I think the simple answer is that we live in a society where people want to be rewarded just for showing up.
In most MMOs, if you think about it, is there any way you can actually lose at anything? Can you even lose anything of significant game value?
No. You just get to keep trying, over and over again until you win (usually on the second or third try if it's "really hard".)
I was discussing perma-death with a friend once. He said, "If I spent years building up a character, and they were suddenly killed, I'd be pretty pissed." I replied, "Good."
Now, I don't think you have to be brutal and sadistic with your players, but this hand-holding and coddling really has gotten out of control. So much pleasure of gaming comes from a sense of accomplishment and I personally can't see how you can feel accomplished with the superficial tasks of most MMOs. That's typically why I end up quitting them. I've literally invested nothing emotional in the game.
But, as others have said, that's not the mass market. Most players want a pat on the back and a cookie. "Good job, Timmy! You clicked that ogre the perfect number of times."
That being said, with the cost of MMO development dropping drastically and the sheer number of players out there, the not-so-mass market is surely enough to sustain an MMO with truly satisfied players.
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
If the illusion is good (e.g. single player games), players don't mind millions of others who have done the same thing.
If you want the accomplishment to have more of a grounding, play e-sports.
I think the simple answer is that we live in a society where people want to be rewarded just for showing up.
In most MMOs, if you think about it, is there any way you can actually lose at anything? Can you even lose anything of significant game value?
No. You just get to keep trying, over and over again until you win (usually on the second or third try if it's "really hard".)
I was discussing perma-death with a friend once. He said, "If I spent years building up a character, and they were suddenly killed, I'd be pretty pissed." I replied, "Good."
Now, I don't think you have to be brutal and sadistic with your players, but this hand-holding and coddling really has gotten out of control. So much pleasure of gaming comes from a sense of accomplishment and I personally can't see how you can feel accomplished with the superficial tasks of most MMOs. That's typically why I end up quitting them. I've literally invested nothing emotional in the game.
But, as others have said, that's not the mass market. Most players want a pat on the back and a cookie. "Good job, Timmy! You clicked that ogre the perfect number of times."
That being said, with the cost of MMO development dropping drastically and the sheer number of players out there, the not-so-mass market is surely enough to sustain an MMO with truly satisfied players.
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
If the illusion is good (e.g. single player games), players don't mind millions of others who have done the same thing.
If you want the accomplishment to have more of a grounding, play e-sports.
Yes to some it is a "real accomplishment " and that's all that matters. People don't have to justify what they find fun, challenging, or a sense of accomplishment to anyone...people really need to stop worrying about others.
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
It's always an accomplishment. And it's a meaningful accomplishment if it involves skill.
If you loot a chess with a 5% chance of dropping an item that yields an Achievement, then that's not a meaningful accomplishment.
If you beat a boss tuned so that only 5% of players are skilled enough to beat it, that's a meaningful accomplishment.
In the 5% chess, it's still an accomplishment -- you still did something (looted the chest), it's just not really meaningful.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Looting something at with a 5% chance could be a accomplishment if said player were to invest a lot of time going around looting all the chest to find x item that has a very rare chance to drop. It's time investment, dedication, and a lot of energy expended. If someone happens along and just gets really lucky then said accomplishment is less meaningful. I believe a lot of the early developers never anticipated that some players would be willing to invest such a large amount of time into acquiring certain items via camping tactics.
Well, simplicity isn't the same as being easy of course but you are correct, the general difficulty is far to easy for the game to be entertaining long term, and a few hard raids that takes at least a month to reach really doesn't help there.
If you as a dev think easy game brings more players then at least give us 2 serversets, a hard and an easy mode with decreased loot. That can't cost that much to offer after all and would increase the target audience.
And stop nerfing the difficulty when a few bad players complain, that happens to every new game in beta or just after release nowadays. If the game is too hard you need to train so you become better, not write angry complains to the devs.
I have been saying this about mmorpgs for a long time but never seen so many agree, I always got attacked or watch others get attacked for even speaking about it, what is going on here?
Viva la revolution!
I totally agree about the nerf-happy nature of things. If something is truly broken or a mechanic is just over the top difficult there is a place for nerfing....but not just because you get a few people crying about it being too hard.
Instead I would suggest devs add something to the quest text and/or post in official forums and say "Hey, look...this is SUPPOSED to be tough, but here's a little hint if it's kicking your ass. If that STILL isn't enough, THEN we can look at a nerf"
Looting something at with a 5% chance could be a accomplishment if said player were to invest a lot of time going around looting all the chest to find x item that has a very rare chance to drop. It's time investment, dedication, and a lot of energy expended. If someone happens along and just gets really lucky then said accomplishment is less meaningful. I believe a lot of the early developers never anticipated that some players would be willing to invest such a large amount of time into acquiring certain items via camping tactics.
Well it's always an accomplishment. If you did somethingyou did something.
You're also right that technically because it means you had time, it has some meaning. But well...any chump off the street has time, so it's not really a meaning that matters (which is usually what's implied by "meaningful") Same deal with expensive item-shop-only vanity items: technically they're meaningful because you had enough money to buy them (and therefore they mean you had money) but they don't really matter because they don't speak to the skill of the player and have no gameplay effects.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Looting something at with a 5% chance could be a accomplishment if said player were to invest a lot of time going around looting all the chest to find x item that has a very rare chance to drop. It's time investment, dedication, and a lot of energy expended. If someone happens along and just gets really lucky then said accomplishment is less meaningful. I believe a lot of the early developers never anticipated that some players would be willing to invest such a large amount of time into acquiring certain items via camping tactics.
Well it's always an accomplishment. If you did somethingyou did something.
You're also right that technically because it means you had time, it has some meaning. But well...any chump off the street has time, so it's not really a meaning that matters (which is usually what's implied by "meaningful") Same deal with expensive item-shop-only vanity items: technically they're meaningful because you had enough money to buy them (and therefore they mean you had money) but they don't really matter because they don't speak to the skill of the player and have no gameplay effects.
I would disagree with that.
Not any chump would be dedicated enough to do something repeatedly until they are rewarded. That's like saying a marathon is not much of an accomplishment because all you need is time. Any chump off the street can do it if they train. Not everyone has the dedication required to train for it.
Yes to some it is a "real accomplishment " and that's all that matters. People don't have to justify what they find fun, challenging, or a sense of accomplishment to anyone...people really need to stop worrying about others.
In that case, good for them ... because to me, they are just illusions.
e-sport is different because you are rated against some other humans ... but to some extent, at the end of the day, it is about one is playing a game better than others.
Personally (and i realize that does not apply to others), i don't think any pve "achievement" is that meaningful, at least not compared to real world career, scientific discoveries, family and things like that. But again, that is just me.
Not any chump would be dedicated enough to do something repeatedly until they are rewarded. That's like saying a marathon is not much of an accomplishment because all you need is time. Any chump off the street can do it if they train. Not everyone has the dedication required to train for it.
Sure, I'd agree that it takes a special kind of chump to be willing to submit themselves to excessive repetition until they're rewarded.
As for the marathon bit, that's mostly true (personally I don't consider endurance events meaningful, but you're right that generally people do call those things achievements.)
Also keep in mind game achievements are seldom time-intensive, so it's not about running 26 miles during an event, but "walk/run 26 miles ever". Which basically everyone achieves while still a child. Now you're free to advocate a medal and a handshake to all those 6 year olds on that accomplishment, but personally I prefer to dismiss unskilled accomplishments as not being noteworthy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
It's always an accomplishment. And it's a meaningful accomplishment if it involves skill.
If you loot a chess with a 5% chance of dropping an item that yields an Achievement, then that's not a meaningful accomplishment.
If you beat a boss tuned so that only 5% of players are skilled enough to beat it, that's a meaningful accomplishment.
In the 5% chess, it's still an accomplishment -- you still did something (looted the chest), it's just not really meaningful.
I say all in video game accomplishments are nothing.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
It's always an accomplishment. And it's a meaningful accomplishment if it involves skill.
If you loot a chess with a 5% chance of dropping an item that yields an Achievement, then that's not a meaningful accomplishment.
If you beat a boss tuned so that only 5% of players are skilled enough to beat it, that's a meaningful accomplishment.
In the 5% chess, it's still an accomplishment -- you still did something (looted the chest), it's just not really meaningful.
I say all in video game accomplishments are nothing.
That would be technically true...
For the most part at least, games are entertainment. Achievements therein are simply metrics to gauge progress in different activities. They are mostly just another way to reward players for exploring different aspects of the game and incentivize them at times to do things they may not think or care about doing all that much. It caters to the collector and completionist mentality.
How "meaningful" these things are ultimately is a rather subjective quality that's dependent on a player's preferences and perspective. Sometimes their focus on combat makes this err to the side of combat achievements, sometimes exploration leads to "I just walked the entirety of the map." as a meaningful achievement.
It's just another thing that's dependent on where individual players invest their most interest.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Not any chump would be dedicated enough to do something repeatedly until they are rewarded. That's like saying a marathon is not much of an accomplishment because all you need is time. Any chump off the street can do it if they train. Not everyone has the dedication required to train for it.
Sure, I'd agree that it takes a special kind of chump to be willing to submit themselves to excessive repetition until they're rewarded.
As for the marathon bit, that's mostly true (personally I don't consider endurance events meaningful, but you're right that generally people do call those things achievements.)
Also keep in mind game achievements are seldom time-intensive, so it's not about running 26 miles during an event, but "walk/run 26 miles ever". Which basically everyone achieves while still a child. Now you're free to advocate a medal and a handshake to all those 6 year olds on that accomplishment, but personally I prefer to dismiss unskilled accomplishments as not being noteworthy.
A lot of the games that defined the genre were built around those chump mechanics.
Becoming a Jedi in SWG for example. There was no skill involved, just excessive repetition. Devs did realise and changed the method a few times. All based around chump mechanics.
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
It's always an accomplishment. And it's a meaningful accomplishment if it involves skill.
If you loot a chess with a 5% chance of dropping an item that yields an Achievement, then that's not a meaningful accomplishment.
If you beat a boss tuned so that only 5% of players are skilled enough to beat it, that's a meaningful accomplishment.
In the 5% chess, it's still an accomplishment -- you still did something (looted the chest), it's just not really meaningful.
I say all in video game accomplishments are nothing.
That would be technically true...
For the most part at least, games are entertainment. Achievements therein are simply metrics to gauge progress in different activities. They are mostly just another way to reward players for exploring different aspects of the game and incentivize them at times to do things they may not think or care about doing all that much. It caters to the collector and completionist mentality.
How "meaningful" these things are ultimately is a rather subjective quality that's dependent on a player's preferences and perspective. Sometimes their focus on combat makes this err to the side of combat achievements, sometimes exploration leads to "I just walked the entirety of the map." as a meaningful achievement.
It's just another thing that's dependent on where individual players invest their most interest.
Something else to consider is this. Those chumps are the ones who sat through the initial computer technology are are generally the people who invent things through trial and error repetition. Without those people you wouldn't have fast games that you consider skill oriented (that appeal to the masses). A lot of computer use was repetition and waiting. That is part of why it was originally niche. You can mock it, but it requires a person with a lot of patience to do some of these things. A lot of the time it is far harder to have patience then it is to figure out how to do something. Usually you can just look up the answer on line these days if all it is is figuring something out and executing it.
I'm a little confused by characterizing repetition as a "chump" mechanic when functionally you can not escape repetition in most any game, let alone reality.
It is the core means of progress, the treadmill for quests, the ultimately formulaic structure of combat, the obtainment of specific resources for the sake of repetitious crafting or trade-ins for loot.
Repetition is the means by with the world works. Be it the game world or ours honestly. People's tolerance for this varies greatly and oddly as there are those that can zen out sweeping all day all the same as there are those that solve complex math problems over and over to find a solution to advance our technology.
In reality it tends to have the secondary effect of amounting to something. Be it a clean facility or a new solution to store data, it is itself an eventual accumulation of "success".
Games have often lacked that component. "Achievements" are simply the solution for that. Providing a cheerful blip to validate one's repeat input.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Not any chump would be dedicated enough to do something repeatedly until they are rewarded. That's like saying a marathon is not much of an accomplishment because all you need is time. Any chump off the street can do it if they train. Not everyone has the dedication required to train for it.
Marathon is NOT much of an accomplishment if all your need to do is sit in front of a computer, and don't need to push your body to move even when you are aching all over.
It is more like saying watch 50 hours of tv is an "accomplishment" because someone would dedicated all his time engaging in an entertainment activity that requires nothing but time. If that is the case, can i get my "achievement" of finishing Netflix's House of Cards, and Dare Devil?
Not any chump would be dedicated enough to do something repeatedly until they are rewarded. That's like saying a marathon is not much of an accomplishment because all you need is time. Any chump off the street can do it if they train. Not everyone has the dedication required to train for it.
Marathon is NOT much of an accomplishment if all your need to do is sit in front of a computer, and don't need to push your body to move even when you are aching all over.
It is more like saying watch 50 hours of tv is an "accomplishment" because someone would dedicated all his time engaging in an entertainment activity that requires nothing but time. If that is the case, can i get my "achievement" of finishing Netflix's House of Cards, and Dare Devil?
Now get back to Netflix and watch "The Killing." As much as I liked the two you got your achievements for, this one is better.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
If the illusion is good (e.g. single player games), players don't mind millions of others who have done the same thing.
If you want the accomplishment to have more of a grounding, play e-sports.
O.o I'm not sure you understand how video games work. How would playing e-sports be any different than any other online game?
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
If the illusion is good (e.g. single player games), players don't mind millions of others who have done the same thing.
If you want the accomplishment to have more of a grounding, play e-sports.
O.o I'm not sure you understand how video games work. How would playing e-sports be any different than any other online game?
Really? e-sport you COMPETE with other human beings.
PvE solo and MP online ... you don't. In fact, solo online games (and don't say there isn't any .. D3 is a good example of being solo & online) ... you can avoid even seeing another human players.
If you cannot tell the difference ... well ... may be you should try to play these games.
A lot of the games that defined the genre were built around those chump mechanics.
Becoming a Jedi in SWG for example. There was no skill involved, just excessive repetition. Devs did realise and changed the method a few times. All based around chump mechanics.
Agreed, and they were more literally "chump mechanics" in the case of early MMORPGs because those excessive timesinks were specifically designed to sell more subscriptions. Excessive repetition wasn't implemented to make the game more fun, it was implemented to make money off chumps.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Its the simple fact that companies only really care about profit challenging skill systems or content just is not profitable because it fits a small group of hardcore gamers, the masses idea of gameplay basicly your call of duty 6 month play time games is what makes them the most profit so they wont change it unless the masses demand more. also why you think they keep going for early game access with tons of pledges that go up to insane prices like 10k its because they know good and well no one will be playing these games in the long run so why bother with a system of depth, just get them to pay huge amounts of money before the game is even released.
Well, if we want to get all existential, all accomplishments are meaningless illusions. I don't think accomplishment requires competitive victory over another person. It simply means that you succeeded at something you've set out to do, and now you feel good about yourself. That's all.
Accomplishments in games are just illusions to enhance the fun. If you beat some scripted encounter developers design to let 5% of the players to beat, is that a "real" accomplishment?
If the illusion is good (e.g. single player games), players don't mind millions of others who have done the same thing.
If you want the accomplishment to have more of a grounding, play e-sports.
O.o I'm not sure you understand how video games work. How would playing e-sports be any different than any other online game?
Really? e-sport you COMPETE with other human beings.
PvE solo and MP online ... you don't. In fact, solo online games (and don't say there isn't any .. D3 is a good example of being solo & online) ... you can avoid even seeing another human players.
If you cannot tell the difference ... well ... may be you should try to play these games.
This is actually not true in old PvE games.
You had to compete not just with the determination to keep playing when exhausted, but to outplay other people in terms of kill stealing, people bring trains on you, getting good deals with no auction house, getting loot with no rolling system, getting camp spots, getting to max level, etc. It was a competition for many people and a lot of it was direct competition. It just wasn't in the form of PvP.
Comments
If the illusion is good (e.g. single player games), players don't mind millions of others who have done the same thing.
If you want the accomplishment to have more of a grounding, play e-sports.
- If you loot a chess with a 5% chance of dropping an item that yields an Achievement, then that's not a meaningful accomplishment.
- If you beat a boss tuned so that only 5% of players are skilled enough to beat it, that's a meaningful accomplishment.
In the 5% chess, it's still an accomplishment -- you still did something (looted the chest), it's just not really meaningful."What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I totally agree about the nerf-happy nature of things. If something is truly broken or a mechanic is just over the top difficult there is a place for nerfing....but not just because you get a few people crying about it being too hard.
Instead I would suggest devs add something to the quest text and/or post in official forums and say "Hey, look...this is SUPPOSED to be tough, but here's a little hint if it's kicking your ass. If that STILL isn't enough, THEN we can look at a nerf"
You're also right that technically because it means you had time, it has some meaning. But well...any chump off the street has time, so it's not really a meaning that matters (which is usually what's implied by "meaningful") Same deal with expensive item-shop-only vanity items: technically they're meaningful because you had enough money to buy them (and therefore they mean you had money) but they don't really matter because they don't speak to the skill of the player and have no gameplay effects.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Not any chump would be dedicated enough to do something repeatedly until they are rewarded. That's like saying a marathon is not much of an accomplishment because all you need is time. Any chump off the street can do it if they train. Not everyone has the dedication required to train for it.
e-sport is different because you are rated against some other humans ... but to some extent, at the end of the day, it is about one is playing a game better than others.
Personally (and i realize that does not apply to others), i don't think any pve "achievement" is that meaningful, at least not compared to real world career, scientific discoveries, family and things like that. But again, that is just me.
As for the marathon bit, that's mostly true (personally I don't consider endurance events meaningful, but you're right that generally people do call those things achievements.)
Also keep in mind game achievements are seldom time-intensive, so it's not about running 26 miles during an event, but "walk/run 26 miles ever". Which basically everyone achieves while still a child. Now you're free to advocate a medal and a handshake to all those 6 year olds on that accomplishment, but personally I prefer to dismiss unskilled accomplishments as not being noteworthy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I say all in video game accomplishments are nothing.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
For the most part at least, games are entertainment. Achievements therein are simply metrics to gauge progress in different activities. They are mostly just another way to reward players for exploring different aspects of the game and incentivize them at times to do things they may not think or care about doing all that much. It caters to the collector and completionist mentality.
How "meaningful" these things are ultimately is a rather subjective quality that's dependent on a player's preferences and perspective. Sometimes their focus on combat makes this err to the side of combat achievements, sometimes exploration leads to "I just walked the entirety of the map." as a meaningful achievement.
It's just another thing that's dependent on where individual players invest their most interest.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Becoming a Jedi in SWG for example. There was no skill involved, just excessive repetition. Devs did realise and changed the method a few times. All based around chump mechanics.
It is the core means of progress, the treadmill for quests, the ultimately formulaic structure of combat, the obtainment of specific resources for the sake of repetitious crafting or trade-ins for loot.
Repetition is the means by with the world works. Be it the game world or ours honestly. People's tolerance for this varies greatly and oddly as there are those that can zen out sweeping all day all the same as there are those that solve complex math problems over and over to find a solution to advance our technology.
In reality it tends to have the secondary effect of amounting to something. Be it a clean facility or a new solution to store data, it is itself an eventual accumulation of "success".
Games have often lacked that component. "Achievements" are simply the solution for that. Providing a cheerful blip to validate one's repeat input.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Marathon is NOT much of an accomplishment if all your need to do is sit in front of a computer, and don't need to push your body to move even when you are aching all over.
It is more like saying watch 50 hours of tv is an "accomplishment" because someone would dedicated all his time engaging in an entertainment activity that requires nothing but time. If that is the case, can i get my "achievement" of finishing Netflix's House of Cards, and Dare Devil?
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
PvE solo and MP online ... you don't. In fact, solo online games (and don't say there isn't any .. D3 is a good example of being solo & online) ... you can avoid even seeing another human players.
If you cannot tell the difference ... well ... may be you should try to play these games.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Skillful things are always impressive accomplishments (relative to the amount of skill involved.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
See you space cowboys
But it can't help but bring down (and keep down) the quality of the product in the long term.
You had to compete not just with the determination to keep playing when exhausted, but to outplay other people in terms of kill stealing, people bring trains on you, getting good deals with no auction house, getting loot with no rolling system, getting camp spots, getting to max level, etc. It was a competition for many people and a lot of it was direct competition. It just wasn't in the form of PvP.