4.cutscenes especially if there are more than few rare occasional ones - separating player from game world & making it feel like single player
I do not personally mind cutscenes, but I agree that they should not be as prominent in MMOs. I think they are fine in an area which is a safe haven, like a city. However, voice over content can be done to a great effect without the use of cutscenes, some games do this very well. Some major events could also be shown as a cutscenes, but those cutscenes must serve a purpose.
The basic task givers also do not need to give a lenghty explonations in cutscenes on why the 10 rats need to be killed but the conversation could be just a very simple voice-over with an item given that explains the task in more detail. More epic missions and quests could have more meat in them.
I can live without cutscenes, but voice overs are a must these days. It is a poor quality game, if the conversations between NPCs and PCs are not voiced. Random NPC chatter also adds immersion to the world. However, not every quest giver has to be an NPC. AO used a good mission terminal system 10 years ago, which works fine with the text only interface.
Important NPCs should also have distinct voices and personality and could have initial cutscene, when you first meet them, but could only feature as a voice over later on. Like in books, it is important that a player is able to appreciate these important NPCs that they come accross to create a better feeling for the game world.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Current "MMOs" have little in common with traditional MMORPGs but the first 3 letters. I call them MOAGs, for multiplayer online action (or arcade) games. Personally, I don't like them and don't play them, but I'm aware that it's a very popular genre and far more popular than MMORPGs are or have been.
As such, there are MOAG and MMORPG features and it's clear that the majority of customers prefers the MOAG features.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Instancing is taking a part of an MMO and removing it from the Massively Multiplayer to make a Single Player experience with Multi-Player capability.
There is no "opinion" here, that's what it is.
If your're immersed, you dont care or notice. Everything has it's place. Even instancing.
Immersion is king. People will remember their king.
This isn't a discussion about immersion, it's about socializing. And no, instancing is insanely immersion breaking.
In LotRO, running around, finding a cave, getting a message "You cannot enter here without the right quest." Yeah, immersion!
In a virtual world full of adventurers it makes sense for other people to be in dungeons.
Agree with Garvon3.
There's two sources of immersion here.
The dungeon itself. I can kind of see 5thofFikus' point in that an instanced dungeon can be made more immersive to the player (and the party) by the mechanisms involved. But that's just in that narrow scope of personal experience of a "module". But once you get past that, everything adds up to immersion breaking.
Once you think about it from the "World" point of view, it is immersion breaking....in every way. It's "gamey", not "worldly".
You know, I find it strange. Some players are like me and look at these MMORPGs as the whole, with the masses as part of their world.
Others look at these games from strictly their own personal vantage point and completely ignore the experience of the masses they are "in this world" with.
It would be like going to a real life theme park, and seeing hundreds of other people entering the gates, but once you enter all those other people are simply...gone. It's great for you, there are no lines at the rides, everything is catered to you. Some people would no doubt find great joy in this, while others would be troubled by the fact that all those other people are missing. Of course, these are just computer games. It's a lot easier to miss that point about all the other players "not being there". And it's fine for a Single Player Game. But for an MMORPG, it just doesn't make sense.
Current "MMOs" have little in common with traditional MMORPGs but the first 3 letters. I call them MOAGs, for multiplayer online action (or arcade) games. Personally, I don't like them and don't play them, but I'm aware that it's a very popular genre and far more popular than MMORPGs are or have been.
As such, there are MOAG and MMORPG features and it's clear that the majority of customers prefers the MOAG features.
The problem with older games and the newer ones as well is the progression of nonsense, while natural timesinks (world gameplay) was removed to help streamline the progression of nonsense. Questing was added to mask it. And rewards were given out to motivate. Now the entire game is progressing a bunch of nonsense.
Of coarse more people want action games, they assume less progressing of nonsense. the prooblem is they leave the world off still, and add repetition on top of faster progression.
Action game in a virtual World, or action + immersion = new audience. Progression is in the world or to enhance immersion only.
Or in other words, human nature design + virtual world gameplay = everyone else.
Instead we get action + progression+ repetition = usual crowd. (vacationing WOW players)
An insane addiction to progression of nonsense at the cost of everything else including fun and immersion will surely backfire. Repetition only makes time invested crowd happy for a minute if action combat is used instead.
People will remember why they play games. Even COD fanboys are remembering.
That's my opinion for the next five minutes anyway. Im no expert though. If I was i would be saying cross platform is the future. I hope they got a game idea to go along with it. They have to right?
People tend to forget that the WoW we have today is extremely difficult from vanilla WoW, therefore you can't really generalise. Vanilla WoW had no dungeon finder, in fact no LFG or LFR system at all. It had no cross-server interaction until patch 1.12 which introduced cross-realm battlegrounds, which was just before TBC. It had plenty of world bosses, and had a fair balance between instanced and open world bosses. There was no teleporting around, only to major cities (with the assistance of a mage) and your hearthstone bind location (which had a 1 hour cooldown). There were flight paths however, though they were pretty time consuming. Flying from one end of Kalimdor to the other took over 10 minutes if I remember correctly. The levelling experience had a lot of quests that required a group of multiple players, now WoW has none of that.
Despite all of this, Vanilla still brought in EIGHT MILLION subscribers and was still growing due to word of mouth / advertising (TBC brought in another three million). People who argue that there isn't an an audience for people who want a somewhat hardcore game, or people who argue that a game can't be successful without these convenience features, are completely fooling themselves. Sure, vanilla WoW wasn't Everquest, but it was a damn lot more hardcore, and a completely different game, than it is today. Yet it still pulled in a huge audience, and probably would've pulled in a greater one even if an expansion hadn't released because it was still growing. I'd even say it would be bigger than it is today had it kept its original design philosophy.
Just because WoW changed, it doesn't mean that the players changed, and it doesn't mean the genre had to change. Human psychology won't change for a very, very long time. Everyone 'wants' covenience, sure; but the large majority of gamers don't see the consequences which come around after implementing those features. They just think 'cool', and then wonder why that 'feel' they got from the game a few years ago is gone. There are few game designers that actually realise this, which is a shame. I'm not saying that convenience should be thown out of the window, I think that it should be implemented wherever it can, provided that it doesn't compromise the immersion or community of a game. Game designers simply aren't trying hard enough to find solutions to this problem, unfortunately.
Most of the specific issues can be summed up in more general terms:
Design which sidelines grouping.Design which simply allows solo progress does not sideline grouping
Design which sidelines crafting.Not every MMO is about crafting nor should they. Design which cuts out roleplaying tools.You don't need tools to roleplay.
You don't really care about MMOs, you just don't like some features or ways of doing things.
First... design which makes soloing the easiest, and most profitable way to play the game, and a game which is 95% solo content, pretty much sidelines grouping.
And some people like having the option of crafting, just like some people enjoy the option of leveling via PvP or grouping. And yes, roleplaying is helped by basic RP tools. Not saying those last two contribute to anti MMOness, just pointing out some things...
I think you are far exaggerating the number of "hardcore MMO gamers" (I think you mean old-school) and severely under-estimating the market for new style MMOs.
You also missed his point. He never said you couldn't make money out of old-school players. Its just that they're significantly smaller niche than the mainstream niche. Enough so that it is hard to justify making a high budget game targeted to that audience.
Who said anything about a high budget game? Just make sure that your core game is solid and build it all the time. Don't spend millions on CGI trailers, full voice acting, scripted cinematics... make a damn game. Mythic made Dark Age of Camelot with 30 devs and about a million dollars, and it is STILL better than most MMOs out there today.
Mythic was a one-hit-wonder like many others (and many still are). If I remember correctly, Quake 3 was made with 24 people and Guild Wars 1 started out with three guys coding in one's kitchen.
Your subjective view matters little when almost every AAA MMO today regularly overshadows any successess DAoC may or may not have had.
First, Mythic built their experience and team piece by piece. They released a lot of big multiplayer games and MUDs before DAoC, so hardly a one hit wonder.
Second, DAoC had a steady 250k subscribers for over 5 years before it started to dwindle, that's far FAR more than most modern AAA MMOs can claim. AoC would kill for those kind of numbers. So would WAR for that matter.
First... design which makes soloing the easiest, and most profitable way to play the game, and a game which is 95% solo content, pretty much sidelines grouping.
Then your issue is really grouping vs solo, not socialization or non 'anti-MMO' features, correct?
I say that because so far not only is there no data to support solo gameplay detracting from the social aspect of MMOs. The games that have developed extensive community and interaction beyond the guild and group units have been games that not only support solo and group play but see an extreme amount of solo play at all levels of player activity. Some examples would be EVE Online, Second Life, Ultima Online, and A Tale in the Desert.
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
First... design which makes soloing the easiest, and most profitable way to play the game, and a game which is 95% solo content, pretty much sidelines grouping.
Then your issue is really grouping vs solo, not socialization or non 'anti-MMO' features, correct?
I say that because so far not only is there no data to support solo gameplay detracting from the social aspect of MMOs. The games that have developed extensive community and interaction beyond the guild and group units have been games that not only support solo and group play but see an extreme amount of solo play at all levels of player activity. Some examples would be EVE Online, Second Life, Ultima Online, and A Tale in the Desert.
Er, except grouping was entirely necessarily in just about all those games you listed. Working with other players. You just could NOT play the game entirely solo, unlike the WoW clones that dominate the market today.
If everyone is playing alone, no one can possibly socialize.
First... design which makes soloing the easiest, and most profitable way to play the game, and a game which is 95% solo content, pretty much sidelines grouping.
And some people like having the option of crafting, just like some people enjoy the option of leveling via PvP or grouping. And yes, roleplaying is helped by basic RP tools. Not saying those last two contribute to anti MMOness, just pointing out some things...
Lets put something concrete on the table: What are these basic RP tools?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
In the light of the topic of MMOs that feel like singplayer games. What features do you feel are unproductive or even detrimental to making an MMO or MMORPG what it is or should be in your opinion? MMO design seems to have gotten off track somewhat and I wish devs would take notice to what they are doing compared to what players want (or based on what they don't want?). What is happening can't possibly be the result of not knowing what players want.
I'm not explicitly speaking to just your layman dev but mostly to those responsible for the direction of it's entirety.
Heavy gear grinds that promote elitist mentalities and segregate the community into different cliques.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
First... design which makes soloing the easiest, and most profitable way to play the game, and a game which is 95% solo content, pretty much sidelines grouping.
Then your issue is really grouping vs solo, not socialization or non 'anti-MMO' features, correct?
I say that because so far not only is there no data to support solo gameplay detracting from the social aspect of MMOs. The games that have developed extensive community and interaction beyond the guild and group units have been games that not only support solo and group play but see an extreme amount of solo play at all levels of player activity. Some examples would be EVE Online, Second Life, Ultima Online, and A Tale in the Desert.
Er, except grouping was entirely necessarily in just about all those games you listed. Working with other players. You just could NOT play the game entirely solo, unlike the WoW clones that dominate the market today.
If everyone is playing alone, no one can possibly socialize.
Two words .. chat channel .. that is your socialization.
Plus, i don't understand what is the obsession with solo-content ... if you look at WOW, most of the gameplay is LFD grouped.
in truth there is nothing wrong with the kinds of MMOs they are creating. They are making money. They are serving an audience.
The problem is that they're branding them as MMOs, which they aren't. And they aren't making much money. And they're only making games for ONE segment of a massive user base.
Genre changes .. you don't have the power to dictate what MMO means.
Now MMO means ... a mix of solo content, LFD, instances, and lobby based game play. You do not like it, you don't have to play. Personally, that is how i see MMOs. I highly doubt most play will think that WOW is not a MMO. DCUO is not a MMO, and so on.
1. fully automatic LFG systems = changing game into lobby
...
Nailed it on all points.
I like the signature I saw somewhere. (paraphrased) "I really like MMORPGs. I just hope that someday a developer will make another one."
THink about WHY there is such change. In fact, LFG systems are very popular. Lots of playres asked for one in TOR because it wasn't there from the start.
Yeah, MMORPGs are turning into lobby-based games .. or at least a large part of it ... this is a trend for a reason.
Lol not they are not. TSW, GW2, Repop, Archeage lots of games coming up are not lobby based. You seem to "want" them to all be but that doesn't mean they are. You were talking about SWTOR it didn't fail because it's lobby based it failed because it was a SPRG and sucked and so did Tera and to a lesser extent Rift. Don't confuse Moba's and MMO's they are not the same thing.Diablo 3 is not an MMO and nether is torchlight 2 or LOL or SMITE or TRIBES Ascend.
WOW, the biggest one, is. GW, the first one, is. DCUO is. Sure some are not, but a lot are.
DDO is.
Lot of the same people who play WOW play Diablo 3 (in fact, at least 1.2M annual pass holder, not counting those who purchase in retail). The play style is close enough. Plus, D3, Torchlight are not MMOs, but discussed here anyway.
The playstyle is not "close enough" WoW is certainly an mmo with LFG tools rammed up its ass but all their "new content" is instanced so they turned it into a Lobby based game but it never started out that way and we are seeing SWTOR epicly fail for trying to copy this pattern.
D3 may have millions playing it but can you get a massive amount of people on screen at once? No you cannot. Can you wage massive wars? Travel massive distances to meet up with your friends. Is D3 one massive world? Shit no it isn't and nor is it an MMO. Obviously your a wow fanboi desperately trying to keep the status quo and well look at SWTOR and Tera the latest wow clones crumbling... no wonder you are upset.
The playstyle is not "close enough" WoW is certainly an mmo with LFG tools rammed up its ass but all their "new content" is instanced so they turned it into a Lobby based game but it never started out that way and we are seeing SWTOR epicly fail for trying to copy this pattern.
We are not talking about 7 years ago. We are talking about today. How many are waiting in Orgrimmar for their dungeon to pop. That is exactly the play style when i play lobby games. TOR does NOT have LFD when it started .. part fo the complaint. In fact, LFD is so successful, that WOW put all raids on it too .. and soon we will have cross-realm too.
D3 may have millions playing it but can you get a massive amount of people on screen at once? No you cannot. Can you wage massive wars? Travel massive distances to meet up with your friends. Is D3 one massive world? Shit no it isn't and nor is it an MMO. Obviously your a wow fanboi desperately trying to keep the status quo and well look at SWTOR and Tera the latest wow clones crumbling... no wonder you are upset.
No. But i don't wage massive war when i play WOW either. And the only time you see a massive number of people at once in WOW is when you are in a city, which does not really add much to the game.
You travel massive distance to meet up with friends in WOW?
I am not desperate to keep the status quo .. there are plenty of games that i like to play. The status quo is keeping itself. You sound more upset than i am ... in fact, i am going to do another Act 2 run now.
First... design which makes soloing the easiest, and most profitable way to play the game, and a game which is 95% solo content, pretty much sidelines grouping.
Then your issue is really grouping vs solo, not socialization or non 'anti-MMO' features, correct?
I say that because so far not only is there no data to support solo gameplay detracting from the social aspect of MMOs. The games that have developed extensive community and interaction beyond the guild and group units have been games that not only support solo and group play but see an extreme amount of solo play at all levels of player activity. Some examples would be EVE Online, Second Life, Ultima Online, and A Tale in the Desert.
Er, except grouping was entirely necessarily in just about all those games you listed. Working with other players. You just could NOT play the game entirely solo, unlike the WoW clones that dominate the market today.
If everyone is playing alone, no one can possibly socialize.
Collaboration and interaction, yes. Grouping, no. You're going to need to learn the distinction if you wish to understand any of this, expecially with your very limited knowledge of this subject.
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
I don't look at any feature as detrimental to MMO game-play, anything can be done in an MMO be it cutscenes, storylines etc.. as long as features that create a social environment are also in place. The problem is over the last decade, social features have been put on the back burner behind everything else.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I don't look at any feature as detrimental to MMO game-play, anything can be done in an MMO be it cutscenes, storylines etc.. as long as features that create a social environment are also in place. The problem is over the last decade, social features have been put on the back burner behind everything else.
I also think that's a problem with today's MMOs. As devs do their damnedest to force everyone into one spot in hopes of a happy lovefest occurring, they have actually moved away from any tools, features or mechanics that facilitate social interaction and, on a greater level, community building.
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
Immersion is the synchronization between expectations and experiences.
Players might have two types of expectations about a cave. One is reflected in novels or movies, and involves exploring a dangerous place. The other is visiting a tourist cave alongside 100 other tourists.
The first one sounds way more interesting, and way more immersive.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Most of the specific issues can be summed up in more general terms:
Design which makes you not need to travel. Design which speeds up levelling. Design which reduces your ability to explore. Design which hinders you ability to meet players again. Design which sidelines grouping. Design which sidelines crafting. Design which cuts out roleplaying tools. Design which makes you pay to win. Design which makes MMO’s too easy.
Finally to sum up:
Design which puts graphics before gameplay and gameplay before the multiplayer experience.
SOMEONE BUY THIS MAN A KEG!!!! A BEER JUST DOESNT CUT IT!
Immersion is the synchronization between expectations and experiences.
Players might have two types of expectations about a cave. One is reflected in novels or movies, and involves exploring a dangerous place. The other is visiting a tourist cave alongside 100 other tourists.
The first one sounds way more interesting, and way more immersive.
Why is it that you feel the multiplayer dungeon experience can only be a 'tourist' event, rather than cooperative or competitve gameplay?
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
Comments
I do not personally mind cutscenes, but I agree that they should not be as prominent in MMOs. I think they are fine in an area which is a safe haven, like a city. However, voice over content can be done to a great effect without the use of cutscenes, some games do this very well. Some major events could also be shown as a cutscenes, but those cutscenes must serve a purpose.
The basic task givers also do not need to give a lenghty explonations in cutscenes on why the 10 rats need to be killed but the conversation could be just a very simple voice-over with an item given that explains the task in more detail. More epic missions and quests could have more meat in them.
I can live without cutscenes, but voice overs are a must these days. It is a poor quality game, if the conversations between NPCs and PCs are not voiced. Random NPC chatter also adds immersion to the world. However, not every quest giver has to be an NPC. AO used a good mission terminal system 10 years ago, which works fine with the text only interface.
Important NPCs should also have distinct voices and personality and could have initial cutscene, when you first meet them, but could only feature as a voice over later on. Like in books, it is important that a player is able to appreciate these important NPCs that they come accross to create a better feeling for the game world.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Current "MMOs" have little in common with traditional MMORPGs but the first 3 letters. I call them MOAGs, for multiplayer online action (or arcade) games. Personally, I don't like them and don't play them, but I'm aware that it's a very popular genre and far more popular than MMORPGs are or have been.
As such, there are MOAG and MMORPG features and it's clear that the majority of customers prefers the MOAG features.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Agree with Garvon3.
There's two sources of immersion here.
Once upon a time....
The problem with older games and the newer ones as well is the progression of nonsense, while natural timesinks (world gameplay) was removed to help streamline the progression of nonsense. Questing was added to mask it. And rewards were given out to motivate. Now the entire game is progressing a bunch of nonsense.
Of coarse more people want action games, they assume less progressing of nonsense. the prooblem is they leave the world off still, and add repetition on top of faster progression.
Action game in a virtual World, or action + immersion = new audience. Progression is in the world or to enhance immersion only.
Or in other words, human nature design + virtual world gameplay = everyone else.
Instead we get action + progression+ repetition = usual crowd. (vacationing WOW players)
An insane addiction to progression of nonsense at the cost of everything else including fun and immersion will surely backfire. Repetition only makes time invested crowd happy for a minute if action combat is used instead.
People will remember why they play games. Even COD fanboys are remembering.
That's my opinion for the next five minutes anyway. Im no expert though. If I was i would be saying cross platform is the future. I hope they got a game idea to go along with it. They have to right?
People tend to forget that the WoW we have today is extremely difficult from vanilla WoW, therefore you can't really generalise. Vanilla WoW had no dungeon finder, in fact no LFG or LFR system at all. It had no cross-server interaction until patch 1.12 which introduced cross-realm battlegrounds, which was just before TBC. It had plenty of world bosses, and had a fair balance between instanced and open world bosses. There was no teleporting around, only to major cities (with the assistance of a mage) and your hearthstone bind location (which had a 1 hour cooldown). There were flight paths however, though they were pretty time consuming. Flying from one end of Kalimdor to the other took over 10 minutes if I remember correctly. The levelling experience had a lot of quests that required a group of multiple players, now WoW has none of that.
Despite all of this, Vanilla still brought in EIGHT MILLION subscribers and was still growing due to word of mouth / advertising (TBC brought in another three million). People who argue that there isn't an an audience for people who want a somewhat hardcore game, or people who argue that a game can't be successful without these convenience features, are completely fooling themselves. Sure, vanilla WoW wasn't Everquest, but it was a damn lot more hardcore, and a completely different game, than it is today. Yet it still pulled in a huge audience, and probably would've pulled in a greater one even if an expansion hadn't released because it was still growing. I'd even say it would be bigger than it is today had it kept its original design philosophy.
Just because WoW changed, it doesn't mean that the players changed, and it doesn't mean the genre had to change. Human psychology won't change for a very, very long time. Everyone 'wants' covenience, sure; but the large majority of gamers don't see the consequences which come around after implementing those features. They just think 'cool', and then wonder why that 'feel' they got from the game a few years ago is gone. There are few game designers that actually realise this, which is a shame. I'm not saying that convenience should be thown out of the window, I think that it should be implemented wherever it can, provided that it doesn't compromise the immersion or community of a game. Game designers simply aren't trying hard enough to find solutions to this problem, unfortunately.
First... design which makes soloing the easiest, and most profitable way to play the game, and a game which is 95% solo content, pretty much sidelines grouping.
And some people like having the option of crafting, just like some people enjoy the option of leveling via PvP or grouping. And yes, roleplaying is helped by basic RP tools. Not saying those last two contribute to anti MMOness, just pointing out some things...
First, Mythic built their experience and team piece by piece. They released a lot of big multiplayer games and MUDs before DAoC, so hardly a one hit wonder.
Second, DAoC had a steady 250k subscribers for over 5 years before it started to dwindle, that's far FAR more than most modern AAA MMOs can claim. AoC would kill for those kind of numbers. So would WAR for that matter.
Instanced content is an anti-massive-multiplayer feature for me, too bad it's omnipotent
Then your issue is really grouping vs solo, not socialization or non 'anti-MMO' features, correct?
I say that because so far not only is there no data to support solo gameplay detracting from the social aspect of MMOs. The games that have developed extensive community and interaction beyond the guild and group units have been games that not only support solo and group play but see an extreme amount of solo play at all levels of player activity. Some examples would be EVE Online, Second Life, Ultima Online, and A Tale in the Desert.
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
Er, except grouping was entirely necessarily in just about all those games you listed. Working with other players. You just could NOT play the game entirely solo, unlike the WoW clones that dominate the market today.
If everyone is playing alone, no one can possibly socialize.
Lets put something concrete on the table: What are these basic RP tools?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Heavy gear grinds that promote elitist mentalities and segregate the community into different cliques.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Two words .. chat channel .. that is your socialization.
Plus, i don't understand what is the obsession with solo-content ... if you look at WOW, most of the gameplay is LFD grouped.
Genre changes .. you don't have the power to dictate what MMO means.
Now MMO means ... a mix of solo content, LFD, instances, and lobby based game play. You do not like it, you don't have to play. Personally, that is how i see MMOs. I highly doubt most play will think that WOW is not a MMO. DCUO is not a MMO, and so on.
The playstyle is not "close enough" WoW is certainly an mmo with LFG tools rammed up its ass but all their "new content" is instanced so they turned it into a Lobby based game but it never started out that way and we are seeing SWTOR epicly fail for trying to copy this pattern.
D3 may have millions playing it but can you get a massive amount of people on screen at once? No you cannot. Can you wage massive wars? Travel massive distances to meet up with your friends. Is D3 one massive world? Shit no it isn't and nor is it an MMO. Obviously your a wow fanboi desperately trying to keep the status quo and well look at SWTOR and Tera the latest wow clones crumbling... no wonder you are upset.
It actually kinda doesn't make sense.
People in novels or movies don't just stumble upon a bunch of other tourists when they explore dungeons/ruins/caves/etc.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Collaboration and interaction, yes. Grouping, no. You're going to need to learn the distinction if you wish to understand any of this, expecially with your very limited knowledge of this subject.
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
I don't look at any feature as detrimental to MMO game-play, anything can be done in an MMO be it cutscenes, storylines etc.. as long as features that create a social environment are also in place. The problem is over the last decade, social features have been put on the back burner behind everything else.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I also think that's a problem with today's MMOs. As devs do their damnedest to force everyone into one spot in hopes of a happy lovefest occurring, they have actually moved away from any tools, features or mechanics that facilitate social interaction and, on a greater level, community building.
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
Novels or movies....
We are talking about MMOs, virtual worlds.
Exactly. MMOs simulate worlds.
Singleplayer games simulate movies.
Immersion is the synchronization between expectations and experiences.
Players might have two types of expectations about a cave. One is reflected in novels or movies, and involves exploring a dangerous place. The other is visiting a tourist cave alongside 100 other tourists.
The first one sounds way more interesting, and way more immersive.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
SOMEONE BUY THIS MAN A KEG!!!! A BEER JUST DOESNT CUT IT!
Why is it that you feel the multiplayer dungeon experience can only be a 'tourist' event, rather than cooperative or competitve gameplay?
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