IMHO, the internet community in general is making it impossible to get back to those good ole' days of exploration. This is, of course, a double-edged sword considering the internet is necessary for MMORPG's to exist....
What isn't "necessary" is streamers. Twitch, youtube, etc has utterly ruined any and all chances for the bulk of playerbase in a game to experience wonder, excitement, and mystery when it comes to exploration.
Everyone is a walking spoiler alert, because the first thing this "redbull/monster-xbox-hotpocket" generation does on any game they try for the first time is immediately look online for how to be "l33t" -- Immediately looking at youtube videos and stream sites to find the people that found all the exploits, cheats, and pre-made FOTM builds.
No one (as far as the industry seems to be concerned) is interested in a world or adventure or exploration. Even in the best circumstances, most of today's generation will try and look past the adventure and just approach exploration with a mindset like: "Ok, what do I have to do to get that title/loot/achievement? Explore X map? Let me see if I can find the exact spot online that will trigger my quest reward so I don't have to wander around. " Pathetic.
It's just ruined, guys. MMO's are now STRICTLY developed for a demographic that isn't even interested in these types of games. Marketed to people that have no business playing MMORPGs in the first place. It's truly ludicrous. But it's reality.
(sorry, I know this is kind of doom and gloom, but I would love to be proven wrong. )
I like what ESO did in a number of ways. Treasure maps were a great idea.
Yea really fun to do , i do as many as i can , and never cheat myslef of the experience by checking online for the Loc .. Real rewarding , when you finally figure out some of them and dig up your chest
Mendel said:
"There's one huge practice that hurts exploration games more than anything else -- spoiler sites. With any static, predetermined map system, it will be published to various spoiler sites well before the end of Beta. Any player who chooses, can see the remotest locations in the game world with a few clicks, with only a few more clicks to see instructions on how to complete the quest.
The only real solution to keep the world's configuration a mystery, is some sort of dynamic generation of content. Either instanced quest destinations that are randomly generated (and populated) or dynamically generated quests that aren't easily investigated (and documented). The level of AI needed to generate suitable text hasn't really been achieved in academic environments, much less games. Creating dialog and narrative (a mini-story for a quest) that matches the environment is very complicated."
This is a wonderful write up, and pretty much nails what I was touching on in my post below it.
The closest I've seen to a working system is EVE's (horribly dull) mission system. (quests) -
When a player accepts the mission, a spawn point is RANDOMLY generated somewhere deep in a solar system that will not show up on overview (radar) to players in that system. The player that accepted the mission will get a bookmark (nav point) in their navigation list that they can use to warp to the remote location, where in 99% of the time they will have it all to themselves (assuming they aren't in dangerous space where pirates will scan and find them and gank/steal/ransom their stuff) --
The main issue with the system is that the mission content itself is NOT RANDOMLY generated, thus, EVERY mission is posted on the internet for players to simply read and know in advance what kind of enemies will be there, how many, how much dps they deal, how much dps they can take, what kind of damage they deal, what damage they are weak to, WHICH TYPES OF SHIPS SHOULD BE FLOWN, etc. So, there's no real exploration factor there, but the idea of randomly generating the LOCATION itself, is sound.
Comments
IMHO, the internet community in general is making it impossible to get back to those good ole' days of exploration. This is, of course, a double-edged sword considering the internet is necessary for MMORPG's to exist....
What isn't "necessary" is streamers. Twitch, youtube, etc has utterly ruined any and all chances for the bulk of playerbase in a game to experience wonder, excitement, and mystery when it comes to exploration.
Everyone is a walking spoiler alert, because the first thing this "redbull/monster-xbox-hotpocket" generation does on any game they try for the first time is immediately look online for how to be "l33t" -- Immediately looking at youtube videos and stream sites to find the people that found all the exploits, cheats, and pre-made FOTM builds.
No one (as far as the industry seems to be concerned) is interested in a world or adventure or exploration. Even in the best circumstances, most of today's generation will try and look past the adventure and just approach exploration with a mindset like: "Ok, what do I have to do to get that title/loot/achievement? Explore X map? Let me see if I can find the exact spot online that will trigger my quest reward so I don't have to wander around. " Pathetic.
It's just ruined, guys. MMO's are now STRICTLY developed for a demographic that isn't even interested in these types of games. Marketed to people that have no business playing MMORPGs in the first place. It's truly ludicrous. But it's reality.
(sorry, I know this is kind of doom and gloom, but I would love to be proven wrong. )
"There's one huge practice that hurts exploration games more than anything else -- spoiler sites. With any static, predetermined map system, it will be published to various spoiler sites well before the end of Beta. Any player who chooses, can see the remotest locations in the game world with a few clicks, with only a few more clicks to see instructions on how to complete the quest.
The only real solution to keep the world's configuration a mystery, is some sort of dynamic generation of content. Either instanced quest destinations that are randomly generated (and populated) or dynamically generated quests that aren't easily investigated (and documented). The level of AI needed to generate suitable text hasn't really been achieved in academic environments, much less games. Creating dialog and narrative (a mini-story for a quest) that matches the environment is very complicated."
This is a wonderful write up, and pretty much nails what I was touching on in my post below it.
The closest I've seen to a working system is EVE's (horribly dull) mission system. (quests) -
When a player accepts the mission, a spawn point is RANDOMLY generated somewhere deep in a solar system that will not show up on overview (radar) to players in that system. The player that accepted the mission will get a bookmark (nav point) in their navigation list that they can use to warp to the remote location, where in 99% of the time they will have it all to themselves (assuming they aren't in dangerous space where pirates will scan and find them and gank/steal/ransom their stuff) --
The main issue with the system is that the mission content itself is NOT RANDOMLY generated, thus, EVERY mission is posted on the internet for players to simply read and know in advance what kind of enemies will be there, how many, how much dps they deal, how much dps they can take, what kind of damage they deal, what damage they are weak to, WHICH TYPES OF SHIPS SHOULD BE FLOWN, etc. So, there's no real exploration factor there, but the idea of randomly generating the LOCATION itself, is sound.