That may become the case when VR technology is invented. This current public beta of people wearing visors on their heads and waving their hands around like imbeciles is not VR.
Maybe in 20-30 years VR technology may be invented and games will make use of it.
I guess it's that time of year where we get the "VR is the future of gaming!" article
Needless to say, I disagree. VR will become an important part of the gaming world in the future, you know, once we've developed proper virtual reality. This virtual eyesight combined with shitty controllers is not virtual reality. Its a step in the right direction, don't get me wrong, but we've still got an awfully long way to go.
I can count on half of one hand how many times I've wanted to strap a screen to my head for a nice 10 hour mmo session on a Saturday.
VR will be the future of MMOs when we're playing them on holodecks, not with headsets.
Each of these comments are hyperbole. Firstly, if VR isn't VR today, then why are MMOs actually MMOs? We don't have tens of thousands of players in one area. Where's the 'massive' part?
Right. Hyperbole. We consider hundreds of people in one area to be 'massive'. VR is VR today because it actually works as advertised - it tricks your brain into believing it's in a virtual world. It might have all sorts of flaws, but it gets the job done.
Secondly, Holodecks are not needed. What we need is the refinement of VR as it exists today. Smaller headsets, no eye strain or headaches, no sickness, haptic gloves, and of course realistic specs to match the human eye and ears.
VR will be a nice addition but does not define a real gameplay progress IMO.
What MMORPGs need is living/breathing worlds.
You get living breathing worlds through VR faster than anything else. I don't mean because you get to have a more immersive visual/audio experience, but rather because it will actually make players themselves more lively and allow them to create their own content to a much higher and faster degree.
If you can track player's bodies, you no longer have a 'samey' feel or rigid animations. People won't just be standing there seemingly doing nothing in a city hub - you'll see them interacting with menus or hear them talking to others, and each player will seem genuinely unique even if they look identical.
Instead of programming Triple Triad and spending all that development time, you just give people the cards and they can play it naturally. Instead of people dancing on mailboxes you'll have people actually dancing and bust out cool moves. Instead of people ignoring each other in dungeons, people will much more likely communicate with each other due to the inherent social cues you get from VR.
See what I'm getting at? It will be far more lively and content rich.
First you say that the formula isn't the issue " I don’t think it’s the formula that’s the problem but instead that the medium itself hasn’t evolved." but then it seems that you argue that mmorpg's need to be different " it’s clear that audiences are desperate for a new flavor of MMORPG. "
VR is just a way to expand the visual experience.
If people are indeed happy with how mmorpg's play then it will only be a nice addition. If people aren't happy with how they play then no addition of VR will help a game for long.
It's not just the visual experience. The physical and social aspects are much more interesting and important, IMO. Having to correctly time your arm movements for parry's and blocks, vibration feedback when you hit an enemy, re-orientating your body after a dodge.
Like I said, these things make you feel like your character instead of just watching your character. People tolerate what's on the market today because current games have bested the standard formula, and people like that formula, but it's been 20+ years and it's time for something new. Changing the medium seems to make more sense than changing the formula, which hasn't had much success.
I don't disagree that VR can make one feel more "the character" but if I'm "the character" and I'm going to some hub to collect x amount of dull quests that take seconds to complete then that's an issue. And one of "the formula." If my gameplay is essentially a hamster wheel of brief, meaningless activities then that's an issue of formula.
VR is great though it makes me nauseous after 5 minutes. But let's say it didn't. If I'm "the character" then give me an interesting world to be in. Not just a set of very dull tasks to repeat for some shiny.
I've shown mmorpg's to some friends, some who play video games and some (most) who don't. And they all just don't get it. Not one of them thought they were interesting or engaging.
As games they aren't good. But if the game play can be made more engaging, not just buying into the skinner box experience then sure, VR can only heighten that experience.
But if all we have is same old same old formula then all vr is going to allow us is a few more minutes of "oh neat!" before we move on.
See above. You can still have the same quest design and fall into the trap of mundane tasks, but you can also create your own content much more easily since VR is more player-driven.
The future not everyone wants when it comes to MMOs. VR has it's application, but it's never going to be for everyone for various reasons.
MMOs are already for a limited audience. VR will actually bring more people in than before because it will casualize the experience to the point where non-gamers and very casual gamers will be able to easily integrate.
MMOs have complex interfaces that scare a lot of people off - the UX design of VR can be simpler than even some of the simplest singleplayer games because it allows a human-centric design approach where the 10 digits you've used all your life become a major part of how you interact.
VR MMO's are the future, at this point is mainly an issue with the UI and making it happen.
We are making great strides on this, only a matter of time before we will live in little bubbles like the Matrix, but as opposed to being trapped, we will do it willingly.
Giving us a chance to see far off worlds, explore endless timelines, it will be amazing.
NFT and Bitcoin, will be how they find it.
oops sorry but this is actually the
D U M B E S T
shit I've ever heard. (today.)
You're entitled to your wrong opnion.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I know there are a lot of haters for vr. BUT after playing zenith, it is a breath of fresh air to play a mmo in a different way. The genre has become so stale and boring, let's be real. If there is anything new, most mmo players go out of their way to bash it as much as they can because it's not like X game or does something different than game Y. In VR, everything that is the same feels new because it's done in such a different way for obvious reasons. VR gaming is still very basic imo, if this is the basic phase then I will be very happy when it starts maturing more.
I have to agree with this.
I think, even if they took an existing MMO, and just fixed the camera set ups, so that they feel like you are looking through the eyes of your avatar, they could breath some seriously good life into some older MMO's, which would be ideal candidates to test with, since a lot of them have more rudimentary graphics, which should be easier for the headset to process, anyway, so the focus could be made into the intergradation and UI as opposed to worrying about things like boob physics.
But, MMO's are the ideal candidate to do this with, because (outside the Iso MMO's) they are already fully set up 3d worlds, 360 degrees in all directions, they are set up to be fully surrounding environments, that will embrace that 3D platform that VR will integrate with.
I mean the idea of playing something like DDO, or GW2, or even old school EQ1, in VR is damn near boner inspiring.
No joke, if they revised the UI and frontend of EQ1, to be fully VR enabled, I bet you, a ton of people would jump back into it, just for that experience, and since the world itself is already made for VR, the only thing they would need to set up would be the UI and Frontend, which again, would make these old school MMO's the ideal playground for VR testing.
Making a New MMO, is harder, because, you need to make a fun game to start with, and truth be told, I think it would be better and easier to retrofit an older MMO.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I feel like design is still the fundamental problem.
So much in regular gaming has been totally unexplored.
Character interactions are still very limited (waving with /wave or with your VR hand is still the same thing).
Landscape interactions are still very limited.
AI is still very limited.
Imagine AI that evolves, deep interactions with NPCs, or landscape where you can dig to the center of the earth and find a Balron. I'd take that over a headset any day of the week.
VR can give me a call when voice acting in a regular game is the norm, and when "Hunt 10 wolves" is in the rear view mirror.
The problem is that devs have been talking about AI for a decade and have gotten nowhere. We can't even get dynamic text in MMOs because it's 'too much work' (according to a former ArenaNet writer, anyways). VR exists and can get significantly better with some effort. It's a rough gem that needs a lot of polishing. No one has demonstrated that AI can even function in a virtual world yet.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
I feel like design is still the fundamental problem.
So much in regular gaming has been totally unexplored.
Character interactions are still very limited (waving with /wave or with your VR hand is still the same thing).
Landscape interactions are still very limited.
AI is still very limited.
Imagine AI that evolves, deep interactions with NPCs, or landscape where you can dig to the center of the earth and find a Balron. I'd take that over a headset any day of the week.
VR can give me a call when voice acting in a regular game is the norm, and when "Hunt 10 wolves" is in the rear view mirror.
There is no way that waving with /wave and in VR is the same thing. They are fundamentally different, because one is the same animation everyone has access to, and the other is your own body language. I can tell who a friend is in VR just by how they wave even if their name and avatar is anonymous.
VR is window dressing to lure early adopters into what is a janky experience once you get over the honeymoon phase. Until we have a neural interface, it will remain a half measure.
The real evolution in MMORPGs will be when we have true AI that can react in real time and orchestrate events on the fly. No more purely scripted boss fights, no free healing/casting, random invasions of towns and attacks, etc. An always active "DM" that constantly changes the experience is far more exciting than a fancy reel viewer.
IDK why but this thread reminds me of this old song
"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
MMORPGs are an evolutionary cul-de-sac. They take too much money, too much time and effort to make, and at the end there is no guarantee that the target audience will still be there when the project is finally finished. They are dying as they are and can't relevantly change without becoming something else entirely. Adding a bloated, over priced, machine taxing, front end like VR to an already overly expensive, time and resource consuming genera won't do anything but make it sink faster into the depths of yesterday.
Naw, what dev's are doing to them is the issue. Who said that you need the very best graphics, voice acting, actors, and other things that drive the costs up horrendously?
All the above can make a good game better. Same with VR. But it can do squat with a bad game or ideas.
Add VR to a bad game and what ya got? Or NFT, or anything? Still have a bad game with crap added on top.
VR is window dressing to lure early adopters into what is a janky experience once you get over the honeymoon phase. Until we have a neural interface, it will remain a half measure.
The real evolution in MMORPGs will be when we have true AI that can react in real time and orchestrate events on the fly. No more purely scripted boss fights, no free healing/casting, random invasions of towns and attacks, etc. An always active "DM" that constantly changes the experience is far more exciting than a fancy reel viewer.
MMOs might as well be a janky experience that remain a half measure until you can have perfect physics networked across thousands of people in the same area.
Your standards are absurd and don't align with 99.99% of the MMO userbase.
You don't even need true AI to achieve what you laid out. Just have the players replace the role of AI and have player driven content.
Except now you have to rely on VR because it's difficult to really diverge much in terms of player created content in a traditional MMO, as the interface doesn't allow for a lot of the divergent things you can come up with.
So yes, VR is the next real evolution in MMOs afterall.
VR will be a nice addition but does not define a real gameplay progress IMO.
What MMORPGs need is living/breathing worlds.
You get living breathing worlds through VR faster than anything else. I don't mean because you get to have a more immersive visual/audio experience, but rather because it will actually make players themselves more lively and allow them to create their own content to a much higher and faster degree.
If you can track player's bodies, you no longer have a 'samey' feel or rigid animations. People won't just be standing there seemingly doing nothing in a city hub - you'll see them interacting with menus or hear them talking to others, and each player will seem genuinely unique even if they look identical.
Instead of programming Triple Triad and spending all that development time, you just give people the cards and they can play it naturally. Instead of people dancing on mailboxes you'll have people actually dancing and bust out cool moves. Instead of people ignoring each other in dungeons, people will much more likely communicate with each other due to the inherent social cues you get from VR.
See what I'm getting at? It will be far more lively and content rich.
First you say that the formula isn't the issue " I don’t think it’s the formula that’s the problem but instead that the medium itself hasn’t evolved." but then it seems that you argue that mmorpg's need to be different " it’s clear that audiences are desperate for a new flavor of MMORPG. "
VR is just a way to expand the visual experience.
If people are indeed happy with how mmorpg's play then it will only be a nice addition. If people aren't happy with how they play then no addition of VR will help a game for long.
It's not just the visual experience. The physical and social aspects are much more interesting and important, IMO. Having to correctly time your arm movements for parry's and blocks, vibration feedback when you hit an enemy, re-orientating your body after a dodge.
Like I said, these things make you feel like your character instead of just watching your character. People tolerate what's on the market today because current games have bested the standard formula, and people like that formula, but it's been 20+ years and it's time for something new. Changing the medium seems to make more sense than changing the formula, which hasn't had much success.
I don't disagree that VR can make one feel more "the character" but if I'm "the character" and I'm going to some hub to collect x amount of dull quests that take seconds to complete then that's an issue. And one of "the formula." If my gameplay is essentially a hamster wheel of brief, meaningless activities then that's an issue of formula.
VR is great though it makes me nauseous after 5 minutes. But let's say it didn't. If I'm "the character" then give me an interesting world to be in. Not just a set of very dull tasks to repeat for some shiny.
I've shown mmorpg's to some friends, some who play video games and some (most) who don't. And they all just don't get it. Not one of them thought they were interesting or engaging.
As games they aren't good. But if the game play can be made more engaging, not just buying into the skinner box experience then sure, VR can only heighten that experience.
But if all we have is same old same old formula then all vr is going to allow us is a few more minutes of "oh neat!" before we move on.
See above. You can still have the same quest design and fall into the trap of mundane tasks, but you can also create your own content much more easily since VR is more player-driven.
I wouldn't assume that VR is more player driven. You can still get world of warcraft style game play and have it be VR. VR is just an interface. It might be better for more personal interactions as far as hand gestures and the like but it's still just a way to interface with the game world.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
VR will be a nice addition but does not define a real gameplay progress IMO.
What MMORPGs need is living/breathing worlds.
You get living breathing worlds through VR faster than anything else. I don't mean because you get to have a more immersive visual/audio experience, but rather because it will actually make players themselves more lively and allow them to create their own content to a much higher and faster degree.
If you can track player's bodies, you no longer have a 'samey' feel or rigid animations. People won't just be standing there seemingly doing nothing in a city hub - you'll see them interacting with menus or hear them talking to others, and each player will seem genuinely unique even if they look identical.
Instead of programming Triple Triad and spending all that development time, you just give people the cards and they can play it naturally. Instead of people dancing on mailboxes you'll have people actually dancing and bust out cool moves. Instead of people ignoring each other in dungeons, people will much more likely communicate with each other due to the inherent social cues you get from VR.
See what I'm getting at? It will be far more lively and content rich.
First you say that the formula isn't the issue " I don’t think it’s the formula that’s the problem but instead that the medium itself hasn’t evolved." but then it seems that you argue that mmorpg's need to be different " it’s clear that audiences are desperate for a new flavor of MMORPG. "
VR is just a way to expand the visual experience.
If people are indeed happy with how mmorpg's play then it will only be a nice addition. If people aren't happy with how they play then no addition of VR will help a game for long.
It's not just the visual experience. The physical and social aspects are much more interesting and important, IMO. Having to correctly time your arm movements for parry's and blocks, vibration feedback when you hit an enemy, re-orientating your body after a dodge.
Like I said, these things make you feel like your character instead of just watching your character. People tolerate what's on the market today because current games have bested the standard formula, and people like that formula, but it's been 20+ years and it's time for something new. Changing the medium seems to make more sense than changing the formula, which hasn't had much success.
I don't disagree that VR can make one feel more "the character" but if I'm "the character" and I'm going to some hub to collect x amount of dull quests that take seconds to complete then that's an issue. And one of "the formula." If my gameplay is essentially a hamster wheel of brief, meaningless activities then that's an issue of formula.
VR is great though it makes me nauseous after 5 minutes. But let's say it didn't. If I'm "the character" then give me an interesting world to be in. Not just a set of very dull tasks to repeat for some shiny.
I've shown mmorpg's to some friends, some who play video games and some (most) who don't. And they all just don't get it. Not one of them thought they were interesting or engaging.
As games they aren't good. But if the game play can be made more engaging, not just buying into the skinner box experience then sure, VR can only heighten that experience.
But if all we have is same old same old formula then all vr is going to allow us is a few more minutes of "oh neat!" before we move on.
See above. You can still have the same quest design and fall into the trap of mundane tasks, but you can also create your own content much more easily since VR is more player-driven.
I wouldn't assume that VR is more player driven. You can still get world of warcraft style game play and have it be VR. VR is just an interface. It might be better for more personal interactions as far as hand gestures and the like but it's still just a way to interface with the game world.
By the nature of how VR feels to people and how people behave in VR, it is more player driven.
Which is to say that people are much more likely to collaborate and talk with each other, and automatically (regardless of developer intents) have a lot more agency in how they can express themselves, which also means more player-driven content because that is often born from the expressibility that people have.
Zenith VR is an indie VRMMO where it's really just the same quest style you're used to in other MMOs, and in fact falls short on the breadth of content you'd expect in a big MMO since it is afterall indie, made by a small team on a small budget.
Yet you see plenty of player-driven interactions come about naturally that you would never have or rarely have if it was a regular MMO. It's VR that facilitates this.
I feel like design is still the fundamental problem.
So much in regular gaming has been totally unexplored.
Character interactions are still very limited (waving with /wave or with your VR hand is still the same thing).
Landscape interactions are still very limited.
AI is still very limited.
Imagine AI that evolves, deep interactions with NPCs, or landscape where you can dig to the center of the earth and find a Balron. I'd take that over a headset any day of the week.
VR can give me a call when voice acting in a regular game is the norm, and when "Hunt 10 wolves" is in the rear view mirror.
Traditional computer games have not evolved, despite having 35 years to improve. The graphics have improved, but not enough, and on a separate track from other aspects of the games. Now, the control aspect is looking to step forward in the form of VR, but the technology is limited itself by emulating the control mechanisms from older games. To make this step forward, VR games are backtracking on the graphics improvements, giving us games, like Zenith, that look like they were made in the mid-90s. That's bad, and not acceptable anymore.
Like said here, the worlds are very static.
Dialog is prerecorded, both text and voice. They've not managed to get a decent game to speak my character name in text mode on a consistent basis, and forget about voice. Studios are spending their money on voice actors, but can't say 'Mendel'. At least, the animated graphic cut scenes can actually put the image of my character into the video.
Stories are written. There's nothing really dynamic that games have introduced, not even the simplest Chinese menu AI (one from column A, one from column B ). Developers haven't invested in AI to handle plot development or supporting dialog or even terrain landscaping. All this is put on the backs of art, writing and developers making the process of creating any game complex. They've invested in voice actors instead of AI and coding improvements.
The process of building a game hasn't changed, Humans do the work that by now a machine could (and should) be able to do. There has been too much effort put into trying to stretch the existing development process by treating existing problems (and solutions) as the template for new problems.
The mechanics of games hasn't improved, either. Games still use canned emotes to emulate specific actions and animations. Either /wave, or waving your VR hand, or selecting a specific mouse pointer of a hand, or clicking on a hotspot on the screen to trigger, can all have the same interpretation. Like it or not, we're still stuck with layers of animations, text, and audio to interpret manual inputs. The games are being built around keyboard commands, with VR gestures replacing the keystrokes.
I'm uncoordinated with a keyboard and mouse. Adding a VR headset isn't likely to improve my timing. Find another way to let my character perform an action in the game rather than relying on my rather human motor skills.
Me, personally, I can forget digging to the center of the earth, when I can't drink an ale while sitting. Most /drink emotes make me stand up, and after a long day of adventuring, I just don't always wanna stand up. Just give me the ability to climb a tree (any tree, even if it won't support me -- especially if it won't support me)!
edit: accidental emoji.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
By the nature of how VR feels to people and how people behave in VR, it is more player driven.
.
I really don't think that's true and that is just an opinion. Having said that, I have not played a virtual reality mmorpg so I suspect that's just my opinion. If more people come to the forums to say that is the case then I could buy it.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
By the nature of how VR feels to people and how people behave in VR, it is more player driven.
.
I really don't think that's true and that is just an opinion. Having said that, I have not played a virtual reality mmorpg so I suspect that's just my opinion. If more people come to the forums to say that is the case then I could buy it.
I believe as soon as you have the mainstream enter the VR MMOs you will again have all the freaks, trolls and assholes again.
As of now it is mostly dedicated people in there it's like the old days of MMO with UO, Meridian and EverQuest.
Btw. I could order a Quest2 and my company pays if I take a smaller monitor for home office, might consider this
By the nature of how VR feels to people and how people behave in VR, it is more player driven.
.
I really don't think that's true and that is just an opinion. Having said that, I have not played a virtual reality mmorpg so I suspect that's just my opinion. If more people come to the forums to say that is the case then I could buy it.
I believe as soon as you have the mainstream enter the VR MMOs you will again have all the freaks, trolls and assholes again.
As of now it is mostly dedicated people in there it's like the old days of MMO with UO, Meridian and EverQuest.
Btw. I could order a Quest2 and my company pays if I take a smaller monitor for home office, might consider this
I can see the direction of his statement in that instead of staring at a screen and being detached you are literally standing next to someone. I've played VR and it's like you are there.
But I don't think that will fix game play and how players play. If world of warcraft was made vr it would still be what it is and play how it plays. and you're right, as soon as it becomes mainstream any goodwill from other players will be lost in a sea of mediocrity and selfishness.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
VR is window dressing to lure early adopters into what is a janky experience once you get over the honeymoon phase. Until we have a neural interface, it will remain a half measure.
The real evolution in MMORPGs will be when we have true AI that can react in real time and orchestrate events on the fly. No more purely scripted boss fights, no free healing/casting, random invasions of towns and attacks, etc. An always active "DM" that constantly changes the experience is far more exciting than a fancy reel viewer.
MMOs might as well be a janky experience that remain a half measure until you can have perfect physics networked across thousands of people in the same area.
Your standards are absurd and don't align with 99.99% of the MMO userbase.
You don't even need true AI to achieve what you laid out. Just have the players replace the role of AI and have player driven content.
Except now you have to rely on VR because it's difficult to really diverge much in terms of player created content in a traditional MMO, as the interface doesn't allow for a lot of the divergent things you can come up with.
So yes, VR is the next real evolution in MMOs afterall.
Source for 99.99% figure please.
As for player driven content, how does that effect mob behavior and server events? Or are you speaking of an open world pvp design which is the only way to create said content.
And no, no one is relying on VR for your divergent experience as VR has nothing to do with content. It's packaging. The game isn't changing, just how you interact with it.
VR is window dressing to lure early adopters into what is a janky experience once you get over the honeymoon phase. Until we have a neural interface, it will remain a half measure.
The real evolution in MMORPGs will be when we have true AI that can react in real time and orchestrate events on the fly. No more purely scripted boss fights, no free healing/casting, random invasions of towns and attacks, etc. An always active "DM" that constantly changes the experience is far more exciting than a fancy reel viewer.
MMOs might as well be a janky experience that remain a half measure until you can have perfect physics networked across thousands of people in the same area.
Your standards are absurd and don't align with 99.99% of the MMO userbase.
You don't even need true AI to achieve what you laid out. Just have the players replace the role of AI and have player driven content.
Except now you have to rely on VR because it's difficult to really diverge much in terms of player created content in a traditional MMO, as the interface doesn't allow for a lot of the divergent things you can come up with.
So yes, VR is the next real evolution in MMOs afterall.
Source for 99.99% figure please.
As for player driven content, how does that effect mob behavior and server events? Or are you speaking of an open world pvp design which is the only way to create said content.
And no, no one is relying on VR for your divergent experience as VR has nothing to do with content. It's packaging. The game isn't changing, just how you interact with it.
The 99.99% is of course a random number but it points to how we know the majority of people who play MMOs or games in general do not have such ridiculous standards. Otherwise no one would even be playing games in the first place, because the game industry would need another 50 years of advancement to get to the point where people want to jump in.
Yet many people jumped in years before MMOs came about because people aren't looking for perfection - they don't need it.
VR is related to content because it enables players to more easily create their own content and to a wider degree.
Think of all the community events in MMOs and multiply that by an order of magnitude because VR allows a much higher player agency which means a much higher player interaction is a given, and if players can interact more with each other, you can feed off each other to create player driven content.
By the nature of how VR feels to people and how people behave in VR, it is more player driven.
.
I really don't think that's true and that is just an opinion. Having said that, I have not played a virtual reality mmorpg so I suspect that's just my opinion. If more people come to the forums to say that is the case then I could buy it.
I believe as soon as you have the mainstream enter the VR MMOs you will again have all the freaks, trolls and assholes again.
As of now it is mostly dedicated people in there it's like the old days of MMO with UO, Meridian and EverQuest.
Btw. I could order a Quest2 and my company pays if I take a smaller monitor for home office, might consider this
By the nature of how VR feels to people and how people behave in VR, it is more player driven.
.
I really don't think that's true and that is just an opinion. Having said that, I have not played a virtual reality mmorpg so I suspect that's just my opinion. If more people come to the forums to say that is the case then I could buy it.
I believe as soon as you have the mainstream enter the VR MMOs you will again have all the freaks, trolls and assholes again.
As of now it is mostly dedicated people in there it's like the old days of MMO with UO, Meridian and EverQuest.
Btw. I could order a Quest2 and my company pays if I take a smaller monitor for home office, might consider this
I can see the direction of his statement in that instead of staring at a screen and being detached you are literally standing next to someone. I've played VR and it's like you are there.
But I don't think that will fix game play and how players play. If world of warcraft was made vr it would still be what it is and play how it plays. and you're right, as soon as it becomes mainstream any goodwill from other players will be lost in a sea of mediocrity and selfishness.
You will of course have plenty of trolls and freaks, but not to the degree you see them in regular MMOs or online games, because people will have a greater tendency to behave more when they feel the presence of another human being.
If you're in VR and standing next to someone who has their body and facial expressions and eyes tracked, and the whole experience feels close to an in-person social encounter, then there will be more empathetic encounters in general as it will be harder for people to be a POS next to someone who to your brain is basically a human being right there.
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Each of these comments are hyperbole. Firstly, if VR isn't VR today, then why are MMOs actually MMOs? We don't have tens of thousands of players in one area. Where's the 'massive' part?
Right. Hyperbole. We consider hundreds of people in one area to be 'massive'. VR is VR today because it actually works as advertised - it tricks your brain into believing it's in a virtual world. It might have all sorts of flaws, but it gets the job done.
Secondly, Holodecks are not needed. What we need is the refinement of VR as it exists today. Smaller headsets, no eye strain or headaches, no sickness, haptic gloves, and of course realistic specs to match the human eye and ears.
If you can track player's bodies, you no longer have a 'samey' feel or rigid animations. People won't just be standing there seemingly doing nothing in a city hub - you'll see them interacting with menus or hear them talking to others, and each player will seem genuinely unique even if they look identical.
Instead of programming Triple Triad and spending all that development time, you just give people the cards and they can play it naturally. Instead of people dancing on mailboxes you'll have people actually dancing and bust out cool moves. Instead of people ignoring each other in dungeons, people will much more likely communicate with each other due to the inherent social cues you get from VR.
See what I'm getting at? It will be far more lively and content rich. See above. You can still have the same quest design and fall into the trap of mundane tasks, but you can also create your own content much more easily since VR is more player-driven.
MMOs have complex interfaces that scare a lot of people off - the UX design of VR can be simpler than even some of the simplest singleplayer games because it allows a human-centric design approach where the 10 digits you've used all your life become a major part of how you interact.
I think, even if they took an existing MMO, and just fixed the camera set ups, so that they feel like you are looking through the eyes of your avatar, they could breath some seriously good life into some older MMO's, which would be ideal candidates to test with, since a lot of them have more rudimentary graphics, which should be easier for the headset to process, anyway, so the focus could be made into the intergradation and UI as opposed to worrying about things like boob physics.
But, MMO's are the ideal candidate to do this with, because (outside the Iso MMO's) they are already fully set up 3d worlds, 360 degrees in all directions, they are set up to be fully surrounding environments, that will embrace that 3D platform that VR will integrate with.
I mean the idea of playing something like DDO, or GW2, or even old school EQ1, in VR is damn near boner inspiring.
No joke, if they revised the UI and frontend of EQ1, to be fully VR enabled, I bet you, a ton of people would jump back into it, just for that experience, and since the world itself is already made for VR, the only thing they would need to set up would be the UI and Frontend, which again, would make these old school MMO's the ideal playground for VR testing.
Making a New MMO, is harder, because, you need to make a fun game to start with, and truth be told, I think it would be better and easier to retrofit an older MMO.
The problem is that devs have been talking about AI for a decade and have gotten nowhere. We can't even get dynamic text in MMOs because it's 'too much work' (according to a former ArenaNet writer, anyways). VR exists and can get significantly better with some effort. It's a rough gem that needs a lot of polishing. No one has demonstrated that AI can even function in a virtual world yet.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
The real evolution in MMORPGs will be when we have true AI that can react in real time and orchestrate events on the fly. No more purely scripted boss fights, no free healing/casting, random invasions of towns and attacks, etc. An always active "DM" that constantly changes the experience is far more exciting than a fancy reel viewer.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
All the above can make a good game better. Same with VR. But it can do squat with a bad game or ideas.
Add VR to a bad game and what ya got? Or NFT, or anything? Still have a bad game with crap added on top.
Your standards are absurd and don't align with 99.99% of the MMO userbase.
You don't even need true AI to achieve what you laid out. Just have the players replace the role of AI and have player driven content.
Except now you have to rely on VR because it's difficult to really diverge much in terms of player created content in a traditional MMO, as the interface doesn't allow for a lot of the divergent things you can come up with.
So yes, VR is the next real evolution in MMOs afterall.
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
Which is to say that people are much more likely to collaborate and talk with each other, and automatically (regardless of developer intents) have a lot more agency in how they can express themselves, which also means more player-driven content because that is often born from the expressibility that people have.
Zenith VR is an indie VRMMO where it's really just the same quest style you're used to in other MMOs, and in fact falls short on the breadth of content you'd expect in a big MMO since it is afterall indie, made by a small team on a small budget.
Yet you see plenty of player-driven interactions come about naturally that you would never have or rarely have if it was a regular MMO. It's VR that facilitates this.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
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
As of now it is mostly dedicated people in there it's like the old days of MMO with UO, Meridian and EverQuest.
Btw. I could order a Quest2 and my company pays if I take a smaller monitor for home office, might consider this
1997 Meridian 59 'til 2019 ESO
Waiting for Camelot Unchained & Pantheon
But I don't think that will fix game play and how players play. If world of warcraft was made vr it would still be what it is and play how it plays. and you're right, as soon as it becomes mainstream any goodwill from other players will be lost in a sea of mediocrity and selfishness.
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
As for player driven content, how does that effect mob behavior and server events? Or are you speaking of an open world pvp design which is the only way to create said content.
And no, no one is relying on VR for your divergent experience as VR has nothing to do with content. It's packaging. The game isn't changing, just how you interact with it.
Yet many people jumped in years before MMOs came about because people aren't looking for perfection - they don't need it.
VR is related to content because it enables players to more easily create their own content and to a wider degree.
Think of all the community events in MMOs and multiply that by an order of magnitude because VR allows a much higher player agency which means a much higher player interaction is a given, and if players can interact more with each other, you can feed off each other to create player driven content.
If you're in VR and standing next to someone who has their body and facial expressions and eyes tracked, and the whole experience feels close to an in-person social encounter, then there will be more empathetic encounters in general as it will be harder for people to be a POS next to someone who to your brain is basically a human being right there.
It won't stop the problem, but it will reduce it.