"The ability to construct an identity as an uber or elite gamer is where MMORPGs are truly social worlds grouping with others can be just a means to an end, which can be sidestepped depending on playing style [1, 26]. Put differently it is not the people that are addictive [14] but rather, its the image of myself I get from other people. "
And this is why wow is a social cesspit, and games like Lotr, eso, gw2,gw1 etc do not have such issues in that the latter group don't cultivate a culture where being seen to be better than everyone is critical.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Originally posted by djcincy Social interaction in games has nothing to do with guilds. Natural grouping based off of difficultly, removal of instances, and contested content are examples of social interaction with players. Small things like group downtime is another prime example of natural social interaction. Sitting around with guildmates talking about getting wasted last weekend while running in circles in a garrison is not social interaction.
I think you have it backwards. Forced random socialization is probably the worst form of community a game can implement. Just look at the extreme end of that the dungeon finder. Would anyone really call what a random PUG from a dungeon finder does as socializing 99% of the time? And removing the dungeon finder doesn't fix that problem as most of the time people still don't talk to each other regardless of how they formed up in random groups. You build communities from the ground up, encouraging small groups to make larger groups and larger groups to create guilds which in turn creates server communities. You can do this not only though content and gear progression but also incentives for grouping and guilds over solo activities. It takes a light hand for sure as it's just as easy to go to far one way than the other. That doesn't mean you have to destroy solo content either just put the incentives and systems in place to encourage group's and let the communities build themselves.
The goal of building a community in a MMO should be to create a environment where people want to log in everyday to interact with their fellow players. If you can do that well than player retention isn't a issue because people will naturally stay around in your game even if it's flawed. Now one could argue that the mechanics of doing that go hand in hand with making the game less solo friendly and there might be some truth to that but it's not like newer MMO's released have gone out of their way to build strong incentives for building communities from the ground up either.
I think one could also make a pretty strong case that the business realities of F2P and healthy community conflict with each other as well in a lot of cases. There can be exceptions of course like TSW has these lock boxes where everyone in your group gets a item as well when you open them. They both create a group dynamic to these cash shop boxes and social pressure on people who don't participate to spend money they might not have otherwise.
Instances ruin games plain and simple. More than that tho is this concept that a game needs to be 80% solo and 20% group content when it should be more like 90% group and 10% solo. Add in the fact that games take no real time to level in, there is little to no death penalties, and you can transfer if everyone hates you.
Most people have their head in a bubble and simply can't hear the truth about the issues of this genre. They want these action arcade free to play gimmick's that have none of the core aspects of what makes a great mmorpg. I am fine with this however because everyone deserves to play the type of game that makes them happy. The rest of us will simply have to wait till Pantheon is made to give us what we need.
Originally posted by Bladestrom "The ability to construct an identity as an “uber” or “elite” gamer is where MMORPGs are truly social worlds – grouping with others can be just a means to an end, which can be sidestepped depending on playing style [1, 26]. Put differently it is not “the people that are addictive” [14] but rather, “it’s the image of myself I get from other people.” "
And this is why wow is a social cesspit, and games like Lotr, eso, gw2,gw1 etc do not have such issues in that the latter group don't cultivate a culture where being seen to be better than everyone is critical.
Congrats I didn't think someone could combine a short list of terrible games, but you did it nicely.
I dont think there should be only one type of game, but it is sad to see everyone trying to follow one model today because it happened to work for one game in the past.
I'd like to see games more games where the world is harsh and players have to interact to progress. People can complain all they want about games being "too slow" or "too hard", but the fact of the matter is, shared adversity creates a sense of community. There will always be those easy solo progression arcade MMOs like WoW for those people who don't want to play with others. The shared struggles and group-centric gameplay is one of the reasons that survival games have become so popular in the last few years, but it doesn't seem that anyone (other than Pantheon) has put 2 and 2 together and applied it to the mmorpg like it once was. When players need each other again for surviving, trading and even traveling, the sense of community in MMOs will naturally resurface. As long as you can do everything on your own, players will always choose the path of least resistance.
I am not saying it has to. IMO the other players are the biggest commodity that MMORPG's have. Pandering to the path of least resistance request of players seems to have largely destroyed community. I don't really want to get into a debate about what generation had better players. To me that hasn't changed. You have good players and assholes now and then.
What has changed is that you don't have much reason to interact much with anyone. In fact, you're encouraged to be more insular as being "The One" hero of many in your own little questline and instances. Some games are taking out roles so you're all DPS queued up to attack mobs like piranhas without even having to coordinate. Auction houses replace a lot of trading face to face. Players are more an obstacle you have to deal with to player your single player story. Not even to mention the gameplay being divided, marketed, distorted and sold for a quick buck to keep these games afloat.
This to me is like you start building a motorcycle but slowly start trying to make it like a car. Now you have a roofed 4 door vehicle on two wheels because its convenient to the general population. But it defeats a lot of purpose of riding a bike and leaves traditional bikers out in the cold. At some point you just ask yourself why not just build a car. For MMORPG's its always been about playing with a large number of players. When you defeat the purpose of the genre you're making a game that could be done better locally single player or multiplayer.
Am I crazy to think this?
Its easy as this: MMOs started 12years ago. Most people are mature now. The lesson we should have learned is that MMOs wont give you anthing in long term. They are a usless timewaster.
Now as for myself- i will watch my children if they play games and rather focus on study- because every year more and more people are out there- competition is getting bigger for jobs- life is getting tougher for the younger generation. Most people have been sensiblisized that games can harm your social life and career. Thats the right direction- oldschool MMOs were fun but everything was new back then, sensational and refreshing. People have learned their lesson- just some old dogs here still not.
So a MMO with a homecoming community- is like the most toxic direction your life could take in terms of games.
Thats why i applaud casual games- they still offer you your real life. We like the old because, thats the big thing we had back then, but time has changed- move on- your not getting younger either.
I was kind of hoping that by presenting you with a respected paper on the topic plus some recent public data that... well, I guess that was crazy of me, eh?
All of your "Yeah, those are real numbers, but what I believe is..." aside, this line stuck out because it's something concrete we can discuss, and I am hoping that you can stick to facts and we don't drift into the realm of beliefs, diner analogies or other craziness.
"Before the era of WoW and mainstream success, it was reversed. Players that grouped up leveled significantly faster in older MMORPGs (so long as the group was efficient) than did players who played alone. This new paradigm actively discourages grouping."
Can you name some of these new MMOs where leveling solo is faster than leveling in a group or where grouping is discouraged?
I simply read the article and some conclusions they made jumped out at me. There wasn't so much a belief as drawing a conclusion based on what was said in the article. The article submitted that solo leveling was much more efficient.. Unless you think players look for the slowest way to level, I'm not sure where that statement makes it a belief that solo leveling being twice as fast discourages grouping.
Players that join guilds play more.. I only naturally drew a conclusion that developers want players to play their games as much as possible, and since, on average, players in guilds do that more, developers would want to encourage such behavior.
Likewise, the article cites the work required to build and maintain a guild as a detriment to the chances of successful guilds forming and remaining within the game. So I only concluded that more work can be done in this area to make building and maintaining a successful guild (and the related player interaction) easier and more effective. This would be complete with the social ties that come with it: more ad hoc grouping, more chat interaction with players that naturally have something in common within the game, more information dispersal from older members to newer ones (which discourages players from quitting out of the frustration of not understanding a game mechanic)... NOT making "best friends" in a game. That may happen with a few folks, but the larger majority will use the guild as a resource. One that provides them with a pool of players they can, y'know, interact with to meet their needs within the game. If you think there is something, mechanically, wrong with that logic, I'd love to hear it.
ESO is the most obvious example of a new MMORPG that discouraged grouping. It launched with a main quest line (and other quests) that did not allow you to include other players. It limited the ability to quest with other players with a concrete, "sorry, but he can't enter your instance." It's dungeons, made for groups, rewarded players with less experience than simply doing a delve by themselves. Running something like Elden Root yielded my character (who was level-appropriate for the dungeon) less experience than turning in a normal quest.
Any game where solo quest grinding is, hands down, the fastest method of leveling, discourages grouping. It does so because the player has an actual incentive to exclude other players. It'd be like penalizing squads in Battlefield by making them cap points more slowly if they're all in the cap area, or by decreasing the amount of experience points they get if they work together.
I am not saying it has to. IMO the other players are the biggest commodity that MMORPG's have. Pandering to the path of least resistance request of players seems to have largely destroyed community. I don't really want to get into a debate about what generation had better players. To me that hasn't changed. You have good players and assholes now and then.
What has changed is that you don't have much reason to interact much with anyone. In fact, you're encouraged to be more insular as being "The One" hero of many in your own little questline and instances. Some games are taking out roles so you're all DPS queued up to attack mobs like piranhas without even having to coordinate. Auction houses replace a lot of trading face to face. Players are more an obstacle you have to deal with to player your single player story. Not even to mention the gameplay being divided, marketed, distorted and sold for a quick buck to keep these games afloat.
This to me is like you start building a motorcycle but slowly start trying to make it like a car. Now you have a roofed 4 door vehicle on two wheels because its convenient to the general population. But it defeats a lot of purpose of riding a bike and leaves traditional bikers out in the cold. At some point you just ask yourself why not just build a car. For MMORPG's its always been about playing with a large number of players. When you defeat the purpose of the genre you're making a game that could be done better locally single player or multiplayer.
Am I crazy to think this?
Its easy as this: MMOs started 12years ago. Most people are mature now. The lesson we should have learned is that MMOs wont give you anthing in long term. They are a usless timewaster.
Now as for myself- i will watch my children if they play games and rather focus on study- because every year more and more people are out there- competition is getting bigger for jobs- life is getting tougher for the younger generation. Most people have been sensiblisized that games can harm your social life and career. Thats the right direction- oldschool MMOs were fun but everything was new back then, sensational and refreshing. People have learned their lesson- just some old dogs here still not.
So a MMO with a homecoming community- is like the most toxic direction your life could take in terms of games.
Thats why i applaud casual games- they still offer you your real life. We like the old because, thats the big thing we had back then, but time has changed- move on- your not getting younger either.
[mod edit]
They are right in that it is getting more difficult out there. This is unfortunate as it doesn't allow for the freedoms many of us enjoyed when we were younger. Most of the new generations don't really know freedom (like freedom of speech. You can't be negative as that is toxic (it is to an extent, but that is part of the human psyche). I also understand being considerate to people, but that is also taking away freedom of choice to an extent. Basically the majority of groups have converged to one major group of corporate elite. They like to run numbers and take pictures of their dogs, cats, and kids. They like to preach anything is a waste of time if it doesn't earn you cash or build your family. There is probably some truth to that, but not all of use want to travel that same old path. I'm not saying a game can replace important things in life, but to some of us games are important. If it's not games perhaps it's something else. Some of the greatest inventors and contributors to society were those who neglected their families and spent all their time on something that they loved to do.
Community and the modern MMO are like oil and water. Once we start seeing MMO's that are not single player one class can do it all games again we may have community once more.
I am not saying it has to. IMO the other players are the biggest commodity that MMORPG's have. Pandering to the path of least resistance request of players seems to have largely destroyed community. I don't really want to get into a debate about what generation had better players. To me that hasn't changed. You have good players and assholes now and then.
What has changed is that you don't have much reason to interact much with anyone. In fact, you're encouraged to be more insular as being "The One" hero of many in your own little questline and instances. Some games are taking out roles so you're all DPS queued up to attack mobs like piranhas without even having to coordinate. Auction houses replace a lot of trading face to face. Players are more an obstacle you have to deal with to player your single player story. Not even to mention the gameplay being divided, marketed, distorted and sold for a quick buck to keep these games afloat.
This to me is like you start building a motorcycle but slowly start trying to make it like a car. Now you have a roofed 4 door vehicle on two wheels because its convenient to the general population. But it defeats a lot of purpose of riding a bike and leaves traditional bikers out in the cold. At some point you just ask yourself why not just build a car. For MMORPG's its always been about playing with a large number of players. When you defeat the purpose of the genre you're making a game that could be done better locally single player or multiplayer.
Am I crazy to think this?
Its easy as this: MMOs started 12years ago. Most people are mature now. The lesson we should have learned is that MMOs wont give you anthing in long term. They are a usless timewaster.
Now as for myself- i will watch my children if they play games and rather focus on study- because every year more and more people are out there- competition is getting bigger for jobs- life is getting tougher for the younger generation. Most people have been sensiblisized that games can harm your social life and career. Thats the right direction- oldschool MMOs were fun but everything was new back then, sensational and refreshing. People have learned their lesson- just some old dogs here still not.
So a MMO with a homecoming community- is like the most toxic direction your life could take in terms of games.
Thats why i applaud casual games- they still offer you your real life. We like the old because, thats the big thing we had back then, but time has changed- move on- your not getting younger either.
[mod edit]
While I disagree with the guy too your post is rdiciulously immature and insulting. Learn to discuss differences without acting like a roid-raged maniac.
As for the guy you replied to....my kids are grown....gaming is my hobby. Good for you that there are casual MMO's you can play an hour a day and feel good about, but you are pretty arrogant to assume everyone has your needs. Your post comes off as pompous and arrogant, might want to try a different approach next time.
The only problem I see with your post OP is that of time. Not everyone has an entire evening or day to assemble folks for adventuring, so, they come home from work and want to do a few quests. I see no problems with games that are being developed today. If you want to group up with others you have the tools to do it, if not, you can eat dinner with your family at your convenience.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I was kind of hoping that by presenting you with a respected paper on the topic plus some recent public data that... well, I guess that was crazy of me, eh?
All of your "Yeah, those are real numbers, but what I believe is..." aside, this line stuck out because it's something concrete we can discuss, and I am hoping that you can stick to facts and we don't drift into the realm of beliefs, diner analogies or other craziness.
"Before the era of WoW and mainstream success, it was reversed. Players that grouped up leveled significantly faster in older MMORPGs (so long as the group was efficient) than did players who played alone. This new paradigm actively discourages grouping."
Can you name some of these new MMOs where leveling solo is faster than leveling in a group or where grouping is discouraged?
I simply read the article and some conclusions they made jumped out at me. There wasn't so much a belief as drawing a conclusion based on what was said in the article. The article submitted that solo leveling was much more efficient.. Unless you think players look for the slowest way to level, I'm not sure where that statement makes it a belief that solo leveling being twice as fast discourages grouping.
Players that join guilds play more.. I only naturally drew a conclusion that developers want players to play their games as much as possible, and since, on average, players in guilds do that more, developers would want to encourage such behavior.
Likewise, the article cites the work required to build and maintain a guild as a detriment to the chances of successful guilds forming and remaining within the game. So I only concluded that more work can be done in this area to make building and maintaining a successful guild (and the related player interaction) easier and more effective. This would be complete with the social ties that come with it: more ad hoc grouping, more chat interaction with players that naturally have something in common within the game, more information dispersal from older members to newer ones (which discourages players from quitting out of the frustration of not understanding a game mechanic)... NOT making "best friends" in a game. That may happen with a few folks, but the larger majority will use the guild as a resource. One that provides them with a pool of players they can, y'know, interact with to meet their needs within the game. If you think there is something, mechanically, wrong with that logic, I'd love to hear it.
ESO is the most obvious example of a new MMORPG that discouraged grouping. It launched with a main quest line (and other quests) that did not allow you to include other players. It limited the ability to quest with other players with a concrete, "sorry, but he can't enter your instance." It's dungeons, made for groups, rewarded players with less experience than simply doing a delve by themselves. Running something like Elden Root yielded my character (who was level-appropriate for the dungeon) less experience than turning in a normal quest.
Any game where solo quest grinding is, hands down, the fastest method of leveling, discourages grouping. It does so because the player has an actual incentive to exclude other players. It'd be like penalizing squads in Battlefield by making them cap points more slowly if they're all in the cap area, or by decreasing the amount of experience points they get if they work together.
So in answer to my question, out of a hundred or so MMOs, you can name only one. On that one... I think you may be doing it wrong.
The game is designed to reward the group for each individual kill/collection, which is especially convenient in quests where you have 6, 8, 10 or whatever creatures to kill or collect. If your group of 2 or more is all fighting the same mob at once, then that's probably how you're screwing it up.
If your goal is to effectively gather loot, you're multiplying the loot by the number of people involved for each kill because it's a shared loot system. One guy smacks a mob, he gets loot. Four guys smack the mob, each one gets the loot. If you want to stack your crafters with mats and gear to deconstruct, it's far more effective to do a group run than for him to go out solo.
Other than that, unless your groupmates are there to soak/leech, it's almost impossible to do worse as a group than solo in ESO.
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
Instances ruin games plain and simple. More than that tho is this concept that a game needs to be 80% solo and 20% group content when it should be more like 90% group and 10% solo. Add in the fact that games take no real time to level in, there is little to no death penalties, and you can transfer if everyone hates you.
Most people have their head in a bubble and simply can't hear the truth about the issues of this genre. They want these action arcade free to play gimmick's that have none of the core aspects of what makes a great mmorpg. I am fine with this however because everyone deserves to play the type of game that makes them happy. The rest of us will simply have to wait till Pantheon is made to give us what we need.
Congrats, I didn't think someone could post something that completely rejects reality, but you did it nicely.
(ie making a claim that those things "ruin" games, despite the mountain of evidence of many tremendously successful games doing those things (or oftentimes being successful because they do those things.))
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Its easy as this: MMOs started 12years ago. Most people are mature now. The lesson we should have learned is that MMOs wont give you anthing in long term. They are a usless timewaster.
Now as for myself- i will watch my children if they play games and rather focus on study- because every year more and more people are out there- competition is getting bigger for jobs- life is getting tougher for the younger generation. Most people have been sensiblisized that games can harm your social life and career. Thats the right direction- oldschool MMOs were fun but everything was new back then, sensational and refreshing. People have learned their lesson- just some old dogs here still not.
So a MMO with a homecoming community- is like the most toxic direction your life could take in terms of games.
Thats why i applaud casual games- they still offer you your real life. We like the old because, thats the big thing we had back then, but time has changed- move on- your not getting younger either.
Games of any kind, taken in perspective are pretty important. Some peoples' income literally comes from playing games. Games sharpen the mind and build it, like a muscle. There are those who get absorbed, playing games too much when they should be doing other things, that's true. I guess I'd just say, on a case by case basis, you're right and you're wrong, depending on the situation of the individual.
I play mmos, but I'm very cautious of the addictive attributes being incorporated into them. I love the logic and strategic dynamic puzzles and the socialization from cooperation. I dislike when I start to feel like I'm playing a slot machine. People get different things from games and if the games you play suit your purposes that's great. If you feel your children need to pay more attention to studying than entertainment, you'd know that better than the rest of us. My kid dislikes video games, so I never had that issue, heh.
So, overall, you're mostly right, or at least trying to be right, but there are so, so many exceptions to the rule on an issue like this, I can't accept that you're fully correct.
Originally posted by djcincy Social interaction in games has nothing to do with guilds. Natural grouping based off of difficultly, removal of instances, and contested content are examples of social interaction with players. Small things like group downtime is another prime example of natural social interaction. Sitting around with guildmates talking about getting wasted last weekend while running in circles in a garrison is not social interaction.
I think you have it backwards. Forced random socialization is probably the worst form of community a game can implement. Just look at the extreme end of that the dungeon finder. Would anyone really call what a random PUG from a dungeon finder does as socializing 99% of the time? And removing the dungeon finder doesn't fix that problem as most of the time people still don't talk to each other regardless of how they formed up in random groups. You build communities from the ground up, encouraging small groups to make larger groups and larger groups to create guilds which in turn creates server communities. You can do this not only though content and gear progression but also incentives for grouping and guilds over solo activities. It takes a light hand for sure as it's just as easy to go to far one way than the other. That doesn't mean you have to destroy solo content either just put the incentives and systems in place to encourage group's and let the communities build themselves.
The goal of building a community in a MMO should be to create a environment where people want to log in everyday to interact with their fellow players. If you can do that well than player retention isn't a issue because people will naturally stay around in your game even if it's flawed. Now one could argue that the mechanics of doing that go hand in hand with making the game less solo friendly and there might be some truth to that but it's not like newer MMO's released have gone out of their way to build strong incentives for building communities from the ground up either.
I think one could also make a pretty strong case that the business realities of F2P and healthy community conflict with each other as well in a lot of cases. There can be exceptions of course like TSW has these lock boxes where everyone in your group gets a item as well when you open them. They both create a group dynamic to these cash shop boxes and social pressure on people who don't participate to spend money they might not have otherwise.
Instances ruin games plain and simple. More than that tho is this concept that a game needs to be 80% solo and 20% group content when it should be more like 90% group and 10% solo. Add in the fact that games take no real time to level in, there is little to no death penalties, and you can transfer if everyone hates you.
Most people have their head in a bubble and simply can't hear the truth about the issues of this genre. They want these action arcade free to play gimmick's that have none of the core aspects of what makes a great mmorpg. I am fine with this however because everyone deserves to play the type of game that makes them happy. The rest of us will simply have to wait till Pantheon is made to give us what we need.
Your view of community in a MMO seems to be driven more by conflict than cooperation. Throw a couple pieces of meat into the middle of the kennel yard and let the dogs work out who gets what. That is one way to design a MMO for sure but I'm not sure it's the best way long term to keep people engaged in your game.
There is nothing wrong with instances in and of themselves nor is there anything wrong with healthy solo content. Both of those systems can exist side by side with a healthy server community if you design them right. As I said community begins from the small group up not from the top down.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle As long as MMOs keep focusing on solo games, where getting to top level can be done 99% solo, you wont see awesome communities form. If and when you see an MMO that forces you to group for a large % of content, if community matters to you, then go buy that MMO in as fast as you can. As new MMOs stand, community will never be a focus.
'Forces' is a word a lot of players don't like. The next thing is, "Well if you don't like it leave." Players start leaving and you have a ghost town. Games do things a certain way cause that tend to bring in the most people. I remember saying I would help with a world boss and waiting an hour and a half for the group to get everyone together. Those days are gone except for organised guilds. A lot of players only have two or three hours to play and some have to be ready to jump off the computer and see why the baby is crying or help their kids with an emergency or cook dinner. So games have adapted to more ADHD playstyles.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I think the main problem is they make mmorpgs too soloable, lets face it, other than dungeons, you bascally never need another player for anything in most mmorpgs these days, that is the main problem right there. Players these days won't group up unless they are force to for the most part, and no mmorpg dev team is willing to risk that with how casual infested the market is these days, it'd be the usual complaints: I don't got time to form a team etc etc. I used to hear people bitch in ff11 years ago how long it takes to get a team invite so I am like "Well why not try to build your own? it works for me and is much faster" But then they bascally give a bunch of excuses which bascally boils down to "I'm lazy". Mind you this is mostly a problem in the western mmorpg market, if you play eastern/asian mmorpgs on their servers you'll notice they tend to play together much more than we do.
I been playing sword art online: hollow fragment for ps vita, and its pretty sad that this game feels more like a mmorpg than actual mmorpgs do these days. Soloing in it is not really viable, but party size can be as small as a duo to 7 or 8 people. I've personally pretty much given up on the mmorpg genre, since each game bascally boils down to the same single player game with a chat interface for 80% of the content, if not more. Pretty much casuals killed the genre (in my opinion anyway, since they didn't start going downhill till whiny casuals got involved in playing them). Devs gotta make what makes money and mmo's that force teaming for anything non-dungeon related just don't make it these days.
Maybe a mmorpg will come along thats actually worth playing, but I honestly don't expect it anytime soon.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
I think the main problem is they make mmorpgs too soloable, lets face it, other than dungeons, you bascally never need another player for anything in most mmorpgs these days, that is the main problem right there. Players these days won't group up unless they are force to for the most part, and no mmorpg dev team is willing to risk that with how casual infested the market is these days, it'd be the usual complaints: I don't got time to form a team etc etc. I used to hear people bitch in ff11 years ago how long it takes to get a team invite so I am like "Well why not try to build your own? it works for me and is much faster" But then they bascally give a bunch of excuses which bascally boils down to "I'm lazy". Mind you this is mostly a problem in the western mmorpg market, if you play eastern/asian mmorpgs on their servers you'll notice they tend to play together much more than we do.
I been playing sword art online: hollow fragment for ps vita, and its pretty sad that this game feels more like a mmorpg than actual mmorpgs do these days. Soloing in it is not really viable, but party size can be as small as a duo to 7 or 8 people. I've personally pretty much given up on the mmorpg genre, since each game bascally boils down to the same single player game with a chat interface for 80% of the content, if not more. Pretty much casuals killed the genre (in my opinion anyway, since they didn't start going downhill till whiny casuals got involved in playing them). Devs gotta make what makes money and mmo's that force teaming for anything non-dungeon related just don't make it these days.
Maybe a mmorpg will come along thats actually worth playing, but I honestly don't expect it anytime soon.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle If and when you see an MMO that forces you to group for a large % of content, if community matters to you, then go buy that MMO in as fast as you can.
That "argument" always makes me smile.
Forced grouping doesn't give you real friends. It mostly gives you false friends which are only with you because they are forced to endure you to achieve their own, personal goals in the game. People who will stab you in the back the day you aren't useful anymore or for any reason (like real life), you can't spend as much time in game pulling them to their goal as you could before.
Real friends you get when people want to stick with you despite not forced to. When you stay on contact because you enjoy each other's company, and not because the other can help you get that next piece of purple loot.
The "Forced grouping = Good community" equation is total nonsense.
I personally made WAY more friends in UO and AC1, games where grouping was/is totally optional, than in EQ, AO or WoW, where grouping was/is forced at least for end game. And by friends, I mean people I met 10, 15 or 20 years ago and with whom I'm still in contact almost daily, and who I visit face to face at least once a year if not more. Not kiddies you exchange ROFL jokes on the social networks.
I don't recall any stories I reach or movies I watched about this type of setting where there isn't a lot of hardship and backstabbing along the way. Sometimes people will backtab and sometimes people will be nice/good people. It takes all different types to make an interesting game IMO. If everyone was nice (non toxic as people would call it) then we wouldn't have very many interesting stories. I remember reading a D&D book a long time ago where all the villains had been killed except for one. The one villain actually ended up being the good guy in the story fighting against all the other good guys in the story.
OP - you are not crazy - the issue is you are talking about MMORPGs - most newer games are MMOS which don't require strong communities.
Example Overwatch - its focused on small team play - you just need a handful of friends.
Or Destiny - it doesn't require a large community because the gameplay is focused on small team play.
Most newer online games are MMOs, that's the real reason why community is not priority because the focus is solo or small team play.
We are talking about MMO's here... not regular arena/online games man. Neither Overwatch or Destiny is an MMO. You probably think Loadout is an MMO too Im sorry bud, but Counterstrike will NEVER be an MMO unless they make an MMO of it.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle If and when you see an MMO that forces you to group for a large % of content, if community matters to you, then go buy that MMO in as fast as you can.
That "argument" always makes me smile.
Forced grouping doesn't give you real friends. It mostly gives you false friends which are only with you because they are forced to endure you to achieve their own, personal goals in the game. People who will stab you in the back the day you aren't useful anymore or for any reason (like real life), you can't spend as much time in game pulling them to their goal as you could before.
Real friends you get when people want to stick with you despite not forced to. When you stay on contact because you enjoy each other's company, and not because the other can help you get that next piece of purple loot.
The "Forced grouping = Good community" equation is total nonsense.
I personally made WAY more friends in UO and AC1, games where grouping was/is totally optional, than in EQ, AO or WoW, where grouping was/is forced at least for end game. And by friends, I mean people I met 10, 15 or 20 years ago and with whom I'm still in contact almost daily, and who I visit face to face at least once a year if not more. Not kiddies you exchange ROFL jokes on the social networks.
I don't recall any stories I reach or movies I watched about this type of setting where there isn't a lot of hardship and backstabbing along the way. Sometimes people will backtab and sometimes people will be nice/good people. It takes all different types to make an interesting game IMO. If everyone was nice (non toxic as people would call it) then we wouldn't have very many interesting stories. I remember reading a D&D book a long time ago where all the villains had been killed except for one. The one villain actually ended up being the good guy in the story fighting against all the other good guys in the story.
Problem is you confuse two very different things. I'm not talking about roleplaying in my post, but greed and behavior of the real people behind their computer keyboards.
Forced grouping basically generates one specific type of gamer in large amounts: people who take video games way too seriously, so seriously that the game matters more than the socializing. That was true for EQ, for AO, for WoW. I made a few real life friends in WoW, but it was never during or because of raids. I enjoy raids, but they are among the worse pseudo-social experiences one could get in a MMORPG. You don't become friend with people because you are forced to bash mobs with them for hours to progress. You become friend because you socialize, and that means actually talking to them about more than just the right tactics and how each other failed during the last boss fight.
You are probably right about taking things a bit to seriously. That may be why I soloed a lot in older games. Still I don't think it was roleplaying I was talking about. It wasn't fake emotion people emitted. It was real emotion which was kind added to the experience. Also as much as I like to solo I also like a good challenge and like to have other real people around to interact with or compete with in other ways. Raids are a bit overboard for me in any game weather it be EQ, WoW, or whatever MMO there is. I don't mind having lots of people together or lots of people interacting at times, or people who cooperate getting better rewards, but the way it is done in MMOs isn't really for me. I am more interested in things like perhaps helping/hindering/being helped/hindered in some way throughout the game by other real people. That could be relying on others in terms of crafting, traveling around, or combat related issues.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle If and when you see an MMO that forces you to group for a large % of content, if community matters to you, then go buy that MMO in as fast as you can.
That "argument" always makes me smile.
Forced grouping doesn't give you real friends. It mostly gives you false friends which are only with you because they are forced to endure you to achieve their own, personal goals in the game. People who will stab you in the back the day you aren't useful anymore or for any reason (like real life), you can't spend as much time in game pulling them to their goal as you could before.
Real friends you get when people want to stick with you despite not forced to. When you stay on contact because you enjoy each other's company, and not because the other can help you get that next piece of purple loot.
The "Forced grouping = Good community" equation is total nonsense.
I personally made WAY more friends in UO and AC1, games where grouping was/is totally optional, than in EQ, AO or WoW, where grouping was/is forced at least for end game. And by friends, I mean people I met 10, 15 or 20 years ago and with whom I'm still in contact almost daily, and who I visit face to face at least once a year if not more. Not kiddies or nerds you exchange ROFL jokes with on the social networks but you will never meet in real life.
I think "forced grouping" is just one part of the puzzle, but it seems as though you aren't buying this concept altogether anyway. I think you are looking at this through blinders of your own experiences and personality. This conversation is about community, as in community of the entire game, not just your close knit group of friends. Everyone and anyone can have that, it exists in even the most soloable MMO, even if only in the form of a chat room.
The MMO's of old had this too, but in addition to this this entire community relied on each other like a small village would back in the day. I may never run a dungeon with you, but damn I need your SOW buff to run me there, and you need my tip for casting it on me. Or I need that cloth insert for the iron gauntlets I am going to make since I cannot tailor and armorsmith like games these days let you do. Maybe I need you to enchant my armor after I make it, because I can't do it all like in games today. And yes, I need you to help me with that quest, because my guild is not on right now and it requires a group. And hey, because of that we enjoyed ourselves and I put you on my friends list....now you just met a new friend. Amazing how it all works when you have community in an mmo.
For someone like me, community is what attracted me to MMOs. That virtual world I lived in when I wasn't at work or school. Now I just have video games with the exception of GW2, where my guild Gasiosch and SoR server (not coincidently an old school guild) has maintained as much of that community feel as possible these days.
What exactly is 'forced grouping'? Mmorpg are games that offer tones of content including content that is designed for groups. That's not forced, that's an option you can choose or not.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
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And this is why wow is a social cesspit, and games like Lotr, eso, gw2,gw1 etc do not have such issues in that the latter group don't cultivate a culture where being seen to be better than everyone is critical.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Instances ruin games plain and simple. More than that tho is this concept that a game needs to be 80% solo and 20% group content when it should be more like 90% group and 10% solo. Add in the fact that games take no real time to level in, there is little to no death penalties, and you can transfer if everyone hates you.
Most people have their head in a bubble and simply can't hear the truth about the issues of this genre. They want these action arcade free to play gimmick's that have none of the core aspects of what makes a great mmorpg. I am fine with this however because everyone deserves to play the type of game that makes them happy. The rest of us will simply have to wait till Pantheon is made to give us what we need.
Congrats I didn't think someone could combine a short list of terrible games, but you did it nicely.
I dont think there should be only one type of game, but it is sad to see everyone trying to follow one model today because it happened to work for one game in the past.
I'd like to see games more games where the world is harsh and players have to interact to progress. People can complain all they want about games being "too slow" or "too hard", but the fact of the matter is, shared adversity creates a sense of community. There will always be those easy solo progression arcade MMOs like WoW for those people who don't want to play with others. The shared struggles and group-centric gameplay is one of the reasons that survival games have become so popular in the last few years, but it doesn't seem that anyone (other than Pantheon) has put 2 and 2 together and applied it to the mmorpg like it once was. When players need each other again for surviving, trading and even traveling, the sense of community in MMOs will naturally resurface. As long as you can do everything on your own, players will always choose the path of least resistance.
Its easy as this: MMOs started 12years ago. Most people are mature now. The lesson we should have learned is that MMOs wont give you anthing in long term. They are a usless timewaster.
Now as for myself- i will watch my children if they play games and rather focus on study- because every year more and more people are out there- competition is getting bigger for jobs- life is getting tougher for the younger generation. Most people have been sensiblisized that games can harm your social life and career. Thats the right direction- oldschool MMOs were fun but everything was new back then, sensational and refreshing. People have learned their lesson- just some old dogs here still not.
So a MMO with a homecoming community- is like the most toxic direction your life could take in terms of games.
Thats why i applaud casual games- they still offer you your real life. We like the old because, thats the big thing we had back then, but time has changed- move on- your not getting younger either.
I simply read the article and some conclusions they made jumped out at me. There wasn't so much a belief as drawing a conclusion based on what was said in the article. The article submitted that solo leveling was much more efficient.. Unless you think players look for the slowest way to level, I'm not sure where that statement makes it a belief that solo leveling being twice as fast discourages grouping.
Players that join guilds play more.. I only naturally drew a conclusion that developers want players to play their games as much as possible, and since, on average, players in guilds do that more, developers would want to encourage such behavior.
Likewise, the article cites the work required to build and maintain a guild as a detriment to the chances of successful guilds forming and remaining within the game. So I only concluded that more work can be done in this area to make building and maintaining a successful guild (and the related player interaction) easier and more effective. This would be complete with the social ties that come with it: more ad hoc grouping, more chat interaction with players that naturally have something in common within the game, more information dispersal from older members to newer ones (which discourages players from quitting out of the frustration of not understanding a game mechanic)... NOT making "best friends" in a game. That may happen with a few folks, but the larger majority will use the guild as a resource. One that provides them with a pool of players they can, y'know, interact with to meet their needs within the game. If you think there is something, mechanically, wrong with that logic, I'd love to hear it.
ESO is the most obvious example of a new MMORPG that discouraged grouping. It launched with a main quest line (and other quests) that did not allow you to include other players. It limited the ability to quest with other players with a concrete, "sorry, but he can't enter your instance." It's dungeons, made for groups, rewarded players with less experience than simply doing a delve by themselves. Running something like Elden Root yielded my character (who was level-appropriate for the dungeon) less experience than turning in a normal quest.
Any game where solo quest grinding is, hands down, the fastest method of leveling, discourages grouping. It does so because the player has an actual incentive to exclude other players. It'd be like penalizing squads in Battlefield by making them cap points more slowly if they're all in the cap area, or by decreasing the amount of experience points they get if they work together.
They are right in that it is getting more difficult out there. This is unfortunate as it doesn't allow for the freedoms many of us enjoyed when we were younger. Most of the new generations don't really know freedom (like freedom of speech. You can't be negative as that is toxic (it is to an extent, but that is part of the human psyche). I also understand being considerate to people, but that is also taking away freedom of choice to an extent. Basically the majority of groups have converged to one major group of corporate elite. They like to run numbers and take pictures of their dogs, cats, and kids. They like to preach anything is a waste of time if it doesn't earn you cash or build your family. There is probably some truth to that, but not all of use want to travel that same old path. I'm not saying a game can replace important things in life, but to some of us games are important. If it's not games perhaps it's something else. Some of the greatest inventors and contributors to society were those who neglected their families and spent all their time on something that they loved to do.
While I disagree with the guy too your post is rdiciulously immature and insulting. Learn to discuss differences without acting like a roid-raged maniac.
As for the guy you replied to....my kids are grown....gaming is my hobby. Good for you that there are casual MMO's you can play an hour a day and feel good about, but you are pretty arrogant to assume everyone has your needs. Your post comes off as pompous and arrogant, might want to try a different approach next time.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
So in answer to my question, out of a hundred or so MMOs, you can name only one. On that one... I think you may be doing it wrong.
The game is designed to reward the group for each individual kill/collection, which is especially convenient in quests where you have 6, 8, 10 or whatever creatures to kill or collect. If your group of 2 or more is all fighting the same mob at once, then that's probably how you're screwing it up.
If your goal is to effectively gather loot, you're multiplying the loot by the number of people involved for each kill because it's a shared loot system. One guy smacks a mob, he gets loot. Four guys smack the mob, each one gets the loot. If you want to stack your crafters with mats and gear to deconstruct, it's far more effective to do a group run than for him to go out solo.
Other than that, unless your groupmates are there to soak/leech, it's almost impossible to do worse as a group than solo in ESO.
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
Congrats, I didn't think someone could post something that completely rejects reality, but you did it nicely.
(ie making a claim that those things "ruin" games, despite the mountain of evidence of many tremendously successful games doing those things (or oftentimes being successful because they do those things.))
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Games of any kind, taken in perspective are pretty important. Some peoples' income literally comes from playing games. Games sharpen the mind and build it, like a muscle. There are those who get absorbed, playing games too much when they should be doing other things, that's true. I guess I'd just say, on a case by case basis, you're right and you're wrong, depending on the situation of the individual.
I play mmos, but I'm very cautious of the addictive attributes being incorporated into them. I love the logic and strategic dynamic puzzles and the socialization from cooperation. I dislike when I start to feel like I'm playing a slot machine. People get different things from games and if the games you play suit your purposes that's great. If you feel your children need to pay more attention to studying than entertainment, you'd know that better than the rest of us. My kid dislikes video games, so I never had that issue, heh.
So, overall, you're mostly right, or at least trying to be right, but there are so, so many exceptions to the rule on an issue like this, I can't accept that you're fully correct.
Your view of community in a MMO seems to be driven more by conflict than cooperation. Throw a couple pieces of meat into the middle of the kennel yard and let the dogs work out who gets what. That is one way to design a MMO for sure but I'm not sure it's the best way long term to keep people engaged in your game.
There is nothing wrong with instances in and of themselves nor is there anything wrong with healthy solo content. Both of those systems can exist side by side with a healthy server community if you design them right. As I said community begins from the small group up not from the top down.
'Forces' is a word a lot of players don't like. The next thing is, "Well if you don't like it leave." Players start leaving and you have a ghost town. Games do things a certain way cause that tend to bring in the most people. I remember saying I would help with a world boss and waiting an hour and a half for the group to get everyone together. Those days are gone except for organised guilds. A lot of players only have two or three hours to play and some have to be ready to jump off the computer and see why the baby is crying or help their kids with an emergency or cook dinner. So games have adapted to more ADHD playstyles.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I think the main problem is they make mmorpgs too soloable, lets face it, other than dungeons, you bascally never need another player for anything in most mmorpgs these days, that is the main problem right there. Players these days won't group up unless they are force to for the most part, and no mmorpg dev team is willing to risk that with how casual infested the market is these days, it'd be the usual complaints: I don't got time to form a team etc etc. I used to hear people bitch in ff11 years ago how long it takes to get a team invite so I am like "Well why not try to build your own? it works for me and is much faster" But then they bascally give a bunch of excuses which bascally boils down to "I'm lazy". Mind you this is mostly a problem in the western mmorpg market, if you play eastern/asian mmorpgs on their servers you'll notice they tend to play together much more than we do.
I been playing sword art online: hollow fragment for ps vita, and its pretty sad that this game feels more like a mmorpg than actual mmorpgs do these days. Soloing in it is not really viable, but party size can be as small as a duo to 7 or 8 people. I've personally pretty much given up on the mmorpg genre, since each game bascally boils down to the same single player game with a chat interface for 80% of the content, if not more. Pretty much casuals killed the genre (in my opinion anyway, since they didn't start going downhill till whiny casuals got involved in playing them). Devs gotta make what makes money and mmo's that force teaming for anything non-dungeon related just don't make it these days.
Maybe a mmorpg will come along thats actually worth playing, but I honestly don't expect it anytime soon.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
This. /thread
Strange days when consumers are blamed for poorly made games and hold devs responsible for socialization. Seems completely backwards to me.
I don't recall any stories I reach or movies I watched about this type of setting where there isn't a lot of hardship and backstabbing along the way. Sometimes people will backtab and sometimes people will be nice/good people. It takes all different types to make an interesting game IMO. If everyone was nice (non toxic as people would call it) then we wouldn't have very many interesting stories. I remember reading a D&D book a long time ago where all the villains had been killed except for one. The one villain actually ended up being the good guy in the story fighting against all the other good guys in the story.
And yes there are millions of people doing just that.
We are talking about MMO's here... not regular arena/online games man. Neither Overwatch or Destiny is an MMO. You probably think Loadout is an MMO too
Im sorry bud, but Counterstrike will NEVER be an MMO unless they make an MMO of it.
You are probably right about taking things a bit to seriously. That may be why I soloed a lot in older games. Still I don't think it was roleplaying I was talking about. It wasn't fake emotion people emitted. It was real emotion which was kind added to the experience. Also as much as I like to solo I also like a good challenge and like to have other real people around to interact with or compete with in other ways. Raids are a bit overboard for me in any game weather it be EQ, WoW, or whatever MMO there is. I don't mind having lots of people together or lots of people interacting at times, or people who cooperate getting better rewards, but the way it is done in MMOs isn't really for me. I am more interested in things like perhaps helping/hindering/being helped/hindered in some way throughout the game by other real people. That could be relying on others in terms of crafting, traveling around, or combat related issues.
I think "forced grouping" is just one part of the puzzle, but it seems as though you aren't buying this concept altogether anyway. I think you are looking at this through blinders of your own experiences and personality. This conversation is about community, as in community of the entire game, not just your close knit group of friends. Everyone and anyone can have that, it exists in even the most soloable MMO, even if only in the form of a chat room.
The MMO's of old had this too, but in addition to this this entire community relied on each other like a small village would back in the day. I may never run a dungeon with you, but damn I need your SOW buff to run me there, and you need my tip for casting it on me. Or I need that cloth insert for the iron gauntlets I am going to make since I cannot tailor and armorsmith like games these days let you do. Maybe I need you to enchant my armor after I make it, because I can't do it all like in games today. And yes, I need you to help me with that quest, because my guild is not on right now and it requires a group. And hey, because of that we enjoyed ourselves and I put you on my friends list....now you just met a new friend. Amazing how it all works when you have community in an mmo.
For someone like me, community is what attracted me to MMOs. That virtual world I lived in when I wasn't at work or school. Now I just have video games with the exception of GW2, where my guild Gasiosch and SoR server (not coincidently an old school guild) has maintained as much of that community feel as possible these days.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D