chat).
A lack of downtime is just one of the many characteristics that go together to make most MMOs feel like little more than single player games being played by multiple people.
Originally posted by Loktofeit You aren't in the middle of something when you do either of those. More importantly, that boat ride or griffon flight was taken when you chose to take it, no? I think that to call that 'forced downtime' would be the same as saying that anything between you and SMASHKILLLOOTREPEAT is forced downtime, which would be quite the extreme.Personally, I think a big part of the problem is that many MMOs are using the very limited and linear gameplay of EQ. Expand the options and reduce the emphasis on grinding through levels, and there would probably be a lot more socializing and a lot more interaction.
That is a great distinction. It is a choice, made by the players. In EQ, at least, if a player had a Wizard or Druid friend, or willing to spend some platinum, they could get a teleport somewhere fairly quickly to bypass the boatrides
I agree with your second part, too. Wholeheartedly
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Originally posted by Raph I do think anyone who looks at the "Socialization requires downtime" piece really needs to look at this later follow-up, and the discussion thread under it (start at the bottom and read up, it's sorted in reverse order):"Forcing Interaction" - http://www.raphkoster.com/2005/12/09/forcing-interaction/
What the cr@p, man. That doesn't boil things down to "Loktofelt is [right/wrong]". It's almost like this is a topic that changes depending on the game that's being discussed, and the players that are being considered.
I had to laugh with that. Thanks, Bones
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Originally posted by FinalFikus bcbully with the score:)
There definitely seems to be a big divide between the people that need the game to force them to do something other than level/grind and the people that just do it naturally.
I have the feeling that the people who want downtime forced by the game think that when it's not forced, it's a waste of their time.
For instance:
- Spending 5 minutes chatting while eating and drinking to regen mana/health is not a waste of time since the game forced it.
- Spending 5 minutes chatting with another randomly encountered player, or in a town, is a waste of time because they are not forced to do it and could be grinding levels or gear instead.
It's a mindset. They don't realize that the two situations are the same, except that the seconds gives everyone a choice.
Has it occurred to you that some of us prefer downtime as you call it, because we like the challenge of managing your mana for the long haul.. Group mana management is a lost art for the most part.. Having classes that increase regeneration for both health and mana should be viable.. You may like playing zerg combat from one pack of mobs to the next, but some of us don't. Our voice deserves the same respect as yours.. Correct?
That's a whole other topic and completely unrelated to what we are discussing here, which is the belief that forced downtime strongly encouraged and aided personal interaction. Plenty of people enjoy managing mana/health/stamina and, as AC clearly shows, there are ways to do that without completely removing a player's option to play the game, but that, again, is a conversation for another topic as this discussion isn't about efficient regen or watching blue lines rise.
No it isn't.. This whole topic is about opinion and interpretation.. What you call downtime, I call regen time.. You call it forced downtime, I call it forced mana or health management.. EQ never forced people to sit in town and chat.. but it did force you to manage your character from food/ drink to weight to mana and health.. The more efficient you became with your mana for example the less time you had between combat encounters.. So it's NOT a different topic.. it's just the way your view it.. Personally I find eating a mage biscuit after each fight a total joke..
You just need to give players they are "doing" something during downtime to keep them happy. Recovering from death penalties is needs a social element and the time flies. Having a social element is the answer to many gameplay systems that need downtime.
This talk of forcing players to be social, you might as well say MMOs force players to level. When it comes to innovation it is difficult to see the future, but we can see what has been lost in gaming. Today a social MMO would be an innovation.
I'm tired of hotbar rotations and button mashing, Everquest 1 had it right, there was more talking and more socialization.
Now, everyone is to busy pressing buttons and moving around the screen to communicate , and everything is a zerg fest...
They wanted to entertain tanks dps and healers so no one "got bored", yet, they don't give anything for loot other than the same old low drop rate mounts and pets, and the same old vertical equipment grind that you get every single game update/expansion.
*shrug*
It makes more sense to enable a slower grouping / raiding experience where people actually socialize, after all this is what mmos used to be about, socialization instead of soloing in peaceful quiet.
Now because groups are mindless zergs, I actually get most of my socialization from raiding, because I'm so bored of soloing. However, it is not nearly as fulfilling as Everquest 1 was...
Without the challenge and the camping, there is just almost no socialization, the only talking you hear most of the time is strategy on how to beat the raid boss and what you are supposed to be doing during that encounter. We used to have people goofing off and just plain joking around and playing during raids...
Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard I play MMOs since UO beta and I never needed game mechanics to force me to engage in social interactions... I socialize just as well in today's MMOs than in those 15 years ago.
I would venture to suggest you're in the minority in that regard (this is not a criticism but a compliment on your abilities to socialise well). Unfortunately my experience has been that the majority of gamers take the path of least resistance to their perceived goal, which is generally speaking, gaining max level and best gear.
Optimising that process means speed running heroic mode dungeons with the minimum required interaction with other players (time wasted chatting is time better spent farming tokens). Games that tailor the experience towards that approach will naturally attract gamers with that mentality.
Now perhaps the majority of gamers prefer that style of gameplay? I'm not sure really, but I feel as though that approach takes away the amazing social aspect that first drew me to these games, which is part of my point. Games which provide opportunities and structures for encouraging social interaction and discouraging the "wham bam thankyou ma'am" dungeon runs have a better community for it. Maybe it's simply the demographic that a more social game style attracts?
The people that don't speak now, are the people that weren't worth speaking to before. You know who they are, the selfish ones who only interested in their own achievements and gain. People who want to be genuinely sociable, without having some game mechanic forcing them, are still sociable in todays MMOs.
I can do without the charity chat from anti-social types thanks.
The people that don't speak now, are the people that weren't worth speaking to before. You know who they are, the selfish ones who only interested in their own achievements and gain. People who want to be genuinely sociable, without having some game mechanic forcing them, are still sociable in todays MMOs.
I can do without the charity chat from anti-social types thanks.
Thats naive, its like saying "people that refuse to talk with me when i approach them in the street are antisocial morons that are not worth talking to".
Originally posted by Banaghran Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by BanaghranOriginally posted by lizardbones Given that developers as a whole have more access to information than anyone here*, and the enforced down time has been whittled down to nearly nothing, I would say that there are many more people who are interested more in the encounters than some sort of socialization between encounters. It could be those people hate other players, don't want to socialize at all, or just that they'd rather socialize in a "social" space like towns. * Sometimes developers post here. Raph Koster has posted here. :-) Developers and people in the industry probably know a lot more than we do, even if they are posting here.
If everything is so fine and dandy and everyone knows what he is doing, why does not wow have 16+ mil subs, Rift 5+ and so on?Btw, what you are talking about was the result of socialisation in some products in the past, if you had ingame friends, you could kill for hours and hours , no downtime with support chars, more encounter oppotunities in guild dungeons and more.Flame on! 1) Nothing lasts forever. Just because leveling and then end game raiding attracted twelve million players four years ago doesn't mean that's the ideal solution now. 2) Downtime vs Uptime isn't the only factor that does into players liking a game. It doesn't matter if Eve has the perfect balance between downtime and uptime if I hate the fact that I don't have a player avatar. 1) True, but that was not the point, the point is you had "your" changes and the results are inconclusive at best, so where does that certainty that they were good and that the devs know what they are doing come from? Personal preference? My personal preference (or, lets just say i would not mind it THAT much ) is to have to gather 200k material to max out gathering. But inserting it into wow may kill off the remnants of tradeskills in that game for good
Btw, i am not saying that more people are interested in rpgs than action/arcade games or similar blanket statements, what i dont get is why "we" are desperatly trying to attract the action crowd at the expense the people who actually enjoy things like the open world , skills and socializing.
2) So?
Flame on!
Ah. It is a certainty that developers and people in the industry have access to more information on player behavior than we do. It is possible to build a much clearer picture of what currently works, and what currently doesn't. That doesn't make developers perfect, but it does make them much more knowledgeable than us. My relation between the observed change in downtime between encounters is definitely an assumption, and it's from the perspective of an outsider. I'm not a developer, so I can just see that downtime between encounters is something that's going away. That downtime is being moved someplace else. Maybe to cut scenes. The assumption is that players do not want downtime between every encounter, so in response developers are moving the downtime from between encounters to someplace else.
There are a lot of reasons why developers make the games they make. They start with the game they want, then get to the point of a game that will sell, and then finally to the game that they are capable of making. If it doesn't look like they are building games for the "open world, skills and socializing" players, then either they aren't interested in those players or they don't understand those players. You'd have to ask each individual developer why they made the game they made and why it's not for that specific group of players to really know why they never went there.
2) Game design is more complex than providing some uptime and downtime in various places. Regarding your example with groups and killing for hours. It doesn't matter if the game allows for killing for hours if players don't want to kill groups of mobs for hours. The player preference doesn't take into consideration uptime or downtime, just the activity they want to do.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by FinalFikus bcbully with the score:)
There definitely seems to be a big divide between the people that need the game to force them to do something other than level/grind and the people that just do it naturally.
I have the feeling that the people who want downtime forced by the game think that when it's not forced, it's a waste of their time.
For instance:
- Spending 5 minutes chatting while eating and drinking to regen mana/health is not a waste of time since the game forced it.
- Spending 5 minutes chatting with another randomly encountered player, or in a town, is a waste of time because they are not forced to do it and could be grinding levels or gear instead.
It's a mindset. They don't realize that the two situations are the same, except that the seconds gives everyone a choice.
Because, when given the choice, most players won't take it. To quote the 2nd article Raph provided to this thread,
"the part that is getting ignored is that the vast majority of players will choose the most obvious path towards cognitive engagement, and towards the reinforcement effects of the reward structure of the game. In other words whacking shiny moles is easier, more predictable, and better rewarded, so lacking opportunity and incentive, people won’t do anything else."
The entire article should be read, not really fair to take this one comment out of full context, but still, it does argue the point that you can't rely on players to do what is best for the game, or even themselves, sometimes the developers have to provide the opportunities for them to socialize, even if they don't want to.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Originally posted by FinalFikus bcbully with the score:)
There definitely seems to be a big divide between the people that need the game to force them to do something other than level/grind and the people that just do it naturally.
I have the feeling that the people who want downtime forced by the game think that when it's not forced, it's a waste of their time.
For instance:
- Spending 5 minutes chatting while eating and drinking to regen mana/health is not a waste of time since the game forced it.
- Spending 5 minutes chatting with another randomly encountered player, or in a town, is a waste of time because they are not forced to do it and could be grinding levels or gear instead.
It's a mindset. They don't realize that the two situations are the same, except that the seconds gives everyone a choice.
Because, when given the choice, most players won't take it. To quote the 2nd article Raph provided to this thread,
"the part that is getting ignored is that the vast majority of players will choose the most obvious path towards cognitive engagement, and towards the reinforcement effects of the reward structure of the game. In other words whacking shiny moles is easier, more predictable, and better rewarded, so lacking opportunity and incentive, people won’t do anything else."
The entire article should be read, not really fair to take this one comment out of full context, but still, it does argue the point that you can't rely on players to do what is best for the game, or even themselves, sometimes the developers have to provide the opportunities for them to socialize, even if they don't want to.
There is a significant difference between providing opportunities to encourage interaction and halting an unrelated activity already in progress in hopes of interaction. No one is suggesting that opportunities shouldn't be provided. The article and several here have even stated that safe zones, buff areas and other moments are good ways to achieve that goal.
The argument being made against forced downtime for medding/regen isn't zero downtime. It's moving that downtime to a place or moment where it isn't interrupting an activity that players are currently enjoying, and there are many ways to do that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I feel that one issue here is that quite a number of people are equating downtime as boredom time which unnaturally forces social interaction, and I think that that's not a correct way to view it.
For example, in a generic quest that asks you to kill a certain number of creatures, you have two options:
1. You have to kill 30 of x. Which you can do without a break in between.
2. You have to kill 10, have a "downtime" and kill another 10.
If both options take a similar amount of time, I will take option 1 in a Single player, and option 2 in an MMO. The nature of a multiplayer world is to introduce a social aspect of it, why not have the game pace around it as well?
Both cases are routine, some will say boring in itself. However, in option 2, downtime actually creates choices and potential for other things, the immediate obvious being socialising. This has an exponential effect the more you have to kill, or the longer you have to spend on such quests. Sure, downtime might seem boring when you don't have anything to do, but I don't see much better alternatives given in today's MMOs.
You know, the last I went out for lunch at work I drove. So I decided to pull a page from "old school" MMOs because they are so awesome and designed by programmers (and everyone knows programmers have great social skills).
So right when we were about 5 minutes from this kick-ass BBQ joint that everyone had been talking about for 30 minutes ( and of course people were really hungry too), I pulled over to the side of the road and said "Hey guys! Let's chat! Tell me about your day!".
Everyone thought it was a great idea and they were not pissed off at all that I didn't keep driving do they could eat. They though it was a great way to increase office comraderie and totally worth the time that was wasted and stomach grumbling. And the fact we could have been talking while also eating tasty BBQ was not an issue at all.
BTW that was sarcasm.
You want more socialization? Cool; put in things that HELP socialization. Cock blocking people is not a great way to HELP socialization even if it is a SIDE EFFECT of it. Yeah when my friend gets cock blocked at the bar he starts talking. Its called complaining, it is a type of socialization. Sharing the misery is NOT GOOD DESIGN. People go to bars after work or whatever and commiserate with each other, but the bars themselves DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE MISERY. They help alleviate.
Originally posted by Kyleran Originally posted by Jean-Luc_PicardOriginally posted by LoktofeitOriginally posted by FinalFikusbcbully with the score:)
There definitely seems to be a big divide between the people that need the game to force them to do something other than level/grind and the people that just do it naturally. I have the feeling that the people who want downtime forced by the game think that when it's not forced, it's a waste of their time.For instance:- Spending 5 minutes chatting while eating and drinking to regen mana/health is not a waste of time since the game forced it.- Spending 5 minutes chatting with another randomly encountered player, or in a town, is a waste of time because they are not forced to do it and could be grinding levels or gear instead.It's a mindset. They don't realize that the two situations are the same, except that the seconds gives everyone a choice.Because, when given the choice, most players won't take it. To quote the 2nd article Raph provided to this thread,
"the part that is getting ignored is that the vast majority of players will choose the most obvious path towards cognitive engagement, and towards the reinforcement effects of the reward structure of the game. In other words whacking shiny moles is easier, more predictable, and better rewarded, so lacking opportunity and incentive, people wont do anything else."
The entire article should be read, not really fair to take this one comment out of full context, but still, it does argue the point that you can't rely on players to do what is best for the game, or even themselves, sometimes the developers have to provide the opportunities for them to socialize, even if they don't want to.
Players will always do what is in their own best interests. The trick is getting the players to do what's in the best interest of the game and the developer, while at the same time allowing the player to do what's in their own best interests.
Ideally, the developer will provide the lulls in the action where most of the players want it and will provide opportunities for socialization in the places that the players want it as well.
That doesn't mean forcing players to socialize if they don't want to. No, that way leads to players leaving the game and finding something else to play. The best a developer can do is provide opportunities for lulls in the action and socialization without actually getting in the player's way. The player chooses to spend their downtime in the game rather than AFK because it provides the most benefit in terms of fun.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
We're not all the same. There are people with a much higher tolerance or need for highly focused activities. For instance, there are people who are capable of playing a game through, doing nothing but highly focused activities for hours. Then again, there are people who play for a half hour or an hour and then they're "done".
I am not so sure it's the players that need that down time though. I think it's more of the game that needs players to engage in down time so they become invested in the game. This lets the game provide both the high points and the low points of experience, rather than just high points. Presumably this leads to a greater enjoyment of the game, but even if it didn't, a higher player retention would be beneficial to the game itself.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Wrong. Those of us who want ENCOURAGED socializing and downtime are aware of the fact that the average player will do what is best for them at all times.
If there is a system in place that requires down time, like the cantina in SWG, people will seek out those social places.
I love socializing, but if a game is 99% focused on charging through linear instanced singleplayer content, no one else is going to socialize, and I can't socialize alone. Simple. As. That.
The only good feature DDO ever had was that to heal you had to be in a tavern. It was the only time in an MMO where I saw a tavern act as a meet place for groups, and people telling stories and drinking as their HP went back up.
1) True, but that was not the point, the point is you had "your" changes and the results are inconclusive at best, so where does that certainty that they were good and that the devs know what they are doing come from? Personal preference? My personal preference (or, lets just say i would not mind it THAT much
) is to have to gather 200k material to max out gathering. But inserting it into wow may kill off the remnants of tradeskills in that game for good 
Btw, i am not saying that more people are interested in rpgs than action/arcade games or similar blanket statements, what i dont get is why "we" are desperatly trying to attract the action crowd at the expense the people who actually enjoy things like the open world , skills and socializing.
2) So?
Flame on!
Is there a thought in there somewehere or are you just snubbing the steak ?
Shouldnt you know something about savoring food, anyways? Are you really spearheading the idea that eating 10 cremes au chocolat (sic) in 10 minutes, in a bus, on a bumpy road, is better than eating one in peace watching a sunset ?
Loktofeit has already explained the bars better than i woul be able to, but to bite, so to say, if a 5 minute downtime here and there means a assassin plays as a assassin, not as a warrior, NOW WITH DAGGERS!!! , then it is a price worth considering.
Flame on!
SWG pre-CU had quite a bit of downtime programmed into the game's structure. There was waiting for the next shuttle (although that went away with Jump to Lightspeed), getting wounds healed via watching/listening to entertainers, getting buffed by master musicians and master dancers, getting healed by medics, getting buffed by doctors, taking time to repair broken equipment or purchase new equipment, and finding a player or npc to train new skills. What did this do for the game? It helped build community. People met other players and tended to chat/interact with other players. I joined guilds after meeting the guild leader in the cantina. The game actually felt like a multi-player game because no matter how high a player developed and how unpopulated of an area a person went to earn xp, most had to find their way back to a social hub at some point (exceptions would have been players who had enough accounts for alts to take care of all their needs).
After the NGE hit, I started a new character and was able to get at least to level 40 without ever having to interact with another player. I followed the storyline, log off where ever I was, got everything I needed from loot, and leveled automatically. Like many other MMOs I've played, the only way one knows that others are even in the same game is if they happen to pass them while going from one quest area to another or see them chatting in world or zone chat. Guilds become little more than a group of people to chat with while running around doing quest solo. I've been in several guilds in which I actually met a very small percentage of the guild members (my character and their character being in the same area at the same time with an awareness that the other person was there by actually seeing each other, not just talking about the event in guild chat).
A lack of downtime is just one of the many characteristics that go together to make most MMOs feel like little more than single player games being played by multiple people.
I agree with your second part, too. Wholeheartedly
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
No it isn't.. This whole topic is about opinion and interpretation.. What you call downtime, I call regen time.. You call it forced downtime, I call it forced mana or health management.. EQ never forced people to sit in town and chat.. but it did force you to manage your character from food/ drink to weight to mana and health.. The more efficient you became with your mana for example the less time you had between combat encounters.. So it's NOT a different topic.. it's just the way your view it.. Personally I find eating a mage biscuit after each fight a total joke..
You just need to give players they are "doing" something during downtime to keep them happy. Recovering from death penalties is needs a social element and the time flies. Having a social element is the answer to many gameplay systems that need downtime.
This talk of forcing players to be social, you might as well say MMOs force players to level. When it comes to innovation it is difficult to see the future, but we can see what has been lost in gaming. Today a social MMO would be an innovation.
I'm tired of hotbar rotations and button mashing, Everquest 1 had it right, there was more talking and more socialization.
Now, everyone is to busy pressing buttons and moving around the screen to communicate , and everything is a zerg fest...
They wanted to entertain tanks dps and healers so no one "got bored", yet, they don't give anything for loot other than the same old low drop rate mounts and pets, and the same old vertical equipment grind that you get every single game update/expansion.
*shrug*
It makes more sense to enable a slower grouping / raiding experience where people actually socialize, after all this is what mmos used to be about, socialization instead of soloing in peaceful quiet.
Now because groups are mindless zergs, I actually get most of my socialization from raiding, because I'm so bored of soloing. However, it is not nearly as fulfilling as Everquest 1 was...
Without the challenge and the camping, there is just almost no socialization, the only talking you hear most of the time is strategy on how to beat the raid boss and what you are supposed to be doing during that encounter. We used to have people goofing off and just plain joking around and playing during raids...
The people that don't speak now, are the people that weren't worth speaking to before. You know who they are, the selfish ones who only interested in their own achievements and gain. People who want to be genuinely sociable, without having some game mechanic forcing them, are still sociable in todays MMOs.
I can do without the charity chat from anti-social types thanks.
Thats naive, its like saying "people that refuse to talk with me when i approach them in the street are antisocial morons that are not worth talking to".
Flame on!
1) Nothing lasts forever. Just because leveling and then end game raiding attracted twelve million players four years ago doesn't mean that's the ideal solution now. 2) Downtime vs Uptime isn't the only factor that does into players liking a game. It doesn't matter if Eve has the perfect balance between downtime and uptime if I hate the fact that I don't have a player avatar.
1) True, but that was not the point, the point is you had "your" changes and the results are inconclusive at best, so where does that certainty that they were good and that the devs know what they are doing come from? Personal preference? My personal preference (or, lets just say i would not mind it THAT much
Btw, i am not saying that more people are interested in rpgs than action/arcade games or similar blanket statements, what i dont get is why "we" are desperatly trying to attract the action crowd at the expense the people who actually enjoy things like the open world , skills and socializing.
2) So?
Flame on!
Ah. It is a certainty that developers and people in the industry have access to more information on player behavior than we do. It is possible to build a much clearer picture of what currently works, and what currently doesn't. That doesn't make developers perfect, but it does make them much more knowledgeable than us. My relation between the observed change in downtime between encounters is definitely an assumption, and it's from the perspective of an outsider. I'm not a developer, so I can just see that downtime between encounters is something that's going away. That downtime is being moved someplace else. Maybe to cut scenes. The assumption is that players do not want downtime between every encounter, so in response developers are moving the downtime from between encounters to someplace else.
There are a lot of reasons why developers make the games they make. They start with the game they want, then get to the point of a game that will sell, and then finally to the game that they are capable of making. If it doesn't look like they are building games for the "open world, skills and socializing" players, then either they aren't interested in those players or they don't understand those players. You'd have to ask each individual developer why they made the game they made and why it's not for that specific group of players to really know why they never went there.
2) Game design is more complex than providing some uptime and downtime in various places. Regarding your example with groups and killing for hours. It doesn't matter if the game allows for killing for hours if players don't want to kill groups of mobs for hours. The player preference doesn't take into consideration uptime or downtime, just the activity they want to do.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Because, when given the choice, most players won't take it. To quote the 2nd article Raph provided to this thread,
"the part that is getting ignored is that the vast majority of players will choose the most obvious path towards cognitive engagement, and towards the reinforcement effects of the reward structure of the game. In other words whacking shiny moles is easier, more predictable, and better rewarded, so lacking opportunity and incentive, people won’t do anything else."
The entire article should be read, not really fair to take this one comment out of full context, but still, it does argue the point that you can't rely on players to do what is best for the game, or even themselves, sometimes the developers have to provide the opportunities for them to socialize, even if they don't want to.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
There is a significant difference between providing opportunities to encourage interaction and halting an unrelated activity already in progress in hopes of interaction. No one is suggesting that opportunities shouldn't be provided. The article and several here have even stated that safe zones, buff areas and other moments are good ways to achieve that goal.
The argument being made against forced downtime for medding/regen isn't zero downtime. It's moving that downtime to a place or moment where it isn't interrupting an activity that players are currently enjoying, and there are many ways to do that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I feel that one issue here is that quite a number of people are equating downtime as boredom time which unnaturally forces social interaction, and I think that that's not a correct way to view it.
For example, in a generic quest that asks you to kill a certain number of creatures, you have two options:
1. You have to kill 30 of x. Which you can do without a break in between.
2. You have to kill 10, have a "downtime" and kill another 10.
If both options take a similar amount of time, I will take option 1 in a Single player, and option 2 in an MMO. The nature of a multiplayer world is to introduce a social aspect of it, why not have the game pace around it as well?
Both cases are routine, some will say boring in itself. However, in option 2, downtime actually creates choices and potential for other things, the immediate obvious being socialising. This has an exponential effect the more you have to kill, or the longer you have to spend on such quests. Sure, downtime might seem boring when you don't have anything to do, but I don't see much better alternatives given in today's MMOs.
You know, the last I went out for lunch at work I drove. So I decided to pull a page from "old school" MMOs because they are so awesome and designed by programmers (and everyone knows programmers have great social skills).
So right when we were about 5 minutes from this kick-ass BBQ joint that everyone had been talking about for 30 minutes ( and of course people were really hungry too), I pulled over to the side of the road and said "Hey guys! Let's chat! Tell me about your day!".
Everyone thought it was a great idea and they were not pissed off at all that I didn't keep driving do they could eat. They though it was a great way to increase office comraderie and totally worth the time that was wasted and stomach grumbling. And the fact we could have been talking while also eating tasty BBQ was not an issue at all.
BTW that was sarcasm.
You want more socialization? Cool; put in things that HELP socialization. Cock blocking people is not a great way to HELP socialization even if it is a SIDE EFFECT of it. Yeah when my friend gets cock blocked at the bar he starts talking. Its called complaining, it is a type of socialization. Sharing the misery is NOT GOOD DESIGN. People go to bars after work or whatever and commiserate with each other, but the bars themselves DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE MISERY. They help alleviate.
Get it?
I have the feeling that the people who want downtime forced by the game think that when it's not forced, it's a waste of their time. For instance: - Spending 5 minutes chatting while eating and drinking to regen mana/health is not a waste of time since the game forced it. - Spending 5 minutes chatting with another randomly encountered player, or in a town, is a waste of time because they are not forced to do it and could be grinding levels or gear instead. It's a mindset. They don't realize that the two situations are the same, except that the seconds gives everyone a choice.
Because, when given the choice, most players won't take it. To quote the 2nd article Raph provided to this thread,
"the part that is getting ignored is that the vast majority of players will choose the most obvious path towards cognitive engagement, and towards the reinforcement effects of the reward structure of the game. In other words whacking shiny moles is easier, more predictable, and better rewarded, so lacking opportunity and incentive, people wont do anything else."
The entire article should be read, not really fair to take this one comment out of full context, but still, it does argue the point that you can't rely on players to do what is best for the game, or even themselves, sometimes the developers have to provide the opportunities for them to socialize, even if they don't want to.
Players will always do what is in their own best interests. The trick is getting the players to do what's in the best interest of the game and the developer, while at the same time allowing the player to do what's in their own best interests.
Ideally, the developer will provide the lulls in the action where most of the players want it and will provide opportunities for socialization in the places that the players want it as well.
That doesn't mean forcing players to socialize if they don't want to. No, that way leads to players leaving the game and finding something else to play. The best a developer can do is provide opportunities for lulls in the action and socialization without actually getting in the player's way. The player chooses to spend their downtime in the game rather than AFK because it provides the most benefit in terms of fun.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.