Combat fatigue? Visit an Entertainer. Wounds? Visit a Doctor. Need a new gun? Visit a Weaponsmith etc.
Now I'm not saying that SWGs model should be followed but for me an MMORPG is about players interacting with each other. I would argue that most players now join PUGs to beat Bosses and never speak to their allies in PvP which to me at least is a real shame. There are loads of generic MMORPGs out there that offer that and maybe thats the reason we're all a bit jaded.
My ideal MMORPG would allow people to carve out careers for themselves and provide a service to others, not allow everyone to do it all and only require team work on occasions, but maybe thats just me, I'm long in the tooth now and am looking for an MMORPG to call home for a good number of years, not another to race to the endgame and move on.
I loved meeting new people and making new friends in some older mmos and even met a few in ESO. Grouping and meeting new people is possible even in today's games if you take the time to try and don't worry about your epeen. I do miss more of a world feel of a UO , original EQ or even DAoC but those days are gone. So as a minority I make due with what is available and hope that the majority of players are not the asocial future unibombers I think they could be.
Immersion is the most important feature of an MMO. What immerses people differs from person to person. I like large open worlds, housing, crafting, and less dependence on quests to progress. In other words, I hate being some NPC's fetch and carry girl for all my levels.
As for socializing, this usually breaks the immersion for me. I never was comfortable in voice chat, and the little drama queens and Napoleons who make up a lot of guilds are the least amusing creatures I can imagine. I'll drop in for dungeons and be friendly and chit-chatty as you could wish for, but I doubt I'll ever join a guild again, and any game that tries to trick me into socializing more is going to end up on the shelf sooner rather than later.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
Gameplay is the most important mechanic. Making sure everything runs and feels smooth. Making sure your systems work together and keep the player engaged.
As others have said, it depends upon the player. For me, it will always be the social aspect. And right now, the market is lacking a good MMO who's first and foremost goal is to foster a community of players working together to explore and experience a fully-fleshed out virtual world.
If you forced your friends to hang out with you and socialize would they be your friends.....would they even like you ? Or would they resent the fact that they had to do this just to get what they really want.
Why do you think forcing people to do it in a game would turn out better ?
He didn't say friends. Trading doesn't need to be with friends and could even be with enemies. PVP definitely doesn't need to be with friends. Forming alliances and truces in PVP doesn't need to be with friends. Even grouping to do dungeon runs doesn't require having a barbeque afterwards.
But none of that is socializing, none of that is having a community. If I go into a store and buy something, I'm not socializing with the cashier. I'm interacting. I don't have to say three words to them to pay for my purchase. If that's what people want in a game, okay, I guess. That's just not what they claim they want. They want the same kind of community they had in the good old days, but that's gone and will never, ever, ever come back again. I've explained why many times in the past.
Combat is the most important feature in a game figuring as its the one feature you're doing over the half time.
I would argue that combat is not the most important feature. It has become the biggest feature, and primary focus of a MMO game. By extension, it has become important.
It didn't need to be this way - but it happened. MMO games held unfulfilled promises about a magical interactive online world populated by other people like you who have similar interests, and found these places fascinating to explore, flourish in, and conquer.
Yes - a massive amount of time in game is combat. Since nothing better came along, combat was the one that survived, evolved and won. I believe this is why we have wow clone debates.
World's became smaller, segmented, and instanced, in spite of having years of technology improvements. Content became condensed through fast travel, checklists, quick consumption and linear progression. I am not saying that everything should be unending worlds of immeasurable adventure. I am saying, not everything has to be like what we have.
It's not that everything is like WOW. It's that WOW and other similar titles dictated the direction, paved the road, mapped it out, available for all to license and GPS along to. Nobody has figured out how to successfully slow down or brake and change the course, or better yet - get lost again.
It isn't an easy answer. I like ESO, I think Wildstar is fine. Neither one are risk takers to me, in any estimation of the word.
A game player looks at the risk/reward systems put into a game and how they affect the play. A developer/publisher looks at the same risk/reward systems by how much ROI they can expect.
This argument reminds me of politics: it's never won and there is seldom actual substance in the arguments. In the other corner there are those who find it obvious that mmo's should be very much about interaction due to their roots and the untapped potential and in the other corner there are those who think they are just fine and should carry on to be more and more linear.
Regardless, there is close to zero power in these forums. The slugfest can continue on until boredom wins. Again:)
In any case, my guess is it's only a matter of time, before more and more games will attempt to tap into the potential. I would classify it as common sense that socialization increases immersion in the long run. There are always those that get hurt by trolls, but if the game has sufficient and proper mechanics for the players to deal with it, their ordeal will make them feel more committed and immersed to the game. There are ways to deal with the "forced" label too. The assessment is far from black and white.
Assessing tools for socialization leads to how long of a lifetime do the devs perceive the game to have when go on all fours for some investor money. If you want a quick buck, yes you should forget about socialization in which case mmorpg becomes just the label it is these days. Hollow and many-faceted.
Perhaps we'll even see a reasonable attempt at utilizing vr before 2020. Who knows.. In any case it's pointless to argue that there is no room in the market for such. There is no such thing as a full market for new things; there is only risk assessment and the unfortunate trend of risk aversion due to highly inflated costs. In my mind, it's a damn shame if the first big vr mmo we get is a wow clone stamped on a new platform. I guess you could call it a certainty:) Edit: maybe it won't.. at least black desert seems to promise to support it whenever it comes out and perhaps it's not even a wow clone..
Using MMO's for social aspects is probably foreign to younger players. They have a dozen other better options for that.
For that aspect to make a return, the game would have to be designed for a crowd 35+ with a playerbase under 200k. No company or studio wants to invest in that demographic.
If you forced your friends to hang out with you and socialize would they be your friends.....would they even like you ? Or would they resent the fact that they had to do this just to get what they really want.
Why do you think forcing people to do it in a game would turn out better ?
He didn't say friends. Trading doesn't need to be with friends and could even be with enemies. PVP definitely doesn't need to be with friends. Forming alliances and truces in PVP doesn't need to be with friends. Even grouping to do dungeon runs doesn't require having a barbeque afterwards.
But none of that is socializing, none of that is having a community. If I go into a store and buy something, I'm not socializing with the cashier. I'm interacting. I don't have to say three words to them to pay for my purchase. If that's what people want in a game, okay, I guess. That's just not what they claim they want. They want the same kind of community they had in the good old days, but that's gone and will never, ever, ever come back again. I've explained why many times in the past.
Honestly, interaction is one of the biggest lacking things in MMORPG's. Everyone is playing inside of a bubble these days. Developers stomped out all interactions to prevent bad ones. So basically you can group and trade with players. Even most times when you can PvP you can't touch or talk to them outside of defined areas. I goes along with the whole appeasement trend you have in this genre and maybe in "young" generation period.
If you forced your friends to hang out with you and socialize would they be your friends.....would they even like you ? Or would they resent the fact that they had to do this just to get what they really want.
Why do you think forcing people to do it in a game would turn out better ?
In EQ we may have had competing guilds racing for mobs and may have trained and steam rolled over each other to get to those mobs.
However, EVERYONE treated everyone else with respect and honor.
I remember we had one guy on our server that was such a dick to people that he became shunned by our entire server, he ended up quitting the game because nobody would talk to him or group with him so he could no longer progress in the game.
Problem is now most of the gamers are dicks, and the people who treat people with respect and honor are the ones shunned.
If you forced your friends to hang out with you and socialize would they be your friends.....would they even like you ? Or would they resent the fact that they had to do this just to get what they really want.
Why do you think forcing people to do it in a game would turn out better ?
He didn't say friends. Trading doesn't need to be with friends and could even be with enemies. PVP definitely doesn't need to be with friends. Forming alliances and truces in PVP doesn't need to be with friends. Even grouping to do dungeon runs doesn't require having a barbeque afterwards.
But none of that is socializing, none of that is having a community. If I go into a store and buy something, I'm not socializing with the cashier. I'm interacting. I don't have to say three words to them to pay for my purchase. If that's what people want in a game, okay, I guess. That's just not what they claim they want. They want the same kind of community they had in the good old days, but that's gone and will never, ever, ever come back again. I've explained why many times in the past.
Honestly, interaction is one of the biggest lacking things in MMORPG's. Everyone is playing inside of a bubble these days. Developers stomped out all interactions to prevent bad ones. So basically you can group and trade with players. Even most times when you can PvP you can't touch or talk to them outside of defined areas. I goes along with the whole appeasement trend you have in this genre and maybe in "young" generation period.
But there is interaction. If I sell something to someone, I interact with them. If I answer someone's question in chat, I'm interacting. If I join a PUG, I'm interacting. I'm not socializing with anyone, the second I walk away from them, there is no more interaction. Developers didn't stomp these things out, players didn't want them. Developers can't stop people from interacting without making a single-player game where no one has any contact whatsoever with anyone else, ever. You can group and trade with people if you want. You're not required to. People don't generally socialize when they group or trade though, it's a transaction, not a social activity.
Social activities are no longer important in MMOs. The vast majority of people don't want to take part in it, that's why developers don't push it. They cater to the vast majority, always have and always will.
If you forced your friends to hang out with you and socialize would they be your friends.....would they even like you ? Or would they resent the fact that they had to do this just to get what they really want.
Why do you think forcing people to do it in a game would turn out better ?
In EQ we may have had competing guilds racing for mobs and may have trained and steam rolled over each other to get to those mobs.
However, EVERYONE treated everyone else with respect and honor.
I remember we had one guy on our server that was such a dick to people that he became shunned by our entire server, he ended up quitting the game because nobody would talk to him or group with him so he could no longer progress in the game.
Problem is now most of the gamers are dicks, and the people who treat people with respect and honor are the ones shunned.
That's a complete lie, there were tons of dicks in EQ. You've got a very convenient memory.
That's a complete lie, there were tons of dicks in EQ. You've got a very convenient memory.
Lies and slander. EQ and any other MMO 10+ years back didn't have half the ton of smegma that pervades todays MMOs.
Got to separate the wheat from the chaff somehow.... somehow.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the industry has been evading that aspect intentionally, because it realizes that there is nothing to fuse the populations of indignant maggots. However that would be impossible, because then I would have somehow been wrong and I could never be wrong.
Therefore populations today are comparable to populations then.
That's a complete lie, there were tons of dicks in EQ. You've got a very convenient memory.
Lies and slander. EQ and any other MMO 10+ years back didn't have half the ton of smegma that pervades todays MMOs.
Got to separate the wheat from the chaff somehow.... somehow.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the industry has been evading that aspect intentionally, because it realizes that there is nothing to fuse the populations of indignant maggots. However that would be impossible, because then I would have somehow been wrong and I could never be wrong.
Therefore populations today are comparable to populations then.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this fine sir is confused as to why people do not group with him.
Originally posted by Cephus404But there is interaction. If I sell something to someone, I interact with them. If I answer someone's question in chat, I'm interacting. If I join a PUG, I'm interacting. I'm not socializing with anyone, the second I walk away from them, there is no more interaction. Developers didn't stomp these things out, players didn't want them. Developers can't stop people from interacting without making a single-player game where no one has any contact whatsoever with anyone else, ever. You can group and trade with people if you want. You're not required to. People don't generally socialize when they group or trade though, it's a transaction, not a social activity.Social activities are no longer important in MMOs. The vast majority of people don't want to take part in it, that's why developers don't push it. They cater to the vast majority, always have and always will.
That may be true when you consider the generational effects on the playerbase. The kids that were still growing up when EQ1 and UO were in their prime are the kids that are all grown up now, buying video games and becoming the number one demographic for such games. Maybe they don't want to have to socialize in an MMO. Maybe that's so.
I know I'd still love to have the feeling I used to get logging into DAoC back in its prime. But maybe those games are relics. However, I'll always find it silly to hear that in a massively multiplayer game, the majority of the playerbase would rather everyone else shove off so they can play the game alone.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this fine sir is confused as to why people do not group with him.
On the contrary. I am well aware why people do not group with me. It is because they are simply not worthy.
To even be considered worthy of approaching me in-game, you must pass the trials of flame, cross the gorge of mountains end and best the dragon of despair.
To even be considered worthy of inviting me, you must have done the aforementioned naked.
To even be considered worthy of grouping with me, you must be naked.
Few meet the above criteria. Less know the joys of nudity.
I played Everquest from 1999 and my memory even though I am getting old can definitely testify there was horrible dicks in Everquest. The deterrent was that they were refused groups and levelling opportunities if their rubbish behaviour got out. So those people bided their time until they got into guilds or more powerful positions like leaders of big guilds. Then they would treat people outside the guilds and sometimes even inside the guilds horribly . I have witnessed it first hand and also not being a golden enchanter or cleric was not in a position to fight the nonsense they tried to pull.
The number of players on each server was small compared to the numbers you see now. So when people trained others or stole camps and did other things word got out quickly. So players found themselves quickly ostracized so they played more carefully .This did not mean there were fewer people who would not have behaved poorly if the gaming atmosphere allowed them to.
Nowadays gaming dynamics having changed and people get into LFG and other systems to get groups and cross server mechanics this circumspection in behaviour is no longer necessary. So their true nature just surfaces. People who help others or play with others well do not change because you have a system put in place. They will help and play nicely because they are decent people. However anonymity does breed opportunities for the borderline dicks to become full blown ones.
The fact that TURNIPS is not winning says a lot about how out of touch the people on this site are with today's broader mmropg community.
But really, the mistake is in thinking that today's players want to play the same game indefinitely and be a part of that game's community. Most of them don't, and the rest of the player base is not large enough to justify large-scale games with today's production costs. Today's consumer market consists largely of solo gamers whose self-esteem is derived from comparing and showing off their gaming accomplishments to others. MMORPGs make that possible in a way traditional single player games do not. These people don't usually want anything to do with you or anyone else (except maybe a few friends) unless perhaps to put you down. That's not to say they can't be perfectly civil and cooperative; most of them can. It's just not normally worth their time to go out of their way for it.
Comments
Luckily for you, the entire industry has built itself in such a way as to meet your needs. Now for the rest of us...
For its faults SWG made you interact...
Combat fatigue? Visit an Entertainer. Wounds? Visit a Doctor. Need a new gun? Visit a Weaponsmith etc.
Now I'm not saying that SWGs model should be followed but for me an MMORPG is about players interacting with each other. I would argue that most players now join PUGs to beat Bosses and never speak to their allies in PvP which to me at least is a real shame. There are loads of generic MMORPGs out there that offer that and maybe thats the reason we're all a bit jaded.
My ideal MMORPG would allow people to carve out careers for themselves and provide a service to others, not allow everyone to do it all and only require team work on occasions, but maybe thats just me, I'm long in the tooth now and am looking for an MMORPG to call home for a good number of years, not another to race to the endgame and move on.
Immersion is the most important feature of an MMO. What immerses people differs from person to person. I like large open worlds, housing, crafting, and less dependence on quests to progress. In other words, I hate being some NPC's fetch and carry girl for all my levels.
As for socializing, this usually breaks the immersion for me. I never was comfortable in voice chat, and the little drama queens and Napoleons who make up a lot of guilds are the least amusing creatures I can imagine. I'll drop in for dungeons and be friendly and chit-chatty as you could wish for, but I doubt I'll ever join a guild again, and any game that tries to trick me into socializing more is going to end up on the shelf sooner rather than later.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Oh, i prefer single player games, but if MMOs are like single player games, there is no reason not to play it as such.
.. for the rest of you ... take his advice and go to a bar?
*shrug* if you want combat...go to a bar....
As others have said, it depends upon the player. For me, it will always be the social aspect. And right now, the market is lacking a good MMO who's first and foremost goal is to foster a community of players working together to explore and experience a fully-fleshed out virtual world.
But none of that is socializing, none of that is having a community. If I go into a store and buy something, I'm not socializing with the cashier. I'm interacting. I don't have to say three words to them to pay for my purchase. If that's what people want in a game, okay, I guess. That's just not what they claim they want. They want the same kind of community they had in the good old days, but that's gone and will never, ever, ever come back again. I've explained why many times in the past.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I would argue that combat is not the most important feature. It has become the biggest feature, and primary focus of a MMO game. By extension, it has become important.
It didn't need to be this way - but it happened. MMO games held unfulfilled promises about a magical interactive online world populated by other people like you who have similar interests, and found these places fascinating to explore, flourish in, and conquer.
Yes - a massive amount of time in game is combat. Since nothing better came along, combat was the one that survived, evolved and won. I believe this is why we have wow clone debates.
World's became smaller, segmented, and instanced, in spite of having years of technology improvements. Content became condensed through fast travel, checklists, quick consumption and linear progression. I am not saying that everything should be unending worlds of immeasurable adventure. I am saying, not everything has to be like what we have.
It's not that everything is like WOW. It's that WOW and other similar titles dictated the direction, paved the road, mapped it out, available for all to license and GPS along to. Nobody has figured out how to successfully slow down or brake and change the course, or better yet - get lost again.
It isn't an easy answer. I like ESO, I think Wildstar is fine. Neither one are risk takers to me, in any estimation of the word.
A game player looks at the risk/reward systems put into a game and how they affect the play. A developer/publisher looks at the same risk/reward systems by how much ROI they can expect.
This argument reminds me of politics: it's never won and there is seldom actual substance in the arguments. In the other corner there are those who find it obvious that mmo's should be very much about interaction due to their roots and the untapped potential and in the other corner there are those who think they are just fine and should carry on to be more and more linear.
Regardless, there is close to zero power in these forums. The slugfest can continue on until boredom wins. Again:)
In any case, my guess is it's only a matter of time, before more and more games will attempt to tap into the potential. I would classify it as common sense that socialization increases immersion in the long run. There are always those that get hurt by trolls, but if the game has sufficient and proper mechanics for the players to deal with it, their ordeal will make them feel more committed and immersed to the game. There are ways to deal with the "forced" label too. The assessment is far from black and white.
Assessing tools for socialization leads to how long of a lifetime do the devs perceive the game to have when go on all fours for some investor money. If you want a quick buck, yes you should forget about socialization in which case mmorpg becomes just the label it is these days. Hollow and many-faceted.
Perhaps we'll even see a reasonable attempt at utilizing vr before 2020. Who knows.. In any case it's pointless to argue that there is no room in the market for such. There is no such thing as a full market for new things; there is only risk assessment and the unfortunate trend of risk aversion due to highly inflated costs. In my mind, it's a damn shame if the first big vr mmo we get is a wow clone stamped on a new platform. I guess you could call it a certainty:) Edit: maybe it won't.. at least black desert seems to promise to support it whenever it comes out and perhaps it's not even a wow clone..
Absolutely. It is the only answer
Using MMO's for social aspects is probably foreign to younger players. They have a dozen other better options for that.
For that aspect to make a return, the game would have to be designed for a crowd 35+ with a playerbase under 200k. No company or studio wants to invest in that demographic.
Honestly, interaction is one of the biggest lacking things in MMORPG's. Everyone is playing inside of a bubble these days. Developers stomped out all interactions to prevent bad ones. So basically you can group and trade with players. Even most times when you can PvP you can't touch or talk to them outside of defined areas. I goes along with the whole appeasement trend you have in this genre and maybe in "young" generation period.
In EQ we may have had competing guilds racing for mobs and may have trained and steam rolled over each other to get to those mobs.
However, EVERYONE treated everyone else with respect and honor.
I remember we had one guy on our server that was such a dick to people that he became shunned by our entire server, he ended up quitting the game because nobody would talk to him or group with him so he could no longer progress in the game.
Problem is now most of the gamers are dicks, and the people who treat people with respect and honor are the ones shunned.
But there is interaction. If I sell something to someone, I interact with them. If I answer someone's question in chat, I'm interacting. If I join a PUG, I'm interacting. I'm not socializing with anyone, the second I walk away from them, there is no more interaction. Developers didn't stomp these things out, players didn't want them. Developers can't stop people from interacting without making a single-player game where no one has any contact whatsoever with anyone else, ever. You can group and trade with people if you want. You're not required to. People don't generally socialize when they group or trade though, it's a transaction, not a social activity.
Social activities are no longer important in MMOs. The vast majority of people don't want to take part in it, that's why developers don't push it. They cater to the vast majority, always have and always will.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
That's a complete lie, there were tons of dicks in EQ. You've got a very convenient memory.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Lies and slander. EQ and any other MMO 10+ years back didn't have half the ton of smegma that pervades todays MMOs.
Got to separate the wheat from the chaff somehow.... somehow.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the industry has been evading that aspect intentionally, because it realizes that there is nothing to fuse the populations of indignant maggots. However that would be impossible, because then I would have somehow been wrong and I could never be wrong.
Therefore populations today are comparable to populations then.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this fine sir is confused as to why people do not group with him.
That may be true when you consider the generational effects on the playerbase. The kids that were still growing up when EQ1 and UO were in their prime are the kids that are all grown up now, buying video games and becoming the number one demographic for such games. Maybe they don't want to have to socialize in an MMO. Maybe that's so.
I know I'd still love to have the feeling I used to get logging into DAoC back in its prime. But maybe those games are relics. However, I'll always find it silly to hear that in a massively multiplayer game, the majority of the playerbase would rather everyone else shove off so they can play the game alone.
On the contrary. I am well aware why people do not group with me. It is because they are simply not worthy.
To even be considered worthy of approaching me in-game, you must pass the trials of flame, cross the gorge of mountains end and best the dragon of despair.
To even be considered worthy of inviting me, you must have done the aforementioned naked.
To even be considered worthy of grouping with me, you must be naked.
Few meet the above criteria. Less know the joys of nudity.
I played Everquest from 1999 and my memory even though I am getting old can definitely testify there was horrible dicks in Everquest. The deterrent was that they were refused groups and levelling opportunities if their rubbish behaviour got out. So those people bided their time until they got into guilds or more powerful positions like leaders of big guilds. Then they would treat people outside the guilds and sometimes even inside the guilds horribly . I have witnessed it first hand and also not being a golden enchanter or cleric was not in a position to fight the nonsense they tried to pull.
The number of players on each server was small compared to the numbers you see now. So when people trained others or stole camps and did other things word got out quickly. So players found themselves quickly ostracized so they played more carefully .This did not mean there were fewer people who would not have behaved poorly if the gaming atmosphere allowed them to.
Nowadays gaming dynamics having changed and people get into LFG and other systems to get groups and cross server mechanics this circumspection in behaviour is no longer necessary. So their true nature just surfaces. People who help others or play with others well do not change because you have a system put in place. They will help and play nicely because they are decent people. However anonymity does breed opportunities for the borderline dicks to become full blown ones.
The fact that TURNIPS is not winning says a lot about how out of touch the people on this site are with today's broader mmropg community.
But really, the mistake is in thinking that today's players want to play the same game indefinitely and be a part of that game's community. Most of them don't, and the rest of the player base is not large enough to justify large-scale games with today's production costs. Today's consumer market consists largely of solo gamers whose self-esteem is derived from comparing and showing off their gaming accomplishments to others. MMORPGs make that possible in a way traditional single player games do not. These people don't usually want anything to do with you or anyone else (except maybe a few friends) unless perhaps to put you down. That's not to say they can't be perfectly civil and cooperative; most of them can. It's just not normally worth their time to go out of their way for it.