Well, yes, except that sitcoms are dead now. Reality TV ya'll, previous generation was sitcoms.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
And by default, (read this developers lol), the way something is designed predicts the type of community that will be drawn in. In other words, build a McDonald's and folks who are not health conscious will pull through the drive-through.
As you'll remember, public perceptions of MMO on this board are as follows:
A) "Classic sandbox" good mmkay "Classic themepark" good mmkay (the Nostalgia rule)
"Post 2004, any game, any brand" miserable failure mmkay (some of them rejected purely from habit)
C) "EVE" hope you like it, the only exception to rule B. (Special exception because we've decided to blame themeparks for everything wrong since 2004). Don't like EVE? Sorry.
D) New sandbox? bad mmkay (Bad under the special Indie = Bad rule).
Now part of this is simply the biggest mouths presenting the biggest extremes as facts (all of those 'rules' are challengable), and hyperbole ruling the day. But the games that moving in as independent hits indicate there are some chinks in the armor of despair and the litany of fear. Maybe we're simply getting tired of listening to the same old repetitive argument, as sick as we are of the same old repetitive game models.
The simple fact is, what you design matters less under the current state as variety. Everything as different from WoW as you can possibly make into a functional MMO, despite the flaws, has a pretty good chance of making a buck or two. TSW and GW2? Both looking good, neither trying for "wow killer", neither sandbox of the future.
But what matters is that they did NOT choose the "just clone that big one" trap that so many of the last decade or so's games did.
In the end, looks like that will be more important than all the pundits standing on soap boxes telling us what specific features the next "winner" must have.
And the good thing about SWTOR is that, as this generation's developer, you'd have to be blind or insane to propose "lets just copy the big one" as a design policy, again.
The variety gamers have been clamouring for just may be the overlying principle, the big lesson, of the next few years.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
What depth is there in hand-holding, linear, storyline games, where the devs are practically playing your character for you?
Here's one definition:
A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries.
--Sirlin, January 2002
It certainly doesn't take a stance on features related to usability, which is what people seem to have issue with. There is nothing wrong with the game doing all the mundane stuff automatically so the player can concentrate on the more exciting stuff. There's nothing wrong with a good tutorial, up to date, accurate and helpful documentation or even a prompt to where you should find your fun. None of those things take away from depth unless the game is specifically about drawing maps, taking care of mundane things, or finding the bulletin points what you should do from one character's lifestory.
God of War was about fighting monsters and kicking some divine ass. Forcing Kratos to sleep, drink and eat while doing so wouldn't have made the game more deep. It would've actually taken away from the experience. Old games had tons of nuisances like that which didn't make the game much, if any, deeper.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Which came first. The dumb game or the dumb gamer?
WoW came first, which created the dumb gamer.
Which is exactly opposite of the easy meme in 2004.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Games are simpler because the pinnacle of game design isn'tcomplexity. It's simplicity.
Chess is not a complex game. It's deep-yet-simple. The rules can fit on one piece of paper. That's good game design.
It's good to strive for simplicity, but you have to also implement deep systems. WOW accomplished that (despite naysayers seeing the skin-deep simplicity and assuming it was a shallow game, when it wasn't,) and that was a big part of the game's success.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Thats it right there, Games don't need to be complex or challenging, and who is to say they aren't challenging? You know the reason my people who have been gaming since the days of NES probably think that gaming has gotten simple? CAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN GAMING FOR THE THE PAST 25 YEARS. Here is something I have noticed.
I play WoW, and didn't start raiding till wrath, I thought it was freaking crazy complex, at least compared to heroics, even from BC. Yet, there were a ton of people who said, you guessed it, it was much harder in vanilla, or in BC. So these people have 4 years raiding experience on me, and I am the idiot for thinking it's kinda hard, when you know they thought the same thing I did when they first started raiding too.
It's not that games are getting simpler, I mean come on, there are stories now, 3D enviroments, and even ethical decisions to make. Maybe the whole, "been gaming for 2 decades" makes people see it as simpler because much of it is overlooked.
Just a thought. Personally I am of the opinion that life is complex, and challenging enough, so when I play a game a little simplicity is a good thing.
Most gamers are ADD-idiots, that's why games are dumbed down. Used to be called the Sitcom-crowd. The larger the population, the greater the degree of acute "DUH" runs rampant.
I play WoW, and didn't start raiding till wrath, I thought it was freaking crazy complex, at least compared to heroics, even from BC. Yet, there were a ton of people who said, you guessed it, it was much harder in vanilla, or in BC. So these people have 4 years raiding experience on me, and I am the idiot for thinking it's kinda hard, when you know they thought the same thing I did when they first started raiding too.
Mmm. Some of the vanilla raid encounters were rather simple tank n spanks (hell, most of them). The later raids did have some mechanics that weren't even available in vanilla, true. But I'd stop short of comparing them at the top end, so many brand new (in wotlk) raiders never really reached the top end of ICC.
But marching upward through Icecrown, you didn't really encounter 'hard' until at least Putricide, first half of the raid consisted of DPS races and tanknspanks, in either mode. There's some merit to people calling it ezmode...you could tell, just from the walls the PuG raids were hitting and where they were getting stranded, which encounters they'd not even try with hardmode on.
Hardmode, the division between "yawn" and "oh god getting serious now" was much more clear, and ramped up steeply from PP to Sindra to LK.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Most gamers are ADD-idiots, that's why games are dumbed down. Used to be called the Sitcom-crowd. The larger the population, the greater the degree of acute "DUH" runs rampant.
I used to name them "fast food gamer generation"...
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I play WoW, and didn't start raiding till wrath, I thought it was freaking crazy complex, at least compared to heroics, even from BC. Yet, there were a ton of people who said, you guessed it, it was much harder in vanilla, or in BC. So these people have 4 years raiding experience on me, and I am the idiot for thinking it's kinda hard, when you know they thought the same thing I did when they first started raiding too.
Mmm. Some of the vanilla raid encounters were rather simple tank n spanks (hell, most of them). The later raids did have some mechanics that weren't even available in vanilla, true. But I'd stop short of comparing them at the top end, so many brand new (in wotlk) raiders never really reached the top end of ICC.
But marching upward through Icecrown, you didn't really encounter 'hard' until at least Putricide, first half of the raid consisted of DPS races and tanknspanks, in either mode. There's some merit to people calling it ezmode...you could tell, just from the walls the PuG raids were hitting and where they were getting stranded, which encounters they'd not even try with hardmode on.
Hardmode, the division between "yawn" and "oh god getting serious now" was much more clear, and ramped up steeply from PP to Sindra to LK.
Ok, so case and point, if the first half was akin to vanilla, then people who raided in vanilla would obviously find them simple, while new raiders would find them harder from lack of experience. But marrowgar, required learning raid awareness, and group coordination, deathwhisper.....I always healed...so i just stayed out of the green stuff, tanks and dps had some stuff going on for raid awareness, the gunship was just crazy, and saurfang wasn't just tank and spank, you had the adds that had to be addressed very precisely.
I mean, my point is, that if you quested to 85, then ran some heroics, and then jump into ICC, it's hard, especially if it's your first MMO, or your just not as "good" as other gamers. But this translates to any MMO, you have a group of content locust, who go from game to game, do everything as quickly as possible, then come back here and spout how simple it is, yawn, ect. But these same people do this all the time, When I look at a 35 Ton HVAC that won't start due to electrical problems, I am like, this is simple, yawn. (unless the compressor is shorted out, then its a pain) but still point is, when these people do this, they do two things 1) a disservice to the companies that make the game 2) Make new players feel inadequate. I am not saying that we should force sensitivity classes for elite gamer snobs, I could care less about them, they are parasites in the gaming world, if you really understand the concept of parasitism and how the gaming industry works.
I do however think it bears bringing up though, because new gamers who don't think much on this kind of stuff need to hear this argument.
What depth is there in hand-holding, linear, storyline games, where the devs are practically playing your character for you?
Complex combat mechanics.
When you need a SOFTWARE (like rawr) to optimize gear, it is depth. No one says depth has to be in storyline & quest.
Has you ever played Starcraft II pro pvp? It has depth in combat. Its campaign story, OTOH, is as linear as you can get. So what if the story & quests are linear? That is not where the raiders & dungeon adventures look for depth. It is in the combat & boss fights.
There isn't a problem with games being dumbed down. You have a perception problem, because every game isn't made specifically for you.
Instead of whining about games being dumbed down for the masses, play the games and support the companies that make games you like.
These arguments are like saying music is dumbed down because Justin Beiber exists. It's retarded. Just cause Justin Beiber exists doesn't mean there aren't people making "good" music.
Popularity isn't being discussed here. Game depth without overcomplexity is what's being discussed.
As for early games "lacking the tech", that's nonsense and I guess you never played early adventure, strategy, or simulation games? The lackluster success of early simulation games is a direct result of these games tending to have a poor "game depth per complexity" quotient, as a result of their systems being implemented specifically to mimick reality (rather than being implemented because they made the game deeper, or more fun.)
Complexity doesn't improve games. It's not the goal. Depth is the goal. So any complexity which fails to make a game deeper actually makes the game worse overall.
Not sure why you feel your time settings tangent relates to the conversation at hand. We're talking about game depth and complexity, neither of which relates to session length.
You can have very basic rules in order to drive a relatively complex system. Truly superb games show this to be true and yet how many of those games are part of the mmorpg genre... exactly sweet fuck all. There simply is not an mmorpg version of chess out there i'm afraid. Something basic with hidden depth is far more applicable to a MOBA or something.
Having an AH does not create oodles of depth, it allows for some people to game others in setting prices, wowser. If the game world also allows for the AH gaming to have an impact upon the wider gaming world, then you can start talking about depth, but guess what, that requires greater complextity in terms of interweaving the gaming systems.
You cite EVE to be a "mess" and yet EVE is one of the few mmorpg with any depth whatsoever. Moreoever each of it's parts is relatively simple, it is merely more complex to actually get to grip with the wider picture and understand the depth of the thing, which some are unable to do.
Depth in mmorpgs is generated by the players interacting with one another within a game world which allows them to interact in numerous and diverse ways. Most games massively restrict this and hence, have next to no depth. A cool combat system is not depth in an mmo, it may provide pvp depth to a moba, but in the genre of mmorpgs that really is not going to cut it.
This is again why the chess analogy is interesting. Chess may be simple and yet have complex tactical nuances, yet compared to the wider world is has next to no complexity and next to no depth. In gaming terms chess is merely the pvp mechanics component, the wider world is the scope of the full mmorpg. The latter is what is missing from most modern mmorpgs.
In terms of games "dumbing down" outside of the mmorpg genre, I am not so sure that is true. I feel personally they may be easier, or at least certainly more forgiving in general and I also feel they rely alot more on graphics than gameplay content. But that is not exactly dumbing down per say.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
There isn't a problem with games being dumbed down. You have a perception problem, because every game isn't made specifically for you.
Instead of whining about games being dumbed down for the masses, play the games and support the companies that make games you like.
These arguments are like saying music is dumbed down because Justin Beiber exists. It's retarded. Just cause Justin Beiber exists doesn't mean there aren't people making "good" music.
Very true. But if you post it on this microcosm of a website, everybody is gonna mob the Beiber fan...and then write "music sucks" on his/her forehead with a Sharpie.
Anywhoo, it does take a certain amount of maturity to admit that gamers of all skills levels can co-exist. Rather than see "under-skilled" gamers as a detriment, why don't long-time gamers see the expanding video game market (and the choices made available to us as entertainment) a benefit? Perhaps our expectations have just been broken one too many times?
Should we just stop playing any game that can't put out a challenging demo and write newer titles off? Or maybe we should have a gamer skill rating system...
Edit: I would love to see mmorpg do an article about this very subject. Maybe an evolution to the modern day mmo and its gamers. Richard Aihoshi might be a good choice, he generally provides thought provoking perspective.
I disagree. I've felt that games have become simpler because developers keep chasing this pipe dream of making "movie games". Interactive cinema. They sacrifice hand-eye coordination in order to mimic movies and appeal to a larger audience.
I remember Metal Gear: Sons of Liberty getting blasted by hardcore gamers for being little more than an interactive movie. But you should revisit that game now. By today's standards, that game is challenging.
When games stop becoming games, and start becoming stream-lined experiences.
Originally posted by Atlan99
There isn't a problem with games being dumbed down. You have a perception problem, because every game isn't made specifically for you.
Instead of whining about games being dumbed down for the masses, play the games and support the companies that make games you like.
These arguments are like saying music is dumbed down because Justin Beiber exists. It's retarded. Just cause Justin Beiber exists doesn't mean there aren't people making "good" music.
In a beautiful world; this would be true. Sadly, our industry is a corporate venture. Everyone looks to find the most popular and innovative brands and emulate their success.
With that said, if a crappy game gets attention--prepare to see more of them.
Best hope is reserved for indie developers who see video games as an art-form, instead of a product. Turning your eyes towards them will show you your 'actual' games.
I wouldn't say a game WITH graph paper cartography is more difficult than a game without.
That was actually two separate comments. I never said cartography is difficult, just that those who LIKE it, should play Etrian Odyssey. In fact, I said specifically that the cartography is very convenient (And fun for the right mindset!)
There isn't a problem with games being dumbed down. You have a perception problem, because every game isn't made specifically for you.
Instead of whining about games being dumbed down for the masses, play the games and support the companies that make games you like.
These arguments are like saying music is dumbed down because Justin Beiber exists. It's retarded. Just cause Justin Beiber exists doesn't mean there aren't people making "good" music.
It would be nice to support the games that I do like, the problem is that unless I play something that is horribly outdated (Dark Age of Camelot for my example), then I have very limited choices. Companies are being paid to produce low depth high activity immediate gratification mmo video games and are pulling further and further from the mmoRPG.
Just compare the way one leveled, pvp'd and experienced a community in Dark Age of Camelot to anything that has released since 2004 (other than Vanguard and I dare say Shadowbane, which both had a lot of potential in my humble opinion).
Companies cater to what they think sells, i.e., fast food gaming, as one poster put it before I said today's mmorpgs are akin to McDonalds: so many served, yet so few satisfied.
Even for folks who do support today's mmorpgs, ala Rift, LOTRO, WoW (post level 60), Age of Conan, SW: ToR, GW2, etc., I am quite certain that in ten years they will not be talking about how great any of those titles were. Folks that do that tend to refer to the amazing communities and fantasy immersion that came with the early titles, such as Ultima, EQ, Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot. I believe pre expansion WoW had something nice going for it, until they theme parked so badly that when you walk into Stormwind now, your senses are bombarded by an ADHD stimulating environment. Flying reindeer, tons of glowy things, tiny pets following folks around, and just overt childish sillyness (in my opinion).
The reason that simple games are more popular is not because they are "better". Every feature you add to a game could be a deal breaker for a lot of people. For instance in MMOs some deal breakers are FFA PvP, extensive crafting, settings.
Now some settings are more popular. Does that mean they are better? No.
Further, simplicity was a hall mark of early games because they can't manage complexity. And because people were less educated. If the majority of the population cannot do math or read, how are they going to manage complex games? What about free time? We can e quite sure that limited free time is a factor in what games you like.
A lot of text based browser games have time settings. In games that don't the forums are full of arguments about which time span is the best. Each group argues that their time span is ideal. They don't want a 24 second turn because its too fast for them and gives active players too much time. Yet they claim that an hour is too slow a time span, they want 30 minutes. The hour group says 30 minutes is too fast but 2 hours or 3 hours is too slow.
Its all totally relative to how much free time you have.
I could go on and on about the assumptions you make but I suspect you aren't capable of making a large change in belief.
The point is that you don't even attempt to interrogate the context in which that quote was made. There are actually some mechanics in chess that we could take out to make it simpler and imo more interesting.
Popularity isn't being discussed here. Game depth without overcomplexity is what's being discussed.
As for early games "lacking the tech", that's nonsense and I guess you never played early adventure, strategy, or simulation games? The lackluster success of early simulation games is a direct result of these games tending to have a poor "game depth per complexity" quotient, as a result of their systems being implemented specifically to mimick reality (rather than being implemented because they made the game deeper, or more fun.)
Complexity doesn't improve games. It's not the goal. Depth is the goal. So any complexity which fails to make a game deeper actually makes the game worse overall.
Not sure why you feel your time settings tangent relates to the conversation at hand. We're talking about game depth and complexity, neither of which relates to session length.
No, we are talking about FUN. The only evidence you have for games being more fun, as you constantly argue all the fucking time, is popularity. That's almost a direct quote.
Time scale is important because time scale determines popularity. If you don't have the time to play a certain kind of game, you are going to play something else. If a game takes 5 minutes to achieve a goal, and you can play it on your phone on the bus, its got a much larger potential player base than a game that takes a long time to achieve a goal because people just don't have time for it.
You keep arguing as if people were rational actors and that all decisions were based on a single cause. This just isn't the case in real life.
You are always wrong not because you are dumb, but because you refuse to move beyond the first layer of a discussion.
And depth is not the goal of a game. Fun is the goal. Depth is one of the possible theories for why some games are more fun. But you have never proven it.
Many people prefer virtual worlds over games. You may argue that MORE people prefer games. But you can't just assert that its because games are more fun. You have to PROVE it. And you NEVER do.
People who engage in virtual worlds almost always play more time per day than people who play games. No one has ever spent 1000 hours of their life playing Angry Birds.
Magic: The Gathering is perhaps the most complex game in the world. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of cards. There are hundreds of mechanics on those cards.
Chess has simple base pieces. There are only 6 kinds of pieces, they all have 1 movement style. You could point at chess and say, see! simple deep games are more popular than complex games like Magic.
But I would say:
Chess was invented prior to Magic by something on thew order of centuries. Chess was a status game. The rich played Chess and only the rich had the free time to be good at it in general. Thus being good at chess was a status symbol. The reason Chess became important is the same reason there was a huge push for learning Latin in public schools. Because the middle class was emulating the rich.
Chess wasn't popular and iconic purely based on gameplay. No one looks at a game and decides to do it purely because of gameplay. They evaluate its accessibility, its social status, its costs to get and so forth.
But you can never think about this. You just keep on insisting that all that matters is game play.
I, for one, was born in 83' and had my hands on an NES by the time I was two. I still have memories of playing Metroid and having absolutely no clue as to what to do with it, but eventually kicking the shit out of that game at a *very* early age. Regardless of the age you were when you played the incredibly difficult games of the first generation of home consoles, you likely have a skillset I would consider 'superior' to modern gamers, that is, unless you were never able to get over the peripheral challenge that came with PS2-era controllers.
Gamers indoctrinated at any point around say, the N64, have no clue how difficult games used to be, and if confronted with one, they would pull hairs out. I've actually seen this in many of my younger friends that had an older brother's NES and never got into it, but jumped right into the first Xbox easily. Likely because it looked better, and not much else... but I would definitely argue that simplicity/ease is the hallmark of the later generations of gamers, while those around at the inception of the industry will constantly search for something more challenging.
I can agree with a few things the OP said here. I myself was a gamer back when GameBoy wasn't even in color yet. Games back then really did take skill and endurance to complete. Achievements really were achievements and boss-battles were epic sources of accomplishments to be remember.
Then World of Warcraft came out and gaming has gotten dopey ever since. Game companies have turned in the heart of gaming to make their games more generic and casual mainstream mmo in content. It makes good money this way as to pull in non-gamers but gives less content to anyone who came from the old-school or views video-games as a source of fantasy and freedom.
Which is why i'll be sticking to Ys and other single-player games besides a few selected mmo's this year and next.
I feel like an old fart, but back in the NES days, most games that weren't RPGs had no such thing as a "save" button. You played it all the way through and beat it, or you died.
I lost count of how many controllers I broke from throwing them at my old desk. The ones that still worked, well, there was a distinct rattling noise that came when I would shake them...
No, we are talking about FUN. The only evidence you have for games being more fun, as you constantly argue all the fucking time, is popularity. That's almost a direct quote.
Time scale is important because time scale determines popularity. If you don't have the time to play a certain kind of game, you are going to play something else. If a game takes 5 minutes to achieve a goal, and you can play it on your phone on the bus, its got a much larger potential player base than a game that takes a long time to achieve a goal because people just don't have time for it.
You keep arguing as if people were rational actors and that all decisions were based on a single cause. This just isn't the case in real life.
You are always wrong not because you are dumb, but because you refuse to move beyond the first layer of a discussion.
And depth is not the goal of a game. Fun is the goal. Depth is one of the possible theories for why some games are more fun. But you have never proven it.
Many people prefer virtual worlds over games. You may argue that MORE people prefer games. But you can't just assert that its because games are more fun. You have to PROVE it. And you NEVER do.
People who engage in virtual worlds almost always play more time per day than people who play games. No one has ever spent 1000 hours of their life playing Angry Birds.
Magic: The Gathering is perhaps the most complex game in the world. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of cards. There are hundreds of mechanics on those cards.
Chess has simple base pieces. There are only 6 kinds of pieces, they all have 1 movement style. You could point at chess and say, see! simple deep games are more popular than complex games like Magic.
But I would say:
Chess was invented prior to Magic by something on thew order of centuries. Chess was a status game. The rich played Chess and only the rich had the free time to be good at it in general. Thus being good at chess was a status symbol. The reason Chess became important is the same reason there was a huge push for learning Latin in public schools. Because the middle class was emulating the rich.
Chess wasn't popular and iconic purely based on gameplay. No one looks at a game and decides to do it purely because of gameplay. They evaluate its accessibility, its social status, its costs to get and so forth.
But you can never think about this. You just keep on insisting that all that matters is game play.
Time scale certainly shapes popularity by shoving away larger and larger chunks of the potential playerbase by requiring longer and longer sittings, but that still has nothing to do with the topic at hand: game depth vs. complexity vs. "dumbing down".
Sure depth isn't the only goal, but it's the primary factor giving games longevity. Depth measures how long it takes to master a game, and spending time mastering a game is one of the primary ways games are considered fun.
That's why you probably played Chess much longer than you played Tic Tac Toe; TTT is mastered very rapidly by children and then considered uninteresting, whereas Chess takes much longer to master.
And as an extension, this is the primary reason Chess is still played a lot today. Almost nobody gives a crap about social status. Social status wouldn't make you play Tic Tac Toe longer (it could've never been a high-status game anyway, because the upper class is better educated and wouldn't be amused long with a shallow game..)
People dont' need to be rational for their behaviors and desires to be known. Plenty of game designers have made games all their lives then written books on it, and they're all saying things which completely disagree with what you're saying here.
The proof that games are more fun than worlds is this: sometimes while designing a game the designer is faced with a decision between (a) mimicking reality better and (b) being a deeper game with more interesting decisions. In the subset of design decisions where that tradeoff decision is required, choosing A (world simulation) results in less interesting decisions. And since interesting decisions are one of the primary ways games are fun, creating a world makes a game which is going to be slightly less fun.
You insist I can "never think about this", and yet you're the one whose posts fly in the face of common game design knowledge. Whereas my posts are supported by several well-known books on design, and professed by several well-known, successful designers. All the evidence and common knowledge is stacked against you, and you really should educate yourself on the topic matter before disagreeing so strongly.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The proof that games are more fun than worlds is this: sometimes while designing a game the designer is faced with a decision between (a) mimicking reality better and (b) being a deeper game with more interesting decisions. In the subset of design decisions where that tradeoff decision is required, choosing A (world simulation) results in less interesting decisions. And since interesting decisions are one of the primary ways games are fun, creating a world makes a game which is going to be slightly less fun.
Whilst I agree with your initial analogy that simplicity can lead to depth, yet I can't agree with your recent posts at all.
Games are not more fun that worlds because worlds contain games therewithin for a start. Chess may be fun for a bit and have depth in terms of what can be derived from a single mechanic. A world though has lots of simple mechanics, each with depth, which intertwine to make a complex and exponentially deep evironment. I actually enjoy chess personally, I wont be beating Kasparov any time in the future but there is no way on Earth I would say chess was more fun than the world...
Mimicking a world (world simulation) necessitates that whilst that means some mechanics at the base level seem pointless, they infact work together to create something incredibly deep driven by the complexity of the system. For someone who proclaims that the AH can add layers of complexity I am unsure how you can miss the bigger picture by such a large margin.
Taking the path of simulation also certainly does not lead to less interesting decisions, far from it it leads to more. More systems interacting with one another and allowing for the players to interact with one another = more depth and more potential and more fun.
Chess is nothing more than a combat mechanic in terms of games. Having a simple system which allows for countless tactics and let's the players show their ability is brilliant. But it is not "depth" when considering an mmorpg. An mmorpg should have countless such systems that all go to make up a deep, complex and interesting world.
Really your chess analogy is good for something like a MOBA or FPS. A very simple genre of games which rely on basic mechanics and principles and hope to derive complexity/depth from potential strategies. An mmorpg is meant to be far more encompassing than that and far, far more deep.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Mimicking a world (world simulation) necessitates that whilst that means some mechanics at the base level seem pointless, they infact work together to create something incredibly deep driven by the complexity of the system. For someone who proclaims that the AH can add layers of complexity I am unsure how you can miss the bigger picture by such a large margin.
Taking the path of simulation also certainly does not lead to less interesting decisions, far from it it leads to more. More systems interacting with one another and allowing for the players to interact with one another = more depth and more potential and more fun.
Chess is nothing more than a combat mechanic in terms of games. Having a simple system which allows for countless tactics and let's the players show their ability is brilliant. But it is not "depth" when considering an mmorpg. An mmorpg should have countless such systems that all go to make up a deep, complex and interesting world.
Really your chess analogy is good for something like a MOBA or FPS. A very simple genre of games which rely on basic mechanics and principles and hope to derive complexity/depth from potential strategies. An mmorpg is meant to be far more encompassing than that and far, far more deep.
The first paragraph is a false assumption. That's one possibility which might occur while designing a world. But it's a stronger possibility that a game will end up that way if the designer is creating a game, and therefore optimizing for interesting decisions over world simulation. Again, it comes down to the subset of decisions which require A vs. B. Better simulation or better decisions.
You're thinking of the subset of design decisions where simulation a world better also adds more interesting decisions. An an AH is a good example of that. And yeah, focusing on these aspects lets a game simulate a world without sacrificing interesting decisions.
But inevitably you're going to hit the other subset of decisions where an A or B tradeoff is required. And you'll have to decide whether to optimize for world simulation or interesting decisions. You won't be able to have both.
As for Chess not being depth, that's ridiculous. Depth is depth. "A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries." -David Sirlin.
MMORPGs are judged by that same measure of depth. They're either interesting longterm or they're not. This doesn't require being more like Chess's specific ruleset, but it does mean the ideal is still a simple-yet-deep game. The simpler you can achieve the same game depth, the better. And the more game depth you can achieve without making things too complex, the better. But spamming a bunch of low-depth, high-complexity mechanics is a sure-fire way to create a lousy game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
Well, yes, except that sitcoms are dead now. Reality TV ya'll, previous generation was sitcoms.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
As you'll remember, public perceptions of MMO on this board are as follows:
A) "Classic sandbox" good mmkay "Classic themepark" good mmkay (the Nostalgia rule)
C) "EVE" hope you like it, the only exception to rule B. (Special exception because we've decided to blame themeparks for everything wrong since 2004). Don't like EVE? Sorry.
D) New sandbox? bad mmkay (Bad under the special Indie = Bad rule).
Now part of this is simply the biggest mouths presenting the biggest extremes as facts (all of those 'rules' are challengable), and hyperbole ruling the day. But the games that moving in as independent hits indicate there are some chinks in the armor of despair and the litany of fear. Maybe we're simply getting tired of listening to the same old repetitive argument, as sick as we are of the same old repetitive game models.
The simple fact is, what you design matters less under the current state as variety. Everything as different from WoW as you can possibly make into a functional MMO, despite the flaws, has a pretty good chance of making a buck or two. TSW and GW2? Both looking good, neither trying for "wow killer", neither sandbox of the future.
But what matters is that they did NOT choose the "just clone that big one" trap that so many of the last decade or so's games did.
In the end, looks like that will be more important than all the pundits standing on soap boxes telling us what specific features the next "winner" must have.
And the good thing about SWTOR is that, as this generation's developer, you'd have to be blind or insane to propose "lets just copy the big one" as a design policy, again.
The variety gamers have been clamouring for just may be the overlying principle, the big lesson, of the next few years.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Here's one definition:
It certainly doesn't take a stance on features related to usability, which is what people seem to have issue with. There is nothing wrong with the game doing all the mundane stuff automatically so the player can concentrate on the more exciting stuff. There's nothing wrong with a good tutorial, up to date, accurate and helpful documentation or even a prompt to where you should find your fun. None of those things take away from depth unless the game is specifically about drawing maps, taking care of mundane things, or finding the bulletin points what you should do from one character's lifestory.
God of War was about fighting monsters and kicking some divine ass. Forcing Kratos to sleep, drink and eat while doing so wouldn't have made the game more deep. It would've actually taken away from the experience. Old games had tons of nuisances like that which didn't make the game much, if any, deeper.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Which came first. The dumb game or the dumb gamer?
WoW came first, which created the dumb gamer.
Which is exactly opposite of the easy meme in 2004.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Thats it right there, Games don't need to be complex or challenging, and who is to say they aren't challenging? You know the reason my people who have been gaming since the days of NES probably think that gaming has gotten simple? CAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN GAMING FOR THE THE PAST 25 YEARS. Here is something I have noticed.
I play WoW, and didn't start raiding till wrath, I thought it was freaking crazy complex, at least compared to heroics, even from BC. Yet, there were a ton of people who said, you guessed it, it was much harder in vanilla, or in BC. So these people have 4 years raiding experience on me, and I am the idiot for thinking it's kinda hard, when you know they thought the same thing I did when they first started raiding too.
It's not that games are getting simpler, I mean come on, there are stories now, 3D enviroments, and even ethical decisions to make. Maybe the whole, "been gaming for 2 decades" makes people see it as simpler because much of it is overlooked.
Just a thought. Personally I am of the opinion that life is complex, and challenging enough, so when I play a game a little simplicity is a good thing.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
Read, Learn, Apply
http://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/stupidity/
My Thoughts on Content Locust
Mmm. Some of the vanilla raid encounters were rather simple tank n spanks (hell, most of them). The later raids did have some mechanics that weren't even available in vanilla, true. But I'd stop short of comparing them at the top end, so many brand new (in wotlk) raiders never really reached the top end of ICC.
But marching upward through Icecrown, you didn't really encounter 'hard' until at least Putricide, first half of the raid consisted of DPS races and tanknspanks, in either mode. There's some merit to people calling it ezmode...you could tell, just from the walls the PuG raids were hitting and where they were getting stranded, which encounters they'd not even try with hardmode on.
Hardmode, the division between "yawn" and "oh god getting serious now" was much more clear, and ramped up steeply from PP to Sindra to LK.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I used to name them "fast food gamer generation"...
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Ok, so case and point, if the first half was akin to vanilla, then people who raided in vanilla would obviously find them simple, while new raiders would find them harder from lack of experience. But marrowgar, required learning raid awareness, and group coordination, deathwhisper.....I always healed...so i just stayed out of the green stuff, tanks and dps had some stuff going on for raid awareness, the gunship was just crazy, and saurfang wasn't just tank and spank, you had the adds that had to be addressed very precisely.
I mean, my point is, that if you quested to 85, then ran some heroics, and then jump into ICC, it's hard, especially if it's your first MMO, or your just not as "good" as other gamers. But this translates to any MMO, you have a group of content locust, who go from game to game, do everything as quickly as possible, then come back here and spout how simple it is, yawn, ect. But these same people do this all the time, When I look at a 35 Ton HVAC that won't start due to electrical problems, I am like, this is simple, yawn. (unless the compressor is shorted out, then its a pain) but still point is, when these people do this, they do two things 1) a disservice to the companies that make the game 2) Make new players feel inadequate. I am not saying that we should force sensitivity classes for elite gamer snobs, I could care less about them, they are parasites in the gaming world, if you really understand the concept of parasitism and how the gaming industry works.
I do however think it bears bringing up though, because new gamers who don't think much on this kind of stuff need to hear this argument.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
Public schooling and bad genes came first, creating the dumb gamer.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Complex combat mechanics.
When you need a SOFTWARE (like rawr) to optimize gear, it is depth. No one says depth has to be in storyline & quest.
Has you ever played Starcraft II pro pvp? It has depth in combat. Its campaign story, OTOH, is as linear as you can get. So what if the story & quests are linear? That is not where the raiders & dungeon adventures look for depth. It is in the combat & boss fights.
There isn't a problem with games being dumbed down. You have a perception problem, because every game isn't made specifically for you.
Instead of whining about games being dumbed down for the masses, play the games and support the companies that make games you like.
These arguments are like saying music is dumbed down because Justin Beiber exists. It's retarded. Just cause Justin Beiber exists doesn't mean there aren't people making "good" music.
You can have very basic rules in order to drive a relatively complex system. Truly superb games show this to be true and yet how many of those games are part of the mmorpg genre... exactly sweet fuck all. There simply is not an mmorpg version of chess out there i'm afraid. Something basic with hidden depth is far more applicable to a MOBA or something.
Having an AH does not create oodles of depth, it allows for some people to game others in setting prices, wowser. If the game world also allows for the AH gaming to have an impact upon the wider gaming world, then you can start talking about depth, but guess what, that requires greater complextity in terms of interweaving the gaming systems.
You cite EVE to be a "mess" and yet EVE is one of the few mmorpg with any depth whatsoever. Moreoever each of it's parts is relatively simple, it is merely more complex to actually get to grip with the wider picture and understand the depth of the thing, which some are unable to do.
Depth in mmorpgs is generated by the players interacting with one another within a game world which allows them to interact in numerous and diverse ways. Most games massively restrict this and hence, have next to no depth. A cool combat system is not depth in an mmo, it may provide pvp depth to a moba, but in the genre of mmorpgs that really is not going to cut it.
This is again why the chess analogy is interesting. Chess may be simple and yet have complex tactical nuances, yet compared to the wider world is has next to no complexity and next to no depth. In gaming terms chess is merely the pvp mechanics component, the wider world is the scope of the full mmorpg. The latter is what is missing from most modern mmorpgs.
In terms of games "dumbing down" outside of the mmorpg genre, I am not so sure that is true. I feel personally they may be easier, or at least certainly more forgiving in general and I also feel they rely alot more on graphics than gameplay content. But that is not exactly dumbing down per say.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Very true. But if you post it on this microcosm of a website, everybody is gonna mob the Beiber fan...and then write "music sucks" on his/her forehead with a Sharpie.
Anywhoo, it does take a certain amount of maturity to admit that gamers of all skills levels can co-exist. Rather than see "under-skilled" gamers as a detriment, why don't long-time gamers see the expanding video game market (and the choices made available to us as entertainment) a benefit? Perhaps our expectations have just been broken one too many times?
Should we just stop playing any game that can't put out a challenging demo and write newer titles off? Or maybe we should have a gamer skill rating system...
Edit: I would love to see mmorpg do an article about this very subject. Maybe an evolution to the modern day mmo and its gamers. Richard Aihoshi might be a good choice, he generally provides thought provoking perspective.
When games stop becoming games, and start becoming stream-lined experiences.
In a beautiful world; this would be true. Sadly, our industry is a corporate venture. Everyone looks to find the most popular and innovative brands and emulate their success.
With that said, if a crappy game gets attention--prepare to see more of them.
Best hope is reserved for indie developers who see video games as an art-form, instead of a product. Turning your eyes towards them will show you your 'actual' games.
Played - M59, EQOA, EQ, EQ2, PS, SWG[Favorite], DAoC, UO, RS, MXO, CoH/CoV, TR, FFXI, FoM, WoW, Eve, Rift, SWTOR, TSW.
Playing - PS2, AoW, GW2
That was actually two separate comments. I never said cartography is difficult, just that those who LIKE it, should play Etrian Odyssey. In fact, I said specifically that the cartography is very convenient (And fun for the right mindset!)
The game itself is difficult though.
It would be nice to support the games that I do like, the problem is that unless I play something that is horribly outdated (Dark Age of Camelot for my example), then I have very limited choices. Companies are being paid to produce low depth high activity immediate gratification mmo video games and are pulling further and further from the mmoRPG.
Just compare the way one leveled, pvp'd and experienced a community in Dark Age of Camelot to anything that has released since 2004 (other than Vanguard and I dare say Shadowbane, which both had a lot of potential in my humble opinion).
Companies cater to what they think sells, i.e., fast food gaming, as one poster put it before I said today's mmorpgs are akin to McDonalds: so many served, yet so few satisfied.
Even for folks who do support today's mmorpgs, ala Rift, LOTRO, WoW (post level 60), Age of Conan, SW: ToR, GW2, etc., I am quite certain that in ten years they will not be talking about how great any of those titles were. Folks that do that tend to refer to the amazing communities and fantasy immersion that came with the early titles, such as Ultima, EQ, Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot. I believe pre expansion WoW had something nice going for it, until they theme parked so badly that when you walk into Stormwind now, your senses are bombarded by an ADHD stimulating environment. Flying reindeer, tons of glowy things, tiny pets following folks around, and just overt childish sillyness (in my opinion).
/2 cents
No, we are talking about FUN. The only evidence you have for games being more fun, as you constantly argue all the fucking time, is popularity. That's almost a direct quote.
Time scale is important because time scale determines popularity. If you don't have the time to play a certain kind of game, you are going to play something else. If a game takes 5 minutes to achieve a goal, and you can play it on your phone on the bus, its got a much larger potential player base than a game that takes a long time to achieve a goal because people just don't have time for it.
You keep arguing as if people were rational actors and that all decisions were based on a single cause. This just isn't the case in real life.
You are always wrong not because you are dumb, but because you refuse to move beyond the first layer of a discussion.
And depth is not the goal of a game. Fun is the goal. Depth is one of the possible theories for why some games are more fun. But you have never proven it.
Many people prefer virtual worlds over games. You may argue that MORE people prefer games. But you can't just assert that its because games are more fun. You have to PROVE it. And you NEVER do.
People who engage in virtual worlds almost always play more time per day than people who play games. No one has ever spent 1000 hours of their life playing Angry Birds.
Magic: The Gathering is perhaps the most complex game in the world. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of cards. There are hundreds of mechanics on those cards.
Chess has simple base pieces. There are only 6 kinds of pieces, they all have 1 movement style. You could point at chess and say, see! simple deep games are more popular than complex games like Magic.
But I would say:
Chess was invented prior to Magic by something on thew order of centuries. Chess was a status game. The rich played Chess and only the rich had the free time to be good at it in general. Thus being good at chess was a status symbol. The reason Chess became important is the same reason there was a huge push for learning Latin in public schools. Because the middle class was emulating the rich.
Chess wasn't popular and iconic purely based on gameplay. No one looks at a game and decides to do it purely because of gameplay. They evaluate its accessibility, its social status, its costs to get and so forth.
But you can never think about this. You just keep on insisting that all that matters is game play.
I can agree with a few things the OP said here. I myself was a gamer back when GameBoy wasn't even in color yet. Games back then really did take skill and endurance to complete. Achievements really were achievements and boss-battles were epic sources of accomplishments to be remember.
Then World of Warcraft came out and gaming has gotten dopey ever since. Game companies have turned in the heart of gaming to make their games more generic and casual mainstream mmo in content. It makes good money this way as to pull in non-gamers but gives less content to anyone who came from the old-school or views video-games as a source of fantasy and freedom.
Which is why i'll be sticking to Ys and other single-player games besides a few selected mmo's this year and next.
I feel like an old fart, but back in the NES days, most games that weren't RPGs had no such thing as a "save" button. You played it all the way through and beat it, or you died.
I lost count of how many controllers I broke from throwing them at my old desk. The ones that still worked, well, there was a distinct rattling noise that came when I would shake them...
Time scale certainly shapes popularity by shoving away larger and larger chunks of the potential playerbase by requiring longer and longer sittings, but that still has nothing to do with the topic at hand: game depth vs. complexity vs. "dumbing down".
Sure depth isn't the only goal, but it's the primary factor giving games longevity. Depth measures how long it takes to master a game, and spending time mastering a game is one of the primary ways games are considered fun.
That's why you probably played Chess much longer than you played Tic Tac Toe; TTT is mastered very rapidly by children and then considered uninteresting, whereas Chess takes much longer to master.
And as an extension, this is the primary reason Chess is still played a lot today. Almost nobody gives a crap about social status. Social status wouldn't make you play Tic Tac Toe longer (it could've never been a high-status game anyway, because the upper class is better educated and wouldn't be amused long with a shallow game..)
People dont' need to be rational for their behaviors and desires to be known. Plenty of game designers have made games all their lives then written books on it, and they're all saying things which completely disagree with what you're saying here.
The proof that games are more fun than worlds is this: sometimes while designing a game the designer is faced with a decision between (a) mimicking reality better and (b) being a deeper game with more interesting decisions. In the subset of design decisions where that tradeoff decision is required, choosing A (world simulation) results in less interesting decisions. And since interesting decisions are one of the primary ways games are fun, creating a world makes a game which is going to be slightly less fun.
You insist I can "never think about this", and yet you're the one whose posts fly in the face of common game design knowledge. Whereas my posts are supported by several well-known books on design, and professed by several well-known, successful designers. All the evidence and common knowledge is stacked against you, and you really should educate yourself on the topic matter before disagreeing so strongly.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Whilst I agree with your initial analogy that simplicity can lead to depth, yet I can't agree with your recent posts at all.
Games are not more fun that worlds because worlds contain games therewithin for a start. Chess may be fun for a bit and have depth in terms of what can be derived from a single mechanic. A world though has lots of simple mechanics, each with depth, which intertwine to make a complex and exponentially deep evironment. I actually enjoy chess personally, I wont be beating Kasparov any time in the future but there is no way on Earth I would say chess was more fun than the world...
Mimicking a world (world simulation) necessitates that whilst that means some mechanics at the base level seem pointless, they infact work together to create something incredibly deep driven by the complexity of the system. For someone who proclaims that the AH can add layers of complexity I am unsure how you can miss the bigger picture by such a large margin.
Taking the path of simulation also certainly does not lead to less interesting decisions, far from it it leads to more. More systems interacting with one another and allowing for the players to interact with one another = more depth and more potential and more fun.
Chess is nothing more than a combat mechanic in terms of games. Having a simple system which allows for countless tactics and let's the players show their ability is brilliant. But it is not "depth" when considering an mmorpg. An mmorpg should have countless such systems that all go to make up a deep, complex and interesting world.
Really your chess analogy is good for something like a MOBA or FPS. A very simple genre of games which rely on basic mechanics and principles and hope to derive complexity/depth from potential strategies. An mmorpg is meant to be far more encompassing than that and far, far more deep.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
The first paragraph is a false assumption. That's one possibility which might occur while designing a world. But it's a stronger possibility that a game will end up that way if the designer is creating a game, and therefore optimizing for interesting decisions over world simulation. Again, it comes down to the subset of decisions which require A vs. B. Better simulation or better decisions.
You're thinking of the subset of design decisions where simulation a world better also adds more interesting decisions. An an AH is a good example of that. And yeah, focusing on these aspects lets a game simulate a world without sacrificing interesting decisions.
But inevitably you're going to hit the other subset of decisions where an A or B tradeoff is required. And you'll have to decide whether to optimize for world simulation or interesting decisions. You won't be able to have both.
As for Chess not being depth, that's ridiculous. Depth is depth. "A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries." -David Sirlin.
MMORPGs are judged by that same measure of depth. They're either interesting longterm or they're not. This doesn't require being more like Chess's specific ruleset, but it does mean the ideal is still a simple-yet-deep game. The simpler you can achieve the same game depth, the better. And the more game depth you can achieve without making things too complex, the better. But spamming a bunch of low-depth, high-complexity mechanics is a sure-fire way to create a lousy game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver