Except you can put a map in the game that doesn't have a marker. People drew maps of EQ and it's dungeons, but you could still get lost unless you had been to the different places and new them insides out. EQ wasn't even what I would call greatly challenging in terms of exploration because of the zone walls. That made things a lot easier. If you took out zone walls, focused on making it more difficult to explore, and provide maps without markers people would have trouble figuring things out. I guarantee it. The main problem would be that most people would rage quit like they did in older games. That is another problem unto itself. Most people don't seem to see the intrinsic value of actually exploring, discovering, adventuring, and getting lost or appreciate the value of it.
Right, and that's why such a game would struggle to get made. Wandering aimlessly offers few compelling choices for the player. I don't think it's unsolvable, but in solving it you would create a game very different from what players expect out of an RPG. (Which is ironically mirrored in your own dissatisfaction with Don't Starve.)
True, but I'm not a developer so far in my life. I'm just thinking from things in terms of what I think I would enjoy. It's not really my responsibility to worry about weather something can be built or not realistically. I'm just here to talk about the possibilities of what could be in games to IMO improve them.
Originally posted by Kaledren I wish I had a dollar for everytime Axehilt uses the word gameplay. And Nari D3 as an MMORPG reference.
It's a word like synergy. Both words have very specific meanings, and no other words adequately cover the concepts. But there's this mysterious discomfort people express when either word (especially synergy) is used, perhaps stemming from their lack of understanding of the word.
You can stop with your high and mighty attitude and thinking you are intellectually superior to all others here in anything gaming-wise. Most people understand the words just fine.
Originally posted by Kaledren I wish I had a dollar for everytime Axehilt uses the word gameplay. And Nari D3 as an MMORPG reference.
lol... whereas I would agree, and even go as far as to state that Axe is just annoying with dropping opinion backed by so-called evidence that can be interpreted in multiple ways, and Nari seems to just be annoying with his post count wanting opinions (which almost seems to point at trolling this site as his favorite game)... I still would not have randomly dropped what you stated without at least quoting a post of theirs attached.
Hell...pick one...of the thousands.
I don't really need to quote it anyways. Anyone that's been here long enough gets it...and that's what makes it even more hilarious.
It seemed to be a staple in a lot of old books I read and movies I watched. Even the games I played tried to implement this in some cases. One example everyone knows is the Lord of the Rings. Frodo got lost on his way to Mordor at times. If you read the Chronicles (Dragonlance) the travelers got lost a few times on their way (not that they always even had a direct goal in mind). They also entered an unexpected dark forest with a random encounter of undead.
In terms of Don't Starve it's not exactly what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something that is like it, but has more old school RPG like Ultima Online.
I already posted why maps won't help that much. You could provide the player with a map, but if there is no marker on the map where they are they can still get lost if the game is designed correctly.
Right it did happen in stories. But that's not the problem in this case. The problem is games exist in real life, which has internet, which has maps. By extension this turns the game into a constant alt-tab to check the map, rather than simply providing this in-game. Characters in a story don't have the luxury of wowhead, while players in a videogame do have that capability, so the same sorts of constraints don't work in the same ways. (constraint being the lack of knowledge of where you are.)
Except you can put a map in the game that doesn't have a marker. People drew maps of EQ and it's dungeons, but you could still get lost unless you had been to the different places and new them insides out. EQ wasn't even what I would call greatly challenging in terms of exploration because of the zone walls. That made things a lot easier. If you took out zone walls, focused on making it more difficult to explore, and provide maps without markers people would have trouble figuring things out. I guarantee it. The main problem would be that most people would rage quit like they did in older games. That is another problem unto itself. Most people don't seem to see the intrinsic value of actually exploring, discovering, adventuring, and getting lost or appreciate the value of it.
Go play GW2. Yes it has markers. But markers represent only 30% of the content and rest is not marked in any way. If you just follow markers youll miss 70% of the game. You HAVE to explore.
Just because game has "GPS" and "markers" doesnt mean EVERYTHING is GPSd and marked.
But i can tell 1 thing. You cant look past markers and due to you wont actually explore like 90% of other MMOers, rest doesnt really matter to you as can be seen from your posts. Because you can get lost in any MMO.
You can stop with your high and mighty attitude and thinking you are intellectually superior to all others here in anything gaming-wise. Most people understand the words just fine.
Whoosh!
If you understood it fine, you wouldn't be uncomfortably poking fun at it.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You can stop with your high and mighty attitude and thinking you are intellectually superior to all others here in anything gaming-wise. Most people understand the words just fine.
Whoosh!
If you understood it fine, you wouldn't be uncomfortably poking fun at it.
Ok Dr. Phil...how do you assume I am uncomfortable with it? I'm not. I just find it amusing how often you use it is all, and hence, why I said what I initially said.
And anything can be considered "game play". Just depends on the person and what they enjoy doing in a given game. Not just what you consider game play to be.
Ok Dr. Phil...how do you assume I am uncomfortable with it? I'm not. I just find it amusing how often you use it is all, and hence, why I said what I initially said.
And anything can be considered "game play". Just depends on the person and what they enjoy doing in a given game. Not just what you consider game play to be.
No, gameplay isn't about enjoyment.
You enjoyed your favorite movie. That didn't mean it had gameplay.
Gameplay is decisions as they relate to game rules.
Watching a movie involves no decisions, so it isn't a game and offers no gameplay. Watching a cutscene inside a game involves no decisions: no gameplay. Watching a run animation involves no decisions: no gameplay. Traveling a long distance in an MMORPG involves a little steering to avoid mobs: very very little gameplay (but not none!)
The whole distinguishing factor that makes something interactive entertainment is the gameplay (decisions.) So it shouldn't have surprised us that early MMORPGs (which involved fewer and more repetitive decisions) performed worse, and we understand that it would be a bad idea to repeat those mistakes.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You can stop with your high and mighty attitude and thinking you are intellectually superior to all others here in anything gaming-wise. Most people understand the words just fine.
Whoosh!
If you understood it fine, you wouldn't be uncomfortably poking fun at it.
Ok Dr. Phil...how do you assume I am uncomfortable with it? I'm not. I just find it amusing how often you use it is all, and hence, why I said what I initially said.
And anything can be considered "game play". Just depends on the person and what they enjoy doing in a given game. Not just what you consider game play to be.
You are wasting your breath.
Anyone that can't comprehend why a person would like to be able to get lost in a dangerous fantasy world and the sense of achievement from learning your way around in said world is not capable of understanding either the basic concept of immersion or gratification.
Ok Dr. Phil...how do you assume I am uncomfortable with it? I'm not. I just find it amusing how often you use it is all, and hence, why I said what I initially said.
And anything can be considered "game play". Just depends on the person and what they enjoy doing in a given game. Not just what you consider game play to be.
No, gameplay isn't about enjoyment.
You enjoyed your favorite movie. That didn't mean it had gameplay.
Gameplay is decisions as they relate to game rules.
Watching a movie involves no decisions, so it isn't a game and offers no gameplay. Watching a cutscene inside a game involves no decisions: no gameplay. Watching a run animation involves no decisions: no gameplay. Traveling a long distance in an MMORPG involves a little steering to avoid mobs: very very little gameplay (but not none!)
The whole distinguishing factor that makes something interactive entertainment is the gameplay (decisions.) So it shouldn't have surprised us that early MMORPGs (which involved fewer and more repetitive decisions) performed worse, and we understand that it would be a bad idea to repeat those mistakes.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana is a decision...made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana, and starting a conversation with a group member or a random player just doing the same sitting near them is a decision. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Deciding to hoof it across the world or via mount instead of through the means of instant teleportation is a decision made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
I agree that cut scenes provide no gameplay. Especially since they have no place in an MMORPG. You are just sitting there watching it. No interaction what so ever other than...watching it. They should stay in console games and PC RPG games.
Excellent post, but I think this "first love" concept should be removed from the conversation. I did not just have a first love with one MMORPPG, I was in love with a genre that crossed multiple MMORPG's. I did not have a one time experience, I had years of great experiences like those you mentioned.
I am not 100% against mechanics of news MMO's, I am 100% against those new mechanics not being merged by putting the sensical ones into an old school model.
In the end we will never know the true demand for this type of MMO, but I have seen more than one kickstarter succeed because it offered an old school sandbox MMORPG experience. If we are a niche crowd so be it, just stop telling me it is nostalgia. It is like if pizza changed and someone who likes the new pizza telling us "you just want the old style pizza because of nostalgia"....as if taste canot possibly have anything to do with it.
The "MMO nooblets" can have their crap if they want it, and there is plenty of it. Why they insist on flooding our threads to tell us we are wrong is baffling to me.
The newer Bethesda RPGs all have GPS and exploration both.
I love Skyrim, but it doesn't have exploration. You generally follow the GPS around and often quick travel. If you diverge from this path and just explore you will end up redoing most content as it already has a quest associated with it. When you go back often times the cave will now be empty and you might even have gotten rid of the quest item not knowing it was for a quest. One thing I will say about Skyrim is at least it doesn't force you down a specific path, but that is different from exploration. Exploration requires the unknown. Once you have a GPS to show you where to go it is no longer unknown. That is like saying if Christopher Columbus used a GPS to find America he was exploring. GPS is the opposite of exploration. It is marking a known territory. To explore you need territory that is unknown IMO.
I agree, the worst thing about the new TES games is they are "x marks the spot" with a compass games, no true exploration. I freaking hate it. I want to overhear an NPC talking about a mysterious cave he find about a 3 miles north of the village that he swears wasn't there before. I don't want it placed on my map with an arrow pointing to it, I want to explore to find it! I want the npc to give me directions somewhere, and when I get there I want to wonder if I am in the right place or not. This is exciting, hand holding is not.
And mods to turn off the compass are not going to do you any good because then you will be absolutely blind because the npcs are not giving you directions. If I were a modder I would so love to make this one, I would go through every quest and change the dialogue then turn off all indicators of where things are. Including the "You discovered XXX" messages. Nope, leave me wondering.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana is a decision...made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana, and starting a conversation with a group member or a random player just doing the same sitting near them is a decision. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Deciding to hoof it across the world or via mount instead of through the means of instant teleportation is a decision made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
I agree that cut scenes provide no gameplay. Especially since they have no place in an MMORPG. You are just sitting there watching it. No interaction what so ever other than...watching it. They should stay in console games and PC RPG games.
The decision to recover is a gameplay decision. It's one decision though. It's up to the game whether to keep the decisions flowing (~10 sec downtime) or not (several minutes of downtime where no additional decisions occur.) Players are pretty good at sniffing out when their time is being wasted, even if they don't measure things objectively (eg 0.2 decisions / minute) This is why games never lock players into this sort of non-gameplay if they can help it.
A conversation isn't a gameplay decision. It doesn't relate to the game's rules. You wouldn't say a movie has gameplay, and you also wouldn't say talking during a movie has gameplay (even though the conversation will involve decisions.) So relating to a game's rules is an important part of the definition.
Deciding to initiate a long trip in-game is exactly like the recovery. The first decision is one decision and it's up to the game to keep the rate of decisions flowing, otherwise the game feels like it's deliberately wasting players' time (which in the case of MMORPGs is actually true, since they want players to subscribe longer.)
Cutscenes lack gameplay, but at least they provide entertainment. Whereas things like travel and downtime don't. So cutscenes are much better in that regard, and as long as they're implemented wisely they can be fine in MMORPGs (always skippable, especially in group play.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana is a decision...made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana, and starting a conversation with a group member or a random player just doing the same sitting near them is a decision. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Deciding to hoof it across the world or via mount instead of through the means of instant teleportation is a decision made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
I agree that cut scenes provide no gameplay. Especially since they have no place in an MMORPG. You are just sitting there watching it. No interaction what so ever other than...watching it. They should stay in console games and PC RPG games.
The decision to recover is a gameplay decision. It's one decision though. It's up to the game whether to keep the decisions flowing (~10 sec downtime) or not (several minutes of downtime where no additional decisions occur.) Players are pretty good at sniffing out when their time is being wasted, even if they don't measure things objectively (eg 0.2 decisions / minute) This is why games never lock players into this sort of non-gameplay if they can help it.
A conversation isn't a gameplay decision. It doesn't relate to the game's rules. You wouldn't say a movie has gameplay, and you also wouldn't say talking during a movie has gameplay (even though the conversation will involve decisions.) So relating to a game's rules is an important part of the definition.
Deciding to initiate a long trip in-game is exactly like the recovery. The first decision is one decision and it's up to the game to keep the rate of decisions flowing, otherwise the game feels like it's deliberately wasting players' time (which in the case of MMORPGs is actually true, since they want players to subscribe longer.)
Cutscenes lack gameplay, but at least they provide entertainment. Whereas things like travel and downtime don't. So cutscenes are much better in that regard, and as long as they're implemented wisely they can be fine in MMORPGs (always skippable, especially in group play.)
Underlined red. I figure you haven't played UO or SWG? And even if you had it seems you would have liked different things from those games.
Conversation was as much attached to gameplay that it certainly was about making decisions. Allot of gameplay was actually very tied to players conversation. You could master a craft profession, just use most stuff for your self and enjoy the game. You could also be that master crafter, get into the community, get trades going. Let people know who you are and what you can craft. Again decision a player can make that is tied to gameplay. Which made conversation be a true part of gameplay itself. In the case of SWG you also had to learn the langauge from different species thus needed to get into conversations with other players.
People organizing guild hunts, raids what ever guild event which is again attached to gameplay because the game offers them this and people can do what they want with it, there for decissions are made that are tied towards the game.
Travel also a gameplay element. People can choose in most games to fast travel. Some will choose to explore the lands/worlds by foot/vehicle/mount again to me these are decisions to be made within the game's rules.
I am not sure why gamers debate about waste of time like how is spoken about certain timesinks. While the majority might not like certain timesinks it's still strange to see other people not understanding why some might like certain timesinks.
I understand some people just want to play a GAME, but I am sure some people play MMORPG to be immersed within this totaly different/strange new world and discover it as if they where there.
I can still become very immersed within today's game and enjoy them for what they are. Just not on the level like I could in the past due to how limited this genre has become to be more "game"
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana is a decision...made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana, and starting a conversation with a group member or a random player just doing the same sitting near them is a decision. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Deciding to hoof it across the world or via mount instead of through the means of instant teleportation is a decision made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
I agree that cut scenes provide no gameplay. Especially since they have no place in an MMORPG. You are just sitting there watching it. No interaction what so ever other than...watching it. They should stay in console games and PC RPG games.
The decision to recover is a gameplay decision. It's one decision though. It's up to the game whether to keep the decisions flowing (~10 sec downtime) or not (several minutes of downtime where no additional decisions occur.) Players are pretty good at sniffing out when their time is being wasted, even if they don't measure things objectively (eg 0.2 decisions / minute) This is why games never lock players into this sort of non-gameplay if they can help it.
A conversation isn't a gameplay decision. It doesn't relate to the game's rules. You wouldn't say a movie has gameplay, and you also wouldn't say talking during a movie has gameplay (even though the conversation will involve decisions.) So relating to a game's rules is an important part of the definition.
Deciding to initiate a long trip in-game is exactly like the recovery. The first decision is one decision and it's up to the game to keep the rate of decisions flowing, otherwise the game feels like it's deliberately wasting players' time (which in the case of MMORPGs is actually true, since they want players to subscribe longer.)
Cutscenes lack gameplay, but at least they provide entertainment. Whereas things like travel and downtime don't. So cutscenes are much better in that regard, and as long as they're implemented wisely they can be fine in MMORPGs (always skippable, especially in group play.)
Wow......just wow. Cutscenes are entertaining? To what? Just sit there like a lump and watch without having to touch the keyboard or mouse at all?
At least in travel you are still interacting with the environment. You still have to watch where you are going. You still have to direct your character's heading. You still have to gt to you destination.
Underlined red. I figure you haven't played UO or SWG? And even if you had it seems you would have liked different things from those games.
Conversation was as much attached to gameplay that it certainly was about making decisions. Allot of gameplay was actually very tied to players conversation. You could master a craft profession, just use most stuff for your self and enjoy the game. You could also be that master crafter, get into the community, get trades going. Let people know who you are and what you can craft. Again decision a player can make that is tied to gameplay. Which made conversation be a true part of gameplay itself. In the case of SWG you also had to learn the langauge from different species thus needed to get into conversations with other players.
People organizing guild hunts, raids what ever guild event which is again attached to gameplay because the game offers them this and people can do what they want with it, there for decissions are made that are tied towards the game.
Travel also a gameplay element. People can choose in most games to fast travel. Some will choose to explore the lands/worlds by foot/vehicle/mount again to me these are decisions to be made within the game's rules.
I am not sure why gamers debate about waste of time like how is spoken about certain timesinks. While the majority might not like certain timesinks it's still strange to see other people not understanding why some might like certain timesinks.
I understand some people just want to play a GAME, but I am sure some people play MMORPG to be immersed within this totaly different/strange new world and discover it as if they where there.
I can still become very immersed within today's game and enjoy them for what they are. Just not on the level like I could in the past due to how limited this genre has become to be more "game"
None of that is gameplay though. They're decisions which exist outside game rules. They may empower you to do more within the game because now you know a tank who can tank that dungeon for you (or do the various other things you mentioned) but they're not gameplay.
Travel is only gameplay insofar as it involves decisions. In most MMORPGs travel is gameplay in the same way that 99% water / 1% OJ is orange juice. In Puzzle Pirates travel was entirely gameplay, because everyone on the ship was actively doing a puzzle to keep the ship moving.
I'm not here to dispute that a narrow group of players wants their MMORPGs to be extremely light on thinking. Farmville proves there's a market for that type of player. They view games as relaxation activities to zen-out to, rather than games involving gameplay. I'm mostly putting forth the idea that the venn diagram of MMORPG players and Farmville players has very little overlap, and the majority of players want to think and make meaningful decisions frequently during gameplay, because pattern mastery is the most common type of fun (Koster, 2003) and dense gameplay is dense pattern mastery.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Wow......just wow. Cutscenes are entertaining? To what? Just sit there like a lump and watch without having to touch the keyboard or mouse at all?
At least in travel you are still interacting with the environment. You still have to watch where you are going. You still have to direct your character's heading. You still have to gt to you destination.
You have a very strange way of looking at it.
Perhaps you haven't heard of things called movies, which are a multi-billion dollar industry because people find them entertaining.
The fundamental reason stories are part of our society is actually pretty similar to why we enjoy games. We enjoy games for their pattern mastery (Koster, 2003). They let us handle a situation, and try out different things in a safe environment to improve our skill at a task -- our minds aren't great at knowing which tasks are actually beneficial to use in real life, so even very abstract things like Bejeweled fascinate us as we attempt to master them.
With stories (movies, books, etc) the same sort of fascination exists. We're not in control of the decisions being made, but we're still learning from those decisions and that's why we're compelled to watch these things. We watch the train wrecks of bad decisions with as much or more fascination as the flawless master who defeats all opponents.
This is why we also enjoy grounded or realistic stories more than things which are entirely abstract. Moon (2009) involves cloning that we can't achieve nowadays, but because it serves as allegory for man's mortality the sci-fi aspects don't matter and we can learn from his struggle. Same reason we find any story compelling, including those found in games. Even though we don't interact with them.
As static content, it's consumed more brutally and the replay value is extremely limited, so that's why it needs to be handled with the appropriate rules (and I listed a few of them in my previous post.) But it's nearly always more interesting than another 30 minutes steering through mobs in a long travel trip; that doesn't have replay value either.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Wow......just wow. Cutscenes are entertaining? To what? Just sit there like a lump and watch without having to touch the keyboard or mouse at all?
At least in travel you are still interacting with the environment. You still have to watch where you are going. You still have to direct your character's heading. You still have to gt to you destination.
You have a very strange way of looking at it.
Perhaps you haven't heard of things called movies, which are a multi-billion dollar industry because people find them entertaining.
The fundamental reason stories are part of our society is actually pretty similar to why we enjoy games. We enjoy games for their pattern mastery (Koster, 2003). They let us handle a situation, and try out different things in a safe environment to improve our skill at a task -- our minds aren't great at knowing which tasks are actually beneficial to use in real life, so even very abstract things like Bejeweled fascinate us as we attempt to master them.
With stories (movies, books, etc) the same sort of fascination exists. We're not in control of the decisions being made, but we're still learning from those decisions and that's why we're compelled to watch these things. We watch the train wrecks of bad decisions with as much or more fascination as the flawless master who defeats all opponents.
This is why we also enjoy grounded or realistic stories more than things which are entirely abstract. Moon (2009) involves cloning that we can't achieve nowadays, but because it serves as allegory for man's mortality the sci-fi aspects don't matter and we can learn from his struggle. Same reason we find any story compelling, including those found in games. Even though we don't interact with them.
As static content, it's consumed more brutally and the replay value is extremely limited, so that's why it needs to be handled with the appropriate rules (and I listed a few of them in my previous post.) But it's nearly always more interesting than another 30 minutes steering through mobs in a long travel trip; that doesn't have replay value either.
Arrogant and a smartass aren't you.
As someone else has pointed out, it's pointless trying to have a conversation with you. Much like Nari...your way is the only truth and you see no other side of anything. Not everyone needs constant action to have fun. There are other functions that others find fun beyond constant instant action. You just don't get that, or don' want to get that others could enjoy things you don't. It's all about what you like and perceive everyone else likes. Seems you are more suited to play console games or non-MMORPG's.
I am done talking to you. It's the true time waster.
As someone else has pointed out, it's pointless trying to have a conversation with you. Much like Nari...your way is the only truth and you see no other side of anything. Not everyone needs constant action to have fun. There are other functions that others find fun beyond constant instant action. You just don't get that, or don' want to get that others could enjoy things you don't. It's all about what you like and perceive everyone else likes. Seems you are more suited to play console games or non-MMORPG's.
I am done talking to you. It's the true time waster.
Personal attacks don't change the facts.
You wondered how people could find cutscenes entertaining. I described, in detail, why.
If you're only interested in an echo chamber of players saying "Wow, yeah, EQ was awesome and had zero problems with its gameplay and would surely be a 15 million subscriber game if remade with better graphics. Our opinions sure are the best! And everybody agrees with us because I've ignored everyone in these forums who disagrees so I only read like-minded posts!" then yeah I'm not going to be a particularly great person to talk to.
But if you're interested in seeking out the truth of why the industry picks the games it does and why these particular mechanics were short-lived, well then I have some rather good insights in that regard, as a professional designer who's studied this sort of thing for over a decade.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana is a decision...made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana, and starting a conversation with a group member or a random player just doing the same sitting near them is a decision. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Deciding to hoof it across the world or via mount instead of through the means of instant teleportation is a decision made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
I agree that cut scenes provide no gameplay. Especially since they have no place in an MMORPG. You are just sitting there watching it. No interaction what so ever other than...watching it. They should stay in console games and PC RPG games.
The decision to recover is a gameplay decision. It's one decision though. It's up to the game whether to keep the decisions flowing (~10 sec downtime) or not (several minutes of downtime where no additional decisions occur.) Players are pretty good at sniffing out when their time is being wasted, even if they don't measure things objectively (eg 0.2 decisions / minute) This is why games never lock players into this sort of non-gameplay if they can help it.
A conversation isn't a gameplay decision. It doesn't relate to the game's rules. You wouldn't say a movie has gameplay, and you also wouldn't say talking during a movie has gameplay (even though the conversation will involve decisions.) So relating to a game's rules is an important part of the definition.
Deciding to initiate a long trip in-game is exactly like the recovery. The first decision is one decision and it's up to the game to keep the rate of decisions flowing, otherwise the game feels like it's deliberately wasting players' time (which in the case of MMORPGs is actually true, since they want players to subscribe longer.)
Cutscenes lack gameplay, but at least they provide entertainment. Whereas things like travel and downtime don't. So cutscenes are much better in that regard, and as long as they're implemented wisely they can be fine in MMORPGs (always skippable, especially in group play.)
Wow......just wow. Cutscenes are entertaining? To what? Just sit there like a lump and watch without having to touch the keyboard or mouse at all?
At least in travel you are still interacting with the environment. You still have to watch where you are going. You still have to direct your character's heading. You still have to gt to you destination.
You have a very strange way of looking at it.
You can actually try playing some of this games you bash so you can actually know what youre talking about.
Wow......just wow. Cutscenes are entertaining? To what? Just sit there like a lump and watch without having to touch the keyboard or mouse at all?
At least in travel you are still interacting with the environment. You still have to watch where you are going. You still have to direct your character's heading. You still have to gt to you destination.
You have a very strange way of looking at it.
Perhaps you haven't heard of things called movies, which are a multi-billion dollar industry because people find them entertaining.
The fundamental reason stories are part of our society is actually pretty similar to why we enjoy games. We enjoy games for their pattern mastery (Koster, 2003). They let us handle a situation, and try out different things in a safe environment to improve our skill at a task -- our minds aren't great at knowing which tasks are actually beneficial to use in real life, so even very abstract things like Bejeweled fascinate us as we attempt to master them.
With stories (movies, books, etc) the same sort of fascination exists. We're not in control of the decisions being made, but we're still learning from those decisions and that's why we're compelled to watch these things. We watch the train wrecks of bad decisions with as much or more fascination as the flawless master who defeats all opponents.
This is why we also enjoy grounded or realistic stories more than things which are entirely abstract. Moon (2009) involves cloning that we can't achieve nowadays, but because it serves as allegory for man's mortality the sci-fi aspects don't matter and we can learn from his struggle. Same reason we find any story compelling, including those found in games. Even though we don't interact with them.
As static content, it's consumed more brutally and the replay value is extremely limited, so that's why it needs to be handled with the appropriate rules (and I listed a few of them in my previous post.) But it's nearly always more interesting than another 30 minutes steering through mobs in a long travel trip; that doesn't have replay value either.
Arrogant and a smartass aren't you.
As someone else has pointed out, it's pointless trying to have a conversation with you. Much like Nari...your way is the only truth and you see no other side of anything. Not everyone needs constant action to have fun. There are other functions that others find fun beyond constant instant action. You just don't get that, or don' want to get that others could enjoy things you don't. It's all about what you like and perceive everyone else likes. Seems you are more suited to play console games or non-MMORPG's.
I am done talking to you. It's the true time waster.
Oh, but we do get that its just that these other functions suck in MMOs and are much better elswhere.
And you are absolutely right when you say people dont envision MMOs as virtual chatrooms. Paid virtual chatrooms above all.
As someone else has pointed out, it's pointless trying to have a conversation with you. Much like Nari...your way is the only truth and you see no other side of anything. Not everyone needs constant action to have fun. There are other functions that others find fun beyond constant instant action. You just don't get that, or don' want to get that others could enjoy things you don't. It's all about what you like and perceive everyone else likes. Seems you are more suited to play console games or non-MMORPG's.
I am done talking to you. It's the true time waster.
Personal attacks don't change the facts.
You wondered how people could find cutscenes entertaining. I described, in detail, why.
If you're only interested in an echo chamber of players saying "Wow, yeah, EQ was awesome and had zero problems with its gameplay and would surely be a 15 million subscriber game if remade with better graphics. Our opinions sure are the best! And everybody agrees with us because I've ignored everyone in these forums who disagrees so I only read like-minded posts!" then yeah I'm not going to be a particularly great person to talk to.
But if you're interested in seeking out the truth of why the industry picks the games it does and why these particular mechanics were short-lived, well then I have some rather good insights in that regard, as a professional designer who's studied this sort of thing for over a decade.
I have never said EQ was without problems. Nor have I ever said that there weren't features in modern MMORPG's I liked and thought weren't improvements (I.E. Please seek out my thread "Say it's Nostalgia all you want...). You seem only interested in saying how no one wants old school MMORPG's...yet, I see thread after thread and response after response to the contrary.
Not only that, because forums does not equate the majority of PC gamers, but in many of the games I have played I have heard the yearnings for old school. And that doesn't mean I would want every feature from them. Mainly those that lent to community.
And yeah yeah. I have seen you gloat many times that you supposedly are in the industry. If so, with who? What types of games are you working on? Do tell.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana is a decision...made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana, and starting a conversation with a group member or a random player just doing the same sitting near them is a decision. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Deciding to hoof it across the world or via mount instead of through the means of instant teleportation is a decision made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
I agree that cut scenes provide no gameplay. Especially since they have no place in an MMORPG. You are just sitting there watching it. No interaction what so ever other than...watching it. They should stay in console games and PC RPG games.
The decision to recover is a gameplay decision. It's one decision though. It's up to the game whether to keep the decisions flowing (~10 sec downtime) or not (several minutes of downtime where no additional decisions occur.) Players are pretty good at sniffing out when their time is being wasted, even if they don't measure things objectively (eg 0.2 decisions / minute) This is why games never lock players into this sort of non-gameplay if they can help it.
A conversation isn't a gameplay decision. It doesn't relate to the game's rules. You wouldn't say a movie has gameplay, and you also wouldn't say talking during a movie has gameplay (even though the conversation will involve decisions.) So relating to a game's rules is an important part of the definition.
Deciding to initiate a long trip in-game is exactly like the recovery. The first decision is one decision and it's up to the game to keep the rate of decisions flowing, otherwise the game feels like it's deliberately wasting players' time (which in the case of MMORPGs is actually true, since they want players to subscribe longer.)
Cutscenes lack gameplay, but at least they provide entertainment. Whereas things like travel and downtime don't. So cutscenes are much better in that regard, and as long as they're implemented wisely they can be fine in MMORPGs (always skippable, especially in group play.)
Wow......just wow. Cutscenes are entertaining? To what? Just sit there like a lump and watch without having to touch the keyboard or mouse at all?
At least in travel you are still interacting with the environment. You still have to watch where you are going. You still have to direct your character's heading. You still have to gt to you destination.
You have a very strange way of looking at it.
You can actually try playing some of this games you bash so you can actually know what youre talking about.
Any or all of those will do:
GW2, SWTOR, ESO
But until that time ill just continue laughing.
I was in SWToR and played ESO for nearly 2 years. Amongst others I gave at least 3+ months to draw me in.
I don't recall bashing any particular game. Just that cutscenes are not gameplay (In my discussion with Axehilt) and I feel they have no place in MMORPG's personally. Does that mean those who like them shouldn't have these games they like because I don't? Nope. Too bad that isn't a two way road. Yet I am the basher.
Gotta be hard to laugh with your foot in your mouth.
I started playing MMO's a few years after EQ came out. I liked it but it was very difficult originally. I tried WoW later and hated it. And SWG which I started when NGE hit and I've always wanted to play the pre-NGE game but never had the chance (I have found some sites that do offer it but when I try, I get frustrated pretty quick because there literally is NO explanation on what to do or where and NO quests of any sort so its pretty much kill stuff which is boring).
It wasn't till EQ2 that I fell in love with an MMO. It was my game, and I still love it. When they went f2p I was very upset. Not because of the f2p. By that time, LOTRO had come out with f2p and it was quite fair. EQ2 though... that one really made me angry. Because the devs and community leaders, and all the rest just blew us off. Everyone was angry and we had valid questions. Finally, smedly came on and started talking to us. And his answers were the equivalent of "we are going to screw you over, just trust us". He blew us off so much that we all started getting very angry because he wouldn't answer any of our questions whatsoever. And I quit.
Since that time, I've been looking for my new MMO home. I've tried probably a good 50 or 60 games and haven't found it. I missed the game so much that, after years of saying that I wouldn't cave to play the game again, I went back a few months ago as a f2p player. I had no idea just how much I missed it. The pc toons are still really ugly but the rest of the game isn't, and that music still makes me smile. Bristlebane Day is running right now and I was playing the event last night. Going to do it again tonight. It feels like coming home.
EQ Next... I'm not impressed with Landmark, so I somehow really think I won't be impressed with EQ Next. But we will see. And I'm still under NDA so I can't give any info, sorry.
There are definitely things that could be done better. We need a real live world that changes and that we can impact. Citadel of Sorcery MIGHT be an option but its been in development 8 years with no hint of release. Every single game that I have played since I left EQ2 the first time makes alot of promises but doesn't fulfill any of them. In fact, every game since then actually offers less. LOTRO came close but their housing is terrible and in the years of false promises, they have still not done anything about it and probably won't.
And then we see articles from devs complaining about how its getting harder to impress people with pretty graphics and they don't know what to do. They keep getting told "so provide a better game" by players, and the players keep getting ignored. Instead, we get games that provide pve and pvp, and very little else except gimmicks that bore people quickly. Some developers (I'm looking at you CCP) are actually proud of the fact that they can develop a game in a year and a half.
I don't currently hold much hope for the genre. And I think I'm in good company when I say that others feel the same way. Because they still don't get it and they probably won't because the quick buck is what everyone is after, not quality. It's pitiful.
Comments
True, but I'm not a developer so far in my life. I'm just thinking from things in terms of what I think I would enjoy. It's not really my responsibility to worry about weather something can be built or not realistically. I'm just here to talk about the possibilities of what could be in games to IMO improve them.
You can stop with your high and mighty attitude and thinking you are intellectually superior to all others here in anything gaming-wise. Most people understand the words just fine.
Whoosh!
Hell...pick one...of the thousands.
I don't really need to quote it anyways. Anyone that's been here long enough gets it...and that's what makes it even more hilarious.
Go play GW2. Yes it has markers. But markers represent only 30% of the content and rest is not marked in any way. If you just follow markers youll miss 70% of the game. You HAVE to explore.
Just because game has "GPS" and "markers" doesnt mean EVERYTHING is GPSd and marked.
But i can tell 1 thing. You cant look past markers and due to you wont actually explore like 90% of other MMOers, rest doesnt really matter to you as can be seen from your posts. Because you can get lost in any MMO.
If you understood it fine, you wouldn't be uncomfortably poking fun at it.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok Dr. Phil...how do you assume I am uncomfortable with it? I'm not. I just find it amusing how often you use it is all, and hence, why I said what I initially said.
And anything can be considered "game play". Just depends on the person and what they enjoy doing in a given game. Not just what you consider game play to be.
No, gameplay isn't about enjoyment.
You enjoyed your favorite movie. That didn't mean it had gameplay.
Gameplay is decisions as they relate to game rules.
Watching a movie involves no decisions, so it isn't a game and offers no gameplay. Watching a cutscene inside a game involves no decisions: no gameplay. Watching a run animation involves no decisions: no gameplay. Traveling a long distance in an MMORPG involves a little steering to avoid mobs: very very little gameplay (but not none!)
The whole distinguishing factor that makes something interactive entertainment is the gameplay (decisions.) So it shouldn't have surprised us that early MMORPGs (which involved fewer and more repetitive decisions) performed worse, and we understand that it would be a bad idea to repeat those mistakes.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You are wasting your breath.
Anyone that can't comprehend why a person would like to be able to get lost in a dangerous fantasy world and the sense of achievement from learning your way around in said world is not capable of understanding either the basic concept of immersion or gratification.
Oxford defintion of gameplay :
noun
'The features of a computer game, such as its plot and the way it is played, as distinct from the graphics and sound effects.'
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
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana is a decision...made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Sitting and medding up to regain health and mana, and starting a conversation with a group member or a random player just doing the same sitting near them is a decision. They don't HAVE to do it.
- Deciding to hoof it across the world or via mount instead of through the means of instant teleportation is a decision made by the player. They don't HAVE to do it.
I agree that cut scenes provide no gameplay. Especially since they have no place in an MMORPG. You are just sitting there watching it. No interaction what so ever other than...watching it. They should stay in console games and PC RPG games.
Excellent post, but I think this "first love" concept should be removed from the conversation. I did not just have a first love with one MMORPPG, I was in love with a genre that crossed multiple MMORPG's. I did not have a one time experience, I had years of great experiences like those you mentioned.
I am not 100% against mechanics of news MMO's, I am 100% against those new mechanics not being merged by putting the sensical ones into an old school model.
In the end we will never know the true demand for this type of MMO, but I have seen more than one kickstarter succeed because it offered an old school sandbox MMORPG experience. If we are a niche crowd so be it, just stop telling me it is nostalgia. It is like if pizza changed and someone who likes the new pizza telling us "you just want the old style pizza because of nostalgia"....as if taste canot possibly have anything to do with it.
The "MMO nooblets" can have their crap if they want it, and there is plenty of it. Why they insist on flooding our threads to tell us we are wrong is baffling to me.
I agree, the worst thing about the new TES games is they are "x marks the spot" with a compass games, no true exploration. I freaking hate it. I want to overhear an NPC talking about a mysterious cave he find about a 3 miles north of the village that he swears wasn't there before. I don't want it placed on my map with an arrow pointing to it, I want to explore to find it! I want the npc to give me directions somewhere, and when I get there I want to wonder if I am in the right place or not. This is exciting, hand holding is not.
And mods to turn off the compass are not going to do you any good because then you will be absolutely blind because the npcs are not giving you directions. If I were a modder I would so love to make this one, I would go through every quest and change the dialogue then turn off all indicators of where things are. Including the "You discovered XXX" messages. Nope, leave me wondering.
The decision to recover is a gameplay decision. It's one decision though. It's up to the game whether to keep the decisions flowing (~10 sec downtime) or not (several minutes of downtime where no additional decisions occur.) Players are pretty good at sniffing out when their time is being wasted, even if they don't measure things objectively (eg 0.2 decisions / minute) This is why games never lock players into this sort of non-gameplay if they can help it.
A conversation isn't a gameplay decision. It doesn't relate to the game's rules. You wouldn't say a movie has gameplay, and you also wouldn't say talking during a movie has gameplay (even though the conversation will involve decisions.) So relating to a game's rules is an important part of the definition.
Deciding to initiate a long trip in-game is exactly like the recovery. The first decision is one decision and it's up to the game to keep the rate of decisions flowing, otherwise the game feels like it's deliberately wasting players' time (which in the case of MMORPGs is actually true, since they want players to subscribe longer.)
Cutscenes lack gameplay, but at least they provide entertainment. Whereas things like travel and downtime don't. So cutscenes are much better in that regard, and as long as they're implemented wisely they can be fine in MMORPGs (always skippable, especially in group play.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Underlined red. I figure you haven't played UO or SWG? And even if you had it seems you would have liked different things from those games.
Conversation was as much attached to gameplay that it certainly was about making decisions. Allot of gameplay was actually very tied to players conversation. You could master a craft profession, just use most stuff for your self and enjoy the game. You could also be that master crafter, get into the community, get trades going. Let people know who you are and what you can craft. Again decision a player can make that is tied to gameplay. Which made conversation be a true part of gameplay itself. In the case of SWG you also had to learn the langauge from different species thus needed to get into conversations with other players.
People organizing guild hunts, raids what ever guild event which is again attached to gameplay because the game offers them this and people can do what they want with it, there for decissions are made that are tied towards the game.
Travel also a gameplay element. People can choose in most games to fast travel. Some will choose to explore the lands/worlds by foot/vehicle/mount again to me these are decisions to be made within the game's rules.
I am not sure why gamers debate about waste of time like how is spoken about certain timesinks. While the majority might not like certain timesinks it's still strange to see other people not understanding why some might like certain timesinks.
I understand some people just want to play a GAME, but I am sure some people play MMORPG to be immersed within this totaly different/strange new world and discover it as if they where there.
I can still become very immersed within today's game and enjoy them for what they are. Just not on the level like I could in the past due to how limited this genre has become to be more "game"
Wow......just wow. Cutscenes are entertaining? To what? Just sit there like a lump and watch without having to touch the keyboard or mouse at all?
At least in travel you are still interacting with the environment. You still have to watch where you are going. You still have to direct your character's heading. You still have to gt to you destination.
You have a very strange way of looking at it.
None of that is gameplay though. They're decisions which exist outside game rules. They may empower you to do more within the game because now you know a tank who can tank that dungeon for you (or do the various other things you mentioned) but they're not gameplay.
Travel is only gameplay insofar as it involves decisions. In most MMORPGs travel is gameplay in the same way that 99% water / 1% OJ is orange juice. In Puzzle Pirates travel was entirely gameplay, because everyone on the ship was actively doing a puzzle to keep the ship moving.
I'm not here to dispute that a narrow group of players wants their MMORPGs to be extremely light on thinking. Farmville proves there's a market for that type of player. They view games as relaxation activities to zen-out to, rather than games involving gameplay. I'm mostly putting forth the idea that the venn diagram of MMORPG players and Farmville players has very little overlap, and the majority of players want to think and make meaningful decisions frequently during gameplay, because pattern mastery is the most common type of fun (Koster, 2003) and dense gameplay is dense pattern mastery.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Perhaps you haven't heard of things called movies, which are a multi-billion dollar industry because people find them entertaining.
The fundamental reason stories are part of our society is actually pretty similar to why we enjoy games. We enjoy games for their pattern mastery (Koster, 2003). They let us handle a situation, and try out different things in a safe environment to improve our skill at a task -- our minds aren't great at knowing which tasks are actually beneficial to use in real life, so even very abstract things like Bejeweled fascinate us as we attempt to master them.
With stories (movies, books, etc) the same sort of fascination exists. We're not in control of the decisions being made, but we're still learning from those decisions and that's why we're compelled to watch these things. We watch the train wrecks of bad decisions with as much or more fascination as the flawless master who defeats all opponents.
This is why we also enjoy grounded or realistic stories more than things which are entirely abstract. Moon (2009) involves cloning that we can't achieve nowadays, but because it serves as allegory for man's mortality the sci-fi aspects don't matter and we can learn from his struggle. Same reason we find any story compelling, including those found in games. Even though we don't interact with them.
As static content, it's consumed more brutally and the replay value is extremely limited, so that's why it needs to be handled with the appropriate rules (and I listed a few of them in my previous post.) But it's nearly always more interesting than another 30 minutes steering through mobs in a long travel trip; that doesn't have replay value either.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Arrogant and a smartass aren't you.
As someone else has pointed out, it's pointless trying to have a conversation with you. Much like Nari...your way is the only truth and you see no other side of anything. Not everyone needs constant action to have fun. There are other functions that others find fun beyond constant instant action. You just don't get that, or don' want to get that others could enjoy things you don't. It's all about what you like and perceive everyone else likes. Seems you are more suited to play console games or non-MMORPG's.
I am done talking to you. It's the true time waster.
Personal attacks don't change the facts.
You wondered how people could find cutscenes entertaining. I described, in detail, why.
If you're only interested in an echo chamber of players saying "Wow, yeah, EQ was awesome and had zero problems with its gameplay and would surely be a 15 million subscriber game if remade with better graphics. Our opinions sure are the best! And everybody agrees with us because I've ignored everyone in these forums who disagrees so I only read like-minded posts!" then yeah I'm not going to be a particularly great person to talk to.
But if you're interested in seeking out the truth of why the industry picks the games it does and why these particular mechanics were short-lived, well then I have some rather good insights in that regard, as a professional designer who's studied this sort of thing for over a decade.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You can actually try playing some of this games you bash so you can actually know what youre talking about.
Any or all of those will do:
GW2, SWTOR, ESO
But until that time ill just continue laughing.
Oh, but we do get that its just that these other functions suck in MMOs and are much better elswhere.
And you are absolutely right when you say people dont envision MMOs as virtual chatrooms. Paid virtual chatrooms above all.
I have never said EQ was without problems. Nor have I ever said that there weren't features in modern MMORPG's I liked and thought weren't improvements (I.E. Please seek out my thread "Say it's Nostalgia all you want...). You seem only interested in saying how no one wants old school MMORPG's...yet, I see thread after thread and response after response to the contrary.
Not only that, because forums does not equate the majority of PC gamers, but in many of the games I have played I have heard the yearnings for old school. And that doesn't mean I would want every feature from them. Mainly those that lent to community.
And yeah yeah. I have seen you gloat many times that you supposedly are in the industry. If so, with who? What types of games are you working on? Do tell.
I was in SWToR and played ESO for nearly 2 years. Amongst others I gave at least 3+ months to draw me in.
I don't recall bashing any particular game. Just that cutscenes are not gameplay (In my discussion with Axehilt) and I feel they have no place in MMORPG's personally. Does that mean those who like them shouldn't have these games they like because I don't? Nope. Too bad that isn't a two way road. Yet I am the basher.
Gotta be hard to laugh with your foot in your mouth.
Quite honestly, you guys will never come to a conclusion in this discussion unless you start talking about game design for specific audiences.
I started playing MMO's a few years after EQ came out. I liked it but it was very difficult originally. I tried WoW later and hated it. And SWG which I started when NGE hit and I've always wanted to play the pre-NGE game but never had the chance (I have found some sites that do offer it but when I try, I get frustrated pretty quick because there literally is NO explanation on what to do or where and NO quests of any sort so its pretty much kill stuff which is boring).
It wasn't till EQ2 that I fell in love with an MMO. It was my game, and I still love it. When they went f2p I was very upset. Not because of the f2p. By that time, LOTRO had come out with f2p and it was quite fair. EQ2 though... that one really made me angry. Because the devs and community leaders, and all the rest just blew us off. Everyone was angry and we had valid questions. Finally, smedly came on and started talking to us. And his answers were the equivalent of "we are going to screw you over, just trust us". He blew us off so much that we all started getting very angry because he wouldn't answer any of our questions whatsoever. And I quit.
Since that time, I've been looking for my new MMO home. I've tried probably a good 50 or 60 games and haven't found it. I missed the game so much that, after years of saying that I wouldn't cave to play the game again, I went back a few months ago as a f2p player. I had no idea just how much I missed it. The pc toons are still really ugly but the rest of the game isn't, and that music still makes me smile. Bristlebane Day is running right now and I was playing the event last night. Going to do it again tonight. It feels like coming home.
EQ Next... I'm not impressed with Landmark, so I somehow really think I won't be impressed with EQ Next. But we will see. And I'm still under NDA so I can't give any info, sorry.
There are definitely things that could be done better. We need a real live world that changes and that we can impact. Citadel of Sorcery MIGHT be an option but its been in development 8 years with no hint of release. Every single game that I have played since I left EQ2 the first time makes alot of promises but doesn't fulfill any of them. In fact, every game since then actually offers less. LOTRO came close but their housing is terrible and in the years of false promises, they have still not done anything about it and probably won't.
And then we see articles from devs complaining about how its getting harder to impress people with pretty graphics and they don't know what to do. They keep getting told "so provide a better game" by players, and the players keep getting ignored. Instead, we get games that provide pve and pvp, and very little else except gimmicks that bore people quickly. Some developers (I'm looking at you CCP) are actually proud of the fact that they can develop a game in a year and a half.
I don't currently hold much hope for the genre. And I think I'm in good company when I say that others feel the same way. Because they still don't get it and they probably won't because the quick buck is what everyone is after, not quality. It's pitiful.