Originally posted by AlBQuirky That has been my experience more often than not. I usually am not even given time to to read the quest text. If I see a crafting node on my way to a dungeon, I have to pass it by. If someone needs help, I have to ignore them, lest I slow down the group XP rate. Not many players wish to just explore anymore in a group. There is purpose and drive now that is more common.
Again, you can blame this on the solo-friendly approach to gameplay. If people have to group up for something then that's exactly how they're going to act, as they're used to doing things the way they do in single player games. Just rush and kill until you reach the end boss. If a game is solo friendly to the extremes most have gone now, then anything in the way is just a speed bump anyway; you can kill it alone with ease, how hard is it going to be with 5 of you on the target?When you design a game to be group based, then simply moving across the map is a difficulty, something to take carefully or, if you have a movement increase buff, as quick as you can, running like hell from anything that spots you. Take an EverQuest dungeon, there was never any rushing there, no smash through the trash mobs to get to the boss, you'd have to clear your way carefully to where you wanted to go, stop now and then to regen health and mana, then when you found a spot that was safe you'd start clearing the area. Now, with instances, it's another straight run to the final cave where you bash the boss, get the shiny shiny and return to your solo gameplay.Is it really any surprise that group based gameplay is suffering under the solo-friendly MMO design?
I blame the new players playing MMOs that never liked MMOs in the first place. MMOs are inundated with players now that have a whole different attitude than the players before. All they think about is "beating the game", like MMOs were some kind of Single Player game. About the only things that they like is getting to "the end game" as quickly as possible. Character Concept is a foreign idea to them.
These new players that have infested the genre enjoy games that they can sit down, kill a lot of things, and leave feeling they accomplished something in a short amount of time. They can not fathom anyone actually enjoying sitting at a spawn point in a group for hours on end. "How on earth could that be fun? You're just sitting there!" These players are what spawned the "ADD" reference some posters use. If they aren't moving, fighting, killing, they get bored.
New players to the genre is whom I blame, not the solo players. Old school solo players actually took their time leveling, because soloing used to take a lot longer to level. Since downtime is no longer a factor in the genre, soloing is the way to go for speed of leveling.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
MMO developers do extensive market research. If they found that there were a lot of groupers, they'd be making group-heavy MMOs. They are not. Therefore they have found that the biggest part of their marketplace are soloers. Same goes for PvP. They ask people what they want to play. Grouping and PvP don't get the response that soloing and PvE do.
If they're doing market research then they're looking at the current market to see what people want, right? And so we have WoW with 10 million subscribers and everything else dropping below the 500,000 mark. Well, obviously, people must want something like WoW then! And that's what we've had for the last ten years, WoW clones.
It's like having a town where the only takeaway is a McDonalds. If you do market research on the people in that town about where they go for a takeaway they'll all say McDonalds, so obviously the town must like burgers and fries, right? So let's make another burgers and fries takeaway in the town, that's sure to be a hit.
They're not asking what people are playing, they're asking what people WANT to play and apparently, the overwhelming majority of people WANT to be playing something like WoW. They like it. Therefore that's what gets made. Very few people say they want old-school games. Therefore old-school games don't get made. You have got to get it through your head that you simply do not represent the majority, or even a sizable minority, of the MMO marketplace. You just don't. Your playstyle represents a minuscule niche and there's just not enough money to be made there, especially since old-school gamers can't even agree on what kind of game they'd want to play, to make it financially worthwhile to make a game. Most people who play these games are soloers. They don't want to group. It's not that they don't know about grouping, it's that they are not interested in grouping. You can believe whatever you want about why they're not interested, mostly just to make yourself feel better about the failure of your preferred playstyle, but in the end it doesn't matter, games will be made on the basis of what the majority of people actually want, not on what you wish they want or can rationalize that they want.
Originally posted by AlBQuirky That has been my experience more often than not. I usually am not even given time to to read the quest text. If I see a crafting node on my way to a dungeon, I have to pass it by. If someone needs help, I have to ignore them, lest I slow down the group XP rate. Not many players wish to just explore anymore in a group. There is purpose and drive now that is more common.
Again, you can blame this on the solo-friendly approach to gameplay. If people have to group up for something then that's exactly how they're going to act, as they're used to doing things the way they do in single player games. Just rush and kill until you reach the end boss. If a game is solo friendly to the extremes most have gone now, then anything in the way is just a speed bump anyway; you can kill it alone with ease, how hard is it going to be with 5 of you on the target?
When you design a game to be group based, then simply moving across the map is a difficulty, something to take carefully or, if you have a movement increase buff, as quick as you can, running like hell from anything that spots you. Take an EverQuest dungeon, there was never any rushing there, no smash through the trash mobs to get to the boss, you'd have to clear your way carefully to where you wanted to go, stop now and then to regen health and mana, then when you found a spot that was safe you'd start clearing the area. Now, with instances, it's another straight run to the final cave where you bash the boss, get the shiny shiny and return to your solo gameplay.
Is it really any surprise that group based gameplay is suffering under the solo-friendly MMO design?
I blame the new players playing MMOs that never liked MMOs in the first place. MMOs are inundated with players now that have a whole different attitude than the players before. All they think about is "beating the game", like MMOs were some kind of Single Player game. About the only things that they like is getting to "the end game" as quickly as possible. Character Concept is a foreign idea to them.
These new players that have infested the genre enjoy games that they can sit down, kill a lot of things, and leave feeling they accomplished something in a short amount of time. They can not fathom anyone actually enjoying sitting at a spawn point in a group for hours on end. "How on earth could that be fun? You're just sitting there!" These players are what spawned the "ADD" reference some posters use. If they aren't moving, fighting, killing, they get bored.
New players to the genre is whom I blame, not the solo players. Old school solo players actually took their time leveling, because soloing used to take a lot longer to level. Since downtime is no longer a factor in the genre, soloing is the way to go for speed of leveling.
From your mouth to God's ears. Couldn't have articulated it better myself.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Originally posted by AlBQuirky That has been my experience more often than not. I usually am not even given time to to read the quest text. If I see a crafting node on my way to a dungeon, I have to pass it by. If someone needs help, I have to ignore them, lest I slow down the group XP rate. Not many players wish to just explore anymore in a group. There is purpose and drive now that is more common.
Again, you can blame this on the solo-friendly approach to gameplay. If people have to group up for something then that's exactly how they're going to act, as they're used to doing things the way they do in single player games. Just rush and kill until you reach the end boss. If a game is solo friendly to the extremes most have gone now, then anything in the way is just a speed bump anyway; you can kill it alone with ease, how hard is it going to be with 5 of you on the target?
When you design a game to be group based, then simply moving across the map is a difficulty, something to take carefully or, if you have a movement increase buff, as quick as you can, running like hell from anything that spots you. Take an EverQuest dungeon, there was never any rushing there, no smash through the trash mobs to get to the boss, you'd have to clear your way carefully to where you wanted to go, stop now and then to regen health and mana, then when you found a spot that was safe you'd start clearing the area. Now, with instances, it's another straight run to the final cave where you bash the boss, get the shiny shiny and return to your solo gameplay.
Is it really any surprise that group based gameplay is suffering under the solo-friendly MMO design?
I blame the new players playing MMOs that never liked MMOs in the first place. MMOs are inundated with players now that have a whole different attitude than the players before. All they think about is "beating the game", like MMOs were some kind of Single Player game. About the only things that they like is getting to "the end game" as quickly as possible. Character Concept is a foreign idea to them.
These new players that have infested the genre enjoy games that they can sit down, kill a lot of things, and leave feeling they accomplished something in a short amount of time. They can not fathom anyone actually enjoying sitting at a spawn point in a group for hours on end. "How on earth could that be fun? You're just sitting there!" These players are what spawned the "ADD" reference some posters use. If they aren't moving, fighting, killing, they get bored.
New players to the genre is whom I blame, not the solo players. Old school solo players actually took their time leveling, because soloing used to take a lot longer to level. Since downtime is no longer a factor in the genre, soloing is the way to go for speed of leveling.
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
They're not asking what people are playing, they're asking what people WANT to play and apparently, the overwhelming majority of people WANT to be playing something like WoW.
Really? Because nobody has ever asked me. Has anyone asked you what you'd like to play? Has anyone on this forum ever been asked by a developer what they'd want to play? The only place I've heard of developers asking the player base what they'd like to see in their game is EverQuest Next, but then they go and completely ignore what the player base asked for and do what they had planned anyway. So obviously they're not really asking what people want to play at all; or rather, they are, but they'll still do whatever they want to do regardless.
And what is it they want to do? Another WoW clone? Every MMO released in the past ten years has been a WoW clone, because obviously that's what people want. Isn't it? Then why have they done so poorly, or even crashed and burned into F2P? Perhaps it's not want people want after all, but hey, the developers don't care because 'market research' says that WoW is the biggest grossing MMO in history, so it must be what people want. Right?
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
When I have only an hour to spare, I don't start watching a three hour movie. Just sayin'.
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
When I have only an hour to spare, I don't start watching a three hour movie. Just sayin'.
Well, they paid $15 to see the movie just like you did, so they should be able to see it in 1 hour instead of 3 hours because they paid the same amount for it as you...
Obviously i'm being sarcastic. To the guy trying to make the already debunked "adults dont have 8 hours a day" argument. I call ultra bullshit. Im an adult with a 40 hour a week job, i have plenty of other hobbies, i have zero trouble spending 8 hours on a game. Hell i just did it with BG2:EE on thursday after i got off work. The difference is we dont have time to do that EVERY DAY, like some kid who gets home from school.
That doesnt mean that they should make all the content faceroll easy and super quick to accomodate YOU because you're jealous of some kid without a job. Thats part of being a kid and not having responsibilities. What we deal with is the reality of being an adult. You have to make choices as to what you want to be your hobbies. If you like to snowboard, work on cars, play video games, and construct ships in a bottle, then you either pick a couple, or you do all of them and accept the fact that you wont be able to invest as much time in each as you'd like.
I dont want someone cheapening the experience just to accomodate some whine-o's who aren't willing to accept the fact that it might take them 3 weeks to do something the "punk kid" will accomplish in 3 days.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Originally posted by AlBQuirky That has been my experience more often than not. I usually am not even given time to to read the quest text. If I see a crafting node on my way to a dungeon, I have to pass it by. If someone needs help, I have to ignore them, lest I slow down the group XP rate. Not many players wish to just explore anymore in a group. There is purpose and drive now that is more common.
Again, you can blame this on the solo-friendly approach to gameplay. If people have to group up for something then that's exactly how they're going to act, as they're used to doing things the way they do in single player games. Just rush and kill until you reach the end boss. If a game is solo friendly to the extremes most have gone now, then anything in the way is just a speed bump anyway; you can kill it alone with ease, how hard is it going to be with 5 of you on the target?
When you design a game to be group based, then simply moving across the map is a difficulty, something to take carefully or, if you have a movement increase buff, as quick as you can, running like hell from anything that spots you. Take an EverQuest dungeon, there was never any rushing there, no smash through the trash mobs to get to the boss, you'd have to clear your way carefully to where you wanted to go, stop now and then to regen health and mana, then when you found a spot that was safe you'd start clearing the area. Now, with instances, it's another straight run to the final cave where you bash the boss, get the shiny shiny and return to your solo gameplay.
Is it really any surprise that group based gameplay is suffering under the solo-friendly MMO design?
I blame the new players playing MMOs that never liked MMOs in the first place. MMOs are inundated with players now that have a whole different attitude than the players before. All they think about is "beating the game", like MMOs were some kind of Single Player game. About the only things that they like is getting to "the end game" as quickly as possible. Character Concept is a foreign idea to them.
These new players that have infested the genre enjoy games that they can sit down, kill a lot of things, and leave feeling they accomplished something in a short amount of time. They can not fathom anyone actually enjoying sitting at a spawn point in a group for hours on end. "How on earth could that be fun? You're just sitting there!" These players are what spawned the "ADD" reference some posters use. If they aren't moving, fighting, killing, they get bored.
New players to the genre is whom I blame, not the solo players. Old school solo players actually took their time leveling, because soloing used to take a lot longer to level. Since downtime is no longer a factor in the genre, soloing is the way to go for speed of leveling.
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
That old cry. How do these people find time to do anything? Movies are 3 (or more) hours long. Add in travel time, previews and commercials before the movie and how do the "I'm too busy" people do it?
The whole attitude has changed. Back when I started MMORPGs, people would frequently go "afk" (know what that is?) for many reasons. Today, if a player goes "afk", they find themselves kicked form the group. Heck, spend time typing in chat and many times you're told to shut and play.
Listen. If *you* do not have the TIME to play a game, ANY game, don't play it. Don't expect a whole genre to change to accommodate you. Actually, seeing what MMOs have become, it is totally within your power to expect this. I sit down to play a video because I have the time to do so.
"I don't have time to play the game. I have a life, a wife/husband, a mistress/lover, a bunch of kids, 6 dogs, 10 cats, 12 bunnies, a job, a career, I volunteer, am active in the peace corps, Doctors without borders, and anything else I can find to fill my life." Well... Is it the game's fault you do not have the time?
The other side to this statement is the "implied" "YOU don't have a life." slam. News flash, I just happen to make better use of my time. Learn how to do this, and you will be much better off.
Again, if you do not have TIME for a video game in your busy life, DO NOT PLAY THEM! You made your decisions, now live with it. I can not put it any simpler.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
They're not asking what people are playing, they're asking what people WANT to play and apparently, the overwhelming majority of people WANT to be playing something like WoW.
Really? Because nobody has ever asked me. Has anyone asked you what you'd like to play? Has anyone on this forum ever been asked by a developer what they'd want to play? The only place I've heard of developers asking the player base what they'd like to see in their game is EverQuest Next, but then they go and completely ignore what the player base asked for and do what they had planned anyway. So obviously they're not really asking what people want to play at all; or rather, they are, but they'll still do whatever they want to do regardless.
And what is it they want to do? Another WoW clone? Every MMO released in the past ten years has been a WoW clone, because obviously that's what people want. Isn't it? Then why have they done so poorly, or even crashed and burned into F2P? Perhaps it's not want people want after all, but hey, the developers don't care because 'market research' says that WoW is the biggest grossing MMO in history, so it must be what people want. Right?
The world doesn't revolve around you. I know that comes as somewhat of a shock but it's true. And no, nobody has ever asked me for an MMO but I've been asked for other things. It happens all the time.
And like it or not, F2P is more successful and profitable than P2P. That's also reality. Sorry you're so unhappy with reality.
The world doesn't revolve around you. I know that comes as somewhat of a shock but it's true. And no, nobody has ever asked me for an MMO but I've been asked for other things. It happens all the time.
And like it or not, F2P is more successful and profitable than P2P. That's also reality. Sorry you're so unhappy with reality.
Really? Then why didn't they make them F2P to begin with? I mean, if these F2P games are so successful, why did it take so long for Rift, The Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and the many others that switched from P2P to F2P, to switch over? I'll tell you why. Guaranteed income. See, developers don't want to make a free game with the hope that people will buy things, they make games that guarantee return on investment.
But hey, I don't want to burst your bubble, you have so many insightful comments about market research and profit margins, solo play and group play, but never have anything to back them up. Keep on trying though, some people are easily suckered in by what passes as 'intelligent arguments'.
The world doesn't revolve around you. I know that comes as somewhat of a shock but it's true. And no, nobody has ever asked me for an MMO but I've been asked for other things. It happens all the time.
And like it or not, F2P is more successful and profitable than P2P. That's also reality. Sorry you're so unhappy with reality.
Really? Then why didn't they make them F2P to begin with? I mean, if these F2P games are so successful, why did it take so long for Rift, The Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and the many others that switched from P2P to F2P, to switch over? I'll tell you why. Guaranteed income. See, developers don't want to make a free game with the hope that people will buy things, they make games that guarantee return on investment.
But hey, I don't want to burst your bubble, you have so many insightful comments about market research and profit margins, solo play and group play, but never have anything to back them up. Keep on trying though, some people are easily suckered in by what passes as 'intelligent arguments'.
Most games are coming out F2P today. Some titles that were begun before the F2P era still went P2P because that's how they were built, but it became obvious that the best money was in F2P and they changed over as soon as they could. F2P is more profitable across the board and all the studies show that. All of the data has already been presented, I don't have to keep trotting it out (although I could quite easily). If there's anything you want to see supported, just ask.
Not that I think you can support any of the ideas that you claim though, where is any of *YOUR* evidence?
The world doesn't revolve around you. I know that comes as somewhat of a shock but it's true. And no, nobody has ever asked me for an MMO but I've been asked for other things. It happens all the time.
And like it or not, F2P is more successful and profitable than P2P. That's also reality. Sorry you're so unhappy with reality.
Really? Then why didn't they make them F2P to begin with? I mean, if these F2P games are so successful, why did it take so long for Rift, The Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and the many others that switched from P2P to F2P, to switch over? I'll tell you why. Guaranteed income. See, developers don't want to make a free game with the hope that people will buy things, they make games that guarantee return on investment.
But hey, I don't want to burst your bubble, you have so many insightful comments about market research and profit margins, solo play and group play, but never have anything to back them up. Keep on trying though, some people are easily suckered in by what passes as 'intelligent arguments'.
Most games are coming out F2P today. Some titles that were begun before the F2P era still went P2P because that's how they were built, but it became obvious that the best money was in F2P and they changed over as soon as they could. F2P is more profitable across the board and all the studies show that. All of the data has already been presented, I don't have to keep trotting it out (although I could quite easily). If there's anything you want to see supported, just ask.
Not that I think you can support any of the ideas that you claim though, where is any of *YOUR* evidence?
not my fight but what ever YOLO, Carpe Diem
players overall believe that f2p on release games have lower quality compared to p2p games. i play f2p games and i still think that is the case no suprises so far. this alone removes a portion of potential playerbase however this doesnt apply to games that convert from p2p when the conversion happens the only way is up since paying players know what they are playing and doesnt expect a sudden drop in quality and stop playing, sure the community might suffer from douchebag f2p players
Every product has a life cycle that is measured in customers, in games f2p should only serve as a method to extend it
when a game is free to play on release there is no method left to save it when the playerbase starts to drop and yes players wont stick around just because of the cash shop and expansions if the game play on release is dissapointing
Not that I think you can support any of the ideas that you claim though, where is any of *YOUR* evidence?
I don't need to present evidence because I'm not trying to claim anything as fact. You, on the other hand, are doing exactly that, stating things as though you have some kind of insider knowledge that everyone else is ignorant to. Let's take a few examples, shall we?
"Very few people say they want old-school games. Therefore old-school games don't get made.".
"Your playstyle represents a miniscule niche..".
"Most people who play these games are soloers. They don't want to group.".
".. there are a lot more soloers than groupers, a lot more PvEers than PvPers..".
Where is your evidence to back up these apparent facts you're stating? Because you seem a little confused on your facts at times, such as:
"MMO developers do extensive market research.".
"You only get what the developers want to make and they're making games that appeal to the widest possible audience so they make the greatest amount of money.".
So which is it? Are they doing market research to find out what we want, or are they just making what they want to make and think will make the greatest amount of money? As in, yet another WoW clone. Would love to know where you're coming up with all this, or are you just trying to make assumption into a fact in an attempt to win an argument?
Okay...I feel MMOs should not be "Group Only", and definitely not "Solo Only" games...
There should be SOME Solo quests, but definitely MORE Group quests...
The reason I say this is because MMOs are meant to be played socially. Player interaction includes grouping...Thats why they are MMOs and not single player RPGs...
Now, I'm not bashing the soloist, but some recent MMOs are trying too much to cater to the solo player...I do not agree with this...
Like I said, have some solo quests, actually, a healthy supply of solo quests, but not so much as to pull people away from grouping...
Grouping should be the main focus of MMOs, and soloing should be next...
Tell that to Asheron's Call. I've been playing on and off for over 14 years and I rarely if ever group.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Originally posted by AlBQuirky That has been my experience more often than not. I usually am not even given time to to read the quest text. If I see a crafting node on my way to a dungeon, I have to pass it by. If someone needs help, I have to ignore them, lest I slow down the group XP rate. Not many players wish to just explore anymore in a group. There is purpose and drive now that is more common.
Again, you can blame this on the solo-friendly approach to gameplay. If people have to group up for something then that's exactly how they're going to act, as they're used to doing things the way they do in single player games. Just rush and kill until you reach the end boss. If a game is solo friendly to the extremes most have gone now, then anything in the way is just a speed bump anyway; you can kill it alone with ease, how hard is it going to be with 5 of you on the target?
When you design a game to be group based, then simply moving across the map is a difficulty, something to take carefully or, if you have a movement increase buff, as quick as you can, running like hell from anything that spots you. Take an EverQuest dungeon, there was never any rushing there, no smash through the trash mobs to get to the boss, you'd have to clear your way carefully to where you wanted to go, stop now and then to regen health and mana, then when you found a spot that was safe you'd start clearing the area. Now, with instances, it's another straight run to the final cave where you bash the boss, get the shiny shiny and return to your solo gameplay.
Is it really any surprise that group based gameplay is suffering under the solo-friendly MMO design?
I blame the new players playing MMOs that never liked MMOs in the first place. MMOs are inundated with players now that have a whole different attitude than the players before. All they think about is "beating the game", like MMOs were some kind of Single Player game. About the only things that they like is getting to "the end game" as quickly as possible. Character Concept is a foreign idea to them.
These new players that have infested the genre enjoy games that they can sit down, kill a lot of things, and leave feeling they accomplished something in a short amount of time. They can not fathom anyone actually enjoying sitting at a spawn point in a group for hours on end. "How on earth could that be fun? You're just sitting there!" These players are what spawned the "ADD" reference some posters use. If they aren't moving, fighting, killing, they get bored.
New players to the genre is whom I blame, not the solo players. Old school solo players actually took their time leveling, because soloing used to take a lot longer to level. Since downtime is no longer a factor in the genre, soloing is the way to go for speed of leveling.
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
That old cry. How do these people find time to do anything? Movies are 3 (or more) hours long. Add in travel time, previews and commercials before the movie and how do the "I'm too busy" people do it?
The whole attitude has changed. Back when I started MMORPGs, people would frequently go "afk" (know what that is?) for many reasons. Today, if a player goes "afk", they find themselves kicked form the group. Heck, spend time typing in chat and many times you're told to shut and play.
Listen. If *you* do not have the TIME to play a game, ANY game, don't play it. Don't expect a whole genre to change to accommodate you. Actually, seeing what MMOs have become, it is totally within your power to expect this. I sit down to play a video because I have the time to do so.
"I don't have time to play the game. I have a life, a wife/husband, a mistress/lover, a bunch of kids, 6 dogs, 10 cats, 12 bunnies, a job, a career, I volunteer, am active in the peace corps, Doctors without borders, and anything else I can find to fill my life." Well... Is it the game's fault you do not have the time?
The other side to this statement is the "implied" "YOU don't have a life." slam. News flash, I just happen to make better use of my time. Learn how to do this, and you will be much better off.
Again, if you do not have TIME for a video game in your busy life, DO NOT PLAY THEM! You made your decisions, now live with it. I can not put it any simpler.
First off... these old days of gaming you keep talking about sound horrible. That's probably why their gone. The cream rises my friend. If people actually liked that bullshit.. it would still be around.
The funniest thing to me is that I am the exact type of player you're talking about. I'm a super casual gamer, maybe 1 to 2 hours every other day if I'm lucky. But that's not the funny part.. the funny part is that it's YOU, the hardcore gamer get screwed over left and right, while casual gamers like me get all the rewards. The companies are catering to me, well... "us(casual)" gamers because there are more of us. We make the money and we support their games for much longer then the "hardcore" who get bored and move on after they have eaten up all of the content in two weeks. If you think I'm wrong just take a look around.
I'll continue to play games in my free time.. cause I love gaming. And I will continue to get my ass kissed by game companies who screw over people like you to make me happy... lol. That's the funny part. I'm living amazingly well with tons of games to play with my based on my decisions in life. You are the one who sounds all butt-hurt and angry lol, not me.
I like group play with friends .. it will kill the time and we can enjoy comparing to solo player.. ...here is the website i found while surfing online, that we can redeem game e pins for most happening games in india... "Gamemela"
Gonna continue reading, but I liked what I saw on the first page about how a solo player affects other players ultimately.
If you can't see how someone playing solo affects others play styles, a good game to try would be FFXIV, as there are multiplayer activities but they're useless due to the fact that the game is solo driven.
If a majority of people played solo, and there are activities that designed group play and reward the player more, then there is a problem if finding people to group with becomes a hassle.
On the other hand, in a game like ffxi, where if you were once required to do much of everything in a group, there aren't shortages, its just a matter of how you go about getting a group and spending your time... gosh i could go on... forever on that... and how it shows how truly low the majority people comprehension skills are, but I wont atm...
Originally posted by AlBQuirky That has been my experience more often than not. I usually am not even given time to to read the quest text. If I see a crafting node on my way to a dungeon, I have to pass it by. If someone needs help, I have to ignore them, lest I slow down the group XP rate. Not many players wish to just explore anymore in a group. There is purpose and drive now that is more common.
Again, you can blame this on the solo-friendly approach to gameplay. If people have to group up for something then that's exactly how they're going to act, as they're used to doing things the way they do in single player games. Just rush and kill until you reach the end boss. If a game is solo friendly to the extremes most have gone now, then anything in the way is just a speed bump anyway; you can kill it alone with ease, how hard is it going to be with 5 of you on the target?
When you design a game to be group based, then simply moving across the map is a difficulty, something to take carefully or, if you have a movement increase buff, as quick as you can, running like hell from anything that spots you. Take an EverQuest dungeon, there was never any rushing there, no smash through the trash mobs to get to the boss, you'd have to clear your way carefully to where you wanted to go, stop now and then to regen health and mana, then when you found a spot that was safe you'd start clearing the area. Now, with instances, it's another straight run to the final cave where you bash the boss, get the shiny shiny and return to your solo gameplay.
Is it really any surprise that group based gameplay is suffering under the solo-friendly MMO design?
I blame the new players playing MMOs that never liked MMOs in the first place. MMOs are inundated with players now that have a whole different attitude than the players before. All they think about is "beating the game", like MMOs were some kind of Single Player game. About the only things that they like is getting to "the end game" as quickly as possible. Character Concept is a foreign idea to them.
These new players that have infested the genre enjoy games that they can sit down, kill a lot of things, and leave feeling they accomplished something in a short amount of time. They can not fathom anyone actually enjoying sitting at a spawn point in a group for hours on end. "How on earth could that be fun? You're just sitting there!" These players are what spawned the "ADD" reference some posters use. If they aren't moving, fighting, killing, they get bored.
New players to the genre is whom I blame, not the solo players. Old school solo players actually took their time leveling, because soloing used to take a lot longer to level. Since downtime is no longer a factor in the genre, soloing is the way to go for speed of leveling.
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
That old cry. How do these people find time to do anything? Movies are 3 (or more) hours long. Add in travel time, previews and commercials before the movie and how do the "I'm too busy" people do it?
The whole attitude has changed. Back when I started MMORPGs, people would frequently go "afk" (know what that is?) for many reasons. Today, if a player goes "afk", they find themselves kicked form the group. Heck, spend time typing in chat and many times you're told to shut and play.
Listen. If *you* do not have the TIME to play a game, ANY game, don't play it. Don't expect a whole genre to change to accommodate you. Actually, seeing what MMOs have become, it is totally within your power to expect this. I sit down to play a video because I have the time to do so.
"I don't have time to play the game. I have a life, a wife/husband, a mistress/lover, a bunch of kids, 6 dogs, 10 cats, 12 bunnies, a job, a career, I volunteer, am active in the peace corps, Doctors without borders, and anything else I can find to fill my life." Well... Is it the game's fault you do not have the time?
The other side to this statement is the "implied" "YOU don't have a life." slam. News flash, I just happen to make better use of my time. Learn how to do this, and you will be much better off.
Again, if you do not have TIME for a video game in your busy life, DO NOT PLAY THEM! You made your decisions, now live with it. I can not put it any simpler.
First off... these old days of gaming you keep talking about sound horrible. That's probably why their gone. The cream rises my friend. If people actually liked that bullshit.. it would still be around.
The funniest thing to me is that I am the exact type of player you're talking about. I'm a super casual gamer, maybe 1 to 2 hours every other day if I'm lucky. But that's not the funny part.. the funny part is that it's YOU, the hardcore gamer get screwed over left and right, while casual gamers like me get all the rewards. The companies are catering to me, well... "us(casual)" gamers because there are more of us. We make the money and we support their games for much longer then the "hardcore" who get bored and move on after they have eaten up all of the content in two weeks. If you think I'm wrong just take a look around.
I'll continue to play games in my free time.. cause I love gaming. And I will continue to get my ass kissed by game companies who screw over people like you to make me happy... lol. That's the funny part. I'm living amazingly well with tons of games to play with my based on my decisions in life. You are the one who sounds all butt-hurt and angry lol, not me.
I was watching a show the other day on people obsessed with climbing mountains. They pay 10's of thousands of dollars to climb a peak like Mt Everest, risk their lives, often lose bits of fingers, toes, noses, ears.. for what? When they get to the top after a couple of days of hypothermia, hypoxia and extreme effort the get to spend 10 minutes or so at the top of the death zone before coming back down. Quite a few die every year.
To me that sounds 'horrible', as the old days of gaming sound 'horrible' to you. The new days of gaming are horrible to me as well. To me it feels like the equivalent of fishing in a fish farm. Everyone gets the rare gear (big fish), no need to explore (head out to sea), you can often just buy your gear with real life money (get the guy at the fish farm to catch, gut and bag it for you) so you can show it off.
The best game I ever played was EQ 1 in the early days of 1999 - 2000, before portals and corpse summons and all the 'ease of play' was introduced by Sony. This was a game where you actually felt like you were in a living breathing very dangerous world.
You could be corpse camped by creatures, your own level or even lower could obliterate you, you could have your gear looted, you could go to the plane of hate and your entire 30 man raid could wipe and be unable to recover your gear without a lot of help. If you couldn't recover it within a week it would disappear. There were creatures that spawned only once a day (Lodizal), once a week (dragons), or only once per server (sleeper) and never spawned again . It took me over a year to get my class weapon, something that was an actual acheivement. It was fantastic.
Whens the last time you played a game and did a boss and you got sweaty palms and an irregular heartbeat lol. Not any more.
As for the devs kissing your ass, they're not kissing your ass. They're exploiting the law of averages as they apply to modern day gaming - that law says "you can create an interesting, intellectually challenging bunch of awards and accolades winning game and sell it to the cream of humanity or create a easy, instantly gratifying, sex and violence filled load of garbage and get x times more customers selling it to the average moron who is much more numerous".
First of all I love solo play when questing, if you get too many people questing together it just gets to be a pain especially when you wander too far and someone comes running back at you when they have aggro'd a crap load of mobs. In my opinion it is the only way to go when questing. On to dungeons, well I love dungeons and raids but you obviously need more than one person to do these. Well not entirely true some games you can but its been awhile since I have played any of those. For the most part I have stuck to WOW and that's what I am basing most of this on.
Love dungeons and raids, but hate when people are unwilling to listen when they don't know the fights. PVP is another animal altogether. I love group PVP. I usually play a caster of some sort so I stay behind the melee and burn down other players in a 5v5 or more situation. I'm not as good when its 3v3, I usually get targeted pretty early. So i guess the point I am trying to make is that its not really black and white for me. I have many pros and cons for both and don't really like one side over the other in an overall point of view.
First of all I love solo play when questing, if you get too many people questing together it just gets to be a pain especially when you wander too far and someone comes running back at you when they have aggro'd a crap load of mobs. In my opinion it is the only way to go when questing. On to dungeons, well I love dungeons and raids but you obviously need more than one person to do these. Well not entirely true some games you can but its been awhile since I have played any of those. For the most part I have stuck to WOW and that's what I am basing most of this on.
Love dungeons and raids, but hate when people are unwilling to listen when they don't know the fights. PVP is another animal altogether. I love group PVP. I usually play a caster of some sort so I stay behind the melee and burn down other players in a 5v5 or more situation. I'm not as good when its 3v3, I usually get targeted pretty early. So i guess the point I am trying to make is that its not really black and white for me. I have many pros and cons for both and don't really like one side over the other in an overall point of view.
Yeah well I'm not exactly a solo nazi myself. I was in a raiding guild on Firiona Vie which I enjoyed. Nothing quite like spending 20 hours crawling through a dungeon when even the blue cons (lower level monsters) can wipe out our group with out a competent team
Sitting in a dungeon, such as the Temple of Srra (sp) waiting for a Rhag (sp) to spawn (a week spawn if I recall), the rush as your guild trying to form up and take him down first before someone else came in and he was down for a week. The excitement of the guild boss looting the corpses, calling out the 10 or so high end binding drops, the tension of whether, this time you might be awarded the item, or the disappointment that you weren't. But also the satisfaction that regardless that loot just made us as a whole more powerful.
Takiing on a boss that could rip you apart, all 80 of you, if the tank drops, or an healer misses a rotation, or an enchanter fails to mezz something and it runs off to train the entire dungeon down apon you (usually speed logging out of healers for the eventual resses as everyone dies).
At the same time its fun to be a powerful class, like an enchanter that can charm an raid mob big enough to wipe out 20 players after giving him haste and shield and stuff. Then using him wipe an entire zone of creatures that you'd usually need a raid for. At any moment our charm could break, instant death and an aweful task of attempting to get your body back naked.
I used to charm a little dwarf on the docks in Iceclad and he'd solo Lodizal, a rare mob that usually required tanks, healers, dps.
Or just running around, invising and sneakiing deep into the bowles of a high level dungeon, killoing a boss, looting him and the exciting looting of his body.
That sort of soloing was extremely difficult, more difficult than grouping and more often than not resulting in multiple deaths but it gave me pleasure to do things that some groups would fail at.
I think that both solo (difficult, highly difficult to almost impossible) should also be a part of hard group content. As I have stated often, a group of 6 people running a dungeon that one person can also run, will usually get 6 times or more of the loot that one person gets, 6 times faster. So the balance is still maintained.
I good developer, with good mechanics can put in place mechanics that can satisify all its customers and customers preferred styles. Soloing should never be as easy as grouping but ti shoudl definitel be viable. I many cases I'd rather spend 6 months to get my uber staff of Awesomeness, even if a group of 6, 10, 15 or 20 could get one in a few hours.
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
When I have only an hour to spare, I don't start watching a three hour movie. Just sayin'.
Well, they paid $15 to see the movie just like you did, so they should be able to see it in 1 hour instead of 3 hours because they paid the same amount for it as you...
Obviously i'm being sarcastic. To the guy trying to make the already debunked "adults dont have 8 hours a day" argument. I call ultra bullshit. Im an adult with a 40 hour a week job, i have plenty of other hobbies, i have zero trouble spending 8 hours on a game. Hell i just did it with BG2:EE on thursday after i got off work. The difference is we dont have time to do that EVERY DAY, like some kid who gets home from school.
That doesnt mean that they should make all the content faceroll easy and super quick to accomodate YOU because you're jealous of some kid without a job. Thats part of being a kid and not having responsibilities. What we deal with is the reality of being an adult. You have to make choices as to what you want to be your hobbies. If you like to snowboard, work on cars, play video games, and construct ships in a bottle, then you either pick a couple, or you do all of them and accept the fact that you wont be able to invest as much time in each as you'd like.
I dont want someone cheapening the experience just to accomodate some whine-o's who aren't willing to accept the fact that it might take them 3 weeks to do something the "punk kid" will accomplish in 3 days.
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
When I have only an hour to spare, I don't start watching a three hour movie. Just sayin'.
Well, they paid $15 to see the movie just like you did, so they should be able to see it in 1 hour instead of 3 hours because they paid the same amount for it as you...
Obviously i'm being sarcastic. To the guy trying to make the already debunked "adults dont have 8 hours a day" argument. I call ultra bullshit. Im an adult with a 40 hour a week job, i have plenty of other hobbies, i have zero trouble spending 8 hours on a game. Hell i just did it with BG2:EE on thursday after i got off work. The difference is we dont have time to do that EVERY DAY, like some kid who gets home from school.
That doesnt mean that they should make all the content faceroll easy and super quick to accomodate YOU because you're jealous of some kid without a job. Thats part of being a kid and not having responsibilities. What we deal with is the reality of being an adult. You have to make choices as to what you want to be your hobbies. If you like to snowboard, work on cars, play video games, and construct ships in a bottle, then you either pick a couple, or you do all of them and accept the fact that you wont be able to invest as much time in each as you'd like.
I dont want someone cheapening the experience just to accomodate some whine-o's who aren't willing to accept the fact that it might take them 3 weeks to do something the "punk kid" will accomplish in 3 days.
agreed
Disagree.
Because for the average worker who doesn't have the luxury of having a computer at work, he won't even have 8hrs in a day to play even if he wanted too.
Breaking the numbers down for the part-time workers and single kids in college:
Sleep: 6-8hrs a night/day.
Commute time one way: 10mins to 1:30hrs.
Work: 8hrs-12hrs a day/night for 4-7 days a week.
At the minimum 14hrs and 20min of time was eliminated just to sleep, get to work and work.
There isn't even 8hrs left in the day.
Now if you meant you're a single part-time worker without kids or kid in college (i.e., no family responsibilities), say so. The rest of the work force doesn't have the luxury of even having 8hrs a day to play a game...at all.
I like both group and solo play.I like to do most quests solo but some tougher quests i feel i need someone by my side to aid me.Also most dungeons and skirmishes are group based anyway but i notice there is no co-ordination between players everyone doing their own thing and working together as a team.
Comments
These new players that have infested the genre enjoy games that they can sit down, kill a lot of things, and leave feeling they accomplished something in a short amount of time. They can not fathom anyone actually enjoying sitting at a spawn point in a group for hours on end. "How on earth could that be fun? You're just sitting there!" These players are what spawned the "ADD" reference some posters use. If they aren't moving, fighting, killing, they get bored.
New players to the genre is whom I blame, not the solo players. Old school solo players actually took their time leveling, because soloing used to take a lot longer to level. Since downtime is no longer a factor in the genre, soloing is the way to go for speed of leveling.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
They're not asking what people are playing, they're asking what people WANT to play and apparently, the overwhelming majority of people WANT to be playing something like WoW. They like it. Therefore that's what gets made. Very few people say they want old-school games. Therefore old-school games don't get made. You have got to get it through your head that you simply do not represent the majority, or even a sizable minority, of the MMO marketplace. You just don't. Your playstyle represents a minuscule niche and there's just not enough money to be made there, especially since old-school gamers can't even agree on what kind of game they'd want to play, to make it financially worthwhile to make a game. Most people who play these games are soloers. They don't want to group. It's not that they don't know about grouping, it's that they are not interested in grouping. You can believe whatever you want about why they're not interested, mostly just to make yourself feel better about the failure of your preferred playstyle, but in the end it doesn't matter, games will be made on the basis of what the majority of people actually want, not on what you wish they want or can rationalize that they want.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
From your mouth to God's ears. Couldn't have articulated it better myself.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
No they cant and you know why. Because they have this thing called a Career or job. By the time they get home from busting their ass in 8-10 hour work days, cook dinner, take a shower, run any errands, it maybe 8:00 or 9:00 pm and then they have to get up at 6:00 am. Why?? Because they have responsibilities to pay a mortgage, eat food, support a family. So no the normal person cant spend hours at a time in a video game. Only people that can do that are part time workers or unemployed people. Its called being an Adult and Adults cant spend 8 hours a day on video games because they will get fired from their job.
Really? Because nobody has ever asked me. Has anyone asked you what you'd like to play? Has anyone on this forum ever been asked by a developer what they'd want to play? The only place I've heard of developers asking the player base what they'd like to see in their game is EverQuest Next, but then they go and completely ignore what the player base asked for and do what they had planned anyway. So obviously they're not really asking what people want to play at all; or rather, they are, but they'll still do whatever they want to do regardless.
And what is it they want to do? Another WoW clone? Every MMO released in the past ten years has been a WoW clone, because obviously that's what people want. Isn't it? Then why have they done so poorly, or even crashed and burned into F2P? Perhaps it's not want people want after all, but hey, the developers don't care because 'market research' says that WoW is the biggest grossing MMO in history, so it must be what people want. Right?
When I have only an hour to spare, I don't start watching a three hour movie. Just sayin'.
Well, they paid $15 to see the movie just like you did, so they should be able to see it in 1 hour instead of 3 hours because they paid the same amount for it as you...
Obviously i'm being sarcastic. To the guy trying to make the already debunked "adults dont have 8 hours a day" argument. I call ultra bullshit. Im an adult with a 40 hour a week job, i have plenty of other hobbies, i have zero trouble spending 8 hours on a game. Hell i just did it with BG2:EE on thursday after i got off work. The difference is we dont have time to do that EVERY DAY, like some kid who gets home from school.
That doesnt mean that they should make all the content faceroll easy and super quick to accomodate YOU because you're jealous of some kid without a job. Thats part of being a kid and not having responsibilities. What we deal with is the reality of being an adult. You have to make choices as to what you want to be your hobbies. If you like to snowboard, work on cars, play video games, and construct ships in a bottle, then you either pick a couple, or you do all of them and accept the fact that you wont be able to invest as much time in each as you'd like.
I dont want someone cheapening the experience just to accomodate some whine-o's who aren't willing to accept the fact that it might take them 3 weeks to do something the "punk kid" will accomplish in 3 days.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
The whole attitude has changed. Back when I started MMORPGs, people would frequently go "afk" (know what that is?) for many reasons. Today, if a player goes "afk", they find themselves kicked form the group. Heck, spend time typing in chat and many times you're told to shut and play.
Listen. If *you* do not have the TIME to play a game, ANY game, don't play it. Don't expect a whole genre to change to accommodate you. Actually, seeing what MMOs have become, it is totally within your power to expect this. I sit down to play a video because I have the time to do so.
"I don't have time to play the game. I have a life, a wife/husband, a mistress/lover, a bunch of kids, 6 dogs, 10 cats, 12 bunnies, a job, a career, I volunteer, am active in the peace corps, Doctors without borders, and anything else I can find to fill my life." Well... Is it the game's fault you do not have the time?
The other side to this statement is the "implied" "YOU don't have a life." slam. News flash, I just happen to make better use of my time. Learn how to do this, and you will be much better off.
Again, if you do not have TIME for a video game in your busy life, DO NOT PLAY THEM! You made your decisions, now live with it. I can not put it any simpler.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
The world doesn't revolve around you. I know that comes as somewhat of a shock but it's true. And no, nobody has ever asked me for an MMO but I've been asked for other things. It happens all the time.
And like it or not, F2P is more successful and profitable than P2P. That's also reality. Sorry you're so unhappy with reality.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Really? Then why didn't they make them F2P to begin with? I mean, if these F2P games are so successful, why did it take so long for Rift, The Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and the many others that switched from P2P to F2P, to switch over? I'll tell you why. Guaranteed income. See, developers don't want to make a free game with the hope that people will buy things, they make games that guarantee return on investment.
But hey, I don't want to burst your bubble, you have so many insightful comments about market research and profit margins, solo play and group play, but never have anything to back them up. Keep on trying though, some people are easily suckered in by what passes as 'intelligent arguments'.
Most games are coming out F2P today. Some titles that were begun before the F2P era still went P2P because that's how they were built, but it became obvious that the best money was in F2P and they changed over as soon as they could. F2P is more profitable across the board and all the studies show that. All of the data has already been presented, I don't have to keep trotting it out (although I could quite easily). If there's anything you want to see supported, just ask.
Not that I think you can support any of the ideas that you claim though, where is any of *YOUR* evidence?
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
not my fight but what ever YOLO, Carpe Diem
players overall believe that f2p on release games have lower quality compared to p2p games. i play f2p games and i still think that is the case no suprises so far. this alone removes a portion of potential playerbase however this doesnt apply to games that convert from p2p when the conversion happens the only way is up since paying players know what they are playing and doesnt expect a sudden drop in quality and stop playing, sure the community might suffer from douchebag f2p players
Every product has a life cycle that is measured in customers, in games f2p should only serve as a method to extend it
when a game is free to play on release there is no method left to save it when the playerbase starts to drop and yes players wont stick around just because of the cash shop and expansions if the game play on release is dissapointing
I don't need to present evidence because I'm not trying to claim anything as fact. You, on the other hand, are doing exactly that, stating things as though you have some kind of insider knowledge that everyone else is ignorant to. Let's take a few examples, shall we?
"Very few people say they want old-school games. Therefore old-school games don't get made.".
"Your playstyle represents a miniscule niche..".
"Most people who play these games are soloers. They don't want to group.".
".. there are a lot more soloers than groupers, a lot more PvEers than PvPers..".
Where is your evidence to back up these apparent facts you're stating? Because you seem a little confused on your facts at times, such as:
"MMO developers do extensive market research.".
"You only get what the developers want to make and they're making games that appeal to the widest possible audience so they make the greatest amount of money.".
So which is it? Are they doing market research to find out what we want, or are they just making what they want to make and think will make the greatest amount of money? As in, yet another WoW clone. Would love to know where you're coming up with all this, or are you just trying to make assumption into a fact in an attempt to win an argument?
Tell that to Asheron's Call. I've been playing on and off for over 14 years and I rarely if ever group.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
First off... these old days of gaming you keep talking about sound horrible. That's probably why their gone. The cream rises my friend. If people actually liked that bullshit.. it would still be around.
The funniest thing to me is that I am the exact type of player you're talking about. I'm a super casual gamer, maybe 1 to 2 hours every other day if I'm lucky. But that's not the funny part.. the funny part is that it's YOU, the hardcore gamer get screwed over left and right, while casual gamers like me get all the rewards. The companies are catering to me, well... "us(casual)" gamers because there are more of us. We make the money and we support their games for much longer then the "hardcore" who get bored and move on after they have eaten up all of the content in two weeks. If you think I'm wrong just take a look around.
I'll continue to play games in my free time.. cause I love gaming. And I will continue to get my ass kissed by game companies who screw over people like you to make me happy... lol. That's the funny part. I'm living amazingly well with tons of games to play with my based on my decisions in life. You are the one who sounds all butt-hurt and angry lol, not me.
www.gamemela.com
Gonna continue reading, but I liked what I saw on the first page about how a solo player affects other players ultimately.
If you can't see how someone playing solo affects others play styles, a good game to try would be FFXIV, as there are multiplayer activities but they're useless due to the fact that the game is solo driven.
If a majority of people played solo, and there are activities that designed group play and reward the player more, then there is a problem if finding people to group with becomes a hassle.
On the other hand, in a game like ffxi, where if you were once required to do much of everything in a group, there aren't shortages, its just a matter of how you go about getting a group and spending your time... gosh i could go on... forever on that... and how it shows how truly low the majority people comprehension skills are, but I wont atm...
I was watching a show the other day on people obsessed with climbing mountains. They pay 10's of thousands of dollars to climb a peak like Mt Everest, risk their lives, often lose bits of fingers, toes, noses, ears.. for what? When they get to the top after a couple of days of hypothermia, hypoxia and extreme effort the get to spend 10 minutes or so at the top of the death zone before coming back down. Quite a few die every year.
To me that sounds 'horrible', as the old days of gaming sound 'horrible' to you. The new days of gaming are horrible to me as well. To me it feels like the equivalent of fishing in a fish farm. Everyone gets the rare gear (big fish), no need to explore (head out to sea), you can often just buy your gear with real life money (get the guy at the fish farm to catch, gut and bag it for you) so you can show it off.
The best game I ever played was EQ 1 in the early days of 1999 - 2000, before portals and corpse summons and all the 'ease of play' was introduced by Sony. This was a game where you actually felt like you were in a living breathing very dangerous world.
You could be corpse camped by creatures, your own level or even lower could obliterate you, you could have your gear looted, you could go to the plane of hate and your entire 30 man raid could wipe and be unable to recover your gear without a lot of help. If you couldn't recover it within a week it would disappear. There were creatures that spawned only once a day (Lodizal), once a week (dragons), or only once per server (sleeper) and never spawned again . It took me over a year to get my class weapon, something that was an actual acheivement. It was fantastic.
Whens the last time you played a game and did a boss and you got sweaty palms and an irregular heartbeat lol. Not any more.
As for the devs kissing your ass, they're not kissing your ass. They're exploiting the law of averages as they apply to modern day gaming - that law says "you can create an interesting, intellectually challenging bunch of awards and accolades winning game and sell it to the cream of humanity or create a easy, instantly gratifying, sex and violence filled load of garbage and get x times more customers selling it to the average moron who is much more numerous".
Sad but true fact.
First of all I love solo play when questing, if you get too many people questing together it just gets to be a pain especially when you wander too far and someone comes running back at you when they have aggro'd a crap load of mobs. In my opinion it is the only way to go when questing. On to dungeons, well I love dungeons and raids but you obviously need more than one person to do these. Well not entirely true some games you can but its been awhile since I have played any of those. For the most part I have stuck to WOW and that's what I am basing most of this on.
Love dungeons and raids, but hate when people are unwilling to listen when they don't know the fights. PVP is another animal altogether. I love group PVP. I usually play a caster of some sort so I stay behind the melee and burn down other players in a 5v5 or more situation. I'm not as good when its 3v3, I usually get targeted pretty early. So i guess the point I am trying to make is that its not really black and white for me. I have many pros and cons for both and don't really like one side over the other in an overall point of view.
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Yeah well I'm not exactly a solo nazi myself. I was in a raiding guild on Firiona Vie which I enjoyed. Nothing quite like spending 20 hours crawling through a dungeon when even the blue cons (lower level monsters) can wipe out our group with out a competent team
Sitting in a dungeon, such as the Temple of Srra (sp) waiting for a Rhag (sp) to spawn (a week spawn if I recall), the rush as your guild trying to form up and take him down first before someone else came in and he was down for a week. The excitement of the guild boss looting the corpses, calling out the 10 or so high end binding drops, the tension of whether, this time you might be awarded the item, or the disappointment that you weren't. But also the satisfaction that regardless that loot just made us as a whole more powerful.
Takiing on a boss that could rip you apart, all 80 of you, if the tank drops, or an healer misses a rotation, or an enchanter fails to mezz something and it runs off to train the entire dungeon down apon you (usually speed logging out of healers for the eventual resses as everyone dies).
At the same time its fun to be a powerful class, like an enchanter that can charm an raid mob big enough to wipe out 20 players after giving him haste and shield and stuff. Then using him wipe an entire zone of creatures that you'd usually need a raid for. At any moment our charm could break, instant death and an aweful task of attempting to get your body back naked.
I used to charm a little dwarf on the docks in Iceclad and he'd solo Lodizal, a rare mob that usually required tanks, healers, dps.
Or just running around, invising and sneakiing deep into the bowles of a high level dungeon, killoing a boss, looting him and the exciting looting of his body.
That sort of soloing was extremely difficult, more difficult than grouping and more often than not resulting in multiple deaths but it gave me pleasure to do things that some groups would fail at.
I think that both solo (difficult, highly difficult to almost impossible) should also be a part of hard group content. As I have stated often, a group of 6 people running a dungeon that one person can also run, will usually get 6 times or more of the loot that one person gets, 6 times faster. So the balance is still maintained.
I good developer, with good mechanics can put in place mechanics that can satisify all its customers and customers preferred styles. Soloing should never be as easy as grouping but ti shoudl definitel be viable. I many cases I'd rather spend 6 months to get my uber staff of Awesomeness, even if a group of 6, 10, 15 or 20 could get one in a few hours.
agreed
I prefer solo, too.
But instanced group events are good, too, in moderation.
Otherwise, I can't stand the MOBA mentality that's overtaken MMOs.
Disagree.
Because for the average worker who doesn't have the luxury of having a computer at work, he won't even have 8hrs in a day to play even if he wanted too.
Breaking the numbers down for the part-time workers and single kids in college:
Sleep: 6-8hrs a night/day.
Commute time one way: 10mins to 1:30hrs.
Work: 8hrs-12hrs a day/night for 4-7 days a week.
At the minimum 14hrs and 20min of time was eliminated just to sleep, get to work and work.
There isn't even 8hrs left in the day.
Now if you meant you're a single part-time worker without kids or kid in college (i.e., no family responsibilities), say so. The rest of the work force doesn't have the luxury of even having 8hrs a day to play a game...at all.
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