Depends on the MMO, as explained by pointing out the different ones that have different mechanics surrounding that feature.
and none makes backtracking fun for me ... and most have fast travel.
And none of that relates to what was said, as the games in mention are titles that utilize travel to provide many instances of opportunity, activity, and resources along with the overarching purpose of adding depth to the player economy and mechanics.
You not liking backtracking is fine as a personal opinion. That is not an excuse nor justification to remove MMORPGs having variety to their mechanics and design.
You wanna play a finite combat-focused set-piece hopping title? That's perfectly fine. Others want to play virtual worlds and complex economies. There's no reason to not make different titles in different ways to cater to each audience.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
And travel is the closest to actual 'nothing' that MMORPGs have you do.
Depends on the MMO, as explained by pointing out the different ones that have different mechanics surrounding that feature.
Don't you know that of your not collecting kill bounties, clickin and pickin or making deliveries it's not fun per Axehilt MMORPG Bible?
To prove you're literate, perhaps you'd like to respond to what I've told you over and over, rather than carry on this immature straw man?
Gameplay is decisions.
So far zero MMORPGs (and one MMO Puzzle Game) have been cited which have a significant amount of deep decision-making to their travel.
Or if you're incapable/unwilling to respond to these simple facts, we can just end the conversation (on account of your incapability/unwillingness to converse.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And travel is the closest to actual 'nothing' that MMORPGs have you do.
Depends on the MMO, as explained by pointing out the different ones that have different mechanics surrounding that feature.
Don't you know that of your not collecting kill bounties, clickin and pickin or making deliveries it's not fun per Axehilt MMORPG Bible?
To prove you're literate, perhaps you'd like to respond to what I've told you over and over, rather than carry on this immature straw man?
Gameplay is decisions.
So far zero MMORPGs (and one MMO Puzzle Game) have been cited which have a significant amount of deep decision-making to their travel.
Or if you're incapable/unwilling to respond to these simple facts, we can just end the conversation (on account of your incapability/unwillingness to converse.)
They have been mentioned. You're not listening which I think is obvious to most. You have your MMO bible.
But Archeage is one game where travel is meaningful. Happy?
You know you're not going to find a bunch of meaningful travel in a genre littered with WoW clones. You know this. What's been done has all been a trend not variety like you like to say.
The point of this discussion was how long travel could be. To say that MMORPG couldn't use travel is just silly. I just watch my son play GTA Online with friend driving a long distance fighting of attackers having a blast. Not a MMO but certainly multiplayer within an instance.
There are easy ways to make travel more fun than the random kill 10 mobs collect 5 ribs. You know this, trolling or lack any spark of imagination.
They have been mentioned. You're not listening which I think is obvious to most. You have your MMO bible.
But Archeage is one game where travel is meaningful. Happy?
You know you're not going to find a bunch of meaningful travel in a genre littered with WoW clones. You know this. What's been done has all been a trend not variety like you like to say.
The point of this discussion was how long travel could be. To say that MMORPG couldn't use travel is just silly. I just watch my son play GTA Online with friend driving a long distance fighting of attackers having a blast. Not a MMO but certainly multiplayer within an instance.
There are easy ways to make travel more fun than the random kill 10 mobs collect 5 ribs. You know this, trolling or lack any spark of imagination.
You've used the word "meaningful."
That's not "decisions."
If I tell you "press this button every 20 minutes or you'll die," I've given meaning to pressing the button.
But is that fun? No, you're just pressing a button every 20 minutes! There is only one decision (whether to press the button), it's infrequent, and it involves no mastery, and so there's no gameplay to it and it has no chance of being fun.
So again, it'd really be nice to discuss this with someone who seemed literate but you seem dangerously close to being unable to understand the simple concepts I'm communicating.
Provide a single example of a MMORPG where travel has gameplay (has a significant amount of hard-to-master decisions.) If you manage to name one, you'll have gone through such a long list of MMORPGs which fail to offer interesting travel gameplay that you'll have realized my point is completely correct.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There's been a list of them now. If you do not acknowledge the information already provided then a rational discussion can not be established.
Do not argue literacy if you refuse to read.
Refusing to acknowledge the existence of evidence does not negate it's existence.
Keep in mind you're blocked, so evidence from you won't make it through unless Vermillion quotes it.
Your last list of games he quoted included Archeage and several other games. None of those games involved frequent and deep decision-making. In Archeage travel is exactly as it is in most MMORPGs: shallow. It involves watching your character's travel animation (running, mounted, sailing, etc), and steering to avoid mobs.
This reinforces my decision to block you. You're still just arguing wrong things for argument's sake. Remember, if you want to be un-blocked you'll have to consistently be making valid points so that every once in a while when I check your messages (about 1 in 30), I'd find you saying something actually truthful for once.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They have been mentioned. You're not listening which I think is obvious to most. You have your MMO bible.
But Archeage is one game where travel is meaningful. Happy?
You know you're not going to find a bunch of meaningful travel in a genre littered with WoW clones. You know this. What's been done has all been a trend not variety like you like to say.
The point of this discussion was how long travel could be. To say that MMORPG couldn't use travel is just silly. I just watch my son play GTA Online with friend driving a long distance fighting of attackers having a blast. Not a MMO but certainly multiplayer within an instance.
There are easy ways to make travel more fun than the random kill 10 mobs collect 5 ribs. You know this, trolling or lack any spark of imagination.
You've used the word "meaningful."
That's not "decisions."
If I tell you "press this button every 20 minutes or you'll die," I've given meaning to pressing the button.
But is that fun? No, you're just pressing a button every 20 minutes! There is only one decision (whether to press the button), it's infrequent, and it involves no mastery, and so there's no gameplay to it and it has no chance of being fun.
So again, it'd really be nice to discuss this with someone who seemed literate but you seem dangerously close to being unable to understand the simple concepts I'm communicating.
Provide a single example of a MMORPG where travel has gameplay (has a significant amount of hard-to-master decisions.) If you manage to name one, you'll have gone through such a long list of MMORPGs which fail to offer interesting travel gameplay that you'll have realized my point is completely correct.
No you're locked into your view point. You're trying to make this academic but you're not accepting anything brought before you.
Meaningful is the appropriate world because it's far less subjective than fun or best or good. Meaningful: having a serious, important, or useful quality or purpose.
What you are describing is a reaction: an action performed or a feeling experienced in response to a situation or event.
So please if you want to insult at least know what you're talking about.
The ironic thing is decision is travel itself and justt about everything else individually in modern MMORPG are linear lol. You get a quest and you have to complete it how you're told. You go to a dungeon you complete the dungeon in one way. You raid and you have completed when your allowed and in one way.
Travel on the other hand you decided where you want to go and how far. It's the ultimate decision. So please just give it up
Your last list of games he quoted included Archeage and several other games. None of those games involved frequent and deep decision-making. In Archeage travel is exactly as it is in most MMORPGs: shallow. It involves watching your character's travel animation (running, mounted, sailing, etc), and steering to avoid mobs.
And here you chose to defy reality.
For one, by ignoring the rest of the list to cherry pick one game.
Two, because that game has several balancing factors in travel and purposes for it's use.
Three, mounts and mounted abilities exist for a reason, as using their abilities to affect your travel or handle mobs/players is actually an integrated aspect of the game.
Four, travel is utilized to create a t a basic level an effort to reward ratio between the shuttling of resources across the environment. This is also used as a means to deepen the economy by integrating particular resource and reward types.
You also made quite a broad (and very non-objective) statement that "none of those games involved deep and frequent decision making" to which I have a few points on that too.
One, You just made an assessment of multiple titles I can safely assume you haven't played as your focus and knowledge seems to exist solely in the western market.
Two, you inserted your opinion before any knowable fact and claimed all said titles lacked depth, which can be argued as very inaccurate since they had quite a bit of variety to the mechanics being utilized and depth of play offered.
Everyone can freely verify the things I've written and even look up the games I've offered by name.
You're free to block things you don't like, but don't pretend ignoring the facts makes you any less wrong. You're free to reject the truth, but don't drag other people down with you.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Obviously, one needs an intelligent combination of fast and slow travel. I would not propose a game where you had to move your character at walking speed 100 miles to get somewhere. Daggerfall provides an example of what can be done - the "I'll mark it on your map" system. A local quest giver will give you access to fast travel to the quest location, and quests will be within, say, 20 km of the town. You CAN opt to walk if you like, but in most cases you'll take the fast travel. Under certain circumstances (undefined here, but including the "main quest" if there is one) a player will get fast travel access to another town or other distant location.
In Daggerfall, one normally didn't walk long distances because the actual landscape was very boring, but in a game created with modern resources it need not be.
Playing such a game requires a different play style than the "rush to the next objective and kill it" that is common in most MMOs. The reward would be playing in a game where the world felt like a real world, and just being a part of that world was fun in itself. In other words, it would be a suitable environment for actual RP - a sort of fantasy Second Life, almost.
No you're locked into your view point. You're trying to make this academic but you're not accepting anything brought before you.
Meaningful is the appropriate world because it's far less subjective than fun or best or good. Meaningful: having a serious, important, or useful quality or purpose.
What you are describing is a reaction: an action performed or a feeling experienced in response to a situation or event.
So please if you want to insult at least know what you're talking about.
The ironic thing is decision is travel itself and justt about everything else individually in modern MMORPG are linear lol. You get a quest and you have to complete it how you're told. You go to a dungeon you complete the dungeon in one way. You raid and you have completed when your allowed and in one way.
Travel on the other hand you decided where you want to go and how far. It's the ultimate decision. So please just give it up
Do you realize that academic discussion doesn't mean blindly accepting evidence which doesn't fill the criteria?
Do you realize fun/good/best aren't cornerstones of my argument and that comparing them with meaningful (which is still a very subjective word) is irrelevant?
Do you realize "decisions" is the cornerstone of my argument? Do you realize "whether a game mechanic has more decisions" is objective? Do you realize "whether decisions have depth" is only slightly less so? (Two players might master chess at different rates, but even the guy who masters it in a day is unlikely to consider it a shallow game, because game depth is measured relative to the other games out there.)
Do you realize calling things "reactions" doesn't change anything? Every decision (even those typically considered "actions" not reactions) can inevitably be considered a reaction, but that just doesn't matter. Decisions are the heart of the most common way games are enjoyed by players.
Do you realize that combat gameplay has examples of objectively offering deep decision-making? Do you realize that travel gameplay has no such examples? (You will never find a "travel guide" of similar complexity which details the many decisions one must master to travel well. You'll never find one because travel offers infrequent and shallow decisions.)
Do you realize the decision of "where to go" (travel) is analogous to "what to do" (non-travel)? (And refer back to the example above which details how "what to do" is a very involved decision even if you just consider the combat component (which is only a small part of the full set of decisions you make during the gameplay you call "linear")
Do you realize that calling something "the ultimate decision" doesn't make it so? Do you realize that in the fact of evidence objectively showing the decision-making depth of combat gameplay, and the fact that you'll be unable to provide evidence showing the depth of travel gameplay, means that you're flat-out objectively wrong to call those travel decisions "the ultimate decision"?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
For one, by ignoring the rest of the list to cherry pick one game.
Two, because that game has several balancing factors in travel and purposes for it's use.
Three, mounts and mounted abilities exist for a reason, as using their abilities to affect your travel or handle mobs/players is actually an integrated aspect of the game.
Four, travel is utilized to create a t a basic level an effort to reward ratio between the shuttling of resources across the environment. This is also used as a means to deepen the economy by integrating particular resource and reward types.
You also made quite a broad (and very non-objective) statement that "none of those games involved deep and frequent decision making" to which I have a few points on that too.
One, You just made an assessment of multiple titles I can safely assume you haven't played as your focus and knowledge seems to exist solely in the western market.
Two, you inserted your opinion before any knowable fact and claimed all said titles lacked depth, which can be argued as very inaccurate since they had quite a bit of variety to the mechanics being utilized and depth of play offered.
Everyone can freely verify the things I've written and even look up the games I've offered by name.
You're free to block things you don't like, but don't pretend ignoring the facts makes you any less wrong. You're free to reject the truth, but don't drag other people down with you.
1. If you had a valid point you should've made it. I pick your posts at random just as I picked that game at random, and the result of every single random sampling of your posting is you're dead wrong and not making any valid points.
If it's your desire not to be known as someone who is consistently dead-wrong, then your path seems clear: Stop consistently saying dead-wrong things.
This isn't rocket surgery.
2. Neither of those factors implies deep decision-making. If we take my "press this button every 20 minutes or die" scenario and add a lever to it, there are now "several balancing factors" but that hasn't made the situation any more enjoyable. Similarly the situation still has "purpose" yet players aren't running around saying, "It was fun because it was mandatory!"
Maybe in North Korea that's how they do it, but they're not being honest about it.
3. For travel to be acceptable, it must be of similar depth to the deepest parts of a game, like typical combat. Taking the ultra-shallow gameplay of travel and adding travel abilities is an improvement. But let's see it for what it is: these games have moved from being like ~1/25th of the depth of typical combat to 2/25ths.
It's great that they've taken that baby-step. Well done! But it's still just a baby step. For travel to be enjoyable to players, it has to be vastly deeper than that.
4. Again the "meaning" behind travel is irrelevant. Meaning doesn't attract players. Fun does. Nobody is out there playing the game where they need to press a button once every 20 minutes or their character dies. That game would have a ton of meaning (if you don't press the button your character dies! He dies, man!) but would not be fun.
5. In this post and several others I've covered objective descriptions of game depth (typical combat rotations) and compared them with the dramatically more limited decisions involved in travel. I'd add to this your own personal subjective experience: you have heard someone say "Wow that guy's a really good [class]!" in MMORPGs but you have not heard someone say "Wow that guy's really good at traveling!" This is because the former involves enough depth for there to be actual respect for the magnitude of skill involved at upper skill tiers. The latter is so shallow that the comment would be perceived as a joke.
(But again I'm describing the current reality of MMORPG travel. This isn't the same as saying it could never be deep; after all, I actually have heard players say "that guy's really good at demo-jumping" in TF2, which is an example of travel skill being deep in another genre.)
6. I have played ATiTD and Ryzom actually. They involve even shallower travel than Archeage. BDO I haven't played but looks to be just one more baby-step above Archeage (but again, no parades or celebrations will be held for a game's travel being 3/25ths as deep as its combat.)
In none of these games will "that guy's really good at traveling/riding" be said anywhere near as often as "that guy's really good at [class]!" This is the subconscious way players refer to game depth (which is fairly synonymous with "skill ceiling")
7. All of which is a fairly tight set of logical points. This isn't my opinion, it's a simple fact of the game mechanics at play (and can be seen in the way other players, including you, react to those mechanics. )
Players may not have a perfectly accurate internal barometer for game depth, but they have a good sense for it and you see that in which things they'll say "wow you're good at that" for.
8. I don't block you because I dislike you. I block you because you're consistently dead-wrong. (As shown here.) See you next time I randomly sample your post! And remember, if you're at all interested in my unblocking you that you should completely reverse how you're posting: instead of posting things consistently dead-wrong, you should post true things which are reflective of reality.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If travel is going to be an important part of the game experience in some way why would you allow people to skip over it?
As I said in the past if it's done well backtracking to areas that were not accessible for some reason (no key, monsters to difficult, rock blocks the path, etc. makes things more interesting. Especially if you have to figure these little secrets out for yourself (no markers)
It's great that they've taken that baby-step. Well done! But it's still just a baby step. For travel to be enjoyable to players, it has to be vastly deeper than that.
1. Lying about things doesn't make for a truthful argument.
2. This argument is facetious because that's exactly what combat is. "Don't die with more buttons."
3. This argument is equally facetious. As first of all, not all components of the game are equally deep in in game design. The game economy in WoW is not nearly as deep as it's combat. The crafting is not nearly as deep. Pretty much everything save for the combat does not have the depth you speak of. Your own poster child shows the reality of your claim is false.
And that's mostly because it's kind of the sole focus of the game's design. Set-piece hopping for the user experience has become the style and the virtual world has been minimized, meaning much of the ancillary content has shrunk. The replacement is things like the garrison, but even that is a considerably more passive component.
The truth is that game components need to rely on each-other to make interesting gameplay. Isolating most game components will seem boring, which is why integrating features that rely on each other to create additional depth is rather important.
4. Incorrect. We already know from plenty of games like euro truck simulator and otherwise that the "meaning" of the game can very well be the point for many players. There is again plenty of reasons for different people to be motivated to play different games. Neglecting this reality does not make your opinion a fact.
5. And we already have the ability to prove this wrong with the simple "That guy's really good at kiting." and "That guy's really good at dive-bombing/gliding."
6. And here I know you are building false claims by ignoring the aspects that both of those games used game space and traveling to create. In Ryzom for example the resources constantly changed across the environment and people actively explored for find the nodes and hot-spots. Mobs similarly had migration patterns, and players actually followed those migrations to hunt them.
7. Conjecture is not fact.
8. You block because you disagree. It's well visible that the "facts" are not what's wrong here and, again, everyone can look up the game's I've mentioned and things I've said to see that they align with reality whereas you've woven quite the opinion piece.
This also brings up a new point. You at least acknowledge that potential is there and progress is in fact being made, be it rather slowly.
Therefore, it's all the more reason to understand that abandoning gameplay content when it's proving to show progress/evolution and integrate more closely with the rest of the game, is nonsensical. Do you throw away babies because they can't stand up and walk after a couple days? No, you persist in it's development and make them better until they can stand on their own.
I mean, unless you're a horrible parent/designer that doesn't know how to handle their own creation.
I honestly don't care if you're too obstinate to learn, I'll correct the mistakes regardless for others to read and learn from. Making personal attacks on me does not provide a valid argument, so try sticking to the truth next time.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
If travel is going to be an important part of the game experience in some way why would you allow people to skip over it?
As I said in the past if it's done well backtracking to areas that were not accessible for some reason (no key, monsters to difficult, rock blocks the path, etc. makes things more interesting. Especially if you have to figure these little secrets out for yourself (no markers)
If travel is going to be an important part of a game experience, a good designer wouldn't create shitty travel. Only a bad designer just throws together random game elements while completely ignoring whether they fit together and are fun.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Hence the effort to evolve the design rather than abandon it without cause. Good designers deliver interesting content by creating new user experiences and progressing them, not tread-milling the same.
True, a bad designer will throw together stuff without thought. That's why we see people constantly falling back to tired game mechanics instead of innovation, because they can't handle it, and can only deal with what the numbers tell them.
Good designers operate to the extent of their ability and the limitations imposed on them in hardware/software to design features for the concept they wish to deliver, and press those limits when possible.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Hence the effort to evolve the design rather than abandon it without cause. Good designers deliver interesting content by creating new user experiences and progressing them, not tread-milling the same.
True, a bad designer will throw together stuff without thought. Good designers operate to the extent of their ability and the limitations imposed on them to design features for the concept they wish to deliver, and press those limits when possible.
Until you can come up with ideas to evolve it, I'd just admit defeat at this point. You need to come up with the evolution of travel.
Until you can come up with ideas to evolve it, I'd just admit defeat at this point. You need to come up with the evolution of travel.
I'd repeat what I mentioned before with reference to multiple newer games and especially within the eastern MMO market where the effort has turned towards virtual worlds.
Progress is in fact being made and ideas were already shared.
EDIT: Quite far back actually, click to page 2-5 to read plenty of it.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Hence the effort to evolve the design rather than abandon it without cause. Good designers deliver interesting content by creating new user experiences and progressing them, not tread-milling the same.
True, a bad designer will throw together stuff without thought. Good designers operate to the extent of their ability and the limitations imposed on them to design features for the concept they wish to deliver, and press those limits when possible.
Until you can come up with ideas to evolve it, I'd just admit defeat at this point. You need to come up with the evolution of travel.
To be clear, my point has never been that travel can't be interesting gameplay in MMORPGs. My point's been that it hasn't been interesting gameplay, and that when travel isn't interesting it should be kept short/optional.
Obviously filling players' time with uninteresting gameplay is bad game design.
So there was really never any circumstance where defeat could be avoided, since they're arguing against straightforward logic and simple observation.
If they creatively described the most brilliant-sounding travel gameplay possible, it would simply fit neatly into the argument I've presented and I'd respond, "Great, now if a MMORPG was created like that it can and should have quite a lot of travel because travel is actually fun gameplay!" It is possible, as the Racing genre shows, but it requires a very different game focus (as the Racing genre shows.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
To be clear, my point has never been that travel can't be interesting gameplay in MMORPGs. My point's been that it hasn't been interesting gameplay, and that when travel isn't interesting it should be kept short/optional.
You are in fact the one that wrote "travel is not interesting gameplay" on the first page.
You also wrote this..."Also the reality is that travel is shallow in nearly every game out there." which you have since seemed to backpedal quite far on since you now only claim "in MMORPGs".
Irony is, as hostile as you are towards me and as vehement as you claim that I am wrong you have migrated into using the very commentary I corrected you with a the start of this thread. It's become the case that you are in fact agreeing with me even if you don't seem to realize it.
You also go directly against your own claim as I have presented multiple titles in the eastern market trending towards virtual worlds that are developing deeper gameplay around travel mechanics. Some of us are sane enough to realize progress is made in steps however, and we aren't going to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Reality is that to see progress achieved, then progress has to be made. You don't blow an unfathomable budget behind closed doors for who knows how many years to see zero profit in an attempt to privately evolve game designs far enough to be "feature complete" iterations of entirely new mechanics generally. Skipping the evolution stage of game design is an entirely unrealistic perspective to have.
And again, attacking the person rather than the subject is not a meaningful argument. You started your responses by attacking me rather than what I wrote, and you have persisted in doing so. That is not how you form a rational argument. That's not how you present logical statements. That is not how you provide any truth.
Insulting people is not winning an argument (since your dialogue seems to be bearing the context of "defeat" meaning you are trying to "win" an argument rather than be right). It is, in fact, simply how you insult people.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Comments
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
and none makes backtracking fun for me ... and most have fast travel.
You not liking backtracking is fine as a personal opinion. That is not an excuse nor justification to remove MMORPGs having variety to their mechanics and design.
You wanna play a finite combat-focused set-piece hopping title? That's perfectly fine.
Others want to play virtual worlds and complex economies. There's no reason to not make different titles in different ways to cater to each audience.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
- Gameplay is decisions.
- So far zero MMORPGs (and one MMO Puzzle Game) have been cited which have a significant amount of deep decision-making to their travel.
Or if you're incapable/unwilling to respond to these simple facts, we can just end the conversation (on account of your incapability/unwillingness to converse.)"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
But Archeage is one game where travel is meaningful. Happy?
You know you're not going to find a bunch of meaningful travel in a genre littered with WoW clones. You know this. What's been done has all been a trend not variety like you like to say.
The point of this discussion was how long travel could be. To say that MMORPG couldn't use travel is just silly. I just watch my son play GTA Online with friend driving a long distance fighting of attackers having a blast. Not a MMO but certainly multiplayer within an instance.
There are easy ways to make travel more fun than the random kill 10 mobs collect 5 ribs. You know this, trolling or lack any spark of imagination.
That's not "decisions."
If I tell you "press this button every 20 minutes or you'll die," I've given meaning to pressing the button.
But is that fun? No, you're just pressing a button every 20 minutes! There is only one decision (whether to press the button), it's infrequent, and it involves no mastery, and so there's no gameplay to it and it has no chance of being fun.
So again, it'd really be nice to discuss this with someone who seemed literate but you seem dangerously close to being unable to understand the simple concepts I'm communicating.
Provide a single example of a MMORPG where travel has gameplay (has a significant amount of hard-to-master decisions.) If you manage to name one, you'll have gone through such a long list of MMORPGs which fail to offer interesting travel gameplay that you'll have realized my point is completely correct.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Do not argue literacy if you refuse to read.
Refusing to acknowledge the existence of evidence does not negate it's existence.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Your last list of games he quoted included Archeage and several other games. None of those games involved frequent and deep decision-making. In Archeage travel is exactly as it is in most MMORPGs: shallow. It involves watching your character's travel animation (running, mounted, sailing, etc), and steering to avoid mobs.
This reinforces my decision to block you. You're still just arguing wrong things for argument's sake. Remember, if you want to be un-blocked you'll have to consistently be making valid points so that every once in a while when I check your messages (about 1 in 30), I'd find you saying something actually truthful for once.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Meaningful is the appropriate world because it's far less subjective than fun or best or good. Meaningful: having a serious, important, or useful quality or purpose.
What you are describing is a reaction: an action performed or a feeling experienced in response to a situation or event.
So please if you want to insult at least know what you're talking about.
The ironic thing is decision is travel itself and justt about everything else individually in modern MMORPG are linear lol. You get a quest and you have to complete it how you're told. You go to a dungeon you complete the dungeon in one way. You raid and you have completed when your allowed and in one way.
Travel on the other hand you decided where you want to go and how far. It's the ultimate decision. So please just give it up
For one, by ignoring the rest of the list to cherry pick one game.
Two, because that game has several balancing factors in travel and purposes for it's use.
Three, mounts and mounted abilities exist for a reason, as using their abilities to affect your travel or handle mobs/players is actually an integrated aspect of the game.
Four, travel is utilized to create a t a basic level an effort to reward ratio between the shuttling of resources across the environment. This is also used as a means to deepen the economy by integrating particular resource and reward types.
You also made quite a broad (and very non-objective) statement that "none of those games involved deep and frequent decision making" to which I have a few points on that too.
One, You just made an assessment of multiple titles I can safely assume you haven't played as your focus and knowledge seems to exist solely in the western market.
Two, you inserted your opinion before any knowable fact and claimed all said titles lacked depth, which can be argued as very inaccurate since they had quite a bit of variety to the mechanics being utilized and depth of play offered.
Everyone can freely verify the things I've written and even look up the games I've offered by name.
You're free to block things you don't like, but don't pretend ignoring the facts makes you any less wrong. You're free to reject the truth, but don't drag other people down with you.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
In Daggerfall, one normally didn't walk long distances because the actual landscape was very boring, but in a game created with modern resources it need not be.
Playing such a game requires a different play style than the "rush to the next objective and kill it" that is common in most MMOs. The reward would be playing in a game where the world felt like a real world, and just being a part of that world was fun in itself. In other words, it would be a suitable environment for actual RP - a sort of fantasy Second Life, almost.
Do you realize fun/good/best aren't cornerstones of my argument and that comparing them with meaningful (which is still a very subjective word) is irrelevant?
Do you realize "decisions" is the cornerstone of my argument? Do you realize "whether a game mechanic has more decisions" is objective? Do you realize "whether decisions have depth" is only slightly less so? (Two players might master chess at different rates, but even the guy who masters it in a day is unlikely to consider it a shallow game, because game depth is measured relative to the other games out there.)
Do you realize calling things "reactions" doesn't change anything? Every decision (even those typically considered "actions" not reactions) can inevitably be considered a reaction, but that just doesn't matter. Decisions are the heart of the most common way games are enjoyed by players.
Do you realize that combat gameplay has examples of objectively offering deep decision-making?
Do you realize that travel gameplay has no such examples? (You will never find a "travel guide" of similar complexity which details the many decisions one must master to travel well. You'll never find one because travel offers infrequent and shallow decisions.)
Do you realize the decision of "where to go" (travel) is analogous to "what to do" (non-travel)? (And refer back to the example above which details how "what to do" is a very involved decision even if you just consider the combat component (which is only a small part of the full set of decisions you make during the gameplay you call "linear")
Do you realize that calling something "the ultimate decision" doesn't make it so? Do you realize that in the fact of evidence objectively showing the decision-making depth of combat gameplay, and the fact that you'll be unable to provide evidence showing the depth of travel gameplay, means that you're flat-out objectively wrong to call those travel decisions "the ultimate decision"?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
1. If you had a valid point you should've made it. I pick your posts at random just as I picked that game at random, and the result of every single random sampling of your posting is you're dead wrong and not making any valid points.
If it's your desire not to be known as someone who is consistently dead-wrong, then your path seems clear:
Stop consistently saying dead-wrong things.
This isn't rocket surgery.
2. Neither of those factors implies deep decision-making. If we take my "press this button every 20 minutes or die" scenario and add a lever to it, there are now "several balancing factors" but that hasn't made the situation any more enjoyable. Similarly the situation still has "purpose" yet players aren't running around saying, "It was fun because it was mandatory!"
Maybe in North Korea that's how they do it, but they're not being honest about it.
3. For travel to be acceptable, it must be of similar depth to the deepest parts of a game, like typical combat. Taking the ultra-shallow gameplay of travel and adding travel abilities is an improvement. But let's see it for what it is: these games have moved from being like ~1/25th of the depth of typical combat to 2/25ths.
It's great that they've taken that baby-step. Well done! But it's still just a baby step. For travel to be enjoyable to players, it has to be vastly deeper than that.
4. Again the "meaning" behind travel is irrelevant. Meaning doesn't attract players. Fun does. Nobody is out there playing the game where they need to press a button once every 20 minutes or their character dies. That game would have a ton of meaning (if you don't press the button your character dies! He dies, man!) but would not be fun.
5. In this post and several others I've covered objective descriptions of game depth (typical combat rotations) and compared them with the dramatically more limited decisions involved in travel. I'd add to this your own personal subjective experience: you have heard someone say "Wow that guy's a really good [class]!" in MMORPGs but you have not heard someone say "Wow that guy's really good at traveling!" This is because the former involves enough depth for there to be actual respect for the magnitude of skill involved at upper skill tiers. The latter is so shallow that the comment would be perceived as a joke.
(But again I'm describing the current reality of MMORPG travel. This isn't the same as saying it could never be deep; after all, I actually have heard players say "that guy's really good at demo-jumping" in TF2, which is an example of travel skill being deep in another genre.)
6. I have played ATiTD and Ryzom actually. They involve even shallower travel than Archeage. BDO I haven't played but looks to be just one more baby-step above Archeage (but again, no parades or celebrations will be held for a game's travel being 3/25ths as deep as its combat.)
In none of these games will "that guy's really good at traveling/riding" be said anywhere near as often as "that guy's really good at [class]!" This is the subconscious way players refer to game depth (which is fairly synonymous with "skill ceiling")
7. All of which is a fairly tight set of logical points. This isn't my opinion, it's a simple fact of the game mechanics at play (and can be seen in the way other players, including you, react to those mechanics. )
Players may not have a perfectly accurate internal barometer for game depth, but they have a good sense for it and you see that in which things they'll say "wow you're good at that" for.
8. I don't block you because I dislike you. I block you because you're consistently dead-wrong. (As shown here.) See you next time I randomly sample your post! And remember, if you're at all interested in my unblocking you that you should completely reverse how you're posting: instead of posting things consistently dead-wrong, you should post true things which are reflective of reality.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As I said in the past if it's done well backtracking to areas that were not accessible for some reason (no key, monsters to difficult, rock blocks the path, etc. makes things more interesting. Especially if you have to figure these little secrets out for yourself (no markers)
2. This argument is facetious because that's exactly what combat is. "Don't die with more buttons."
3. This argument is equally facetious. As first of all, not all components of the game are equally deep in in game design. The game economy in WoW is not nearly as deep as it's combat. The crafting is not nearly as deep. Pretty much everything save for the combat does not have the depth you speak of. Your own poster child shows the reality of your claim is false.
And that's mostly because it's kind of the sole focus of the game's design. Set-piece hopping for the user experience has become the style and the virtual world has been minimized, meaning much of the ancillary content has shrunk. The replacement is things like the garrison, but even that is a considerably more passive component.
The truth is that game components need to rely on each-other to make interesting gameplay. Isolating most game components will seem boring, which is why integrating features that rely on each other to create additional depth is rather important.
4. Incorrect. We already know from plenty of games like euro truck simulator and otherwise that the "meaning" of the game can very well be the point for many players. There is again plenty of reasons for different people to be motivated to play different games. Neglecting this reality does not make your opinion a fact.
5. And we already have the ability to prove this wrong with the simple "That guy's really good at kiting." and "That guy's really good at dive-bombing/gliding."
6. And here I know you are building false claims by ignoring the aspects that both of those games used game space and traveling to create. In Ryzom for example the resources constantly changed across the environment and people actively explored for find the nodes and hot-spots. Mobs similarly had migration patterns, and players actually followed those migrations to hunt them.
7. Conjecture is not fact.
8. You block because you disagree. It's well visible that the "facts" are not what's wrong here and, again, everyone can look up the game's I've mentioned and things I've said to see that they align with reality whereas you've woven quite the opinion piece.
This also brings up a new point. You at least acknowledge that potential is there and progress is in fact being made, be it rather slowly.
Therefore, it's all the more reason to understand that abandoning gameplay content when it's proving to show progress/evolution and integrate more closely with the rest of the game, is nonsensical. Do you throw away babies because they can't stand up and walk after a couple days? No, you persist in it's development and make them better until they can stand on their own.
I mean, unless you're a horrible parent/designer that doesn't know how to handle their own creation.
I honestly don't care if you're too obstinate to learn, I'll correct the mistakes regardless for others to read and learn from. Making personal attacks on me does not provide a valid argument, so try sticking to the truth next time.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Is there something wrong with content that supposed to be consumed only once?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
True, a bad designer will throw together stuff without thought. That's why we see people constantly falling back to tired game mechanics instead of innovation, because they can't handle it, and can only deal with what the numbers tell them.
Good designers operate to the extent of their ability and the limitations imposed on them in hardware/software to design features for the concept they wish to deliver, and press those limits when possible.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Progress is in fact being made and ideas were already shared.
EDIT: Quite far back actually, click to page 2-5 to read plenty of it.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Try playing Rockstar games like GTA or Red Dead Redeption to see games where travel over the same places is relevant to the gameplay.
Obviously filling players' time with uninteresting gameplay is bad game design.
So there was really never any circumstance where defeat could be avoided, since they're arguing against straightforward logic and simple observation.
If they creatively described the most brilliant-sounding travel gameplay possible, it would simply fit neatly into the argument I've presented and I'd respond, "Great, now if a MMORPG was created like that it can and should have quite a lot of travel because travel is actually fun gameplay!" It is possible, as the Racing genre shows, but it requires a very different game focus (as the Racing genre shows.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You also wrote this..."Also the reality is that travel is shallow in nearly every game out there." which you have since seemed to backpedal quite far on since you now only claim "in MMORPGs".
Irony is, as hostile as you are towards me and as vehement as you claim that I am wrong you have migrated into using the very commentary I corrected you with a the start of this thread. It's become the case that you are in fact agreeing with me even if you don't seem to realize it.
You also go directly against your own claim as I have presented multiple titles in the eastern market trending towards virtual worlds that are developing deeper gameplay around travel mechanics. Some of us are sane enough to realize progress is made in steps however, and we aren't going to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Reality is that to see progress achieved, then progress has to be made. You don't blow an unfathomable budget behind closed doors for who knows how many years to see zero profit in an attempt to privately evolve game designs far enough to be "feature complete" iterations of entirely new mechanics generally. Skipping the evolution stage of game design is an entirely unrealistic perspective to have.
And again, attacking the person rather than the subject is not a meaningful argument. You started your responses by attacking me rather than what I wrote, and you have persisted in doing so. That is not how you form a rational argument. That's not how you present logical statements. That is not how you provide any truth.
Insulting people is not winning an argument (since your dialogue seems to be bearing the context of "defeat" meaning you are trying to "win" an argument rather than be right). It is, in fact, simply how you insult people.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin