People have different motivations for playing videogames. Some do it as a means of relaxation after a hard day's work and for a brief escape from the weight of real life responsibilities. Some do it as a hobby or just for fun in their liesure time. Others do it as a more full time escape from real life responsibilities, or because they have none.
I knew a guy in Everquest whose father was a prominant attorney. He had high expectations for his son and was constantly putting pressure on him to achieve. Well, that wasn't working out because instead his son played Everquest about 12 hours a day. How do you think he behaved in game? He constantly reminded everyone he was "the best." He ridiculed anyone who didn't "work as hard" as he did, etc. But all he was really doing was projecting and pretending to be an achiever when in fact he was running away from his responsibilities and had little to no "work ethic." He craved recognition and status since he wasn't getting that in the real world. He would also tell you about all the many lofty things he was going to accomplish in his real life (that his in game status and motivation was somehow proof of), ignoring the fact that he was makiing little to no progress on that front because gaming had become a full time activity.
Mmorpgs lend themselves to a playstyle that emphasizes status over fun because we live in a multi-media world where fun is easy to come by (there are even games on cell phones now) but status isn't. This is one of the reasons you see an explosion of exploits, gold buying and cheating. Players who do this aren't playing just for "fun." They are playing to achieve some misguided notion of being "best" or needing to "keep up" because they need recognition.
Personally, when I game I just want to run a few quests, roleplay and whack some orcs for stress relief. If I wanted to prove myself beyond what I have already proven than I have plenty to do in the real world where my rewards for hard work and motivation are more tangible than a cartoon sword.
A lot of game companies stumble on the notion that if gamers are playing in unfun ways, grinding and powergaming and cheating, and skipping content along the way, it's because the game maker failed to make the journey as entertaining as the end game. That's not the reason. Those gamers aren't seeking thrills - they are seeking a pat on the back and the admiration of their peers. You could make a game where the characters are stick figures and the world is a barren desert and they would still want to be "the best" stick figure in that desert. All they really want is for someone to say "gosh you are already level 50 and have the sword of fire." Because for that brief moment they feel important.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Amathe you have hit the nail on the head yet again. All to often I found when playing in a MMORPG like Everquest that their was the type of player that you described. I would be in the halfling town (the name escapes me at the moment) with my rogue who at the time was about level 30ish but I didnt have the best gear as I didnt have time to camp those spawns nor did I want to had a player walk up to me and laugh saying how my god you dont have the might dagger of speed. or what is your DPS (damage per second) what you dont know what it is you suck.
I found this type of player in every mmo I have played except Gemstone. The player base their was for the most part nice or at the very least focused on RP.
Also I to hope that Simu makes the journey of Hero's Journey something great.
Originally posted by Amathe People have different motivations for playing videogames. Some do it as a means of relaxation after a hard day's work and for a brief escape from the weight of real life responsibilities. Some do it as a hobby or just for fun in their liesure time. Others do it as a more full time escape from real life responsibilities, or because they have none. I knew a guy in Everquest whose father was a prominant attorney. He had high expectations for his son and was constantly putting pressure on him to achieve. Well, that wasn't working out because instead his son played Everquest about 12 hours a day. How do you think he behaved in game? He constantly reminded everyone he was "the best." He ridiculed anyone who didn't "work as hard" as he did, etc. But all he was really doing was projecting and pretending to be an achiever when in fact he was running away from his responsibilities and had little to no "work ethic." He craved recognition and status since he wasn't getting that in the real world. He would also tell you about all the many lofty things he was going to accomplish in his real life (that his in game status and motivation was somehow proof of), ignoring the fact that he was makiing little to no progress on that front because gaming had become a full time activity. Mmorpgs lend themselves to a playstyle that emphasizes status over fun because we live in a multi-media world where fun is easy to come by (there are even games on cell phones now) but status isn't. This is one of the reasons you see an explosion of exploits, gold buying and cheating. Players who do this aren't playing just for "fun." They are playing to achieve some misguided notion of being "best" or needing to "keep up" because they need recognition. Personally, when I game I just want to run a few quests, roleplay and whack some orcs for stress relief. If I wanted to prove myself beyond what I have already proven than I have plenty to do in the real world where my rewards for hard work and motivation are more tangible than a cartoon sword. A lot of game companies stumble on the notion that if gamers are playing in unfun ways, grinding and powergaming and cheating, and skipping content along the way, it's because the game maker failed to make the journey as entertaining as the end game. That's not the reason. Those gamers aren't seeking thrills - they are seeking a pat on the back and the admiration of their peers. You could make a game where the characters are stick figures and the world is a barren desert and they would still want to be "the best" stick figure in that desert. All they really want is for someone to say "gosh you are already level 50 and have the sword of fire." Because for that brief moment they feel important.
I really have to agree with everything you said. I'm a bit unusual in the fact that I tend to "powergame" in games because games reward that kind of gameplay. The kinds of thing that most game put a emphasis on, and tend to be the msot fun, are set up so you have to gring hard to get there. But I'd really rather not. I'd prefer to just play the game the way it's supposed to be played, and that be rewarding to the player. For the most part I don't like the powergamer sect, most of those guys are pretty sad when you really look at them. Looking to be the "best" bunch of pixels on the server.
Not very impressive.
I work 2 jobs and have other things to do as well, so I can't sit in front of a monitor and play 14 hours a day. Some people do, and I find that pretty sad that it is the only way they can get some sort of recognition. As for being the best, I don't try to be. I try and play as well as I can, but I don't try to play better than anyone else. And as i rule I generally ignore people that are looking for people to tell them how good they are. don't give them what they want, maybe they'll shut up about it.
It's just a game.
And I hate people that exploit. And I think people found doing so should be banned for life.
Originally posted by delak Amathe you have hit the nail on the head yet again. All to often I found when playing in a MMORPG like Everquest that their was the type of player that you described. I would be in the halfling town (the name escapes me at the moment) with my rogue who at the time was about level 30ish but I didnt have the best gear as I didnt have time to camp those spawns nor did I want to had a player walk up to me and laugh saying how my god you dont have the might dagger of speed. or what is your DPS (damage per second) what you dont know what it is you suck. I found this type of player in every mmo I have played except Gemstone. The player base their was for the most part nice or at the very least focused on RP. Also I to hope that Simu makes the journey of Hero's Journey something great.
You mean to tell me you don't think Gemstone had these players? I think Greentide (first person to level 100) and Tarakan, the guy who has 3,000,000,000 (ya, 3 BILLION) fame which broke the game because of a divide-by-zero error never fixed because nobody expected anybody to kill that many mobs (which is why his fame showed as 3.9xxxxxxxx fame until they cut everybody's by 1/10th). I would venture a guess that most everybody that is in the first 100 players on the fame lists is just that type of player you've described. They want to be the best, they wan't to be at the top of the fame lists for all to see. They don't just want to beat out the other guy's fame and be on the top of the fame list, they want to get 3x the fame of the #2 guy on the fame list so he will be immortalized on that list for as long as possible. Nobody will ever catch Tarakan without a really good script and a LOT of free time.
The simple fact is that Gemstone is more expensive and less flashy than most other games out these days, so most of the playerbase is there because of a true love of that game. But I do remember a lot of people in the AOL days playing like that. In most games these days even at high levels you can get a level in maybe 8-10 hours of work. In gemstone, at 75 (cap is 100), it can take you 5 to 7 days to get one level playing 8 hours a day. That is tedium to its most ravishing point. I would make a guess that everybody over level 50 in Gemstone is that type of player you describe. It's just that there isn't much in Gemstone to farm or covet other than silver. All the cool stuff you have to get from GM-run merchants or auctions. So people farm silver and experience, and when there is a merchant in a town, that town is flooded with people ravenous to buy the next cool thing.
Also, there isn't very many things that are a standard, that you have to have. All you really have are types of armor, Def +X, Crit/Damage Padding, weapon flaring etc. You have no "Massive scale armor of Might" that every level 50 warrior has to wear. Let alone a single mob that drops that armor once a week, and pops once every 4 hours. You do have a 10x FGB massively crit padded. But FGB has a very limited supply, 10x takes months for a wizard checking every day to get it to 10x, and crit padding that you can ONLY get if you pay twice the amount of a normal player to become a permium member - and even then it will take several years to get it to massively crit padded.
In Gemstone GMs give away and sell the things that in regular MMORPGs let mobs drop. Thus making the quest for greatness a covert thing, taking the camping for hours on end out of one or two mobs, and putting it into every mob (you kill to get silver to buy the cool things).
Just wanted to touch a bit on RP and what I anticipate will be some of the things we'll look at in this area and give a couple of examples. I just want to mention that none of this has yet been written up yet as policy and I'm a Dev wonk and not Customer Service.
But the things I think we'd look for.
OOC names. If Santa Claus or Barry Bonds shows up in game the name likely will get the player kicked into a rename process as soon as discovered/reported.
We would probably have some sort of check on OOC chatter on the chat channels that are normally available to everyone. Things like local, guild, clan, race, group chat channels you would probably see cautions/warnings to people for touting football scores (either the round type or the funny shaped type footballs) or other OOC things but I expect we would not be concerned about player created channels.
Hardcore hunting would not be an issue. We'll have areas for people that want to do that. I'm a hardcore hunter myself and a voracious trader.
With regards to getting input from Hero's Council, we very much cherry pick the participants to get their inputs on the best components of the various games they play. But we'll still make sure that we don't forget our roots.
In the end, you must remember that Hero's Journey's Producer, its Senior Technical Designer, the Game's Senior Deisgner, and all the Senior GameMasters are ex-GS or DR GameMasters. So we're all very much in tune with the desire to maintain a game that puts RP back into MMORPG as its the background we come from. We do know the concerns the other types players have as all of us play a wide variety of the current graphical games out there so we'll try to include the best parts from those.
My rambling is done.
Uska T'Rill
If at first you don't succeed.... in killing players. It just means you didn't drop enough critters the first time.
There is a certain baseline amount of competitiveness, even absurd competitiveness, in every game. For example, I once stumbled across a little internet flash game where you press a button and kick a football through a goalpost. That's all there was to the game. Press button, football goes through air between goalpost uprights - or not. The high score was recorded, which was over 10,000. Somebody actually sat and kicked that football over 10,000 times.
So no matter what you do, there are going to be people like that. The question is, do you encourage and reward such behavior by setting up game systems to where a large number of people will feel compelled to grind, or just a few? That matters because a few people doing it has limited effect on the game as a whole, but a lot of people doing it potentially changes the very nature and certainly the balance of the game.
Sometimes I think that calling mmorpgs "games" is what screws them up. I wish they were simply called Massively Multiple Online Roleplaying ... and leave it at that. A game implies competition to some people, a winner and a loser. If you don't program a winning scenario, they just invent one. You can't win Everquest, but tell that to people in Time+ raid guilds lol.
A few things are certain. If you want to get away from the same old same old and promote roleplay, then you need to reward roleplay. (To me roleplaying is its own reward, but that's not how a lot of people think). They want carrots.
If you don't want people to make a beeline for the endgame, then you need to make the content on the way to endgame matter and be enjoyable, and spread it out to where you would need to fully participate in game content to have a powerful character and not shortcut it.
In my opinion, the easiest way to do this is with faction. The more quests, etc you do on behalf of a faction, the more content the members of that faction will make available to you and the better the rewards that flow from that. If you don't undertake that content and just slaughter mobs by the thousands, you will still get xp and whatever drops they have, but guess what? The mayor of your town isn't giving you the good quests because you haven't done enough to get him to like you. Killing random mobs should confer ZERO faction, because no one was there to see you do it and therefor be pleased by it. Quests and even roleplay should confer faction.
But that said, I'm not a game designer and my ideas may be dumb. I just hope they do something to change the paradigm of these games so that 10,000 plus football kickers aren't given all the goodies again lol.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
So no matter what you do, there are going to be people like that. The question is, do you encourage and reward such behavior by setting up game systems to where a large number of people will feel compelled to grind, or just a few? That matters because a few people doing it has limited effect on the game as a whole, but a lot of people doing it potentially changes the very nature and certainly the balance of the game. If you don't want people to make a beeline for the endgame, then you need to make the content on the way to endgame matter and be enjoyable, and spread it out to where you would need to fully participate in game content to have a powerful character and not shortcut it. But that said, I'm not a game designer and my ideas may be dumb. I just hope they do something to change the paradigm of these games so that 10,000 plus football kickers aren't given all the goodies again lol.
Agree 110%
I posted some of the things I dislike about most MMO's out right now, and things I would like to see in my "dream game" over at Hero's Hall. Here is the meat of that post.
"Since the game is called Hero's Journy, lets make the entire game real interesting, not just after you have reached the level cap. My brother (who is a bigger powergamer than I am) tends to look at the endgame as "the game" and the actual levleing up process as merely a tutorial to learning how play "the game".
How screwed up is that?!
Or is it, when you see how devs create the games. With so much emphasis on creating something for you and 200 of you not so closest friends, the rest of the game can really pale in comparison. And I think this really needs to be re-though.
Some things I'd like to see:
Events that are for lower level players only. If you are out of the level range nothing you do will have any effect on the event, ever.
Give "Epic" feeling quests to players at all levels. I'd much rather have fewer quest, that really mean something and reward a large amount of exp and take some time to finish than 500 fed-ex quests.
Content for level capped players should not be drastically different from content made for uncapped players. In other words, if you don't make the "endgame" more fun, more interesting and "the real game", you eliminate any good reasons for people to push to get capped. Make it merely an extention.
Make PvP an afterthough. Yeah, I know I'm going to piss some people off with this. First, I'd like to say that I like PvP, but I really don't think it should be a emphasis in this game world. It doesnt really fit.
At least untill the "DarkHero's Journey" expansion, hehe.
But PvP in a class based system tends to do 2 things; 1. Suck 2. Screw up the PvE.
Now let me explain myself on these counts. 1. It sucks, because lets face it, most of what you do in PvP (in a level/class system) is based solely on your level/class build. It ain't about your skill so much, as what class and skills/powers/gear you picked up. Your "skill" doesn't mean much here. So you really are not testing yourself, just your class and skills/gear. Don't /flex your e-peen here.
2. I don't think I really need to explain this, but the mindboggling amount of "nerfs" that occur specifically due to PvP ruin the PvE aspect of the game, which negatively affects many, many more players.
I say, but PvP on a server, let those guys fight it out and not worry about balancing that server for PvP in any respect. Worry about the how classes work in PvE, only. PvP balanceing tends to max/min devs to death (maximum effort, minumum results) so I say don't waste you time trying to, it never works. It's not the focus of the game, so dont bother with balancing.
Remove as many 'greed factor" aspects from the game as you can. Player economies SUCK. Why, because they are run by exploiting, greedy power-hungery players. Don't make players "have" to grind to make cash, find money dupes, scam other players. Remove the need to farm gold, you get rid of the gold farmers. Add NPC merchants that sell almsot everything, no way players can over-charge players on rare Wyr. Or just make it all "no drop" or bind on pick-up. Don't have super great Wyr be a result of being high level and farming, make it quest-only. Give absolutely no "gear" insentive to Raid."
But that said, I'm not a game designer and my ideas may be dumb. I just hope they do something to change the paradigm of these games so that 10,000 plus football kickers aren't given all the goodies again lol.
i don't think your ideas are dumb. you've made a good correlation between powergamers and why they do what they do. i just don't understand why you went from this...
Amathe:
A lot of game companies stumble on the notion that if gamers are playing in unfun ways, grinding and powergaming and cheating, and skipping content along the way, it's because the game maker failed to make the journey as entertaining as the end game. That's not the reason.
to this...
Amathe: If you don't want people to make a beeline for the endgame, then you need to make the content on the way to endgame matter and be enjoyable, and spread it out to where you would need to fully participate in game content to have a powerful character and not shortcut it.
i think its only partially what the game companies do. they have a responsibility to provide paying customers with a satisfactory product that works and is generally entertaining. of course entertainment falls on ones own opinion, but generally, most people should be having fun with most of the things they do. yes, the game company has checks and balances they need to implement. but it always falls back on the community to foster a good gaming environment.
gm-uska mentioned that they were going to take care of ooc names in chat channels. great! i hate seeing ooc names personally. why play a game where your supposed to be someplace else, and you bring in even the slightest of elements from the real world? but how are they going to take care of every ooc name? they are a small company, even with all the volunteer gm's world wide, they can't spot them all.
gm-uska :
OOC names. If Santa Claus or Barry Bonds shows up in game the name likely will get the player kicked into a rename process as soon as discovered/reported.
so, just as soon as someone from the community discovers it and reports it, they can get right on that issue. problem is, i don't think most people will take the time to do anything about it. ever play xbox live? i have from day one. well, ive had an account from day one. found out i actually hate playing console games that have been seriously handicaped from their pc counterparts. anyways, they have this feature for reporting other players. you can give positive or negative feedback. but how many people actually use it? maybe a few. but generally i don't think anyone does. i only have once when someone was being a real pain, but even after i did, i had no way of knowing that it was recieved. that someone *is* going to read it and *is* going to add it to a que of things to do. and nobody gave positive feedback. who wants to take the time to pause a game, dig through a menu with a control pad, to give positive feedback that essentially has no effect? at least with negative feedback, we can *hope* something will be done to take care of the problem.
my point is, if it has to come from the community to really help evolve a good gaming environment, the community needs to have a bit more power to do so. they need to be able to monitor and police themselves to some degree. this means that they need to be able to dish out rewards and "punishment" on a certain level. it can't be something that just anyone can do, or it will be abused. it has to either come from a large group of random players or from a central authority head of responsible players. this would imply a political system of some sort. some way of picking players to be in that position that would be fair and a set of checks and balances. maybe some sort of council that the leaders of each guild or house get to participate in and vote on various things that would have a real impact on everyone in the game.
EDIT : i don't think i really hit the point i was trying to make very well. at its purest form i feel:
ethical issues should be handled by players
technical issues should be handled by dev's and gm's
players should have realistic in-game themed tools to monitor and address ethical issues
players should have the tools to report to dev's on technical issues they run into
outside of the games background story and a general direction they would like to lead the game, the dev's should not be involved in the specific direction the overall populace of the game is taking the story
I acknowledge the apparant contradiction between the two quoted passages from my post, but I believe I can clarify.
Let's suppose you make a really, really fun level 30 zone. From my point of view, if I am having a good time there, I want to stay and experience that for so long as the good times last. I am not in a hurry to get to 40, or 50, etc. I just want to be entertained. That's why I said the content should be enjoyable as one part of a two part plan to discourage/curtail powergaming. Besides, a game should be fun!
But that alone will not do it (as some game developers mistakenly think it will). A true powergamer will look at that zone and ask, how much xp do I get there, how fast does that xp come, how hard is it to get, and what drops there? The fact that it is a fun zone matters to me (roleplayer/social/casual player), but not so much to them, as they are merely passing through as quickly as possible on the way to end game.
That is why part two of a two part plan is to make the content in that zone matter. By matter I mean that if you ignore that zone and do not fully experience what it has to offer, somehow, someway, when you reach end game you will wish you hadn't blown through that area because you missed out on something you now wish you had. You may get to level 50 first by grinding, but you won't get to level 50 best. A character that fully played the game will be much better off in terms of skills/gear/faction/access to cool stuff when they get to where you are.
Does that resolve the apparant conflict?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Sometimes I think that calling mmorpgs "games" is what screws them up. I wish they were simply called Massively Multiple Online Roleplaying ... and leave it at that.
Holy mother of rutabegas...I love that idea.
Amathe, your second post that explains this urge to be "the best" was another real winner of a mini-essay. If you make too many more of those sorts of posts I'mna have to urge you to create a little web page to preserve them.
What I greatly disliked in WoW was that the raids the large scale raids were almost entirely for high level charecters. In reality you could have a group of level 1 players do a raid like that if the prey was correctly balanced. If you make a person feel like he or she doesnt need to rush thru the game to acheive certain types of quests he or she is more likely to slow down. Idealy the missions of every level should require the same amount of forthought and strategy. Just because you get stronger doesnt mean the world gets easier. You aught to be able to have great scale battles and small scale tasks appropriate to all levels. Such that any person at any level can feel the thrill of a big battle and feel pride. Imo
We would probably have some sort of check on OOC chatter on the chat channels that are normally available to everyone. Things like local, guild, clan, race, group chat channels you would probably see cautions/warnings to people for touting football scores (either the round type or the funny shaped type footballs) or other OOC things but I expect we would not be concerned about player created channels.
Hang on here.
Are you saying if my guild, let's call them the ABC guild, has its own guild chat channel, and we decide, within our guild, that we want to use guild chat for OOC purposes -- such as setting up in-game events, coordinating characters who are not "ICly" in the same locale, etc -- i.e., we want to use guild chat as "player to player" communication and save our IC "character to character" discussion for local chat... we'd get a warning?
That seems overly hardcore to me... and I'm a pretty hardcore RPer. In COH we use the SG channel for IC communications because in a superhero game it is reasonable to communicate over long distances via radio or something. But in a fantasy game, how could you justify that if I am in one city and the other character is in another, we would be able to communicate In character with each other (unless every character in the world is telepathic)?
I think it is perfectly fine if you want to designate "whatever your character could see" as being IC and start moderating that (though I think you will severely have your work cut out for you). But I think it's going a bit far to monitor an individual guild's own guild-wide channel, and start handing out warnings, for OOC conduct. Shouldn't it be up to the guild how to use their own channel?
And I'd say, likewise for a "group" channel if there is one -- i.e. the standard practice of creating temp channels for a group that has formed to, say, do a quest. In my RP-oriented guild, we always used local for RP, and group chat for OOC. If someone had to go AFK, the way to tell that was to do it in /group. If someone had an in-game question, likewise ("/group Hey guys, I just got a 'single origin' enhancement... what does that mean?").
Players NEED a way to communicate player-to-player rather than character-to-character, in any roleplaying game. I think if you get too hardcore about this, you are going to end up turning off not just the uber-leets and first-person-shooter addicts, but even people like me who are rather hardcore RPers, but also reasonable enough to know that OOC communications do need to happen in any RPG. After all, even in table-top RPGs (the RPG in its purest original form, you might say), we had to say things like, "Hey guys pass the chips!" That wasn't considered a violation of RP and nobody ever got a warning for it.
I would like a clarification of this policy... it seems a bit draconian, at least as I understand the statement.
Originally posted by Chessack Originally posted by HJ-Uska
We would probably have some sort of check on OOC chatter on the chat channels that are normally available to everyone. Things like local, guild, clan, race, group chat channels you would probably see cautions/warnings to people for touting football scores (either the round type or the funny shaped type footballs) or other OOC things but I expect we would not be concerned about player created channels.
Hang on here.
Are you saying if my guild, let's call them the ABC guild, has its own guild chat channel, and we decide, within our guild, that we want to use guild chat for OOC purposes -- such as setting up in-game events, coordinating characters who are not "ICly" in the same locale, etc -- i.e., we want to use guild chat as "player to player" communication and save our IC "character to character" discussion for local chat... we'd get a warning?
That seems overly hardcore to me... and I'm a pretty hardcore RPer. In COH we use the SG channel for IC communications because in a superhero game it is reasonable to communicate over long distances via radio or something. But in a fantasy game, how could you justify that if I am in one city and the other character is in another, we would be able to communicate In character with each other (unless every character in the world is telepathic)?
I think it is perfectly fine if you want to designate "whatever your character could see" as being IC and start moderating that (though I think you will severely have your work cut out for you). But I think it's going a bit far to monitor an individual guild's own guild-wide channel, and start handing out warnings, for OOC conduct. Shouldn't it be up to the guild how to use their own channel?
And I'd say, likewise for a "group" channel if there is one -- i.e. the standard practice of creating temp channels for a group that has formed to, say, do a quest. In my RP-oriented guild, we always used local for RP, and group chat for OOC. If someone had to go AFK, the way to tell that was to do it in /group. If someone had an in-game question, likewise ("/group Hey guys, I just got a 'single origin' enhancement... what does that mean?").
Players NEED a way to communicate player-to-player rather than character-to-character, in any roleplaying game. I think if you get too hardcore about this, you are going to end up turning off not just the uber-leets and first-person-shooter addicts, but even people like me who are rather hardcore RPers, but also reasonable enough to know that OOC communications do need to happen in any RPG. After all, even in table-top RPGs (the RPG in its purest original form, you might say), we had to say things like, "Hey guys pass the chips!" That wasn't considered a violation of RP and nobody ever got a warning for it.
I would like a clarification of this policy... it seems a bit draconian, at least as I understand the statement.
C
Those are just examples of what could be. Though you have a point about Guild being a channel that probably isn't normally available to everyone. Policy has not been set on any of this. So please don't think I'm saying this is how it will be. Plus note I'm a Dev and not a CS type so I don't have the final say in that area anyway.
I think instead of actual channel names I used a better example would have been just to say something like any channels a player sees the moment they step out of the character manager are the ones that would have the stricter enforcement.
Also in addressing the thoughts on OOC things like names. There will be both player and GM level methods to assist in reducing the occurence of OOC intrusions into the game. There also likely will be multiple servers with different rulesets in force. I don't know how familiar most are with our previous products but we have one world where there pretty much are no rules. I am guessing but I expect eventually you'll see a series of servers with different levels of enforcement depending upon the type of server world.
Again as a fairly hardcore RPer myself, I certainly don't mind if you guys want to enforce IC-ness, and I would probably go for a more IC-enforced server if there is such a thing. You just need to be careful not to go overboard with it.
My favorite game is Counter-Strike: Source. I love action. Though I play RPGs, I frequently find myself more interested in the combat than the dialogue. In EQ2 I click through the quest dialogue so I can get to the meat of the quest - the Accept button.
Even given the type of gamer that I am, I'm stoked about HJ. The details of the combat system, Wyr, and so forth have me really excited. Heck, I might even partake of some of the GM events in-character.
Not all HJ-devotees are RPers. And not all consolers are dead-to-RP.
Comments
People have different motivations for playing videogames. Some do it as a means of relaxation after a hard day's work and for a brief escape from the weight of real life responsibilities. Some do it as a hobby or just for fun in their liesure time. Others do it as a more full time escape from real life responsibilities, or because they have none.
I knew a guy in Everquest whose father was a prominant attorney. He had high expectations for his son and was constantly putting pressure on him to achieve. Well, that wasn't working out because instead his son played Everquest about 12 hours a day. How do you think he behaved in game? He constantly reminded everyone he was "the best." He ridiculed anyone who didn't "work as hard" as he did, etc. But all he was really doing was projecting and pretending to be an achiever when in fact he was running away from his responsibilities and had little to no "work ethic." He craved recognition and status since he wasn't getting that in the real world. He would also tell you about all the many lofty things he was going to accomplish in his real life (that his in game status and motivation was somehow proof of), ignoring the fact that he was makiing little to no progress on that front because gaming had become a full time activity.
Mmorpgs lend themselves to a playstyle that emphasizes status over fun because we live in a multi-media world where fun is easy to come by (there are even games on cell phones now) but status isn't. This is one of the reasons you see an explosion of exploits, gold buying and cheating. Players who do this aren't playing just for "fun." They are playing to achieve some misguided notion of being "best" or needing to "keep up" because they need recognition.
Personally, when I game I just want to run a few quests, roleplay and whack some orcs for stress relief.
If I wanted to prove myself beyond what I have already proven than I have plenty to do in the real world where my rewards for hard work and motivation are more tangible than a cartoon sword.
A lot of game companies stumble on the notion that if gamers are playing in unfun ways, grinding and powergaming and cheating, and skipping content along the way, it's because the game maker failed to make the journey as entertaining as the end game. That's not the reason. Those gamers aren't seeking thrills - they are seeking a pat on the back and the admiration of their peers. You could make a game where the characters are stick figures and the world is a barren desert and they would still want to be "the best" stick figure in that desert. All they really want is for someone to say "gosh you are already level 50 and have the sword of fire." Because for that brief moment they feel important.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Amathe you have hit the nail on the head yet again. All to often I found when playing in a MMORPG like Everquest that their was the type of player that you described. I would be in the halfling town (the name escapes me at the moment) with my rogue who at the time was about level 30ish but I didnt have the best gear as I didnt have time to camp those spawns nor did I want to had a player walk up to me and laugh saying how my god you dont have the might dagger of speed. or what is your DPS (damage per second) what you dont know what it is you suck.
I found this type of player in every mmo I have played except Gemstone. The player base their was for the most part nice or at the very least focused on RP.
Also I to hope that Simu makes the journey of Hero's Journey something great.
I really have to agree with everything you said. I'm a bit unusual in the fact that I tend to "powergame" in games because games reward that kind of gameplay. The kinds of thing that most game put a emphasis on, and tend to be the msot fun, are set up so you have to gring hard to get there. But I'd really rather not. I'd prefer to just play the game the way it's supposed to be played, and that be rewarding to the player. For the most part I don't like the powergamer sect, most of those guys are pretty sad when you really look at them. Looking to be the "best" bunch of pixels on the server.
Not very impressive.
I work 2 jobs and have other things to do as well, so I can't sit in front of a monitor and play 14 hours a day. Some people do, and I find that pretty sad that it is the only way they can get some sort of recognition. As for being the best, I don't try to be. I try and play as well as I can, but I don't try to play better than anyone else. And as i rule I generally ignore people that are looking for people to tell them how good they are. don't give them what they want, maybe they'll shut up about it.
It's just a game.
And I hate people that exploit. And I think people found doing so should be banned for life.
You mean to tell me you don't think Gemstone had these players? I think Greentide (first person to level 100) and Tarakan, the guy who has 3,000,000,000 (ya, 3 BILLION) fame which broke the game because of a divide-by-zero error never fixed because nobody expected anybody to kill that many mobs (which is why his fame showed as 3.9xxxxxxxx fame until they cut everybody's by 1/10th). I would venture a guess that most everybody that is in the first 100 players on the fame lists is just that type of player you've described. They want to be the best, they wan't to be at the top of the fame lists for all to see. They don't just want to beat out the other guy's fame and be on the top of the fame list, they want to get 3x the fame of the #2 guy on the fame list so he will be immortalized on that list for as long as possible. Nobody will ever catch Tarakan without a really good script and a LOT of free time.
The simple fact is that Gemstone is more expensive and less flashy than most other games out these days, so most of the playerbase is there because of a true love of that game. But I do remember a lot of people in the AOL days playing like that. In most games these days even at high levels you can get a level in maybe 8-10 hours of work. In gemstone, at 75 (cap is 100), it can take you 5 to 7 days to get one level playing 8 hours a day. That is tedium to its most ravishing point. I would make a guess that everybody over level 50 in Gemstone is that type of player you describe. It's just that there isn't much in Gemstone to farm or covet other than silver. All the cool stuff you have to get from GM-run merchants or auctions. So people farm silver and experience, and when there is a merchant in a town, that town is flooded with people ravenous to buy the next cool thing.
Also, there isn't very many things that are a standard, that you have to have. All you really have are types of armor, Def +X, Crit/Damage Padding, weapon flaring etc. You have no "Massive scale armor of Might" that every level 50 warrior has to wear. Let alone a single mob that drops that armor once a week, and pops once every 4 hours. You do have a 10x FGB massively crit padded. But FGB has a very limited supply, 10x takes months for a wizard checking every day to get it to 10x, and crit padding that you can ONLY get if you pay twice the amount of a normal player to become a permium member - and even then it will take several years to get it to massively crit padded.
In Gemstone GMs give away and sell the things that in regular MMORPGs let mobs drop. Thus making the quest for greatness a covert thing, taking the camping for hours on end out of one or two mobs, and putting it into every mob (you kill to get silver to buy the cool things).
Just wanted to touch a bit on RP and what I anticipate will be some of the things we'll look at in this area and give a couple of examples. I just want to mention that none of this has yet been written up yet as policy and I'm a Dev wonk and not Customer Service.
But the things I think we'd look for.
OOC names. If Santa Claus or Barry Bonds shows up in game the name likely will get the player kicked into a rename process as soon as discovered/reported.
We would probably have some sort of check on OOC chatter on the chat channels that are normally available to everyone. Things like local, guild, clan, race, group chat channels you would probably see cautions/warnings to people for touting football scores (either the round type or the funny shaped type footballs) or other OOC things but I expect we would not be concerned about player created channels.
Hardcore hunting would not be an issue. We'll have areas for people that want to do that. I'm a hardcore hunter myself and a voracious trader.
With regards to getting input from Hero's Council, we very much cherry pick the participants to get their inputs on the best components of the various games they play. But we'll still make sure that we don't forget our roots.
In the end, you must remember that Hero's Journey's Producer, its Senior Technical Designer, the Game's Senior Deisgner, and all the Senior GameMasters are ex-GS or DR GameMasters. So we're all very much in tune with the desire to maintain a game that puts RP back into MMORPG as its the background we come from. We do know the concerns the other types players have as all of us play a wide variety of the current graphical games out there so we'll try to include the best parts from those.
My rambling is done.
Uska T'Rill
If at first you don't succeed.... in killing players. It just means you didn't drop enough critters the first time.
Critters Rule
There is a certain baseline amount of competitiveness, even absurd competitiveness, in every game. For example, I once stumbled across a little internet flash game where you press a button and kick a football through a goalpost. That's all there was to the game. Press button, football goes through air between goalpost uprights - or not. The high score was recorded, which was over 10,000. Somebody actually sat and kicked that football over 10,000 times.
So no matter what you do, there are going to be people like that. The question is, do you encourage and reward such behavior by setting up game systems to where a large number of people will feel compelled to grind, or just a few? That matters because a few people doing it has limited effect on the game as a whole, but a lot of people doing it potentially changes the very nature and certainly the balance of the game.
Sometimes I think that calling mmorpgs "games" is what screws them up. I wish they were simply called Massively Multiple Online Roleplaying ... and leave it at that. A game implies competition to some people, a winner and a loser. If you don't program a winning scenario, they just invent one. You can't win Everquest, but tell that to people in Time+ raid guilds lol.
A few things are certain. If you want to get away from the same old same old and promote roleplay, then you need to reward roleplay. (To me roleplaying is its own reward, but that's not how a lot of people think). They want carrots.
If you don't want people to make a beeline for the endgame, then you need to make the content on the way to endgame matter and be enjoyable, and spread it out to where you would need to fully participate in game content to have a powerful character and not shortcut it.
In my opinion, the easiest way to do this is with faction. The more quests, etc you do on behalf of a faction, the more content the members of that faction will make available to you and the better the rewards that flow from that. If you don't undertake that content and just slaughter mobs by the thousands, you will still get xp and whatever drops they have, but guess what? The mayor of your town isn't giving you the good quests because you haven't done enough to get him to like you. Killing random mobs should confer ZERO faction, because no one was there to see you do it and therefor be pleased by it. Quests and even roleplay should confer faction.
But that said, I'm not a game designer and my ideas may be dumb.
I just hope they do something to change the paradigm of these games so that 10,000 plus football kickers aren't given all the goodies again lol.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Agree 110%
I posted some of the things I dislike about most MMO's out right now, and things I would like to see in my "dream game" over at Hero's Hall. Here is the meat of that post.
"Since the game is called Hero's Journy, lets make the entire game real interesting, not just after you have reached the level cap. My brother (who is a bigger powergamer than I am) tends to look at the endgame as "the game" and the actual levleing up process as merely a tutorial to learning how play "the game".
How screwed up is that?!
Or is it, when you see how devs create the games. With so much emphasis on creating something for you and 200 of you not so closest friends, the rest of the game can really pale in comparison. And I think this really needs to be re-though.
Some things I'd like to see:
Events that are for lower level players only. If you are out of the level range nothing you do will have any effect on the event, ever.
Give "Epic" feeling quests to players at all levels. I'd much rather have fewer quest, that really mean something and reward a large amount of exp and take some time to finish than 500 fed-ex quests.
Content for level capped players should not be drastically different from content made for uncapped players. In other words, if you don't make the "endgame" more fun, more interesting and "the real game", you eliminate any good reasons for people to push to get capped. Make it merely an extention.
Make PvP an afterthough. Yeah, I know I'm going to piss some people off with this. First, I'd like to say that I like PvP, but I really don't think it should be a emphasis in this game world. It doesnt really fit.
At least untill the "DarkHero's Journey" expansion, hehe.
But PvP in a class based system tends to do 2 things;
1. Suck
2. Screw up the PvE.
Now let me explain myself on these counts.
1. It sucks, because lets face it, most of what you do in PvP (in a level/class system) is based solely on your level/class build. It ain't about your skill so much, as what class and skills/powers/gear you picked up. Your "skill" doesn't mean much here. So you really are not testing yourself, just your class and skills/gear. Don't /flex your e-peen here.
2. I don't think I really need to explain this, but the mindboggling amount of "nerfs" that occur specifically due to PvP ruin the PvE aspect of the game, which negatively affects many, many more players.
I say, but PvP on a server, let those guys fight it out and not worry about balancing that server for PvP in any respect. Worry about the how classes work in PvE, only. PvP balanceing tends to max/min devs to death (maximum effort, minumum results) so I say don't waste you time trying to, it never works. It's not the focus of the game, so dont bother with balancing.
Remove as many 'greed factor" aspects from the game as you can. Player economies SUCK. Why, because they are run by exploiting, greedy power-hungery players. Don't make players "have" to grind to make cash, find money dupes, scam other players. Remove the need to farm gold, you get rid of the gold farmers. Add NPC merchants that sell almsot everything, no way players can over-charge players on rare Wyr. Or just make it all "no drop" or bind on pick-up. Don't have super great Wyr be a result of being high level and farming, make it quest-only. Give absolutely no "gear" insentive to Raid."
to this... i think its only partially what the game companies do. they have a responsibility to provide paying customers with a satisfactory product that works and is generally entertaining. of course entertainment falls on ones own opinion, but generally, most people should be having fun with most of the things they do. yes, the game company has checks and balances they need to implement. but it always falls back on the community to foster a good gaming environment.
gm-uska mentioned that they were going to take care of ooc names in chat channels. great! i hate seeing ooc names personally. why play a game where your supposed to be someplace else, and you bring in even the slightest of elements from the real world? but how are they going to take care of every ooc name? they are a small company, even with all the volunteer gm's world wide, they can't spot them all.
so, just as soon as someone from the community discovers it and reports it, they can get right on that issue. problem is, i don't think most people will take the time to do anything about it. ever play xbox live? i have from day one. well, ive had an account from day one. found out i actually hate playing console games that have been seriously handicaped from their pc counterparts. anyways, they have this feature for reporting other players. you can give positive or negative feedback. but how many people actually use it? maybe a few. but generally i don't think anyone does. i only have once when someone was being a real pain, but even after i did, i had no way of knowing that it was recieved. that someone *is* going to read it and *is* going to add it to a que of things to do. and nobody gave positive feedback. who wants to take the time to pause a game, dig through a menu with a control pad, to give positive feedback that essentially has no effect? at least with negative feedback, we can *hope* something will be done to take care of the problem.
my point is, if it has to come from the community to really help evolve a good gaming environment, the community needs to have a bit more power to do so. they need to be able to monitor and police themselves to some degree. this means that they need to be able to dish out rewards and "punishment" on a certain level. it can't be something that just anyone can do, or it will be abused. it has to either come from a large group of random players or from a central authority head of responsible players. this would imply a political system of some sort. some way of picking players to be in that position that would be fair and a set of checks and balances. maybe some sort of council that the leaders of each guild or house get to participate in and vote on various things that would have a real impact on everyone in the game.
EDIT : i don't think i really hit the point i was trying to make very well. at its purest form i feel:
I acknowledge the apparant contradiction between the two quoted passages from my post, but I believe I can clarify.
Let's suppose you make a really, really fun level 30 zone. From my point of view, if I am having a good time there, I want to stay and experience that for so long as the good times last. I am not in a hurry to get to 40, or 50, etc. I just want to be entertained. That's why I said the content should be enjoyable as one part of a two part plan to discourage/curtail powergaming. Besides, a game should be fun!
But that alone will not do it (as some game developers mistakenly think it will). A true powergamer will look at that zone and ask, how much xp do I get there, how fast does that xp come, how hard is it to get, and what drops there? The fact that it is a fun zone matters to me (roleplayer/social/casual player), but not so much to them, as they are merely passing through as quickly as possible on the way to end game.
That is why part two of a two part plan is to make the content in that zone matter. By matter I mean that if you ignore that zone and do not fully experience what it has to offer, somehow, someway, when you reach end game you will wish you hadn't blown through that area because you missed out on something you now wish you had. You may get to level 50 first by grinding, but you won't get to level 50 best. A character that fully played the game will be much better off in terms of skills/gear/faction/access to cool stuff when they get to where you are.
Does that resolve the apparant conflict?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Holy mother of rutabegas...I love that idea.
Amathe, your second post that explains this urge to be "the best" was another real winner of a mini-essay. If you make too many more of those sorts of posts I'mna have to urge you to create a little web page to preserve them.
Are you saying if my guild, let's call them the ABC guild, has its own guild chat channel, and we decide, within our guild, that we want to use guild chat for OOC purposes -- such as setting up in-game events, coordinating characters who are not "ICly" in the same locale, etc -- i.e., we want to use guild chat as "player to player" communication and save our IC "character to character" discussion for local chat... we'd get a warning?
That seems overly hardcore to me... and I'm a pretty hardcore RPer. In COH we use the SG channel for IC communications because in a superhero game it is reasonable to communicate over long distances via radio or something. But in a fantasy game, how could you justify that if I am in one city and the other character is in another, we would be able to communicate In character with each other (unless every character in the world is telepathic)?
I think it is perfectly fine if you want to designate "whatever your character could see" as being IC and start moderating that (though I think you will severely have your work cut out for you). But I think it's going a bit far to monitor an individual guild's own guild-wide channel, and start handing out warnings, for OOC conduct. Shouldn't it be up to the guild how to use their own channel?
And I'd say, likewise for a "group" channel if there is one -- i.e. the standard practice of creating temp channels for a group that has formed to, say, do a quest. In my RP-oriented guild, we always used local for RP, and group chat for OOC. If someone had to go AFK, the way to tell that was to do it in /group. If someone had an in-game question, likewise ("/group Hey guys, I just got a 'single origin' enhancement... what does that mean?").
Players NEED a way to communicate player-to-player rather than character-to-character, in any roleplaying game. I think if you get too hardcore about this, you are going to end up turning off not just the uber-leets and first-person-shooter addicts, but even people like me who are rather hardcore RPers, but also reasonable enough to know that OOC communications do need to happen in any RPG. After all, even in table-top RPGs (the RPG in its purest original form, you might say), we had to say things like, "Hey guys pass the chips!" That wasn't considered a violation of RP and nobody ever got a warning for it.
I would like a clarification of this policy... it seems a bit draconian, at least as I understand the statement.
C
Are you saying if my guild, let's call them the ABC guild, has its own guild chat channel, and we decide, within our guild, that we want to use guild chat for OOC purposes -- such as setting up in-game events, coordinating characters who are not "ICly" in the same locale, etc -- i.e., we want to use guild chat as "player to player" communication and save our IC "character to character" discussion for local chat... we'd get a warning?
That seems overly hardcore to me... and I'm a pretty hardcore RPer. In COH we use the SG channel for IC communications because in a superhero game it is reasonable to communicate over long distances via radio or something. But in a fantasy game, how could you justify that if I am in one city and the other character is in another, we would be able to communicate In character with each other (unless every character in the world is telepathic)?
I think it is perfectly fine if you want to designate "whatever your character could see" as being IC and start moderating that (though I think you will severely have your work cut out for you). But I think it's going a bit far to monitor an individual guild's own guild-wide channel, and start handing out warnings, for OOC conduct. Shouldn't it be up to the guild how to use their own channel?
And I'd say, likewise for a "group" channel if there is one -- i.e. the standard practice of creating temp channels for a group that has formed to, say, do a quest. In my RP-oriented guild, we always used local for RP, and group chat for OOC. If someone had to go AFK, the way to tell that was to do it in /group. If someone had an in-game question, likewise ("/group Hey guys, I just got a 'single origin' enhancement... what does that mean?").
Players NEED a way to communicate player-to-player rather than character-to-character, in any roleplaying game. I think if you get too hardcore about this, you are going to end up turning off not just the uber-leets and first-person-shooter addicts, but even people like me who are rather hardcore RPers, but also reasonable enough to know that OOC communications do need to happen in any RPG. After all, even in table-top RPGs (the RPG in its purest original form, you might say), we had to say things like, "Hey guys pass the chips!" That wasn't considered a violation of RP and nobody ever got a warning for it.
I would like a clarification of this policy... it seems a bit draconian, at least as I understand the statement.
C
Those are just examples of what could be. Though you have a point about Guild being a channel that probably isn't normally available to everyone. Policy has not been set on any of this. So please don't think I'm saying this is how it will be. Plus note I'm a Dev and not a CS type so I don't have the final say in that area anyway.
I think instead of actual channel names I used a better example would have been just to say something like any channels a player sees the moment they step out of the character manager are the ones that would have the stricter enforcement.
Also in addressing the thoughts on OOC things like names. There will be both player and GM level methods to assist in reducing the occurence of OOC intrusions into the game. There also likely will be multiple servers with different rulesets in force. I don't know how familiar most are with our previous products but we have one world where there pretty much are no rules. I am guessing but I expect eventually you'll see a series of servers with different levels of enforcement depending upon the type of server world.
Uska T'Rill
Critters Rule
Again as a fairly hardcore RPer myself, I certainly don't mind if you guys want to enforce IC-ness, and I would probably go for a more IC-enforced server if there is such a thing. You just need to be careful not to go overboard with it.
C
Even given the type of gamer that I am, I'm stoked about HJ. The details of the combat system, Wyr, and so forth have me really excited. Heck, I might even partake of some of the GM events in-character.
Not all HJ-devotees are RPers. And not all consolers are dead-to-RP.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium