Originally posted by Rusque I'm not missing the point, I'm trying to explain that it's a self fulfilling prophecy. That the players are self selecting.
If you're looking to avoid combat as the primary focus of a game, then why seek out games in which one of the primary concerns of the development team is to create a combat system and the art team spends the majority of their time creating weapons and armor and magic effects.
You're still saying Fight/Don't Fight. You are not seeing the gray area that some are saying, "Fighting is fun and OK, BUT there is just too much focus on it, overall."
What you pointed out later about crafting and just making weapons/armor FOR fighting is another way that MMOs over-concentrate on fighting.
I also agree with where said that most players play in order to fight. And that saddens me, for most MMOs have become simple action combat games with a few "extras" thrown in. There are no more worlds in which my character can live.
Most here agreeing with Elikal are not totally against fighting, but would enjoy other options in MMOs. Is that making sense? Or did I totally misread what you're saying? (It's happened before )
Indeed. I really don't mind killing in games per se. I mean, duh. But the focus is too much now on it, with no alternatives here and there and a level of detail I am not sure is... healthy? It feels unsettling to me, sometimes and I wonder wth are we doing in our spare time.
All in all I feel MMOs and RPGs have become too narrowed down to being kill-simulators and giving us kill lists. Past MMOs and games had a more broad approach. Again, take SWG and UO as early examples. There was so much more to do that merely killing 24/7.
Originally posted by Scot
Originally posted by DwarfZZZ
My too main MMOs at the moment are Age of Conan and The Secret World. I love Age of Conan, because of the lore and the setting, but sometimes I feel thtat the only thing to do is killing. Let's see how the new crafting system evolves, but I really find that "you have only too kill" aspect a bit monotonous. In TSW it's not the same thing, because you have the adventure game part that not always involve killing.
Much as I like TSW you are killing 95% of the time. Maybe you are counting puzzling it out time? But when you are actually doing something that's what takes your time up.
This is not surprising, do posters want to do needlework or garden pruning to complete quests?
The Secret World is such a prime example of doing it wrong. When I saw the first trailers and read the first details about TSW, I was SO thrilled. I thought about games like Alone in the Dark, Silent Hill and Alan Wake, mixed with X Files and Warehouse 13 and a bit Illuminati books. I never thought a "mystery" themed games like TSW would be merely about KILL stuff! Take Silent Hill. You don't do a whole lot of killing. Heck, you don't even SEE much horror, it is often just noises, shadows, hinted stuff. Take the famous Hitchcock murder in the bathroom. You didn't SEE much, but the hinted stuff made the horror much better, because it was in your mind, not in your face.
Making TSW a mere "kill all that moves" was IMVHO such a big waste of a potentially great idea. I had hoped to be a detective of mystery, to uncover conspiracies and find mystical artifacts, and yes do killing here and there too. But not as essentially THE focus on the game.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I have been thinking about the same thing lately, but what exactly do you expect a game can compensate instead of killing enemies? Think about it. Almost every game is about killing monsters, even Mario. The only difference is they package it in a kid friendly environment, but games like MMO's aren't full of blood and gore either. So what would you suggest to replace the killing but still keep the game appealing to most of us? I can't think of anything to be honest.
One thing I would add is that the games have gone above and beyond "normal" violence. They are "hyperviolent", or more violent than realistic violence. The blood splashes around in a dramatic fashion, not a realistic fashion. The guts and bones are overemphasized. Frankly, the most scary thing about REAL death is how "tame" it is, when we compare real death to the spectacularized version. You can take a living thing and turn it into a corpse in a blink of an eye. One minute alive, the next second becomes just a "thing"...no spectacle, no drama, no art. THAT's the thing that makes death shocking, when you actually see it. However, that doesn't make for good theatre.
When I think of the game that most disturbed me, it had to be Fallout 3. It isn't because the violence was all that gory. The violence was rather tame, compared to today's standards. But Fallout 3 did something far more realistic than the violence we see these days: it refuses to clean the floor for you when you are done.
You could kill anything you wanted to in Fallout 3...but the bodies would remain where they were killed. When you came back days later--weeks later--the bodies would still be there, right where you killed them, just like they would in real life. That freaked me out. Because it made me reflect and realize that killing is no small matter...it always leaves things different than they were before.
The great social critic Slavoj Zizek once said that post-modernity is all about getting the benefit without the price. If we like coffee, but we don't want to pay the price of caffeine, we create decaffeinated. If we like the sex, but we don't want to pay the price of having to relate to another human being, we create porn. If we like war, but we don't like to pay the price of casualties, we create drones. And if we like to kill, but we don't want to pay the price of guilt, we take away the bodies.
Is violence in video games shock and awe? I don't think so. It has been so overdone, it's shock and yawn. 6' blood spurts on a decapitation? Yawn. Exploding heads? Yawn. Bowels falling out on the floor? Boring.
And that's a problem...whether we want to admit it or not.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Humans are a violent species - look at our entire history, our cities are built on the bodies of the slain. if the system fails tomorrow and there is no law enforcement, neighbors would be killing eachother in a matter of hours.
Killing is something that we are exceptionally good at.
It is our savage nature that drives our bloodlust and our desire.
Most yes but there still a few who won't go dark side.
For OP i understand your concern but its ONLY a game better kill in game then in real life.
Im doing this for more then 20 years now killing baddys and mobs by the thousends now and im still 100% pacifist and never got into any fight.
Make LOVE(but no more babys pls 7 billion is enough:P) not WAR!
Comments
Not sure if it's been mentioned yet but seems pretty relevant: Everquest Next: Landmark.
If I'm not mistaken won't this game be creation focused rather than killing?
O_o o_O
Indeed. I really don't mind killing in games per se. I mean, duh. But the focus is too much now on it, with no alternatives here and there and a level of detail I am not sure is... healthy? It feels unsettling to me, sometimes and I wonder wth are we doing in our spare time.
All in all I feel MMOs and RPGs have become too narrowed down to being kill-simulators and giving us kill lists. Past MMOs and games had a more broad approach. Again, take SWG and UO as early examples. There was so much more to do that merely killing 24/7.
The Secret World is such a prime example of doing it wrong. When I saw the first trailers and read the first details about TSW, I was SO thrilled. I thought about games like Alone in the Dark, Silent Hill and Alan Wake, mixed with X Files and Warehouse 13 and a bit Illuminati books. I never thought a "mystery" themed games like TSW would be merely about KILL stuff! Take Silent Hill. You don't do a whole lot of killing. Heck, you don't even SEE much horror, it is often just noises, shadows, hinted stuff. Take the famous Hitchcock murder in the bathroom. You didn't SEE much, but the hinted stuff made the horror much better, because it was in your mind, not in your face.
Making TSW a mere "kill all that moves" was IMVHO such a big waste of a potentially great idea. I had hoped to be a detective of mystery, to uncover conspiracies and find mystical artifacts, and yes do killing here and there too. But not as essentially THE focus on the game.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I think the video makes excellent points.
One thing I would add is that the games have gone above and beyond "normal" violence. They are "hyperviolent", or more violent than realistic violence. The blood splashes around in a dramatic fashion, not a realistic fashion. The guts and bones are overemphasized. Frankly, the most scary thing about REAL death is how "tame" it is, when we compare real death to the spectacularized version. You can take a living thing and turn it into a corpse in a blink of an eye. One minute alive, the next second becomes just a "thing"...no spectacle, no drama, no art. THAT's the thing that makes death shocking, when you actually see it. However, that doesn't make for good theatre.
When I think of the game that most disturbed me, it had to be Fallout 3. It isn't because the violence was all that gory. The violence was rather tame, compared to today's standards. But Fallout 3 did something far more realistic than the violence we see these days: it refuses to clean the floor for you when you are done.
You could kill anything you wanted to in Fallout 3...but the bodies would remain where they were killed. When you came back days later--weeks later--the bodies would still be there, right where you killed them, just like they would in real life. That freaked me out. Because it made me reflect and realize that killing is no small matter...it always leaves things different than they were before.
The great social critic Slavoj Zizek once said that post-modernity is all about getting the benefit without the price. If we like coffee, but we don't want to pay the price of caffeine, we create decaffeinated. If we like the sex, but we don't want to pay the price of having to relate to another human being, we create porn. If we like war, but we don't like to pay the price of casualties, we create drones. And if we like to kill, but we don't want to pay the price of guilt, we take away the bodies.
Is violence in video games shock and awe? I don't think so. It has been so overdone, it's shock and yawn. 6' blood spurts on a decapitation? Yawn. Exploding heads? Yawn. Bowels falling out on the floor? Boring.
And that's a problem...whether we want to admit it or not.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Most yes but there still a few who won't go dark side.
For OP i understand your concern but its ONLY a game better kill in game then in real life.
Im doing this for more then 20 years now killing baddys and mobs by the thousends now and im still 100% pacifist and never got into any fight.
Make LOVE(but no more babys pls 7 billion is enough:P) not WAR!