Elitism in raiding is one thing- you need to spend a lot of time and be decent at the game to raid, and if someone is bad they can make you fail.
But you can't afford to be too much of an elitist if you need to group just to level up. And grinding levels in a group is not difficult so there's no reason for elitism anyway.
As for games like Second Life- there's nothing else to do but be social.
The easy-to-extrapolate correlation is that when people depend on others for everything in a game, they're more likely to be willing to help. This is not a far-fetched idea.
Did you count in people who just quit when they find themselves in a position where they are depending on others for everything in a game?
Your extrapolation couldn't be more far-fetched then you are proposing...
hmm .. those are not forced grouping. You are not forced to play those games ... you do it only if you like grouping.
How do I do in LoL as a solo player? I play Diablo 3 .. that is how.
Well sure, grouping isn't literally forced on you. But obviously this is the sort of gameplay these posters mean when they use the wrong words to say it, and obviously there are a lot of games where grouping is non-optional that do extremely well (in fact many of the Top 10 best-performing games have non-optional grouping.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ofc it could work. If a new game was beeing made and the main fokus was on grouping and the developer clearly states: "This is our main fokus, yes you can solo but it will take alot longer and alot of content can only be experienced in groups. Kills will give more xp in a group and the game is balanced with the expectations that you are in a group" It would most likely be a niche game, but if made well it could be a succes. Look at LoL and DOTA. Big games with fokus on group play. Why couldn't that work in an mmorpg ? No point in just following the stream if you dont have a better product than your competition. Then it would be better to take a different aproach and try to get hold of players that aren't happy with the way the stream flows atm.
hmm .. those are not forced grouping. You are not forced to play those games ... you do it only if you like grouping.
How do I do in LoL as a solo player? I play Diablo 3 .. that is how.
Well sure, grouping isn't literally forced on you. But obviously this is the sort of gameplay these posters mean when they use the wrong words to say it, and obviously there are a lot of games where grouping is non-optional that do extremely well (in fact many of the Top 10 best-performing games have non-optional grouping.)
Never dispute that .. and never dispute pure group-based pvp can work. In fact, group-based e-sport game is the craze right now.
If you call those forced grouping .. then sure .. it works in spades.
Elitism in raiding is one thing- you need to spend a lot of time and be decent at the game to raid, and if someone is bad they can make you fail.
But you can't afford to be too much of an elitist if you need to group just to level up. And grinding levels in a group is not difficult so there's no reason for elitism anyway.
As for games like Second Life- there's nothing else to do but be social.
The easy-to-extrapolate correlation is that when people depend on others for everything in a game, they're more likely to be willing to help. This is not a far-fetched idea.
Did you count in people who just quit when they find themselves in a position where they are depending on others for everything in a game?
Your extrapolation couldn't be more far-fetched then you are proposing...
Sure you can count those. They don't affect the in-game community because they're literally not a part of it.
You didn't answer my question- did you play FFXI when it was forced grouping? My guess is not, so you have no idea what the community was like, and it was pretty sweet.
As far as losing players- I don't think it's a big deal. MMOs are trying to be everything to everyone too much nowadays. It's better if they have a focus.
An idea I've been talking to friends about for many years is having a game/system where the player is IMMEDIATELY thrown in to group/dungeon/raid content. Hear me out.
Install > Update > Launch > Character Creation > Entering world > Auto placed in a raid.
As the player levels up, the raid size will shrink. i.e. Level cap = 60, so level 10 the raid shrink, level 20, the raid shrinks, level 30 it is no longer a raid, but a party/group/band/etc.
The idea is simple: Most MMORPGs or even RPGs in general have the player level up and progress their character. Accessorizing and learning to optimize their play style, and ultimately growing in power to the point that they'd appear as a God compared to their earlier self. I am fine with the "godly" feeling a player "used to get" when they capped out. It's a wonderful reward for spending months or years in a game getting your a$$ kicked by high level content to finally be able to "come back" all godly and wipe it up. That being said, it has never made much sense to me that only at the peak of a character's power is it then required to "gang up" on big-baddies. It's also at the peak of power that some, if not most players actually learn to strategically play with a group of other variable classes. This seems backwards.
I think it would be really cool if just one game tried it this way. Everyone is a noob, thus, get in a raid together and spam whatever ability(ies) you got to kill the big bird/dragon/ogre/whatever. As you get experienced, better gear, more wizdom, you can handle these things on your own, or in smaller groups.
(i would assume striking out on one's own would/should be optional, yet provide some very nice bonuses for doing so)
Forced grouping works fine if you make it so that people are not encouraged to solo everything with either build workarounds or overpowered gear/buffs. Also, forced grouping works best in games where there is a lot of interdependence across many activities. If players are used to grouping in the context of that game it's not going to be jarring. If they did everything solo and hit a wall in combat activities later, they will be pissed.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
@MMOvision I've actually said the same thing. Raiding should be part of the leveling process. Or large areas of the world where a huge group is required.
Do you think forced-grouping for decent experience-gain would be acceptable in a modern MMO...
Forced grouping is totally unacceptable in a modern MMO, and it wouldn't last 5 seconds on my hard drive if that turned out to be the case in a new game I started playing.
The quality of the community these days is so shit that I'd hate being forced into close proximity to most players.
This.
The quality of the community is so terrible because the game mechanics do not foster a good community.
When I left XI for Warcrack, I was ... astounded. Several times in my XI career, random people would help me do things whereas WoW was filled with trolls seeing how many analogies about canals they could make. The only people that many players (not all!) in most MMOs are nice to are those that can help them get stuff.
In a community driven game, you form a friendship when you meet a good [role] and want to play with them again and again and again. You end up doing this several times and your friendlist is filled with people that you saw firsthand are solid players and you help each other do things.
I agree 100%. Because FFXI forced grouping, people were nice to eachother generally- BECAUSE you needed people to do literally anything in the game.
Most people never played a forced grouping game like old FFXI so they don't know what it's like.
I too would like to play another forced grouping game. I think there's been enough time since old FFXI that people are kind of getting sick of all the solo-centric MMOs.
There is zero correlation between forced grouping and social behavior. One could easily point to the raid endgame of WOW and many other games as an example of such a design fostering exclusion, elitism, and anti-social behavior. Likewise, one could look at games like Pirates 101, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Second Life, and Metaplace to contend that positive social environments are fostered in extremely solo friendly MMOs. None of which is a valid assessment.
Did you play FFXI when it had forced grouping?
Elitism in raiding is one thing- you need to spend a lot of time and be decent at the game to raid, and if someone is bad they can make you fail.
But you can't afford to be too much of an elitist if you need to group just to level up. And grinding levels in a group is not difficult so there's no reason for elitism anyway.
As for games like Second Life- there's nothing else to do but be social.
The easy-to-extrapolate correlation is that when people depend on others for everything in a game, they're more likely to be willing to help. This is not a far-fetched idea.
You're still making a baseless leap there when you assume that quality of a community is determined by the presence of forced grouping simply because the game has grouping and a good community. The leap goes over a cliff of absurdity when you conversely handwave off the presence of a good community in a game without forced grouping (Second Life) for arbitrary reasons.
The FFXI community is what it is for a lot of reasons that EQ was what it was. First and foremost, it attracted people looking to group up. Secondly, it attracted a certain type of player and, honestly, you're pretty unique among them. Most seem to understand it's interdependency and the pre-existing nature of the people that come to the game that make it what it is, not that it's LINKSHELL OR GO TO HELL.
Think about it. Look at the posts around here. If FFXI was announced today, as FF or a generic anime thing, what would the comments be here?
Little kids? What is it, pedo online lol so cartoony. i guess they couldnt afford real artists ugh... more elves ruining the franchise with an MMO? welp there goes the story!
and who knows how many other inane replies. Your typical judgemental, jaded gamer isn't playing FFXI, just like they aren't playing FFXIV.
Ever notice that FFXI posters never ragepost about how their game is better than everyone else's? However if you asked them about their game they'll tell you it's one of the best they've played.
There are a lot of reasons that FFXI has the community it has. However to say that since it has forced grouping and a good community then it is proof that forced grouping makes good community... you might as well say the presence of Tarutaru makes good community. Makes just as much sense.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
@MMOvision I've actually said the same thing. Raiding should be part of the leveling process. Or large areas of the world where a huge group is required.
WOW introduced that but it didn't have the intended affect. I thinkit might be because they came at it with the EQ mind set of "this is what you do" and players saw it as "this is what I can do" which is why so many enjoyed RFC, WC, and other 'raids' on up to about 50, but the numbers engaging in raids tapers off drastically once MC and up arrives because of how drastically the difficulty and requirements changed. Yes,once the 'real' raiding starts.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Sure you can count those. They don't affect the in-game community because they're literally not a part of it.
You didn't answer my question- did you play FFXI when it was forced grouping? My guess is not, so you have no idea what the community was like, and it was pretty sweet.
As far as losing players- I don't think it's a big deal. MMOs are trying to be everything to everyone too much nowadays. It's better if they have a focus.
If forced dependency is making people leave the game, then it isn't encouraging them to help.
There are some negative things that happen when grouping that will still make grouping a negative experience for some people. Personalities that don't play well with others, people with less then optimum builds getting kicked or causing the group to die, people who have to leave because the baby started crying, the group wanting to play for another two hours when you were ready to leave an hour ago, etc.
You want people in groups who like to group. Forced grouping means having people who are grouping mostly because they have to. Some people just like to play alone sometimes.
I like to group. I support grouping in MMOs because that's the way I
think they should be played. I loved to group in MMOs years ago.... but
not now unless I know them personally. The negatives outweigh the positives now.
This wasn't much of a concern years ago when MMOs first started, but people play online games different now than they did years ago. To me People ARE different now than they were years ago and not just in gaming terms... call it generation gap or whatever... I don't agree with how the younger people play games or agree with their ethics ingame or even in real life many times. there are so many little things that People are OK with or oblivious to now that I see as unacceptable. Now I only group with people I know in real life first and I don't join guilds with anyone I don't know in real life first.
I play some MMOs that no one I know in real life plays it.. so in those MMOs I help others as I can in the game world (if the game allows it without XP loss or loot loss) and refrain from joining groups or guilds. Too many bad experiences over the years.
So for a player like me no matter if the MMO makes grouping natural and easy and desirable, or makes it forced, it doesn't matter... no real world friends, no grouping.
Forced grouping in a MMO? You mean a game where hundreads or thousands of players are playing in a same game world and they have to interact with each others and even do some team work, but for some reason there are players who have bought the product and don't like the idea of playing together with others and are pissed off they have to do team work with them. Of course it's wrong if you aren't able to play your games the way you want. God forbid if some game designer or developer makes decisions for you. How dare they!?
That being said, i'm for a long time been looking for a first person shooter but i have a huge issue about killing people, animals, or pretty much anything that lives or has been living in a past. I don't really like guns and loud noises, and i suck at aiming and twitch-based gameplay. But i just love first person shooters. I also would like to play racing simulators, but i have never driven a car and speed scares me, so the game has to be designed slow paced and easy so i didn't have to do actual driving.
/sarcasm off
What has happend to gaming industry? There are more people playing games than ever, and more games are being made every year, but for some reason they want to put us - gamers - in a same one-size-fits-all mold. Every single game they call MMO shares the same features and gameplay with its predecessor. When a new game comes out people start discussion by listing features that 'are missing' or made worse than in some other game and even many older games have revamped their gameplay, like it was wrong not to fit in the said one-size mold.
"Do you think forced grouping would work..?". What does this even mean? Forced grouping? Grouping is a fundamental feature that defines the whole genre of gaming - MMOs. Just like there's shooters where players shoot stuff, and if there's no shooting the game is not a shooter but something else, even if you're persistent enough to keep calling it a shooter on forums. Unfortunately, the genre of MMOs has been pretty much dead for some years now, and was replaced by a new genre: MSOs, or massively single player online games. Now, if the question would have been set like "Do you think forced grouping would work in MSOs?", the obvious answer would be "no, i don't think it would".
Grouping in MMOs not only work, but is a core feature and very much a necessity. Without that feature a game cease to be a MMO and becomes something else, which of course can be fun and entertaining game, but a MMO it is not. Are MSOs more popular than MMOs, that's a whole new story, but not all games should be WoW-clones and share the list of features with it.
An idea I've been talking to friends about for many years is having a game/system where the player is IMMEDIATELY thrown in to group/dungeon/raid content. Hear me out.
Install > Update > Launch > Character Creation > Entering world > Auto placed in a raid.
As the player levels up, the raid size will shrink. i.e. Level cap = 60, so level 10 the raid shrink, level 20, the raid shrinks, level 30 it is no longer a raid, but a party/group/band/etc.
The idea is simple: Most MMORPGs or even RPGs in general have the player level up and progress their character. Accessorizing and learning to optimize their play style, and ultimately growing in power to the point that they'd appear as a God compared to their earlier self. I am fine with the "godly" feeling a player "used to get" when they capped out. It's a wonderful reward for spending months or years in a game getting your a$$ kicked by high level content to finally be able to "come back" all godly and wipe it up. That being said, it has never made much sense to me that only at the peak of a character's power is it then required to "gang up" on big-baddies. It's also at the peak of power that some, if not most players actually learn to strategically play with a group of other variable classes. This seems backwards.
I think it would be really cool if just one game tried it this way. Everyone is a noob, thus, get in a raid together and spam whatever ability(ies) you got to kill the big bird/dragon/ogre/whatever. As you get experienced, better gear, more wizdom, you can handle these things on your own, or in smaller groups.
(i would assume striking out on one's own would/should be optional, yet provide some very nice bonuses for doing so)
Any opinions?
It's an interesting idea, but I see two problems:
1) Where do the players for this raid come from?
2) When I pick up a new game, I commonly spend half an hour or so tinkering with controls to get something comfortable before trying to fight anything. I want to start out somewhere safe so that I can fiddle with menus, not be immediately attacked by mobs that could kill me within minutes if I don't fight back.
An idea I've been talking to friends about for many years is having a game/system where the player is IMMEDIATELY thrown in to group/dungeon/raid content. Hear me out.
Install > Update > Launch > Character Creation > Entering world > Auto placed in a raid.
As the player levels up, the raid size will shrink. i.e. Level cap = 60, so level 10 the raid shrink, level 20, the raid shrinks, level 30 it is no longer a raid, but a party/group/band/etc.
The idea is simple: Most MMORPGs or even RPGs in general have the player level up and progress their character. Accessorizing and learning to optimize their play style, and ultimately growing in power to the point that they'd appear as a God compared to their earlier self. I am fine with the "godly" feeling a player "used to get" when they capped out. It's a wonderful reward for spending months or years in a game getting your a$$ kicked by high level content to finally be able to "come back" all godly and wipe it up. That being said, it has never made much sense to me that only at the peak of a character's power is it then required to "gang up" on big-baddies. It's also at the peak of power that some, if not most players actually learn to strategically play with a group of other variable classes. This seems backwards.
I think it would be really cool if just one game tried it this way. Everyone is a noob, thus, get in a raid together and spam whatever ability(ies) you got to kill the big bird/dragon/ogre/whatever. As you get experienced, better gear, more wizdom, you can handle these things on your own, or in smaller groups.
(i would assume striking out on one's own would/should be optional, yet provide some very nice bonuses for doing so)
Any opinions?
It's an interesting idea, but I see two problems:
1) Where do the players for this raid come from?
2) When I pick up a new game, I commonly spend half an hour or so tinkering with controls to get something comfortable before trying to fight anything. I want to start out somewhere safe so that I can fiddle with menus, not be immediately attacked by mobs that could kill me within minutes if I don't fight back.
Interesting points, but I don't think they really are that problematic.
1) Where do the players for this raid come from? -Answer: The same place all the other level 1's come from when you enter a game for the first time. Naturally, surrounded by other newbies, everyone doing their own thing (or sometimes teaming up) -- essentially, imagine the same situation but instead, everyone is automatically put in to a raid. The initial "content" wouldn't be daunting or overly difficult like a real raid, but rather, perhaps, swarms of boars attacking everyone over and over until they all are cleared (similar to public quests in Warhammer Online) then it starts over again after 5-10min? This wouldn't require everyone to be at the top of their game, but rather, provide content to get used to right off the bat. People would be able to stand around, test out emotes, change hotkeys/ui, etc... it wouldn't cause a "raid wipe" it would just be in a situation where they could just jump right in when they were ready. This is just an example off the top of my head, but if we put a little thought in to it, we could easily... VERY easily come up with other ways in which this could easily work out.
2) See number 1's answer.
I think we all need to get used to thinking outside the box when discussing "how to make something work" that either currently doesn't work, or just has bad stigma tied to it. For instance, when someone says "this is how I think an MMORPG would work without questhubs", the first thing people do is think "well that means grinding for years. no thank you" -- that's not the right way to look at it. Rather, we need to be a community of people that think like this instead: "Well, no quest hubs? How does progression work? Is there progression? Skill based? Level based? Let's figure out how to do without questhubs in a way that won't turn people off thinking it HAS to be about grinding if not hubs." "Either/Or" viewpoints are very limiting.
Do you think forced-grouping for decent experience-gain would be acceptable in a modern MMO...
Forced grouping is totally unacceptable in a modern MMO, and it wouldn't last 5 seconds on my hard drive if that turned out to be the case in a new game I started playing.
The quality of the community these days is so shit that I'd hate being forced into close proximity to most players.
This.
The quality of the community is so terrible because the game mechanics do not foster a good community.
When I left XI for Warcrack, I was ... astounded. Several times in my XI career, random people would help me do things whereas WoW was filled with trolls seeing how many analogies about canals they could make. The only people that many players (not all!) in most MMOs are nice to are those that can help them get stuff.
In a community driven game, you form a friendship when you meet a good [role] and want to play with them again and again and again. You end up doing this several times and your friendlist is filled with people that you saw firsthand are solid players and you help each other do things.
I agree 100%. Because FFXI forced grouping, people were nice to eachother generally- BECAUSE you needed people to do literally anything in the game.
Most people never played a forced grouping game like old FFXI so they don't know what it's like.
I too would like to play another forced grouping game. I think there's been enough time since old FFXI that people are kind of getting sick of all the solo-centric MMOs.
There is zero correlation between forced grouping and social behavior. One could easily point to the raid endgame of WOW and many other games as an example of such a design fostering exclusion, elitism, and anti-social behavior. Likewise, one could look at games like Pirates 101, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Second Life, and Metaplace to contend that positive social environments are fostered in extremely solo friendly MMOs. None of which is a valid assessment.
Did you play FFXI when it had forced grouping?
Elitism in raiding is one thing- you need to spend a lot of time and be decent at the game to raid, and if someone is bad they can make you fail.
But you can't afford to be too much of an elitist if you need to group just to level up. And grinding levels in a group is not difficult so there's no reason for elitism anyway.
As for games like Second Life- there's nothing else to do but be social.
The easy-to-extrapolate correlation is that when people depend on others for everything in a game, they're more likely to be willing to help. This is not a far-fetched idea.
You're still making a baseless leap there when you assume that quality of a community is determined by the presence of forced grouping simply because the game has grouping and a good community. The leap goes over a cliff of absurdity when you conversely handwave off the presence of a good community in a game without forced grouping (Second Life) for arbitrary reasons.
The FFXI community is what it is for a lot of reasons that EQ was what it was. First and foremost, it attracted people looking to group up. Secondly, it attracted a certain type of player and, honestly, you're pretty unique among them. Most seem to understand it's interdependency and the pre-existing nature of the people that come to the game that make it what it is, not that it's LINKSHELL OR GO TO HELL.
Think about it. Look at the posts around here. If FFXI was announced today, as FF or a generic anime thing, what would the comments be here?
Little kids? What is it, pedo online lol so cartoony. i guess they couldnt afford real artists ugh... more elves ruining the franchise with an MMO? welp there goes the story!
and who knows how many other inane replies. Your typical judgemental, jaded gamer isn't playing FFXI, just like they aren't playing FFXIV.
Ever notice that FFXI posters never ragepost about how their game is better than everyone else's? However if you asked them about their game they'll tell you it's one of the best they've played.
There are a lot of reasons that FFXI has the community it has. However to say that since it has forced grouping and a good community then it is proof that forced grouping makes good community... you might as well say the presence of Tarutaru makes good community. Makes just as much sense.
Well, having Tarutarus around can't hurt a community.
But seriously I don't see why it's hard to imagine. In FFXI (at least the old version) you need a group to advance in any way. To get your artifact items, you need people to go out of their way to help and they get nothing in return (except your gratitude).
A game where you're constantly in a group gets people used to socializing in groups. It's not like WoW where you spend the majority of your game solo and then suddenly you're asked to group with people and work with them.
You start doing that at level 10 in old FFXI.
Same is true with Second Life. You're socializing all the time in that game because (like FFXI) there's not much else you can do.
Basically what I'm saying is that the more a game forces socializing, the better the community will be. I still don't see what that seems far-fetched to you.
I honestly think the community is ready for another forced grouping game. We've had nothing but solo-oriented games for a long time now.
"The FFXI community is what it is for a lot of reasons that EQ was what it was. First and foremost, it attracted people looking to group up. "
I don't see how that's different from what I'm saying. Obviously if people don't like to group, they're not going to play a forced grouping game.
"Secondly, it attracted a certain type of player and, honestly, you're pretty unique among them. Most seem to understand it's interdependency and the pre-existing nature of the people that come to the game that make it what it is, not that it's LINKSHELL OR GO TO HELL."
Are you saying that I'm saying FFXI was "LINKSHELL OR GO TO HELL"? Because I'm really not, nor was my experience anything like that. I got the most help and gave the most help to random people. My linkshell wasn't that big and people didn't depend on linkshells for everything. Requests for help were sent and received all day long in general chat (and often between people that didn't even speak the same language- using the translator).
I honestly think the community is ready for another forced grouping game. We've had nothing but solo-oriented games for a long time now. . . . Obviously if people don't like to group, they're not going to play a forced grouping game.
How can a "community" be ready for forced grouping game when they don't like grouping and want to be able to play solo?
I honestly think the community is ready for another forced grouping game. We've had nothing but solo-oriented games for a long time now. . . . Obviously if people don't like to group, they're not going to play a forced grouping game.
How can a "community" be ready for forced grouping game when they don't like grouping and want to be able to play solo?
How do you know the majority of people feel that way?
Sure, all we get are solo-centric MMOs but that doesn't mean that's what everybody wants.
It's worth noting that FFXI maintained a steady 500k playerbase for 5 years after WoW was released. Sure, it's not as impressive as WoW numbers but it was surely profitable.
How do you know the majority of people feel that way?
Sure, all we get are solo-centric MMOs but that doesn't mean that's what everybody wants.
It's worth noting that FFXI maintained a steady 500k playerbase for 5 years after WoW was released. Sure, it's not as impressive as WoW numbers but it was surely profitable.
Because "we've had nothing but solo-oriented games for a long time now".
Unless you do not share common belief in economical principle that supply follows the demand, it indictaes strongly what kind of games majority of players want to play.
FFXI numbers are not comparable because the game was released on multiple platforms and past numbers don't matter for current market.
How do you know the majority of people feel that way?
Sure, all we get are solo-centric MMOs but that doesn't mean that's what everybody wants.
It's worth noting that FFXI maintained a steady 500k playerbase for 5 years after WoW was released. Sure, it's not as impressive as WoW numbers but it was surely profitable.
Because "we've had nothing but solo-oriented games for a long time now".
Unless you do not share common belief in economical principle that supply follows the demand, it indictaes strongly what kind of games majority of players want to play.
FFXI numbers are not comparable because the game was released on multiple platforms and past numbers don't matter for current market.
The economic story I've read in the past decade is a metric shit-ton of solo-centric wow clones failing, or at least not doing great. If it's really what people wanted, these games would all be doing great.
The fact is we haven't been offered a forced grouping game in a very long time, so it's impossible to tell if people want it or not. People themselves might not no because the majority of MMO players have never even played one.
The economic story I've read in the past decade is a metric shit-ton of solo-centric wow clones failing, or at least not doing great. If it's really what people wanted, these games would all be doing great.
The fact is we haven't been offered a forced grouping game in a very long time, so it's impossible to tell if people want it or not.
Not only you do not belief in principles of supply and demand, you also deny any actual evidence.
I think we all need to get used to thinking outside the box when discussing "how to make something work" that either currently doesn't work, or just has bad stigma tied to it.
We also need to walk through our ideas objectively, too. Quizzical is right. You are relying on uncontrollable variables to make that work. It also relies on a dream scenario - a steady influx of new players, not just on Day 1 but for the lifetime of the game. Any dev would kill for that scenario.
Instead of focusing on "thinking outside the box" think in terms of Day 1, Day 91, Day 181 and Year 2. Take any idea that you have and play through it based on how MMOs players actually behave and not based on romaticized or idealistic views of what an MMO should be or how one feels players should act.
Why those days? Here's a really high level overview, touching on the 'new player raids' idea for context:
Day 1 - the flood. For the next 30-60 days, your players are stampeding in and hyperplaying. Individually, their logins are more frequent and their play times are longer. They are consuming your game ravenously, and the more fun they find it, the higher those numbers go.
Day 91 - If you're subscription, all of the included gametime from your regular boxes up to your CEs are pretty much used up and the three biggest milestones - 30-, 60-, and 90-day - for making the decision to subscribe have been reached. Historically, for both successful and tanked MMOs, having 50% still around is a HUGE success. On Day 91, it's likely you will have 1/2 to 1/4 the number of players. They will also be logging in less frequently and probably for shorter sessions.
Day 181 - Your players are spread out across your content. If you're yet another EQ/WOW variant, you're probably top-heavy with capped players, a smattering of mid-level players (most of which are either alts or about to cancel), and then an ebbing mess in the lower levels and starter area. There are times that a new player logs in to NO ONE in sight in the newbie area, especially if they are logging in durring off peak hours.
Year 2 - the stigma of "catching up with the veterans" has now kept quite a few away. If you're not spending money on acquisition/reactivation then you're probably completely off the radar of most gamers. I don't know if @HuntedCowStudios ; or @worldalpha ; still poke their head in around here, but they'd be great sources of insight on the good and the bad of acquisition where things can go at those milestones for an indie MMO.
Equally important is you're looking at either your first or second major release of content. Your max level players and core community want something big that caters to their gameplay, and how they play your game is usually massively different from your new and casual gamers.
Your graphics are also starting to look dated, too, so your next concern is what kind of bandwidth you have available in the near future to start upgrading the graphics or the engine itself. All those one-off items that seemed like a cool "buck the trend" idea are now coming back to bite you in the ass. But it needs to get done otherwise you lose another group to your "1995 graphics".
The servers are looking pretty light at this point so any game mechanics based on population density or zone traffic probably need to be taken back to the drawing board.
I'll stop there.
IMO, that's your best start for looking at how an idea may work in an MMO. I agree with you that binary views aren't helpful and don't further the discussion any, but I think the most productive approach is to look at how to make it all work based on history and data of how people actually behave rather than just looking for different or unique ways to do something.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The economic story I've read in the past decade is a metric shit-ton of solo-centric wow clones failing, or at least not doing great. If it's really what people wanted, these games would all be doing great.
The fact is we haven't been offered a forced grouping game in a very long time, so it's impossible to tell if people want it or not.
Not only you do not belief in principles of supply and demand, you also deny any actual evidence.
Okey...
Sure, if you say so.
I think you're either unable or unwilling to understand me, so I'll just end our little discussion here.
Games with "forced" grouping (like e.g. EQ1) will never work again since people now know better. It only worked back then because there was little alternative. With todays large choice of games, if people are forced to do something they don't enjoy, they will simply go play another game.
The same could be said about solo-centric games- we're offered little alternative.
And plenty of people did enjoy forced grouping in FFXI- 500k of them for 5 years after WoW was released, and the ultimate alternative was available for anyone that wanted to play it.
But sure, it wouldn't be for everyone, and I don't think a forced grouping game would ever reach WoW levels because for those kind of numbers you need a casual-friendly game, and partying for hours on end every day isn't exactly casual-friendly.
But that doesn't mean a forced grouping game couldn't be successful nowadays.
Based on the success of EQ1 and FFXI, I would bet on a forced grouping being successful over another WoW clone (which have proven to be able to and often fail- unlike forced grouping games).
Games with "forced" grouping (like e.g. EQ1) will never work again since people now know better. It only worked back then because there was little alternative. With todays large choice of games, if people are forced to do something they don't enjoy, they will simply go play another game.
If a MMORPG offered features they couldn't get anywhere else, perhaps they wouldn't leave.
People had a choice back in EQ1 days, don't play MMORPG's, and many wouldn't because of the forced grouping, or as a friend of mine once said, I don't have time to live a virtual life, I just want to play a game.
But there was a subset back then who enjoyed them, likely there still is today. I played DAOC, wasn't nearly as forced as people made it out to be, really only had to group for the final 10 levels as the exp curve went up so rapidly, and even then, only for some classes. Theuris and Necromancers could solo just fine and I used mine to level up several other characters.
Is the market large, probably not, but who knows until someone decides to give it a good try.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Comments
Your extrapolation couldn't be more far-fetched then you are proposing...
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If you call those forced grouping .. then sure .. it works in spades.
You didn't answer my question- did you play FFXI when it was forced grouping? My guess is not, so you have no idea what the community was like, and it was pretty sweet.
As far as losing players- I don't think it's a big deal. MMOs are trying to be everything to everyone too much nowadays. It's better if they have a focus.
Install > Update > Launch > Character Creation > Entering world > Auto placed in a raid.
As the player levels up, the raid size will shrink. i.e. Level cap = 60, so level 10 the raid shrink, level 20, the raid shrinks, level 30 it is no longer a raid, but a party/group/band/etc.
The idea is simple: Most MMORPGs or even RPGs in general have the player level up and progress their character. Accessorizing and learning to optimize their play style, and ultimately growing in power to the point that they'd appear as a God compared to their earlier self. I am fine with the "godly" feeling a player "used to get" when they capped out. It's a wonderful reward for spending months or years in a game getting your a$$ kicked by high level content to finally be able to "come back" all godly and wipe it up. That being said, it has never made much sense to me that only at the peak of a character's power is it then required to "gang up" on big-baddies. It's also at the peak of power that some, if not most players actually learn to strategically play with a group of other variable classes. This seems backwards.
I think it would be really cool if just one game tried it this way. Everyone is a noob, thus, get in a raid together and spam whatever ability(ies) you got to kill the big bird/dragon/ogre/whatever.
As you get experienced, better gear, more wizdom, you can handle these things on your own, or in smaller groups.
(i would assume striking out on one's own would/should be optional, yet provide some very nice bonuses for doing so)
Any opinions?
The FFXI community is what it is for a lot of reasons that EQ was what it was. First and foremost, it attracted people looking to group up. Secondly, it attracted a certain type of player and, honestly, you're pretty unique among them. Most seem to understand it's interdependency and the pre-existing nature of the people that come to the game that make it what it is, not that it's LINKSHELL OR GO TO HELL.
Think about it. Look at the posts around here. If FFXI was announced today, as FF or a generic anime thing, what would the comments be here?
Little kids? What is it, pedo online lol
so cartoony. i guess they couldnt afford real artists
ugh... more elves
ruining the franchise with an MMO? welp there goes the story!
and who knows how many other inane replies. Your typical judgemental, jaded gamer isn't playing FFXI, just like they aren't playing FFXIV.
Ever notice that FFXI posters never ragepost about how their game is better than everyone else's? However if you asked them about their game they'll tell you it's one of the best they've played.
There are a lot of reasons that FFXI has the community it has. However to say that since it has forced grouping and a good community then it is proof that forced grouping makes good community... you might as well say the presence of Tarutaru makes good community. Makes just as much sense.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
This wasn't much of a concern years ago when MMOs first started, but people play online games different now than they did years ago. To me People ARE different now than they were years ago and not just in gaming terms... call it generation gap or whatever... I don't agree with how the younger people play games or agree with their ethics ingame or even in real life many times. there are so many little things that People are OK with or oblivious to now that I see as unacceptable. Now I only group with people I know in real life first and I don't join guilds with anyone I don't know in real life first.
I play some MMOs that no one I know in real life plays it.. so in those MMOs I help others as I can in the game world (if the game allows it without XP loss or loot loss) and refrain from joining groups or guilds. Too many bad experiences over the years.
So for a player like me no matter if the MMO makes grouping natural and easy and desirable, or makes it forced, it doesn't matter... no real world friends, no grouping.
That being said, i'm for a long time been looking for a first person shooter but i have a huge issue about killing people, animals, or pretty much anything that lives or has been living in a past. I don't really like guns and loud noises, and i suck at aiming and twitch-based gameplay. But i just love first person shooters. I also would like to play racing simulators, but i have never driven a car and speed scares me, so the game has to be designed slow paced and easy so i didn't have to do actual driving.
/sarcasm off
What has happend to gaming industry? There are more people playing games than ever, and more games are being made every year, but for some reason they want to put us - gamers - in a same one-size-fits-all mold. Every single game they call MMO shares the same features and gameplay with its predecessor. When a new game comes out people start discussion by listing features that 'are missing' or made worse than in some other game and even many older games have revamped their gameplay, like it was wrong not to fit in the said one-size mold.
"Do you think forced grouping would work..?". What does this even mean? Forced grouping? Grouping is a fundamental feature that defines the whole genre of gaming - MMOs. Just like there's shooters where players shoot stuff, and if there's no shooting the game is not a shooter but something else, even if you're persistent enough to keep calling it a shooter on forums. Unfortunately, the genre of MMOs has been pretty much dead for some years now, and was replaced by a new genre: MSOs, or massively single player online games. Now, if the question would have been set like "Do you think forced grouping would work in MSOs?", the obvious answer would be "no, i don't think it would".
Grouping in MMOs not only work, but is a core feature and very much a necessity. Without that feature a game cease to be a MMO and becomes something else, which of course can be fun and entertaining game, but a MMO it is not. Are MSOs more popular than MMOs, that's a whole new story, but not all games should be WoW-clones and share the list of features with it.
1) Where do the players for this raid come from?
2) When I pick up a new game, I commonly spend half an hour or so tinkering with controls to get something comfortable before trying to fight anything. I want to start out somewhere safe so that I can fiddle with menus, not be immediately attacked by mobs that could kill me within minutes if I don't fight back.
1) Where do the players for this raid come from?
-Answer: The same place all the other level 1's come from when you enter a game for the first time. Naturally, surrounded by other newbies, everyone doing their own thing (or sometimes teaming up) -- essentially, imagine the same situation but instead, everyone is automatically put in to a raid. The initial "content" wouldn't be daunting or overly difficult like a real raid, but rather, perhaps, swarms of boars attacking everyone over and over until they all are cleared (similar to public quests in Warhammer Online) then it starts over again after 5-10min? This wouldn't require everyone to be at the top of their game, but rather, provide content to get used to right off the bat. People would be able to stand around, test out emotes, change hotkeys/ui, etc... it wouldn't cause a "raid wipe" it would just be in a situation where they could just jump right in when they were ready. This is just an example off the top of my head, but if we put a little thought in to it, we could easily... VERY easily come up with other ways in which this could easily work out.
2) See number 1's answer.
I think we all need to get used to thinking outside the box when discussing "how to make something work" that either currently doesn't work, or just has bad stigma tied to it.
For instance, when someone says "this is how I think an MMORPG would work without questhubs", the first thing people do is think "well that means grinding for years. no thank you" -- that's not the right way to look at it. Rather, we need to be a community of people that think like this instead: "Well, no quest hubs? How does progression work? Is there progression? Skill based? Level based? Let's figure out how to do without questhubs in a way that won't turn people off thinking it HAS to be about grinding if not hubs." "Either/Or" viewpoints are very limiting.
But seriously I don't see why it's hard to imagine. In FFXI (at least the old version) you need a group to advance in any way. To get your artifact items, you need people to go out of their way to help and they get nothing in return (except your gratitude).
A game where you're constantly in a group gets people used to socializing in groups. It's not like WoW where you spend the majority of your game solo and then suddenly you're asked to group with people and work with them.
You start doing that at level 10 in old FFXI.
Same is true with Second Life. You're socializing all the time in that game because (like FFXI) there's not much else you can do.
Basically what I'm saying is that the more a game forces socializing, the better the community will be. I still don't see what that seems far-fetched to you.
I honestly think the community is ready for another forced grouping game. We've had nothing but solo-oriented games for a long time now.
"The FFXI community is what it is for a lot of reasons that EQ was what it was. First and foremost, it attracted people looking to group up. "
I don't see how that's different from what I'm saying. Obviously if people don't like to group, they're not going to play a forced grouping game.
"Secondly, it attracted a certain type of player and, honestly, you're pretty unique among them. Most seem to understand it's interdependency and the pre-existing nature of the people that come to the game that make it what it is, not that it's LINKSHELL OR GO TO HELL."
Are you saying that I'm saying FFXI was "LINKSHELL OR GO TO HELL"? Because I'm really not, nor was my experience anything like that. I got the most help and gave the most help to random people. My linkshell wasn't that big and people didn't depend on linkshells for everything. Requests for help were sent and received all day long in general chat (and often between people that didn't even speak the same language- using the translator).
Sure, all we get are solo-centric MMOs but that doesn't mean that's what everybody wants.
It's worth noting that FFXI maintained a steady 500k playerbase for 5 years after WoW was released. Sure, it's not as impressive as WoW numbers but it was surely profitable.
Unless you do not share common belief in economical principle that supply follows the demand, it indictaes strongly what kind of games majority of players want to play.
FFXI numbers are not comparable because the game was released on multiple platforms and past numbers don't matter for current market.
The fact is we haven't been offered a forced grouping game in a very long time, so it's impossible to tell if people want it or not. People themselves might not no because the majority of MMO players have never even played one.
Okey...
We also need to walk through our ideas objectively, too. Quizzical is right. You are relying on uncontrollable variables to make that work. It also relies on a dream scenario - a steady influx of new players, not just on Day 1 but for the lifetime of the game. Any dev would kill for that scenario.
Instead of focusing on "thinking outside the box" think in terms of Day 1, Day 91, Day 181 and Year 2. Take any idea that you have and play through it based on how MMOs players actually behave and not based on romaticized or idealistic views of what an MMO should be or how one feels players should act.
Why those days? Here's a really high level overview, touching on the 'new player raids' idea for context:
Day 1 - the flood. For the next 30-60 days, your players are stampeding in and hyperplaying. Individually, their logins are more frequent and their play times are longer. They are consuming your game ravenously, and the more fun they find it, the higher those numbers go.
Day 91 - If you're subscription, all of the included gametime from your regular boxes up to your CEs are pretty much used up and the three biggest milestones - 30-, 60-, and 90-day - for making the decision to subscribe have been reached. Historically, for both successful and tanked MMOs, having 50% still around is a HUGE success. On Day 91, it's likely you will have 1/2 to 1/4 the number of players. They will also be logging in less frequently and probably for shorter sessions.
Day 181 - Your players are spread out across your content. If you're yet another EQ/WOW variant, you're probably top-heavy with capped players, a smattering of mid-level players (most of which are either alts or about to cancel), and then an ebbing mess in the lower levels and starter area. There are times that a new player logs in to NO ONE in sight in the newbie area, especially if they are logging in durring off peak hours.
The servers are looking pretty light at this point so any game mechanics based on population density or zone traffic probably need to be taken back to the drawing board.
I'll stop there.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I think you're either unable or unwilling to understand me, so I'll just end our little discussion here.
And plenty of people did enjoy forced grouping in FFXI- 500k of them for 5 years after WoW was released, and the ultimate alternative was available for anyone that wanted to play it.
But sure, it wouldn't be for everyone, and I don't think a forced grouping game would ever reach WoW levels because for those kind of numbers you need a casual-friendly game, and partying for hours on end every day isn't exactly casual-friendly.
But that doesn't mean a forced grouping game couldn't be successful nowadays.
Based on the success of EQ1 and FFXI, I would bet on a forced grouping being successful over another WoW clone (which have proven to be able to and often fail- unlike forced grouping games).
People had a choice back in EQ1 days, don't play MMORPG's, and many wouldn't because of the forced grouping, or as a friend of mine once said, I don't have time to live a virtual life, I just want to play a game.
But there was a subset back then who enjoyed them, likely there still is today. I played DAOC, wasn't nearly as forced as people made it out to be, really only had to group for the final 10 levels as the exp curve went up so rapidly, and even then, only for some classes. Theuris and Necromancers could solo just fine and I used mine to level up several other characters.
Is the market large, probably not, but who knows until someone decides to give it a good try.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon