imo people just dont want to use voice chat in many cases but a solution to this is possible.
nowadays thanks to things like voice to chat/chat to voice you can modulate voices to sound like anything so if you were playing a dwarf, you could also sound like one.
i think such a feature would go a long way for those who are shy about voice chats.
these games have always been solo friendly to some degree but lets be reasonable here. Even my old eq cleric could solo. They are massive multiplayer games and your literally going against the prime directive-esque core design.
I much prefer to roll with the trends and meet people halfway. We do that by making it easier and more fun to group and provide more tools and content so so more people will be more interested in it.
you might not like grouping but its clear that people who have friends in games will play longer and if they play longer they will spend more money.
This is underused by role-players if anything, but I do understand concerns. Most RPs I know won't use voice chat if playing a different gender, but I guess it is down to the guild in others that's not an issue. What does surprise me how even with such issues it seems rarely used. Not sure you can even do this but I would have loved my Dwarf to have a Scottish accent and wind up all the Scottish guys who always ask why are Dwarves supposed to be Scottish anyway? But I think they just make you have a deeper voice.
I gotta insert the Venture Brothers Dr. Girlfriend clip here
- 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
imo people just dont want to use voice chat in many cases but a solution to this is possible.
nowadays thanks to things like voice to chat/chat to voice you can modulate voices to sound like anything so if you were playing a dwarf, you could also sound like one.
i think such a feature would go a long way for those who are shy about voice chats.
these games have always been solo friendly to some degree but lets be reasonable here. Even my old eq cleric could solo. They are massive multiplayer games and your literally going against the prime directive-esque core design.
I much prefer to roll with the trends and meet people halfway. We do that by making it easier and more fun to group and provide more tools and content so so more people will be more interested in it.
you might not like grouping but its clear that people who have friends in games will play longer and if they play longer they will spend more money.
I despise voice chat unless I am playing with people I know in RL or family...I dont want to hear people fighting with their wife, kids, parents, cursing like drunken sailors, verbally abusing other players, etc etc etc....Voice chat was the last straw for me when it came to grouping.....We did fine typing and it wasnt a problem....People became lazy and and this was the result.....
Sorry, didn't realize I was on page 3. The conversation has move on from the post I quoted!
That happens to us all! Welcome to the club of "late posters"
- 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
Theocritus said: I despise voice chat unless I am playing with people I know in RL or family...I dont want to hear people fighting with their wife, kids, parents, cursing like drunken sailors, verbally abusing other players, etc etc etc....Voice chat was the last straw for me when it came to grouping.....We did fine typing and it wasnt a problem....People became lazy and and this was the result.....
It's not a matter of laziness, but efficiency, directness and transparency, at least as far as I am concerned. I prefer voice chat over typed chat every day. If I see abusive behaviour, I can always leave the server and the guild (if not in charge) or kick the abuser, if I am in charge.
I made real life friends thanks to voice chat in MMOs.
It is ok to say you do not like voice chat, everyone has their preferences and reasons. It is definitely not ok to imply that people using it are lazy.
I'm more in Theo's boat. The times I've used voice chat, a lot of it was "talking to kids, significant others, munching on chips, worst of all arguments with not even playing the game."
With today's push for ever faster combat and all of its clicking and button pushing, voice chat is really the only way left to communicate while in combat. I miss the days of combat where cool down timers existed and people had time to chat while fighting.
This is strange as I am a horrendous typist!
- 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
Theocritus said: I despise voice chat unless I am playing with people I know in RL or family...I dont want to hear people fighting with their wife, kids, parents, cursing like drunken sailors, verbally abusing other players, etc etc etc....Voice chat was the last straw for me when it came to grouping.....We did fine typing and it wasnt a problem....People became lazy and and this was the result.....
It's not a matter of laziness, but efficiency, directness and transparency, at least as far as I am concerned. I prefer voice chat over typed chat every day. If I see abusive behaviour, I can always leave the server and the guild (if not in charge) or kick the abuser, if I am in charge.
I made real life friends thanks to voice chat in MMOs.
It is ok to say you do not like voice chat, everyone has their preferences and reasons. It is definitely not ok to imply that people using it are lazy.
I'm more in Theo's boat. The times I've used voice chat, a lot of it was "talking to kids, significant others, munching on chips, worst of all arguments with not even playing the game."
With today's push for ever faster combat and all of its clicking and button pushing, voice chat is really the only way left to communicate while in combat. I miss the days of combat where cool down timers existed and people had time to chat while fighting.
This is strange as I am a horrendous typist!
i want to bring this back but not the way you think. This is why dungeons need to be radial instead of linear and multithreaded instead of single threaded. the "center" is where you regroup, make plans, etc and all tasks go from the center. This brings back the "time" so players can actually talk to eachother at certain points during the dungeon, by design.
its not the fast combat, but the linear dungeons that are the problem.
things can be flawed whether i like them or not. Raiding has serious flaws in mmo's as follows:
1) cant drop in whenever you want and just play. How is that a flaw? If an event goes a certain amount of time it goes a certain amount of time. Perhaps there could be a system where people could join mid dungeon but that really depends on how the game is set up. Not all mmorpg's are theme park mmorpg's where the raid is an instance. Heck, In Lineage 2 I could join a number of raids mid fight.
2) has a very vocal and often elitist community that endlessly lobbies developers to push development in that direction and rubs regular players the wrong way.
That has less to say about raiding and more to say about players.
3) reward system often, but not always, heavily favors those who raid. Shouldn't those who raid get rewarded? Unless you are trying to say that those who raid get better rewards over everyone else in the game. That has more to say about how the game is itemized.
4) because of raid structure many players have no place in raids whether its due to class or skill they are cut out because they are not needed. Again, that has more to say about the particular game. Once again, in Lineage 2, we had all sorts of classes involved. Then again there weren't limitations on how many people could be in a raid.
5) Raids consist of "throw yourselves at it until you win" lameplay which usually happens in some hidden instance essentially disconnected from the game.
This seems to be two different things. "Throw yourself at it" seems to refer to the boss' tactics and strategy. that can always be made better. As far as it being disconnected in an instance that is only for themepark mmorpg's. Or at least the Themepark mmorpg's that Iv'e played. So, yet again, Lineage 2 did not have instances for most of the Bosses that I am aware of. Heck, we even had farmers come into one boss raid and we had to pvp for the boss.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Theocritus said: People became lazy and and this was the result.....
It is ok to say you do not like voice chat, everyone has their preferences and reasons. It is definitely not ok to imply that people using it are lazy.
I'm more in Theo's boat. The times I've used voice chat, a lot of it was "talking to kids, significant others, munching on chips, worst of all arguments with not even playing the game."
Bolded and underlined by me to stress my point: There are many legitimate reasons for someone to not like voice chat. There's good reasons for using it as well. I am taking issue with associating using voice chat with laziness.
Note to self. Read better, Al!
Thanks for the clarification
- 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
They annoy me with some things, especially how much they push their damn cash shop with in-game ads, which is why I'm currently on a long, long break from it but it's not a bad game and has some interesting design choices.
The entirety of cash shop pushing I get is on the launcher, a small font text scroll at the bottom of the login screen. Otherwise I only see the cash shop related stuff if I go into the cash shop, which happens in any game with one.
What pushing otherwise do you get, as the above is pretty minimal compared to the cash shop pushing I've seen in some games.
I remember back in Everquest when people were first starting to throw a fit about grouping...The dynamics of the game changed and it did become harder to get groups....You had to have certain stats if you wanted to do the better dungeons.....If anything blame things like gear score and damage meters and other such add ons that basically made MMOs where only a handful of people could do the best areas and get the best gear......
Also the times have changed...I dont think most people have hours to play a MMO anymore.....I can remember in EQ waiting for hours for raids to be put together.....Theres no way that is going to fly now....Players are just a different breed now.....MMOs now basically just gave the players what the majority wanted, even if it was not in the spirit of what the genre started as.
In the end, it coems down to what these companies think will make the most money....Thats why no one has gone with a forced grouping MMO in the last 15 years.....
I admit, I didn't read the OP but I want to chime in on the post topic.
Group content has nothing to do with being casual or hardcore.
Full MMORPGs can be designed around solo play but with other forms of multiplayer such as trading:
Examples:
1.) Old School Runescape 2.) RPG MO (https://mo.ee/) 3.) Damascus
I'm sure there are more. Just because its called MMORPG doesn't mean it needs group content or even grouping to work. In my opinion, we need more MMORPGs inspired by games like OSRS and RPG MO. The opposite has been happening since 2004, game devs focus on World of Warcraft as inspiration and in my opinion, that is a mistake.
I've been down this debate so many times in my MMORPG hobby over the past 15+ years. When I was younger I was firmly in the place that group content needs to be at the forefront of an MMORPG because that's what I did at the time. However, as time has gone on I've found myself saying the power structure for MMORPGs who have a tendency to just focus on group content the most tend to be the games that are currently struggling the most because well the market changed.
In this post, I'll be looking only at WoW vs EQ as those are the 2 games I think I have the biggest experiences with. EQ was almost an 8-9 year game for me with WoW probably clocking in at 2 years.
EQ back before PoP did have "forced grouping" was it really forced? No. No one was holding a gun to my head. But if you wanted to progress your character who wasn't a necromancer, mage, enchanter, (bard/wizard/druid/shammy later on) you better get used to the idea that grouping is how you would level.
It sounds bad, but it wasn't that bad. Truthfully there wasn't any stat or items I needed during my time in EQ. That didn't start popping up until the back end of PoP and onward for me. But prior to Luclin in any of the content in the game (spare raiding) gear checks largely weren't a thing.
Also, EQ's "forced" grouping wasn't anything complicated by any measure. It was tank and spank and CC adds. Clear, med up and pull again. This was hours of "camping" that's how grouping used to work. Were their dungeons, sure, but you weren't clearing them--you found a corner that no adds came, and then sat there and pulled monsters to that location. That's what dungeons looked like.
WoW comes along and now there's an action-based MMORPG. The caveats here though are simple: A potato could run classic WoW. There's no "forced grouping" for leveling at allthis is a huge step and change from EQ's design (which feels more like a DnD design vs Wow who's design felt more like an action game vs DnD). But in order to end-game content grouping was mandatory to progress your character.
The results were EQ fell down, WoW had rocket fuel, and became king.
Now fast forward to today. I don't play EQ anymore, I haven't even looked into it since moving to Daybreak. WoW is what EQ was when WoW came out imo. It took the formula that Brad McQuaid and Jon Smedley took from Meridian 59 and made EQ. The WoW devs took the equation the 2 EQ devs had to its logical conclusion which is where Shadowlands is currently.
Now in WoW, it's lightning-fast to hit max level. You're essentially rushed and forced into playing a game that you have no idea what that game is about. Combine that with endgame modes that literally focus on speed, reaction time, and is perfect. What you wind up with is a system that fosters a community that's only concern is completion above all else, with speed being its guiding principal. (Lookin at you M+). WoW is this game that has "forced" grouping because the only way to play the game in any actual meanginful capacity is to go toward the 3 endgame pillars all of which are just totally unfun and forced.
The game has mechanics now that are very complex. The game rushes players from what's supposed to be a MMORPG into a basically spam X as fast as possible action game. Who loses out in this world? Casual players do. Why? Because if the endgame has such a high bar for entry because of "Group Comp" (that's a phrase that shouldn't exist in MMORPGs, but hey WoW did it) scheduled raid times, ect...
Now compare WoW to FF14. FF14 is now surging. Why? I think it's 2 things:
1) The forced Moderation of the community has allowed for people to be nicer and friendlier, and incentivizes people to play together.
2) Everything that's group related is queuable with only 2 difficulties not being queable. That's huge.
And really lets be clear here: This post I'm guessing is about WoW. WoW has had this mentality for quite a while. Their M+ system isn't even queable which is nutty to me. But they have some of the worst Balance team developers in the entire industry so it's not shocking why they don't have it.
WoW is an old school game that's past it's time. Good for FF14, and ESO for being good modern-day MMORPGs. Meanwhile Azeroth is feeling more like Norrath every day.
'Now in WoW, it's lightning-fast to hit max level. You're essentially rushed and forced into playing a game that you have no idea what that game is about. Combine that with endgame modes that literally focus on speed, reaction time, and is perfect. What you wind up with is a system that fosters a community that's only concern is completion above all else, with speed being its guiding principal. (Lookin at you M+). WoW is this game that has "forced" grouping because the only way to play the game in any actual meanginful capacity is to go toward the 3 endgame pillars all of which are just totally unfun and forced.'
There is absolutely no need to play like this. Yet people do this and threads are always about how to get to 70 or 60 quick on Reddit's classic threads. Such a waste.
You know who is responsible for these games becoming terrible , you are, I mean the players are. They never know how to appreciate a damn thing.
I remember back in Everquest when people were first starting to throw a fit about grouping...The dynamics of the game changed and it did become harder to get groups....You had to have certain stats if you wanted to do the better dungeons.....If anything blame things like gear score and damage meters and other such add ons that basically made MMOs where only a handful of people could do the best areas and get the best gear......
Also the times have changed...I dont think most people have hours to play a MMO anymore.....I can remember in EQ waiting for hours for raids to be put together.....Theres no way that is going to fly now....Players are just a different breed now.....MMOs now basically just gave the players what the majority wanted, even if it was not in the spirit of what the genre started as.
In the end, it coems down to what these companies think will make the most money....Thats why no one has gone with a forced grouping MMO in the last 15 years.....
In eq the step from one xpac to the next was steep enough you needed to make sure you had better gear on certain classes, like warrior for example. I agree though, I think people just got burnt out on the grind to keep up more than anything. To me it didn't seem like people in eq didn't like grouping as much as the prep to do said group content, finding people, making sure they had what they needed and then like you mention in a raid you times all that by 100.
I still see people wanting to play together, if they could just make grouping more convenient it might help. I still stand by what I say all the time though, if you want a single player game then play a single player game, the mmo genre isn't close to having a good play style or story compared to games that are built for that. Leave mmos for people that actually want to play with people.
for me knowing your audience is critical. There is an efficiency factor with group size in terms of ease to make a group, difficulty of that content for less players who attempt it, group scalability, and need to perform multiple functions within the group.
three is the ideal number IMO for a number of reasons.
1) 3 is very scalable ( to 6 or 9) and opens the door to multigroup dungeons whether competitive or co-op which would make dungeons more interesting by giving them more modes of play.
2) 3 is a very easy amount of players to assemble.
3) content designed for 3 people can be accomplished by skilled solo and duo players which makes that content much more efficient.
4) with three people characters need to be more well rounded in general to perform all the required roles. This also makes it easier to assemble such groups because they are not necessary limited by certain critical roles. As such I prefer a situational mitigation system where tanking, dps and crowd control is situational based on the enemy and there is no healing role. This means your role can dynamically change on the fly which will serve to make it more interesting, challenging and require players to communicate with each other again.
i dont consider group finders to be a good idea for mmos. They have huge unnecessary overhead on the server and they are not generally conducive to making friends. Often they are terrible at bringing the right people together. I much prefer the npc guild idea that allows group formation for ANY activity in the game, and does so based on intent and achievement thereby funneling players to where their interests and skills lead them giving players, through the chat system, the final say on who they will be grouping with.
Casuals and there solo attitudes has done unrepairable damage to the MMO genre ..
Casuals aren't the ones that adapted MMORPGs to suit solo play. That was done by those that provide them, and is where the blame belongs if anywhere.
Those that chose to solo before that did so without any accommodation and thus damaged nothing.
Someone has no idea how we got where we are
That would be the one believing those with no direct control over MMORPGs are the ones responsible for the state of them.
So you are saying that Devs have not changed there approach on how content is delivered to its consumer ..
History will disagree with as well as common sense ..
All of the MMOs that defined the genre had the VAst majority of there content made for groups ..
UO, AC AO , DAOC Wow , EQ , EQ2 .. . All were primarily built for groups .. it was not until after EQ2 launch and Wow , that you began to see the cries for solo content in MMOs..
And as devs at that point beginning with Wow began to track player data thru there games that they began to cater to the Solo experience ..
After the all games began to develop content and spend more resources on Solo content because of the community outcries for SOlo content and the data trackers in game ..
So yes "those with no direct control over MMORPGs are the ones responsible for the state of them."
IS exactly correct .. They do however control it thru there actions and how they spend there money .. common sense stuff here and just regular business..
But this is just smart business as at the same time the big money began to pay attention and jump into the MMO game and of course they all want to develop for and capture as much of the Solo demographic as they do the group/ raid community ..
The devs that provide the product were creating for a community that was screaming out for solo content and still do to this day, effecting the development of every game..
Never let facts and history get in the way of your perceived truth ...
I find it funny that people in this thread cannot even decide about who the current games of the genre cater for. Half of them say that it is overrun by solos and casuals, the other half says that it has "forced grouping".
There's enough games and gameplay loops for both. My guess is that the representatives of both sides just want new games that cater to them in order to find a new home.
i think for most players, casual or otherwise, there is no side. They solo and group. The number of people who only solo or only group is likely very small.
i just think you need to roll with the times and properly integrate such that all content made serves the greatest number of players. My previous post illustrates how to do that efficiently.
Casuals and there solo attitudes has done unrepairable damage to the MMO genre ..
Casuals aren't the ones that adapted MMORPGs to suit solo play. That was done by those that provide them, and is where the blame belongs if anywhere.
Those that chose to solo before that did so without any accommodation and thus damaged nothing.
Someone has no idea how we got where we are
That would be the one believing those with no direct control over MMORPGs are the ones responsible for the state of them.
So you are saying that Devs have not changed there approach on how content is delivered to its consumer ..
History will disagree with as well as common sense ..
All of the MMOs that defined the genre had the VAst majority of there content made for groups ..
UO, AC AO , DAOC Wow , EQ , EQ2 .. . All were primarily built for groups .. it was not until after EQ2 launch and Wow , that you began to see the cries for solo content in MMOs..
And as devs at that point beginning with Wow began to track player data thru there games that they began to cater to the Solo experience ..
After the all games began to develop content and spend more resources on Solo content because of the community outcries for SOlo content and the data trackers in game ..
So yes "those with no direct control over MMORPGs are the ones responsible for the state of them."
IS exactly correct .. They do however control it thru there actions and how they spend there money .. common sense stuff here and just regular business..
But this is just smart business as at the same time the big money began to pay attention and jump into the MMO game and of course they all want to develop for and capture as much of the Solo demographic as they do the group/ raid community ..
The devs that provide the product were creating for a community that was screaming out for solo content and still do to this day, effecting the development of every game..
Never let facts and history get in the way of your perceived truth ...
Thats how we got where we are ..
At days end it is the developers and the people who pay them who make the decision to design their games to go after the more casual and solo player. (Or whatever demographic they wish to target)
The only real influence or choice a customer has is to vote with their wallet, which taken as a collective action is very powerful indeed.
As for the list of early MMORPGs which you claim were designed for grouping I'll dare say a good portion if not a majority of players did a substantial amount of soloing in them, regardless of their design.
Grouping was always just one possible game play loop which almost always could be avoided to greater or lesser extent, and I definitely avoided it in most when it suited me.
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
As for the list of early MMORPGs which you claim were designed for grouping I'll dare say a good portion if not a majority of players did a substantial amount of soloing in them, regardless of their design.
Yes, I solo'd a lot in the original DAOC. I played a Minstrel and Cabalist, both pet classes, and they could solo very well. I also did a lot of grouping and RvR.
Back then, 20 years ago, I played for hours a day, not as a casual.
I'm all in favor of some content requiring groups, but if any of that is in the main quest line, then a solo option should also be available, like in LoTRO.
Casuals and there solo attitudes has done unrepairable damage to the MMO genre ..
Casuals aren't the ones that adapted MMORPGs to suit solo play. That was done by those that provide them, and is where the blame belongs if anywhere.
Those that chose to solo before that did so without any accommodation and thus damaged nothing.
Someone has no idea how we got where we are
That would be the one believing those with no direct control over MMORPGs are the ones responsible for the state of them.
So you are saying that Devs have not changed there approach on how content is delivered to its consumer ..
History will disagree with as well as common sense ..
All of the MMOs that defined the genre had the VAst majority of there content made for groups ..
UO, AC AO , DAOC Wow , EQ , EQ2 .. . All were primarily built for groups .. it was not until after EQ2 launch and Wow , that you began to see the cries for solo content in MMOs..
And as devs at that point beginning with Wow began to track player data thru there games that they began to cater to the Solo experience ..
After the all games began to develop content and spend more resources on Solo content because of the community outcries for SOlo content and the data trackers in game ..
So yes "those with no direct control over MMORPGs are the ones responsible for the state of them."
IS exactly correct .. They do however control it thru there actions and how they spend there money .. common sense stuff here and just regular business..
But this is just smart business as at the same time the big money began to pay attention and jump into the MMO game and of course they all want to develop for and capture as much of the Solo demographic as they do the group/ raid community ..
The devs that provide the product were creating for a community that was screaming out for solo content and still do to this day, effecting the development of every game..
Never let facts and history get in the way of your perceived truth ...
Thats how we got where we are ..
At days end it is the developers and the people who pay them who make the decision to design their games to go after the more casual and solo player. (Or whatever demographic they wish to target)
The only real influence or choice a customer has is to vote with their wallet, which taken as a collective action is very powerful indeed.
As for the list of early MMORPGs which you claim were designed for grouping I'll dare say a good portion if not a majority of players did a substantial amount of soloing in them, regardless of their design.
Grouping was always just one possible game play loop which almost always could be avoided to greater or lesser extent, and I definitely avoided it in most when it suited me.
As in ALL business you produce what the consumer demand is .. True ..
Its just common sense .. it applies to all business
So now explain how the consumer has no control..
They have all the control .. or consumer will go to someone that is producing what they want ..Go ask the devs of Wildstar , how it worked out to make a group focused game , against advice ill add of what the market and Consumer DEMAND ..
The rest is semantics .. 6/10.. If you are saying that SOLO content was as available , and as accessible than what Devs today provide ...
.. You would be wrong
.. Of course you could try to solo and there was some stuff to solo back then ..
But as I said
"The content was built primarily for Groups" Are you saying thats not true ..
You would be wrong ..
The amount of development cycle and resources that Houses dedicate to Solo gameplay is Vastly more than it ever was back then ..
Early on Solo gameplay was a byproduct of group content and holes in that group content being made,and over land content ..
Today in some cases as much or more resources are spent devolopment towards solo content . Because of consumer DEMAND and CONTROL over development cycles .. . At least thats the case for houses that want to make money and survive in todays market .. or you cater to group content and become Carbine Studio ..
So , primarily thru Forum voices , then thru Blizz starting to track player Data and Actions during gameplay ( which all Devs adopted) Is what drove the market to a much more robust SOLO development cycle ..
so in the end
/players control development
Ill add Pantheon needs to be careful in this regard .. They are looking like Wildstar 2.0 at this point ..
Comments
- 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
I despise voice chat unless I am playing with people I know in RL or family...I dont want to hear people fighting with their wife, kids, parents, cursing like drunken sailors, verbally abusing other players, etc etc etc....Voice chat was the last straw for me when it came to grouping.....We did fine typing and it wasnt a problem....People became lazy and and this was the result.....
That happens to us all! Welcome to the club of "late posters"
- 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
its not the fast combat, but the linear dungeons that are the problem.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
- 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
The entirety of cash shop pushing I get is on the launcher, a small font text scroll at the bottom of the login screen. Otherwise I only see the cash shop related stuff if I go into the cash shop, which happens in any game with one.
What pushing otherwise do you get, as the above is pretty minimal compared to the cash shop pushing I've seen in some games.
Casuals aren't the ones that adapted MMORPGs to suit solo play. That was done by those that provide them, and is where the blame belongs if anywhere.
Those that chose to solo before that did so without any accommodation and thus damaged nothing.
Group content has nothing to do with being casual or hardcore.
Full MMORPGs can be designed around solo play but with other forms of multiplayer such as trading:
Examples:
1.) Old School Runescape
2.) RPG MO (https://mo.ee/)
3.) Damascus
I'm sure there are more. Just because its called MMORPG doesn't mean it needs group content or even grouping to work. In my opinion, we need more MMORPGs inspired by games like OSRS and RPG MO. The opposite has been happening since 2004, game devs focus on World of Warcraft as inspiration and in my opinion, that is a mistake.
In this post, I'll be looking only at WoW vs EQ as those are the 2 games I think I have the biggest experiences with. EQ was almost an 8-9 year game for me with WoW probably clocking in at 2 years.
EQ back before PoP did have "forced grouping" was it really forced? No. No one was holding a gun to my head. But if you wanted to progress your character who wasn't a necromancer, mage, enchanter, (bard/wizard/druid/shammy later on) you better get used to the idea that grouping is how you would level.
It sounds bad, but it wasn't that bad. Truthfully there wasn't any stat or items I needed during my time in EQ. That didn't start popping up until the back end of PoP and onward for me. But prior to Luclin in any of the content in the game (spare raiding) gear checks largely weren't a thing.
Also, EQ's "forced" grouping wasn't anything complicated by any measure. It was tank and spank and CC adds. Clear, med up and pull again. This was hours of "camping" that's how grouping used to work. Were their dungeons, sure, but you weren't clearing them--you found a corner that no adds came, and then sat there and pulled monsters to that location. That's what dungeons looked like.
WoW comes along and now there's an action-based MMORPG. The caveats here though are simple: A potato could run classic WoW. There's no "forced grouping" for leveling at all this is a huge step and change from EQ's design (which feels more like a DnD design vs Wow who's design felt more like an action game vs DnD). But in order to end-game content grouping was mandatory to progress your character.
The results were EQ fell down, WoW had rocket fuel, and became king.
Now fast forward to today. I don't play EQ anymore, I haven't even looked into it since moving to Daybreak. WoW is what EQ was when WoW came out imo. It took the formula that Brad McQuaid and Jon Smedley took from Meridian 59 and made EQ. The WoW devs took the equation the 2 EQ devs had to its logical conclusion which is where Shadowlands is currently.
Now in WoW, it's lightning-fast to hit max level. You're essentially rushed and forced into playing a game that you have no idea what that game is about. Combine that with endgame modes that literally focus on speed, reaction time, and is perfect. What you wind up with is a system that fosters a community that's only concern is completion above all else, with speed being its guiding principal. (Lookin at you M+). WoW is this game that has "forced" grouping because the only way to play the game in any actual meanginful capacity is to go toward the 3 endgame pillars all of which are just totally unfun and forced.
The game has mechanics now that are very complex. The game rushes players from what's supposed to be a MMORPG into a basically spam X as fast as possible action game. Who loses out in this world? Casual players do. Why? Because if the endgame has such a high bar for entry because of "Group Comp" (that's a phrase that shouldn't exist in MMORPGs, but hey WoW did it) scheduled raid times, ect...
Now compare WoW to FF14. FF14 is now surging. Why? I think it's 2 things:
1) The forced Moderation of the community has allowed for people to be nicer and friendlier, and incentivizes people to play together.
2) Everything that's group related is queuable with only 2 difficulties not being queable. That's huge.
WoW is an old school game that's past it's time. Good for FF14, and ESO for being good modern-day MMORPGs. Meanwhile Azeroth is feeling more like Norrath every day.
There is absolutely no need to play like this. Yet people do this and threads are always about how to get to 70 or 60 quick on Reddit's classic threads. Such a waste.
You know who is responsible for these games becoming terrible , you are, I mean the players are. They never know how to appreciate a damn thing.
Someone has no idea how we got where we are
That would be the one believing those with no direct control over MMORPGs are the ones responsible for the state of them.
I still see people wanting to play together, if they could just make grouping more convenient it might help. I still stand by what I say all the time though, if you want a single player game then play a single player game, the mmo genre isn't close to having a good play style or story compared to games that are built for that. Leave mmos for people that actually want to play with people.
three is the ideal number IMO for a number of reasons.
1) 3 is very scalable ( to 6 or 9) and opens the door to multigroup dungeons whether competitive or co-op which would make dungeons more interesting by giving them more modes of play.
2) 3 is a very easy amount of players to assemble.
3) content designed for 3 people can be accomplished by skilled solo and duo players which makes that content much more efficient.
4) with three people characters need to be more well rounded in general to perform all the required roles. This also makes it easier to assemble such groups because they are not necessary limited by certain critical roles. As such I prefer a situational mitigation system where tanking, dps and crowd control is situational based on the enemy and there is no healing role. This means your role can dynamically change on the fly which will serve to make it more interesting, challenging and require players to communicate with each other again.
i dont consider group finders to be a good idea for mmos. They have huge unnecessary overhead on the server and they are not generally conducive to making friends. Often they are terrible at bringing the right people together. I much prefer the npc guild idea that allows group formation for ANY activity in the game, and does so based on intent and achievement thereby funneling players to where their interests and skills lead them giving players, through the chat system, the final say on who they will be grouping with.
sometimes too much automation is a bad thing.
i just think you need to roll with the times and properly integrate such that all content made serves the greatest number of players. My previous post illustrates how to do that efficiently.
The only real influence or choice a customer has is to vote with their wallet, which taken as a collective action is very powerful indeed.
As for the list of early MMORPGs which you claim were designed for grouping I'll dare say a good portion if not a majority of players did a substantial amount of soloing in them, regardless of their design.
Grouping was always just one possible game play loop which almost always could be avoided to greater or lesser extent, and I definitely avoided it in most when it suited me.
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