With freedom comes responsibility. There is an unfortunate lack of responsibility (asshats) on the internet. This means we all suffer because freedom has to be restricted in some manner to keep the asshats in check.
Well said.
Whenever an online community extends beyond a couple hundred, there becomes less and less regard for those outside one's immediate circle. Anonimity amplifies that. What brings it all to an explosive head is that the Easily Offended and the Easily Amused actively seek each other out, the former to have something to complain about and the latter to get a rise out of someone with minimal effort. The more freedom of action a game offers, the more common the encounters between these two. This tends to have a negative impact on everyone in the community. Well, except the Easily Amused. They're laughing their asses off in vent or guild chat.
Sorry, but that's absurd.
Are we so afraid of each other already? Fear is a bad council! We don't cut freedom of speech just because some people are irresponsible asshats! So why should we cut freedom of gameplay for it? People who are asshats will ALWAYS practice asshattery, no matter if you open up roles and classes or not. That has zilch to do with the question at hand.
Some people ARE asshats. Period. Opening all roles to all classes or not won't change their asshattery. Not at all.
Whether it's absurd or not, that is what has historically happened in the past 15 years or so of MMOs.
As to this having "zilch to do with the question at hand" here's the question from the OP again:
"By that token, should a player be able to, say, walk up to a guard in a friendly city and start punching them in the face (or using real skills)? Of course, if the player did this, something bad would happen, either physically or legally, but should it be an option? Would this increase immersion, or break it? Why?"
I don't see how it's anything but compeltely relevant.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
With freedom comes responsibility. There is an unfortunate lack of responsibility (asshats) on the internet. This means we all suffer because freedom has to be restricted in some manner to keep the asshats in check.
Well said.
Whenever an online community extends beyond a couple hundred, there becomes less and less regard for those outside one's immediate circle. Anonimity amplifies that. What brings it all to an explosive head is that the Easily Offended and the Easily Amused actively seek each other out, the former to have something to complain about and the latter to get a rise out of someone with minimal effort. The more freedom of action a game offers, the more common the encounters between these two. This tends to have a negative impact on everyone in the community. Well, except the Easily Amused. They're laughing their asses off in vent or guild chat.
Sorry, but that's absurd.
Are we so afraid of each other already? Fear is a bad council! We don't cut freedom of speech just because some people are irresponsible asshats! So why should we cut freedom of gameplay for it? People who are asshats will ALWAYS practice asshattery, no matter if you open up roles and classes or not. That has zilch to do with the question at hand.
Some people ARE asshats. Period. Opening all roles to all classes or not won't change their asshattery. Not at all.
Loktofeit did not quote me fully, I did add that if it doesn't matter to the lore of the game, there should be no restrictions.
My bad, I see it now. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
With freedom comes responsibility. There is an unfortunate lack of responsibility (asshats) on the internet. This means we all suffer because freedom has to be restricted in some manner to keep the asshats in check.
Well said.
Whenever an online community extends beyond a couple hundred, there becomes less and less regard for those outside one's immediate circle. Anonimity amplifies that. What brings it all to an explosive head is that the Easily Offended and the Easily Amused actively seek each other out, the former to have something to complain about and the latter to get a rise out of someone with minimal effort. The more freedom of action a game offers, the more common the encounters between these two. This tends to have a negative impact on everyone in the community. Well, except the Easily Amused. They're laughing their asses off in vent or guild chat.
Sorry, but that's absurd.
Are we so afraid of each other already? Fear is a bad council! We don't cut freedom of speech just because some people are irresponsible asshats! So why should we cut freedom of gameplay for it? People who are asshats will ALWAYS practice asshattery, no matter if you open up roles and classes or not. That has zilch to do with the question at hand.
Some people ARE asshats. Period. Opening all roles to all classes or not won't change their asshattery. Not at all.
Unfortunately, humans in general tend to be ruled by fear and a need to belong to some group so that they can practice the 'us versus them' mantra. But yeah, people who want to be asshats will always try to be asshats, freedom or not. It's just that sometimes, to some people, giving up some of that freedom to make asshattery more difficult ends up being worth the sacrifice. I don't see what that has to do with roles and classes though. A 100 foot tall giant who happens to be a stealthing rogue or a tiny brownie who happens to be a warrior tank is not asshattery to me... it's just plain silly. A character named F*ckt*rd on the other hand, reeks of someone being an asshat.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Let's be clear about one thing first: we are talking about COMPUTER GAMES here. We talk about fictional worlds, worlds which only exist in our imagination.
It is important to highlight that, because somehow it seems like in the famous wizards apprentice, the fabrications are threatning to overtake the fabricators.
If I can dream it, it is real.
If I can believe it, it is real.
If I can explain the background of it, it is real.
It may not make sense to YOU. But when we let THAT govern our fantasies... we die in a very profound way. Computer games are dreams of humans, made visual and manifest in form and shape. Are dreams not limitless? Is the horizon of fantasy and imagination not endless? The most famous tale about human fantasy, Michael Ende's novel was called "Neverending Story", because Fantasia has no limits.
We live in a grey, meaningless world of stockholders and beancounters, of suit-men and Norms. And now our dreams and fantasies should be counted, measured and limited too? NO. I say NO and passionately NO! I have my own fantasy dreams. They may not be yours, but as less as *I* tell you what you should fantasize about, so I won't stand you telling me! And to hell with Canon! Canon is just a fundament, not a Procrustes Bed! Canon is the beginning of things. That any IP does not TELL of "weird character x" doesn't mean it does not EXIST!
Reality is so infinitely diverse, bizarre, unforseeable and full of exceptions, exotics and weirdness, why should fantasy be streamlined down to some narrow, grey suited bean counters vision? It is FANTASY, it doesn't HAVE to make sense to YOU, it just has to make sense to ME, why my Darkelf joined the Paladins, why my Bothan became a Jedi or why my Sylvani becomes an Engeneer. Make him a social outcast, make levelling more difficult if you must, but do not set your personal feelings are rules over what another person's dream should be!
A person who rolls a Darkelf Paladin usually thought something about it, which is likely more than you can say about the many Dwarf Warriors or Highelf Rangers who just blindly follow some dumb stereotype. The sole limits are technicalities, like a Droid can't be a Jedi, since he has no Force. But even these technicalities are very rare. I mean, the Green Lantern Corp has a PLANET as member. And it can't "technically" wear a ring on the finger. To those with imagination EVERYTHING is possible.
I'm sorry but may I ask what client you're using to connect to your dreams? I've tried creating a socket which connected to "Gobla.getDreams()" on all possible ports but it just gave me lots of weird error messages on how "Gobla.getDreams()" wasn't a valid parameter.
Also the games I play do have to make sense to me. I'm paying for them. You can make your Wookie Jedi the moment you pay me a single buck every time I see your Wookie Jedi as compensation for breaking my immersion.
See FANTASY (my keyboard has caps-lock too! How awesome is that?) doesn't refer to your fantasies which, if they're anything like mine (AKA filled with naked Twi'Lek with whips calling me a naughty boy), is probably a good thing. They refer to the fantasy of whatever author made that world. LotRO isn't about your fantasy, it's about Tolkien's fantasy.
I'm not paying 15 bucks/month to play your fantasy. If you want to play your fantasy then there's plenty of single-player games in which you can do so. I'm paying 15 bucks/month to play the fantasy of whatever author invented that gameworld.
See, MMOs aren't about you. Nor are they about me. They're about communities. And communities need rules. They need restrictions. They need order. Designing an MMO from the perspective of a single player and how it should be logical for a single player to pick a Wookie Jedi is the wrong way to go. MMOs should be designed from a Massively Multiplayer perspective (hint: that's where the MM comes from). And how it isn't logical for masses of players to pick Wookie Jedi.
You're not playing a single player game that's about your choices, your story and your fantasy. Your playing a MMO which is about our choices, our story and our fantasy. And for us to share our experiences, our choices, our stories and our fantasies there's going to be some rules. There's going to be some restrictions.
If you want freedom then get Oblivion, open the construction set and get cracking. Endless freedom there.
But if you're ready to work together and share your stories then be prepared to make some sacrfices. Be ready to accept that the end result won't be by your rules.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
Let's be clear about one thing first: we are talking about COMPUTER GAMES here. We talk about fictional worlds, worlds which only exist in our imagination.
It is important to highlight that, because somehow it seems like in the famous wizards apprentice, the fabrications are threatning to overtake the fabricators.
If I can dream it, it is real.
If I can believe it, it is real.
If I can explain the background of it, it is real.
It may not make sense to YOU. But when we let THAT govern our fantasies... we die in a very profound way. Computer games are dreams of humans, made visual and manifest in form and shape. Are dreams not limitless? Is the horizon of fantasy and imagination not endless? The most famous tale about human fantasy, Michael Ende's novel was called "Neverending Story", because Fantasia has no limits.
We live in a grey, meaningless world of stockholders and beancounters, of suit-men and Norms. And now our dreams and fantasies should be counted, measured and limited too? NO. I say NO and passionately NO! I have my own fantasy dreams. They may not be yours, but as less as *I* tell you what you should fantasize about, so I won't stand you telling me! And to hell with Canon! Canon is just a fundament, not a Procrustes Bed! Canon is the beginning of things. That any IP does not TELL of "weird character x" doesn't mean it does not EXIST!
Reality is so infinitely diverse, bizarre, unforseeable and full of exceptions, exotics and weirdness, why should fantasy be streamlined down to some narrow, grey suited bean counters vision? It is FANTASY, it doesn't HAVE to make sense to YOU, it just has to make sense to ME, why my Darkelf joined the Paladins, why my Bothan became a Jedi or why my Sylvani becomes an Engeneer. Make him a social outcast, make levelling more difficult if you must, but do not set your personal feelings are rules over what another person's dream should be!
A person who rolls a Darkelf Paladin usually thought something about it, which is likely more than you can say about the many Dwarf Warriors or Highelf Rangers who just blindly follow some dumb stereotype. The sole limits are technicalities, like a Droid can't be a Jedi, since he has no Force. But even these technicalities are very rare. I mean, the Green Lantern Corp has a PLANET as member. And it can't "technically" wear a ring on the finger. To those with imagination EVERYTHING is possible.
I'm sorry but may I ask what client you're using to connect to your dreams? I've tried creating a socket which connected to "Gobla.getDreams()" on all possible ports but it just gave me lots of weird error messages on how "Gobla.getDreams()" wasn't a valid parameter.
Also the games I play do have to make sense to me. I'm paying for them. You can make your Wookie Jedi the moment you pay me a single buck every time I see your Wookie Jedi as compensation for breaking my immersion.
See FANTASY (my keyboard has caps-lock too! How awesome is that?) doesn't refer to your fantasies which, if they're anything like mine (AKA filled with naked Twi'Lek with whips calling me a naughty boy), is probably a good thing. They refer to the fantasy of whatever author made that world. LotRO isn't about your fantasy, it's about Tolkien's fantasy.
I'm not paying 15 bucks/month to play your fantasy. If you want to play your fantasy then there's plenty of single-player games in which you can do so. I'm paying 15 bucks/month to play the fantasy of whatever author invented that gameworld.
See, MMOs aren't about you. Nor are they about me. They're about communities. And communities need rules. They need restrictions. They need order. Designing an MMO from the perspective of a single player and how it should be logical for a single player to pick a Wookie Jedi is the wrong way to go. MMOs should be designed from a Massively Multiplayer perspective (hint: that's where the MM comes from). And how it isn't logical for masses of players to pick Wookie Jedi.
You're not playing a single player game that's about your choices, your story and your fantasy. Your playing a MMO which is about our choices, our story and our fantasy. And for us to share our experiences, our choices, our stories and our fantasies there's going to be some rules. There's going to be some restrictions.
If you want freedom then get Oblivion, open the construction set and get cracking. Endless freedom there.
But if you're ready to work together and share your stories then be prepared to make some sacrfices. Be ready to accept that the end result won't be by your rules.
All I can say to this is... booyah!
As a consumer you have one right and only one right, the freedom either buy the game and play it, or not.
Games will be designed to the creator's preference and there some perfectly valid reasons both from a technical as well as a lore perspective and therefore some MMO's will have restrictions on classes and races.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Let's be clear about one thing first: we are talking about COMPUTER GAMES here. We talk about fictional worlds, worlds which only exist in our imagination.
It is important to highlight that, because somehow it seems like in the famous wizards apprentice, the fabrications are threatning to overtake the fabricators.
If I can dream it, it is real.
If I can believe it, it is real.
If I can explain the background of it, it is real.
It may not make sense to YOU. But when we let THAT govern our fantasies... we die in a very profound way. Computer games are dreams of humans, made visual and manifest in form and shape. Are dreams not limitless? Is the horizon of fantasy and imagination not endless? The most famous tale about human fantasy, Michael Ende's novel was called "Neverending Story", because Fantasia has no limits.
We live in a grey, meaningless world of stockholders and beancounters, of suit-men and Norms. And now our dreams and fantasies should be counted, measured and limited too? NO. I say NO and passionately NO! I have my own fantasy dreams. They may not be yours, but as less as *I* tell you what you should fantasize about, so I won't stand you telling me! And to hell with Canon! Canon is just a fundament, not a Procrustes Bed! Canon is the beginning of things. That any IP does not TELL of "weird character x" doesn't mean it does not EXIST!
Reality is so infinitely diverse, bizarre, unforseeable and full of exceptions, exotics and weirdness, why should fantasy be streamlined down to some narrow, grey suited bean counters vision? It is FANTASY, it doesn't HAVE to make sense to YOU, it just has to make sense to ME, why my Darkelf joined the Paladins, why my Bothan became a Jedi or why my Sylvani becomes an Engeneer. Make him a social outcast, make levelling more difficult if you must, but do not set your personal feelings are rules over what another person's dream should be!
A person who rolls a Darkelf Paladin usually thought something about it, which is likely more than you can say about the many Dwarf Warriors or Highelf Rangers who just blindly follow some dumb stereotype. The sole limits are technicalities, like a Droid can't be a Jedi, since he has no Force. But even these technicalities are very rare. I mean, the Green Lantern Corp has a PLANET as member. And it can't "technically" wear a ring on the finger. To those with imagination EVERYTHING is possible.
I'm sorry but may I ask what client you're using to connect to your dreams? I've tried creating a socket which connected to "Gobla.getDreams()" on all possible ports but it just gave me lots of weird error messages on how "Gobla.getDreams()" wasn't a valid parameter.
Also the games I play do have to make sense to me. I'm paying for them. You can make your Wookie Jedi the moment you pay me a single buck every time I see your Wookie Jedi as compensation for breaking my immersion.
See FANTASY (my keyboard has caps-lock too! How awesome is that?) doesn't refer to your fantasies which, if they're anything like mine (AKA filled with naked Twi'Lek with whips calling me a naughty boy), is probably a good thing. They refer to the fantasy of whatever author made that world. LotRO isn't about your fantasy, it's about Tolkien's fantasy.
I'm not paying 15 bucks/month to play your fantasy. If you want to play your fantasy then there's plenty of single-player games in which you can do so. I'm paying 15 bucks/month to play the fantasy of whatever author invented that gameworld.
See, MMOs aren't about you. Nor are they about me. They're about communities. And communities need rules. They need restrictions. They need order. Designing an MMO from the perspective of a single player and how it should be logical for a single player to pick a Wookie Jedi is the wrong way to go. MMOs should be designed from a Massively Multiplayer perspective (hint: that's where the MM comes from). And how it isn't logical for masses of players to pick Wookie Jedi.
You're not playing a single player game that's about your choices, your story and your fantasy. Your playing a MMO which is about our choices, our story and our fantasy. And for us to share our experiences, our choices, our stories and our fantasies there's going to be some rules. There's going to be some restrictions.
If you want freedom then get Oblivion, open the construction set and get cracking. Endless freedom there.
But if you're ready to work together and share your stories then be prepared to make some sacrfices. Be ready to accept that the end result won't be by your rules.
Which part of the Rorschach quote under my icon did you not get?
None of your arguments has any meaning for me. All you so lengthy say can be contrated to one sentence: You want everyone to play by YOUR rules. And sorry, to that the answer still is:
NO.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Let's be clear about one thing first: we are talking about COMPUTER GAMES here. We talk about fictional worlds, worlds which only exist in our imagination.
It is important to highlight that, because somehow it seems like in the famous wizards apprentice, the fabrications are threatning to overtake the fabricators.
If I can dream it, it is real.
If I can believe it, it is real.
If I can explain the background of it, it is real.
It may not make sense to YOU. But when we let THAT govern our fantasies... we die in a very profound way. Computer games are dreams of humans, made visual and manifest in form and shape. Are dreams not limitless? Is the horizon of fantasy and imagination not endless? The most famous tale about human fantasy, Michael Ende's novel was called "Neverending Story", because Fantasia has no limits.
We live in a grey, meaningless world of stockholders and beancounters, of suit-men and Norms. And now our dreams and fantasies should be counted, measured and limited too? NO. I say NO and passionately NO! I have my own fantasy dreams. They may not be yours, but as less as *I* tell you what you should fantasize about, so I won't stand you telling me! And to hell with Canon! Canon is just a fundament, not a Procrustes Bed! Canon is the beginning of things. That any IP does not TELL of "weird character x" doesn't mean it does not EXIST!
Reality is so infinitely diverse, bizarre, unforseeable and full of exceptions, exotics and weirdness, why should fantasy be streamlined down to some narrow, grey suited bean counters vision? It is FANTASY, it doesn't HAVE to make sense to YOU, it just has to make sense to ME, why my Darkelf joined the Paladins, why my Bothan became a Jedi or why my Sylvani becomes an Engeneer. Make him a social outcast, make levelling more difficult if you must, but do not set your personal feelings are rules over what another person's dream should be!
A person who rolls a Darkelf Paladin usually thought something about it, which is likely more than you can say about the many Dwarf Warriors or Highelf Rangers who just blindly follow some dumb stereotype. The sole limits are technicalities, like a Droid can't be a Jedi, since he has no Force. But even these technicalities are very rare. I mean, the Green Lantern Corp has a PLANET as member. And it can't "technically" wear a ring on the finger. To those with imagination EVERYTHING is possible.
I'm sorry but may I ask what client you're using to connect to your dreams? I've tried creating a socket which connected to "Gobla.getDreams()" on all possible ports but it just gave me lots of weird error messages on how "Gobla.getDreams()" wasn't a valid parameter.
Also the games I play do have to make sense to me. I'm paying for them. You can make your Wookie Jedi the moment you pay me a single buck every time I see your Wookie Jedi as compensation for breaking my immersion.
See FANTASY (my keyboard has caps-lock too! How awesome is that?) doesn't refer to your fantasies which, if they're anything like mine (AKA filled with naked Twi'Lek with whips calling me a naughty boy), is probably a good thing. They refer to the fantasy of whatever author made that world. LotRO isn't about your fantasy, it's about Tolkien's fantasy.
I'm not paying 15 bucks/month to play your fantasy. If you want to play your fantasy then there's plenty of single-player games in which you can do so. I'm paying 15 bucks/month to play the fantasy of whatever author invented that gameworld.
See, MMOs aren't about you. Nor are they about me. They're about communities. And communities need rules. They need restrictions. They need order. Designing an MMO from the perspective of a single player and how it should be logical for a single player to pick a Wookie Jedi is the wrong way to go. MMOs should be designed from a Massively Multiplayer perspective (hint: that's where the MM comes from). And how it isn't logical for masses of players to pick Wookie Jedi.
You're not playing a single player game that's about your choices, your story and your fantasy. Your playing a MMO which is about our choices, our story and our fantasy. And for us to share our experiences, our choices, our stories and our fantasies there's going to be some rules. There's going to be some restrictions.
If you want freedom then get Oblivion, open the construction set and get cracking. Endless freedom there.
But if you're ready to work together and share your stories then be prepared to make some sacrfices. Be ready to accept that the end result won't be by your rules.
All I can say to this is... booyah!
As a consumer you have one right and only one right, the freedom either buy the game and play it, or not.
Games will be designed to the creator's preference and there some perfectly valid reasons both from a technical as well as a lore perspective and therefore some MMO's will have restrictions on classes and races.
Those are probably the ones I'll enjoy the most.
Yes. The 10,000th grumpy Dwarf, the 1 millionth ethereal Elf, the 1000th treacherous Darkelf... If that still is enough for you, fine. Just accept some are now BORED by the endless repetition of stereotypes from 1950 fantasy novels.
BORED!
You are like a pool of fish who tells the bird that flying is obscene.
Diversity is a bonus, not a threat. In RL as in fantasy. Some Darkelfs are good. In the words of Ian MacKellen: "Get over it."
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Which part of the Rorschach quote under my icon did you not get?
None of your arguments has any meaning for me. All you so lengthy say can be contrated to one sentence: You want everyone to play by YOUR rules. And sorry, to that the answer still is:
NO.
Then go a single player game until you're ready to compromise.........
I don't want everyone to play by my rules. I want everyone to play by a common set of rules. And for those rules to make sense to everyone they have to be applicable to not just individual players but also groups of players. If a single player is allowed to do certain things then the game should still make sense if entire groups of players do that certain thing.
The common set of rules should be designed not from a single player perspective but from a massively multiplayer perspective. It should be a balance of personal freedom and community. Each player sacrifices some of his or her freedom and the community sacrifices some of it's coherance and unity in order to achieve a balance in which everyone can enjoy the game.
If players are unwilling to sacrifice their freedom then they should accept that they're not going to be part of a community and a shared game world.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
Which part of the Rorschach quote under my icon did you not get?
None of your arguments has any meaning for me. All you so lengthy say can be contrated to one sentence: You want everyone to play by YOUR rules. And sorry, to that the answer still is:
NO.
Then go a single player game until you're ready to compromise.........
I don't want everyone to play by my rules. I want everyone to play by a common set of rules. And for those rules to make sense to everyone they have to be applicable to not just individual players but also groups of players. If a single player is allowed to do certain things then the game should still make sense if entire groups of players do that certain thing.
The common set of rules should be designed not from a single player perspective but from a massively multiplayer perspective. It should be a balance of personal freedom and community. Each player sacrifices some of his or her freedom and the community sacrifices some of it's coherance and unity in order to achieve a balance in which everyone can enjoy the game.
If players are unwilling to sacrifice their freedom then they should accept that they're not going to be part of a community and a shared game world.
You can reformulate this a 100 times. It still only means you want you personal, individual taste to dictate what others should be able to chose.
Compromise is only needed where spheres overlap. Like in terms of gameplay. Or how we PVP. Or how classes are balanced. These spheres overlap and yes THERE compromise is needed in MMOs.
The question of what race can be what class is a mere cosmetic question, and you have as less right to dictate that to others as you don't have the right to tell me what clothes to wear or how I cut my hair!
You try to reach into spheres where you have nothing to say, because my cosmetic race decisions affect you NOT. Unlike gameplay rules. And don't even GET to me with "oh but I feel offended by seeing Paladin Darkelfs". DO NOT open this pandoras box with me! Or it will get nasty. I mean this friendly. Yet.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
None of your arguments has any meaning for me. All you so lengthy say can be contrated to one sentence: You want everyone to play by YOUR rules. And sorry, to that the answer still is:
NO.
I think what he was saying was that if you play online with others, then your rules aren't superior to others, you have to play by rules by others and worlds that are made not by you but based upon other people's works and visions, namely the visions of creators like Tolkien and Lucas and translated by the hands and visions of the dev teams.
If that's not something that you can handle, that your dreams and rules are equal to that of other players and not above theirs, and subservient to that of authors and devs in which worlds you walk in, then there's always the route of singleplayer games and editor tools that can provide you a world where your rules are supreme and unchallenged.
At least that's what his words sounded to me.
Which made sense.
And to OP's referring to freedom and realism: total freedom is total anarchy. As soon as you have a group of people together, your personal freedom has to be limited, just like that of others. A neighbour can't just be free to do whatever he likes, if one those entitled freedoms would be to grab his neighbout's wife he desires and take her against her will because that means that his freedom to do whatever he likes would diminish the freedom of his neighbours to be free to do what they like. That's why civilisations and societies have rules: someone's personal freedoms have to be sacrificed for a part to improve the freedoms of everyone collectively, else a society can't work and you'd have anarchy if everyone would follow their own interpretation of their entitlement of personal, individual freedom.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yes. The 10,000th grumpy Dwarf, the 1 millionth ethereal Elf, the 1000th treacherous Darkelf... If that still is enough for you, fine. Just accept some are now BORED by the endless repetition of stereotypes from 1950 fantasy novels.
BORED!
You are like a pool of fish who tells the bird that flying is obscene.
Diversity is a bonus, not a threat. In RL as in fantasy. Some Darkelfs are good. In the words of Ian MacKellen: "Get over it."
And it's better to have 3.333 grumpy dwarfs, 3.333 ethereal dwarfs, 3.333 treacherous dwarfs, 333.333 grumpy elves, 333.333 ethereal elves, 333.333 treacherous elves, 333 grumpy dark elves, 333 ethereal dark elves and 333 treacherous dark elves?
How is that less boring? With every race being exactly the same except for their skin color? Sure, it's very multicultural and accepting........
But frankly I don't play games to promote equality, gay marriage and gender rights. And even if I did I wouldn't want a game where everyone is the same. I'd want extremes so people are confronted with differences.
And yes, I'd like my fish to tell birds that flying is obscene. Because that's what fish are, swimmers not flyers. And I don't blame those fish seeing the huge amount of flyers that eat them. I'd be pissed too if my newborn children where eaten by some crazy flying animal, I wouldn't go preaching about how it's okay and just the cycle of life and yadayadayada. I'd try to gut that effing flyer instead of becoming friends with her and trying to see if it's possible for us to have new kids to replace the old ones that SHE ATE.
As far as fantasy goes I don't want too much diversity. I'd prefer my paladins to be unconditionally hating the undead instead of trying to negotiate peace treaties. I think a fantasy world embracing diversity would be awfully boring and dull. Instead of bashing dragons because they're dragons and probably have lots of gold we'd be having friendly conversations instead? Yeah..... that sounds great......
When I see a goblin I want to kill that goblin. I don't want to spend five days observing said goblin to see if he's really evil and deserves to be killed because he just might be one of the good guys. I want my goblins to be evil greedy bastards. I want to kill goblins because they're goblins, no other reason needed.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
None of your arguments has any meaning for me. All you so lengthy say can be contrated to one sentence: You want everyone to play by YOUR rules. And sorry, to that the answer still is:
NO.
I think what he was saying was that if you play online with others, then your rules aren't superior to others, you have to play by rules by others and worlds that are made not by you but based upon other people's works and visions, namely the visions of creators like Tolkien and Lucas and translated by the hands and visions of the dev teams.
If that's not something that you can handle, that your dreams and rules are equal to that of other players and not above theirs, and subservient to that of authors and devs in which worlds you walk in, then there's always the route of singleplayer games and editor tools that can provide you a world where your rules are supreme and unchallenged.
At least that's what his words sounded to me.
Which made sense.
Quoting myself again:
Compromise is only needed where spheres overlap. Like in terms of gameplay. Or how we PVP. Or how classes are balanced. These spheres overlap and yes THERE compromise is needed in MMOs.
The question of what race can be what class is a mere cosmetic question, and you have as less right to dictate that to others as you don't have the right to tell me what clothes to wear or how I cut my hair!
You try to reach into spheres where you have nothing to say, because my cosmetic race decisions affect you NOT. Unlike gameplay rules.
@gobla: And don't even GET to me with "oh but I feel offended by seeing Paladin Darkelfs". DO NOT open this pandoras box with me! Or it will get nasty. I mean this friendly.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
For me it boils down to two issues. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying the experience for others. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying well established lore within an IP. If it doesn't create problems in these two areas freedom is fine.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Which part of the Rorschach quote under my icon did you not get?
I glanced over to your icon expecting something different. I always get those two confused.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Compromise is only needed where spheres overlap. Like in terms of gameplay. Or how we PVP. Or how classes are balanced. These spheres overlap and yes THERE compromise is needed in MMOs.
The question of what race can be what class is a mere cosmetic question, and you have as less right to dictate that to others as you don't have the right to tell me what clothes to wear or how I cut my hair!
You try to reach into spheres where you have nothing to say, because my cosmetic race decisions affect you NOT. Unlike gameplay rules.
You'er missing the part where I said that any dreams or rules that you might have, they're still subservient to the rules and visions of the author's and dev team's works and visions. It's not something we can vote about because it's not a game that we are making, but even if we had the option to decide and vote upon it, then your idea for rules would still be just 1 vote of many.
If for example the choice would have been remove any class/race restrictions that exist in EQ, I would have voted against it where as you would probably have voted yes. Because to me, it'd add more immersion in that game if those class/race restrictions would exist, and more immersion = more fun.
So, you can dream all you like just like everyone else, but in the end we have to resort to go with the flow and go with the world an MMO company has created.
Admittedly, some might do that anyway but kicking and screaming all the way, like you seem wont to do
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
For me it boils down to two issues. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying the experience for others. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying well established lore with in an IP. If it doesn't create problems in these two areas freedom is fine.
NO IT IS NOT!
NO ONE has the right to dictate the fantasy of another. This entire argument to "you destroy my experience by making a Dwarf Mage or Darkelf Paladin" is nothing but a fashion dictatorship.
If we allow THAT argument... where will it end? Who will be so above things to say, this destroys the experience and this doesn't? No, if we open that logic, if we allow personal taste and fashion to be dictated by THIS, we spiral down to nothing but dictatorship.
No. Allow every "fashion". Period. There can be no compromise in the freedom to be who you want.
And this is the end of the debate for me. You who say otherwise just want everyone to follow your rules. That is nothing else but bullying people around. An elaborate and elegant form of bullying, maybe. I know, a lot of people can't stand diversity, they want to hammer everyone into stereotypes. They want a world where all Germans are dull, all Dutch sell Tulips and drive in caravans, where all Mexicans are illegial drug dealers, all French are coward chansong singers and all Americans are fat burger eaters. Maybe that sort of looking at reality gives your thinking structure. But it is absurd nonetheless.
So if reality is so diverse, why should imaginary races be stereotypical? Why should an Elf not wear a gun and throw hand grenades? Why should a Dwarf not decide never to drink alcohol?
You do not WANT diversity. You WANT things in the good old fashioned 1950 reality were all had its order and place. Well here is the news: welcome to the 21st century.
Your thinking makes no sense. And I will not waste more time trying to broaden the horizon of people who prefer to stay in their comfortable boxes. Enjoy it there. Just know that *I* will NOT live by YOUR rules and bend to YOUR stereotypes.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
For me it boils down to two issues. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying the experience for others. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying well established lore with in an IP. If it doesn't create problems in these two areas freedom is fine.
NO IT IS NOT!
NO ONE has the right to dictate the fantasy of another. This entire argument to "you destroy my experience by making a Dwarf Mage or Darkelf Paladin" is nothing but a fashion dictatorship.
If we allow THAT argument... where will it end? Who will be so above things to say, this destroys the experience and this doesn't? No, if we open that logic, if we allow personal taste and fashion to be dictated by THIS, we spiral down to nothing but dictatorship.
No. Allow every "fashion". Period. There can be no compromise in the freedom to be who you want.
And this is the end of the debate for me. You who say otherwise just want everyone to follow your rules. That is nothing else but bullying people around. An elaborate and elegant form of bullying, maybe. I know, a lot of people can't stand diversity, they want to hammer everyone into stereotypes. They want a world where all Germans are dull, all Dutch sell Tulips and drive in caravans, where all Mexicans are illegial drug dealers, all French are coward chansong singers and all Americans are fat burger eaters. Maybe that sort of looking at reality gives your thinking structure. But it is absurd nonetheless.
So if reality is so diverse, why should imaginary races be stereotypical? Why should an Elf not wear a gun and throw hand grenades? Why should a Dwarf not decide never to drink alcohol?
You do not WANT diversity. You WANT things in the good old fashioned 1950 reality were all had its order and place. Well here is the news: welcome to the 21st century.
Your thinking makes no sense. And I will not waste more time trying to broaden the horizon of people who prefer to stay in their comfortable boxes. Enjoy it there. Just know that *I* will NOT live by YOUR rules and bend to YOUR stereotypes.
Wow man, I don't even know where to begin with this. First when I talk about destroying the experience for others, I'm referring to griefing. Such as using mechanics in a way that is detrimental to anothers experience. Blocking them in a house with terminals is an example I've seen first hand in SWG.
Second when I say destroying lore, I'm referring to guidlines one should follow when using a pre-existing IP. If you can't create what you want within the confines of that IP's structure, you should either not use that IP, or dicth the things that do not fit.
This has nothing at all to do with anything you just said.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
@Elikal: I think you're mixing RL values and (personal?) situations and feelings too much in a discussion about a game, projecting RL situations and mindsets upon others in this discussion where it's nothing about those RL situations that you might refer to and probably be annoyed/hindered by.
You're saying constantly 'no compromise' and that's all fine and dandy, but you seem to attach that trait only to your vision and rules, and scornful and unwilling to accept that others might have their ideas and vision that conflict with yours.
In short, you're doing what you're accusing others of doing, namely imposing your ideas for rules as superior upon those of others.
At least, that's what it looks like in my opinion.
But your idea of freedom and immersion simply isn't mine or that of someone else, whose idea about those is different again from both ours.
Originally posted by Elikal
Your thinking makes no sense. And I will not waste more time trying to broaden the horizon of people who prefer to stay in their comfortable boxes. Enjoy it there. Just know that *I* will NOT live by YOUR rules and bend to YOUR stereotypes.
If you're playing a game that you didn't make but that is made by others, you simply have no choice, it's as simple as that. The only choice you have is either shrug about it and go with the vision and world that its dev team has created, or not play the game if you can't stomach the rules and vision with which an MMO team has created their MMORPG.
That's how it is when you enjoy the works of others, whether that be movies, the story in a book or a game.
So in the end it's your thinking that makes no sense. you can say that you won't live by "our" rules, but it isn't our rules or my ideas that are the ruleset within an MMO, but it's the ideas and rules of its developers. Protest all you like, but in the end we're just MMO gamers and players in that world.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I would argue that Freedom needs to be restricted, both in reality and in games.
Fundamental in the founding of civilization was rules and laws. Its purpose was to create stability, protecting the weak from the strong and also the strong from other strong people. Without rules and restrictions, ie Anarchy, the strong would quickly assume control and impose their own rules, benefitting themselves and opressing the weak. In effect, the freedom of anarchy breeds dictatorship in which an elite class bosses others around. The end result is that complete freedom without restrictions ends up being less free for most people than only limited freedom within a framework of restrictions.
A good example of my reasoning is found in Free for All PvP MMOs. Initially there is opportunistic chaos, but people start banding together, forming clans and alliances. They fight amongst eachother, and soon one group will emerge victorious. This group will sieze control of everything and no one else will be able to put up meaningful resistance. In the end your only choice is to join them or be pounded into the dirt. So while seemingly offering complete freedom, in the end you are only left with one choice.
I would argue that Freedom needs to be restricted, both in reality and in games.
Fundamental in the founding of civilization was rules and laws. Its purpose was to create stability, protecting the weak from the strong and also the strong from other strong people. Without rules and restrictions, ie Anarchy, the strong would quickly assume control and impose their own rules, benefitting themselves and opressing the weak. In effect, the freedom of anarchy breeds dictatorship in which an elite class bosses others around. The end result is that complete freedom without restrictions ends up being less free for most people than only limited freedom within a framework of restrictions.
A good example of my reasoning is found in Free for All PvP MMOs. Initially there is opportunistic chaos, but people start banding together, forming clans and alliances. They fight amongst eachother, and soon one group will emerge victorious. This group will sieze control of everything and no one else will be able to put up meaningful resistance. In the end your only choice is to join them or be pounded into the dirt. So while seemingly offering complete freedom, in the end you are only left with one choice.
Well said.
There's also some other freedoms to consider just in the MMO-space.
One that time and time again, people have already opted for:
The freedom to choose not to play that game. The complete freedom to read up on a product and make informed decisions. The freedom to make the personal determination what you want to put up with in a game. (Just how big and how fast was the population shift in UO when Trammel happened? And that they only achieved their peak playerbase years AFTER that had happened)
And most importantly:
The freedom to educate yourself to physically create your own competing/indie project if you don't like how things are going. This is always the hardest but still most true. Nothing is stopping anyone with an idea from learning how to make a game. It's not a fast, easy, convenient or cheap solution, which IMO, makes it the ideal solution.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
The freedom to educate yourself to physically create your own competing/indie project if you don't like how things are going. This is always the hardest but still most true. Nothing is stopping anyone with an idea from learning how to make a game. It's not a fast, easy, convenient or cheap solution, which IMO, makes it the ideal solution.
This is where pen and paper RPGs excel IMHO. Making your own computer game requires just way too much time, effort and money to be remotely realistic for most people... and at the end of the day, you'll most likely still find yourself limited by what can be done on a computer to begin with. Pen and paper requires less time and effort while providing more freedom. Only downside is finding people to play with. This is one area where MMOs offer a lot of freedom. I can log in at anytime I want while being completely naked. Don't try to do that with your pen and paper RPG buddies unless you're disturbingly good friends
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Gobla, as to the genetics issue, you are just making your own assumptions. The difference is that I assume these crazy differences like ogres who can't stand loud noises or whatever don't exist until the lore tells me they do. You seem to want them to exist, and so invent them, I suppose unless someone tells you they don't exist. Which one seems more logical to you? I tend to think assuming the absence of something until presented with evidence, not inventing an idea I like until someone tells me it isn't so. I've yet to see something where the author explicitly states: "All ogres refused to come to the towns because loud noises hurt their heads (or anything remotely similar)." So it sounds like you are the one making assumptions, not me. I assume things aren't until they are. That's not even an assumption. That's logical reasoning.
In any case, it's clear you're not going to be able to understand the point, because I have said it, and Elikal has said it, and others have said it. Restrictions don't make a game more realistic. Making a game world more restrictive than reality is just as likely to hamper someone's suspension of disbelief as having something unusual. The difference is that one is more like reality, and one is less. That's the point. I wasn't trying to make any other point about playbility or development ability or anything. More choices are more realistic. Until you tell me why that ogre wouldn't want to be a support or pet class, then there is no realistic reason to prevent it for everyone.
Originally posted by MMO.Maverick Originally posted by Elikal
None of your arguments has any meaning for me. All you so lengthy say can be contrated to one sentence: You want everyone to play by YOUR rules. And sorry, to that the answer still is: NO.
I think what he was saying was that if you play online with others, then your rules aren't superior to others, you have to play by rules by others and worlds that are made not by you but based upon other people's works and visions, namely the visions of creators like Tolkien and Lucas and translated by the hands and visions of the dev teams. If that's not something that you can handle, that your dreams and rules are equal to that of other players and not above theirs, and subservient to that of authors and devs in which worlds you walk in, then there's always the route of singleplayer games and editor tools that can provide you a world where your rules are supreme and unchallenged. At least that's what his words sounded to me. Which made sense.
And to OP's referring to freedom and realism: total freedom is total anarchy. As soon as you have a group of people together, your personal freedom has to be limited, just like that of others. A neighbour can't just be free to do whatever he likes, if one those entitled freedoms would be to grab his neighbour's wife he desires and take her against her will because that means that his freedom to do whatever he likes would diminish the freedom of his neighbours to be free to do what they like. That's why civilisations and societies have rules: someone's personal freedoms have to be sacrificed for a part to improve the freedoms of everyone collectively, else a society can't work and you'd have anarchy if everyone would follow their own interpretation of their entitlement of personal, individual freedom.
And that's exactly my point. Using your example, that man does have the freedom to rape that woman. That's an option he has. Yes, he'll be punished severely for doing so. And that's why most people don't do it. Because we have rules. But having the rule does not remove our ability to do it.
Using a game example, tearing down a player-made house. Just preventing it is unrealistic. Allowing it, and then providing appropriate in-game punishments, such as perhaps not being able to enter cities without being attacked on sight, not being able to group with other people, or having your character suspended from play, would allow the option, but prevent most people from doing it. (And I'm not saying those are the best options for preventing it, or that they would work or that a developer would choose them, those are just the first things that popped into my head.) That's how the real world works, so doing it a game can only have the effect of making it more realistic. If the punishments aren't harsh enough, people will do it all the time (such as theft in most countries), but if they are harsh, people will not do it often.
Yes you'll have griefers, and yes they will cause people grief, but if you punish them, there will be fewer.
Arbitrary restrictions just to make a game more playable might be better from a gameplay standpoint or from a gameplay or design or a company's standpoint, but it isn't more realistic. The idea that complete freedom is complete anarchy is bollocks, because we have complete freedom in the real world, right now, we all do. We choose to abide by whatever rules we choose to abide by for reasons other than our ability to break them. It would be as if it were a physical impossibility for me to set fire to an enemy's home. It isn't. I can do that. I could do that right now if I wanted. But I won't, because I don't like the idea of being punished.
And to the people saying we can vote with our dollar. Of course, we know that. Everyone knows that, and I am sure we've all done that at some point before. I'm sick of people arguing what is practical for a developer, or simply what a developer wants, should just be accepted without complaint. Yes, we all know buying or not buying the game is the "consumer's vote." But we still have a voice, and we are saying what we prefer. I was under the impression that was the entire point of forums in the first place: Giving opinions.
I am really surprised by how many people have tailored their opinions to what is practical for a developer, or what they've seen in other games. I was asking that each person, themselves, would want in an ideal game for freedom. I don't know why people are saying "this is how developers do it, love it or leave it," when discussion what we would most like to see.
Good example: I'm will be playing GW2. I will, and from what I can see, I will love it to bits. But there are things I don't like, and things that I would change. I am not over at GW2guru complaining about it, but I might say why I would prefer something a different way or why I think this option would be better than that. And luckily, Anet is a developer that will listen to players and incorporate those ideas if they make sense, as we have seen them do in the past.
But, damn the developers! What would players like to see, if they could have it all?! What would be the most fun?! Why?! That's at the heart of the issue. Technology and development tools keep getting better, but if we just sit and accept that what has been always should be, the designers won't come up with new and interesting ideas. Things change when people talk about things changing.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Let's skip the whole reality comparison, because we'll clearly not agree upon that matter. And I still find it a stupid comparison: or if you must, MMO designers are your government and your god. You might complain that you can't jump from a building without breaking something, or that you can't fly or see in infrared, or if you were born in a pygmy race that you' won't be 2 meters tall and have black skin because of genetics, but that's how the rules are built in. Same as that designers have built in their rules in their game.
As for your example of GW2, that's bias too: with the multitude of different viewpoints and tastes, it's absolutely impossible for the ANet devs to listen to all and execute them all, neither are they some omnipotent gods that can do nothing wrong in the game they develop.
Be honest, it's just that how they implement some features is how you like it more yourself. It suits your personal taste, there's really nothing more to it than that simple fact.
As for how I would like to see things in a game: I would immediately abandon any instant-transportation or make it so that the cost is very, very high or has a huge downtime, instead there would be some more logical fast-travel options, like a zeppelin or a coach or boats that sail between ports. Some might see this as a limitation of freedom, but personally I'd find disbanding instant-travel options more in tune with a fantasy MMO world.
As for races and class combination, I would make some impossible (gnome warrior, or dark elf cleric for example) and other very unlikely combinations I would handicap, so that they maybe only 60% as effective as the natural race class combinations would be, with the option to after a lot of specialised questing and grinding and after a lot of time you could maybe boost it up to 80-85% of the effectiveness of the natural race-class combinations. So that yes, you have the choice, but you'd be consciously handicapping yourself to do so.
Then again, those wishes are moot since I have no influence whatsoever on the design process, luckily enough I'm that flexible and adaptable that I can get into the vision of what a dev team intends to do and often enjoy it for what it offers, not for what I want it to be. Just like I'm not constantly criticising and scorning the author when I read a book, but go with the flow with the tale he's trying to tell.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
For me it boils down to two issues. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying the experience for others. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying well established lore with in an IP. If it doesn't create problems in these two areas freedom is fine.
NO IT IS NOT!
NO ONE has the right to dictate the fantasy of another. This entire argument to "you destroy my experience by making a Dwarf Mage or Darkelf Paladin" is nothing but a fashion dictatorship.
If we allow THAT argument... where will it end? Who will be so above things to say, this destroys the experience and this doesn't? No, if we open that logic, if we allow personal taste and fashion to be dictated by THIS, we spiral down to nothing but dictatorship.
No. Allow every "fashion". Period. There can be no compromise in the freedom to be who you want.
And this is the end of the debate for me. You who say otherwise just want everyone to follow your rules. That is nothing else but bullying people around. An elaborate and elegant form of bullying, maybe. I know, a lot of people can't stand diversity, they want to hammer everyone into stereotypes. They want a world where all Germans are dull, all Dutch sell Tulips and drive in caravans, where all Mexicans are illegial drug dealers, all French are coward chansong singers and all Americans are fat burger eaters. Maybe that sort of looking at reality gives your thinking structure. But it is absurd nonetheless.
So if reality is so diverse, why should imaginary races be stereotypical? Why should an Elf not wear a gun and throw hand grenades? Why should a Dwarf not decide never to drink alcohol?
You do not WANT diversity. You WANT things in the good old fashioned 1950 reality were all had its order and place. Well here is the news: welcome to the 21st century.
Your thinking makes no sense. And I will not waste more time trying to broaden the horizon of people who prefer to stay in their comfortable boxes. Enjoy it there. Just know that *I* will NOT live by YOUR rules and bend to YOUR stereotypes.
What's really amusing is you believe you have sort of say in the matter. You don't outside of the choice to not participate. Just like in real life, some people have the power to mold things their way, while most don't. Using a real world example, if you are sitting in front of me hoping for a job you will conform to my fairly narrow expectations about fashion and taste or you won't be participating
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Originally posted by MMO.Maverick As for your example of GW2, that's bias too: with the multitude of different viewpoints and tastes, it's absolutely impossible for the ANet devs to listen to all and execute them all, neither are they some omnipotent gods that can do nothing wrong in the game they develop. Be honest, it's just that how they implement some features is how you like it more yourself. It suits your personal taste, there's really nothing more to it than that simple fact.
As for how I would like to see things in a game: I would immediately abandon any instant-transportation or make it so that the cost is very, very high or has a huge downtime, instead there would be some more logical fast-travel options, like a zeppelin or a coach or boats that sail between ports. Some might see this as a limitation of freedom, but personally I'd find disbanding instant-travel options more in tune with a fantasy MMO world. As for races and class combination, I would make some impossible (gnome warrior, or dark elf cleric for example) and other very unlikely combinations I would handicap, so that they maybe only 60% as effective as the natural race class combinations would be, with the option to after a lot of specialised questing and grinding and after a lot of time you could maybe boost it up to 80-85% of the effectiveness of the natural race-class combinations. So that yes, you have the choice, but you'd be consciously handicapping yourself to do so.
Then again, those wishes are moot since I have no influence whatsoever on the design process, luckily enough I'm that flexible and adaptable that I can get into the vision of what a dev team intends to do and often enjoy it for what it offers, not for what I want it to be. Just like I'm not constantly criticising and scorning the author when I read a book, but go with the flow with the tale he's trying to tell.
No, I'll play GW2 because it conforms more to what I want in a game. That doesn't mean I don't think it has or might have problems, or that I don't think it could be better. My point was that they listen. Of course they won't take every idea; that would be impractical, especially as many ideas contradict one another. But they listen, and that's something many companies just won't do.
But saying they designers are the final say is no reason not to offer your opinion on the matter. Like I said, that's how things get changed. There are people mining forums like these for data on what players want, and as ideas change and new things come about, games can change. So long as people say "the devs have the final say, so I'm not going to talk about my idea," innovation moves at a much slower pace, if at all, because you have a much smaller number of people talking about their ideas (by which I mean the devs), and most of them will be content to simply copy what has been done before because they know it will at least make some money. History has shown us that things never change unless people talk about it changing. That's why giving our opinions matters. I'm not saying I won't vote with my purchasing or not purchasing something. I will. But I'll also talk about why. You should too. It's how things will get better.
Maybe one day I'll get a game with instant travel where players aren't superheroes, just people, and roleplaying is more than an afterthought, and maybe one day you'll get a game with no instant travel and severe handicaps for certain race/class combos. But if no one ever talks about it, how is anyone to know these are things players want?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Comments
Whether it's absurd or not, that is what has historically happened in the past 15 years or so of MMOs.
As to this having "zilch to do with the question at hand" here's the question from the OP again:
"By that token, should a player be able to, say, walk up to a guard in a friendly city and start punching them in the face (or using real skills)? Of course, if the player did this, something bad would happen, either physically or legally, but should it be an option? Would this increase immersion, or break it? Why?"
I don't see how it's anything but compeltely relevant.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
My bad, I see it now. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Unfortunately, humans in general tend to be ruled by fear and a need to belong to some group so that they can practice the 'us versus them' mantra. But yeah, people who want to be asshats will always try to be asshats, freedom or not. It's just that sometimes, to some people, giving up some of that freedom to make asshattery more difficult ends up being worth the sacrifice. I don't see what that has to do with roles and classes though. A 100 foot tall giant who happens to be a stealthing rogue or a tiny brownie who happens to be a warrior tank is not asshattery to me... it's just plain silly. A character named F*ckt*rd on the other hand, reeks of someone being an asshat.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I'm sorry but may I ask what client you're using to connect to your dreams? I've tried creating a socket which connected to "Gobla.getDreams()" on all possible ports but it just gave me lots of weird error messages on how "Gobla.getDreams()" wasn't a valid parameter.
Also the games I play do have to make sense to me. I'm paying for them. You can make your Wookie Jedi the moment you pay me a single buck every time I see your Wookie Jedi as compensation for breaking my immersion.
See FANTASY (my keyboard has caps-lock too! How awesome is that?) doesn't refer to your fantasies which, if they're anything like mine (AKA filled with naked Twi'Lek with whips calling me a naughty boy), is probably a good thing. They refer to the fantasy of whatever author made that world. LotRO isn't about your fantasy, it's about Tolkien's fantasy.
I'm not paying 15 bucks/month to play your fantasy. If you want to play your fantasy then there's plenty of single-player games in which you can do so. I'm paying 15 bucks/month to play the fantasy of whatever author invented that gameworld.
See, MMOs aren't about you. Nor are they about me. They're about communities. And communities need rules. They need restrictions. They need order. Designing an MMO from the perspective of a single player and how it should be logical for a single player to pick a Wookie Jedi is the wrong way to go. MMOs should be designed from a Massively Multiplayer perspective (hint: that's where the MM comes from). And how it isn't logical for masses of players to pick Wookie Jedi.
You're not playing a single player game that's about your choices, your story and your fantasy. Your playing a MMO which is about our choices, our story and our fantasy. And for us to share our experiences, our choices, our stories and our fantasies there's going to be some rules. There's going to be some restrictions.
If you want freedom then get Oblivion, open the construction set and get cracking. Endless freedom there.
But if you're ready to work together and share your stories then be prepared to make some sacrfices. Be ready to accept that the end result won't be by your rules.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
All I can say to this is... booyah!
As a consumer you have one right and only one right, the freedom either buy the game and play it, or not.
Games will be designed to the creator's preference and there some perfectly valid reasons both from a technical as well as a lore perspective and therefore some MMO's will have restrictions on classes and races.
Those are probably the ones I'll enjoy the most.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Which part of the Rorschach quote under my icon did you not get?
None of your arguments has any meaning for me. All you so lengthy say can be contrated to one sentence: You want everyone to play by YOUR rules. And sorry, to that the answer still is:
NO.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Yes. The 10,000th grumpy Dwarf, the 1 millionth ethereal Elf, the 1000th treacherous Darkelf... If that still is enough for you, fine. Just accept some are now BORED by the endless repetition of stereotypes from 1950 fantasy novels.
BORED!
You are like a pool of fish who tells the bird that flying is obscene.
Diversity is a bonus, not a threat. In RL as in fantasy. Some Darkelfs are good. In the words of Ian MacKellen: "Get over it."
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Then go a single player game until you're ready to compromise.........
I don't want everyone to play by my rules. I want everyone to play by a common set of rules. And for those rules to make sense to everyone they have to be applicable to not just individual players but also groups of players. If a single player is allowed to do certain things then the game should still make sense if entire groups of players do that certain thing.
The common set of rules should be designed not from a single player perspective but from a massively multiplayer perspective. It should be a balance of personal freedom and community. Each player sacrifices some of his or her freedom and the community sacrifices some of it's coherance and unity in order to achieve a balance in which everyone can enjoy the game.
If players are unwilling to sacrifice their freedom then they should accept that they're not going to be part of a community and a shared game world.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
You can reformulate this a 100 times. It still only means you want you personal, individual taste to dictate what others should be able to chose.
Compromise is only needed where spheres overlap. Like in terms of gameplay. Or how we PVP. Or how classes are balanced. These spheres overlap and yes THERE compromise is needed in MMOs.
The question of what race can be what class is a mere cosmetic question, and you have as less right to dictate that to others as you don't have the right to tell me what clothes to wear or how I cut my hair!
You try to reach into spheres where you have nothing to say, because my cosmetic race decisions affect you NOT. Unlike gameplay rules. And don't even GET to me with "oh but I feel offended by seeing Paladin Darkelfs". DO NOT open this pandoras box with me! Or it will get nasty. I mean this friendly. Yet.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I think what he was saying was that if you play online with others, then your rules aren't superior to others, you have to play by rules by others and worlds that are made not by you but based upon other people's works and visions, namely the visions of creators like Tolkien and Lucas and translated by the hands and visions of the dev teams.
If that's not something that you can handle, that your dreams and rules are equal to that of other players and not above theirs, and subservient to that of authors and devs in which worlds you walk in, then there's always the route of singleplayer games and editor tools that can provide you a world where your rules are supreme and unchallenged.
At least that's what his words sounded to me.
Which made sense.
And to OP's referring to freedom and realism: total freedom is total anarchy. As soon as you have a group of people together, your personal freedom has to be limited, just like that of others. A neighbour can't just be free to do whatever he likes, if one those entitled freedoms would be to grab his neighbout's wife he desires and take her against her will because that means that his freedom to do whatever he likes would diminish the freedom of his neighbours to be free to do what they like. That's why civilisations and societies have rules: someone's personal freedoms have to be sacrificed for a part to improve the freedoms of everyone collectively, else a society can't work and you'd have anarchy if everyone would follow their own interpretation of their entitlement of personal, individual freedom.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
And it's better to have 3.333 grumpy dwarfs, 3.333 ethereal dwarfs, 3.333 treacherous dwarfs, 333.333 grumpy elves, 333.333 ethereal elves, 333.333 treacherous elves, 333 grumpy dark elves, 333 ethereal dark elves and 333 treacherous dark elves?
How is that less boring? With every race being exactly the same except for their skin color? Sure, it's very multicultural and accepting........
But frankly I don't play games to promote equality, gay marriage and gender rights. And even if I did I wouldn't want a game where everyone is the same. I'd want extremes so people are confronted with differences.
And yes, I'd like my fish to tell birds that flying is obscene. Because that's what fish are, swimmers not flyers. And I don't blame those fish seeing the huge amount of flyers that eat them. I'd be pissed too if my newborn children where eaten by some crazy flying animal, I wouldn't go preaching about how it's okay and just the cycle of life and yadayadayada. I'd try to gut that effing flyer instead of becoming friends with her and trying to see if it's possible for us to have new kids to replace the old ones that SHE ATE.
As far as fantasy goes I don't want too much diversity. I'd prefer my paladins to be unconditionally hating the undead instead of trying to negotiate peace treaties. I think a fantasy world embracing diversity would be awfully boring and dull. Instead of bashing dragons because they're dragons and probably have lots of gold we'd be having friendly conversations instead? Yeah..... that sounds great......
When I see a goblin I want to kill that goblin. I don't want to spend five days observing said goblin to see if he's really evil and deserves to be killed because he just might be one of the good guys. I want my goblins to be evil greedy bastards. I want to kill goblins because they're goblins, no other reason needed.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
Quoting myself again:
Compromise is only needed where spheres overlap. Like in terms of gameplay. Or how we PVP. Or how classes are balanced. These spheres overlap and yes THERE compromise is needed in MMOs.
The question of what race can be what class is a mere cosmetic question, and you have as less right to dictate that to others as you don't have the right to tell me what clothes to wear or how I cut my hair!
You try to reach into spheres where you have nothing to say, because my cosmetic race decisions affect you NOT. Unlike gameplay rules.
@gobla: And don't even GET to me with "oh but I feel offended by seeing Paladin Darkelfs". DO NOT open this pandoras box with me! Or it will get nasty. I mean this friendly.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
For me it boils down to two issues. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying the experience for others. Freedom is fine until it starts destroying well established lore within an IP. If it doesn't create problems in these two areas freedom is fine.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I glanced over to your icon expecting something different. I always get those two confused.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You'er missing the part where I said that any dreams or rules that you might have, they're still subservient to the rules and visions of the author's and dev team's works and visions. It's not something we can vote about because it's not a game that we are making, but even if we had the option to decide and vote upon it, then your idea for rules would still be just 1 vote of many.
If for example the choice would have been remove any class/race restrictions that exist in EQ, I would have voted against it where as you would probably have voted yes. Because to me, it'd add more immersion in that game if those class/race restrictions would exist, and more immersion = more fun.
So, you can dream all you like just like everyone else, but in the end we have to resort to go with the flow and go with the world an MMO company has created.
Admittedly, some might do that anyway but kicking and screaming all the way, like you seem wont to do
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
NO IT IS NOT!
NO ONE has the right to dictate the fantasy of another. This entire argument to "you destroy my experience by making a Dwarf Mage or Darkelf Paladin" is nothing but a fashion dictatorship.
If we allow THAT argument... where will it end? Who will be so above things to say, this destroys the experience and this doesn't? No, if we open that logic, if we allow personal taste and fashion to be dictated by THIS, we spiral down to nothing but dictatorship.
No. Allow every "fashion". Period. There can be no compromise in the freedom to be who you want.
And this is the end of the debate for me. You who say otherwise just want everyone to follow your rules. That is nothing else but bullying people around. An elaborate and elegant form of bullying, maybe. I know, a lot of people can't stand diversity, they want to hammer everyone into stereotypes. They want a world where all Germans are dull, all Dutch sell Tulips and drive in caravans, where all Mexicans are illegial drug dealers, all French are coward chansong singers and all Americans are fat burger eaters. Maybe that sort of looking at reality gives your thinking structure. But it is absurd nonetheless.
So if reality is so diverse, why should imaginary races be stereotypical? Why should an Elf not wear a gun and throw hand grenades? Why should a Dwarf not decide never to drink alcohol?
You do not WANT diversity. You WANT things in the good old fashioned 1950 reality were all had its order and place. Well here is the news: welcome to the 21st century.
Your thinking makes no sense. And I will not waste more time trying to broaden the horizon of people who prefer to stay in their comfortable boxes. Enjoy it there. Just know that *I* will NOT live by YOUR rules and bend to YOUR stereotypes.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Wow man, I don't even know where to begin with this. First when I talk about destroying the experience for others, I'm referring to griefing. Such as using mechanics in a way that is detrimental to anothers experience. Blocking them in a house with terminals is an example I've seen first hand in SWG.
Second when I say destroying lore, I'm referring to guidlines one should follow when using a pre-existing IP. If you can't create what you want within the confines of that IP's structure, you should either not use that IP, or dicth the things that do not fit.
This has nothing at all to do with anything you just said.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
@Elikal: I think you're mixing RL values and (personal?) situations and feelings too much in a discussion about a game, projecting RL situations and mindsets upon others in this discussion where it's nothing about those RL situations that you might refer to and probably be annoyed/hindered by.
You're saying constantly 'no compromise' and that's all fine and dandy, but you seem to attach that trait only to your vision and rules, and scornful and unwilling to accept that others might have their ideas and vision that conflict with yours.
In short, you're doing what you're accusing others of doing, namely imposing your ideas for rules as superior upon those of others.
At least, that's what it looks like in my opinion.
But your idea of freedom and immersion simply isn't mine or that of someone else, whose idea about those is different again from both ours.
If you're playing a game that you didn't make but that is made by others, you simply have no choice, it's as simple as that. The only choice you have is either shrug about it and go with the vision and world that its dev team has created, or not play the game if you can't stomach the rules and vision with which an MMO team has created their MMORPG.
That's how it is when you enjoy the works of others, whether that be movies, the story in a book or a game.
So in the end it's your thinking that makes no sense. you can say that you won't live by "our" rules, but it isn't our rules or my ideas that are the ruleset within an MMO, but it's the ideas and rules of its developers. Protest all you like, but in the end we're just MMO gamers and players in that world.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I would argue that Freedom needs to be restricted, both in reality and in games.
Fundamental in the founding of civilization was rules and laws. Its purpose was to create stability, protecting the weak from the strong and also the strong from other strong people. Without rules and restrictions, ie Anarchy, the strong would quickly assume control and impose their own rules, benefitting themselves and opressing the weak. In effect, the freedom of anarchy breeds dictatorship in which an elite class bosses others around. The end result is that complete freedom without restrictions ends up being less free for most people than only limited freedom within a framework of restrictions.
A good example of my reasoning is found in Free for All PvP MMOs. Initially there is opportunistic chaos, but people start banding together, forming clans and alliances. They fight amongst eachother, and soon one group will emerge victorious. This group will sieze control of everything and no one else will be able to put up meaningful resistance. In the end your only choice is to join them or be pounded into the dirt. So while seemingly offering complete freedom, in the end you are only left with one choice.
Well said.
There's also some other freedoms to consider just in the MMO-space.
One that time and time again, people have already opted for:
The freedom to choose not to play that game. The complete freedom to read up on a product and make informed decisions. The freedom to make the personal determination what you want to put up with in a game. (Just how big and how fast was the population shift in UO when Trammel happened? And that they only achieved their peak playerbase years AFTER that had happened)
And most importantly:
The freedom to educate yourself to physically create your own competing/indie project if you don't like how things are going. This is always the hardest but still most true. Nothing is stopping anyone with an idea from learning how to make a game. It's not a fast, easy, convenient or cheap solution, which IMO, makes it the ideal solution.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
This is where pen and paper RPGs excel IMHO. Making your own computer game requires just way too much time, effort and money to be remotely realistic for most people... and at the end of the day, you'll most likely still find yourself limited by what can be done on a computer to begin with. Pen and paper requires less time and effort while providing more freedom. Only downside is finding people to play with. This is one area where MMOs offer a lot of freedom. I can log in at anytime I want while being completely naked. Don't try to do that with your pen and paper RPG buddies unless you're disturbingly good friends
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Gobla, as to the genetics issue, you are just making your own assumptions. The difference is that I assume these crazy differences like ogres who can't stand loud noises or whatever don't exist until the lore tells me they do. You seem to want them to exist, and so invent them, I suppose unless someone tells you they don't exist. Which one seems more logical to you? I tend to think assuming the absence of something until presented with evidence, not inventing an idea I like until someone tells me it isn't so. I've yet to see something where the author explicitly states: "All ogres refused to come to the towns because loud noises hurt their heads (or anything remotely similar)." So it sounds like you are the one making assumptions, not me. I assume things aren't until they are. That's not even an assumption. That's logical reasoning.
I think what he was saying was that if you play online with others, then your rules aren't superior to others, you have to play by rules by others and worlds that are made not by you but based upon other people's works and visions, namely the visions of creators like Tolkien and Lucas and translated by the hands and visions of the dev teams.In any case, it's clear you're not going to be able to understand the point, because I have said it, and Elikal has said it, and others have said it. Restrictions don't make a game more realistic. Making a game world more restrictive than reality is just as likely to hamper someone's suspension of disbelief as having something unusual. The difference is that one is more like reality, and one is less. That's the point. I wasn't trying to make any other point about playbility or development ability or anything. More choices are more realistic. Until you tell me why that ogre wouldn't want to be a support or pet class, then there is no realistic reason to prevent it for everyone.
If that's not something that you can handle, that your dreams and rules are equal to that of other players and not above theirs, and subservient to that of authors and devs in which worlds you walk in, then there's always the route of singleplayer games and editor tools that can provide you a world where your rules are supreme and unchallenged.
At least that's what his words sounded to me.
Which made sense.
And to OP's referring to freedom and realism: total freedom is total anarchy. As soon as you have a group of people together, your personal freedom has to be limited, just like that of others. A neighbour can't just be free to do whatever he likes, if one those entitled freedoms would be to grab his neighbour's wife he desires and take her against her will because that means that his freedom to do whatever he likes would diminish the freedom of his neighbours to be free to do what they like. That's why civilisations and societies have rules: someone's personal freedoms have to be sacrificed for a part to improve the freedoms of everyone collectively, else a society can't work and you'd have anarchy if everyone would follow their own interpretation of their entitlement of personal, individual freedom.
And that's exactly my point. Using your example, that man does have the freedom to rape that woman. That's an option he has. Yes, he'll be punished severely for doing so. And that's why most people don't do it. Because we have rules. But having the rule does not remove our ability to do it.
Using a game example, tearing down a player-made house. Just preventing it is unrealistic. Allowing it, and then providing appropriate in-game punishments, such as perhaps not being able to enter cities without being attacked on sight, not being able to group with other people, or having your character suspended from play, would allow the option, but prevent most people from doing it. (And I'm not saying those are the best options for preventing it, or that they would work or that a developer would choose them, those are just the first things that popped into my head.) That's how the real world works, so doing it a game can only have the effect of making it more realistic. If the punishments aren't harsh enough, people will do it all the time (such as theft in most countries), but if they are harsh, people will not do it often.
Yes you'll have griefers, and yes they will cause people grief, but if you punish them, there will be fewer.
Arbitrary restrictions just to make a game more playable might be better from a gameplay standpoint or from a gameplay or design or a company's standpoint, but it isn't more realistic. The idea that complete freedom is complete anarchy is bollocks, because we have complete freedom in the real world, right now, we all do. We choose to abide by whatever rules we choose to abide by for reasons other than our ability to break them. It would be as if it were a physical impossibility for me to set fire to an enemy's home. It isn't. I can do that. I could do that right now if I wanted. But I won't, because I don't like the idea of being punished.
And to the people saying we can vote with our dollar. Of course, we know that. Everyone knows that, and I am sure we've all done that at some point before. I'm sick of people arguing what is practical for a developer, or simply what a developer wants, should just be accepted without complaint. Yes, we all know buying or not buying the game is the "consumer's vote." But we still have a voice, and we are saying what we prefer. I was under the impression that was the entire point of forums in the first place: Giving opinions.
I am really surprised by how many people have tailored their opinions to what is practical for a developer, or what they've seen in other games. I was asking that each person, themselves, would want in an ideal game for freedom. I don't know why people are saying "this is how developers do it, love it or leave it," when discussion what we would most like to see.
Good example: I'm will be playing GW2. I will, and from what I can see, I will love it to bits. But there are things I don't like, and things that I would change. I am not over at GW2guru complaining about it, but I might say why I would prefer something a different way or why I think this option would be better than that. And luckily, Anet is a developer that will listen to players and incorporate those ideas if they make sense, as we have seen them do in the past.
But, damn the developers! What would players like to see, if they could have it all?! What would be the most fun?! Why?! That's at the heart of the issue. Technology and development tools keep getting better, but if we just sit and accept that what has been always should be, the designers won't come up with new and interesting ideas. Things change when people talk about things changing.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Let's skip the whole reality comparison, because we'll clearly not agree upon that matter. And I still find it a stupid comparison: or if you must, MMO designers are your government and your god. You might complain that you can't jump from a building without breaking something, or that you can't fly or see in infrared, or if you were born in a pygmy race that you' won't be 2 meters tall and have black skin because of genetics, but that's how the rules are built in. Same as that designers have built in their rules in their game.
As for your example of GW2, that's bias too: with the multitude of different viewpoints and tastes, it's absolutely impossible for the ANet devs to listen to all and execute them all, neither are they some omnipotent gods that can do nothing wrong in the game they develop.
Be honest, it's just that how they implement some features is how you like it more yourself. It suits your personal taste, there's really nothing more to it than that simple fact.
As for how I would like to see things in a game: I would immediately abandon any instant-transportation or make it so that the cost is very, very high or has a huge downtime, instead there would be some more logical fast-travel options, like a zeppelin or a coach or boats that sail between ports. Some might see this as a limitation of freedom, but personally I'd find disbanding instant-travel options more in tune with a fantasy MMO world.
As for races and class combination, I would make some impossible (gnome warrior, or dark elf cleric for example) and other very unlikely combinations I would handicap, so that they maybe only 60% as effective as the natural race class combinations would be, with the option to after a lot of specialised questing and grinding and after a lot of time you could maybe boost it up to 80-85% of the effectiveness of the natural race-class combinations. So that yes, you have the choice, but you'd be consciously handicapping yourself to do so.
Then again, those wishes are moot since I have no influence whatsoever on the design process, luckily enough I'm that flexible and adaptable that I can get into the vision of what a dev team intends to do and often enjoy it for what it offers, not for what I want it to be. Just like I'm not constantly criticising and scorning the author when I read a book, but go with the flow with the tale he's trying to tell.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
NO IT IS NOT!
NO ONE has the right to dictate the fantasy of another. This entire argument to "you destroy my experience by making a Dwarf Mage or Darkelf Paladin" is nothing but a fashion dictatorship.
If we allow THAT argument... where will it end? Who will be so above things to say, this destroys the experience and this doesn't? No, if we open that logic, if we allow personal taste and fashion to be dictated by THIS, we spiral down to nothing but dictatorship.
No. Allow every "fashion". Period. There can be no compromise in the freedom to be who you want.
And this is the end of the debate for me. You who say otherwise just want everyone to follow your rules. That is nothing else but bullying people around. An elaborate and elegant form of bullying, maybe. I know, a lot of people can't stand diversity, they want to hammer everyone into stereotypes. They want a world where all Germans are dull, all Dutch sell Tulips and drive in caravans, where all Mexicans are illegial drug dealers, all French are coward chansong singers and all Americans are fat burger eaters. Maybe that sort of looking at reality gives your thinking structure. But it is absurd nonetheless.
So if reality is so diverse, why should imaginary races be stereotypical? Why should an Elf not wear a gun and throw hand grenades? Why should a Dwarf not decide never to drink alcohol?
You do not WANT diversity. You WANT things in the good old fashioned 1950 reality were all had its order and place. Well here is the news: welcome to the 21st century.
Your thinking makes no sense. And I will not waste more time trying to broaden the horizon of people who prefer to stay in their comfortable boxes. Enjoy it there. Just know that *I* will NOT live by YOUR rules and bend to YOUR stereotypes.
What's really amusing is you believe you have sort of say in the matter. You don't outside of the choice to not participate. Just like in real life, some people have the power to mold things their way, while most don't. Using a real world example, if you are sitting in front of me hoping for a job you will conform to my fairly narrow expectations about fashion and taste or you won't be participating"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
No, I'll play GW2 because it conforms more to what I want in a game. That doesn't mean I don't think it has or might have problems, or that I don't think it could be better. My point was that they listen. Of course they won't take every idea; that would be impractical, especially as many ideas contradict one another. But they listen, and that's something many companies just won't do.
But saying they designers are the final say is no reason not to offer your opinion on the matter. Like I said, that's how things get changed. There are people mining forums like these for data on what players want, and as ideas change and new things come about, games can change. So long as people say "the devs have the final say, so I'm not going to talk about my idea," innovation moves at a much slower pace, if at all, because you have a much smaller number of people talking about their ideas (by which I mean the devs), and most of them will be content to simply copy what has been done before because they know it will at least make some money. History has shown us that things never change unless people talk about it changing. That's why giving our opinions matters. I'm not saying I won't vote with my purchasing or not purchasing something. I will. But I'll also talk about why. You should too. It's how things will get better.
Maybe one day I'll get a game with instant travel where players aren't superheroes, just people, and roleplaying is more than an afterthought, and maybe one day you'll get a game with no instant travel and severe handicaps for certain race/class combos. But if no one ever talks about it, how is anyone to know these are things players want?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?