It seems to me from the number of posts on this thread that we don't want it but we want something and we are not getting it.
Exactly what though? I am not a fan of instances, but they solve problems like dungeon waiting, sometimes you just have to except that good gameplay comes before good open world.
I'd actually prefer a game to be designed in a way to minimise dungeon/boss waiting (eg. spreading similar loot among multiple areas, not having such unique items that makes people want to camp, having a large enough world relative to population, etc etc etc) over implementing instances.
Instances break the entire concept of role playing a character within a world to me. It no longer becomes a "world that you are to immerse yourself into", it becomes a "game" to me, and I think there are many who would agree.
This is one reason I like a few games in the survival genre currently. The worlds are tiny, but no instances etc, none of these "work-arounds" implemented just because it allows scaling of content and adding on content easily. It works with some games because they have designed it around instancing in the first place, it lends itself to it, and sure instancing gives some benefits and solves some problems well for that type of game. The problem is just to re-iterate, for some, it is one of those systems that moves towards creating a "game to play" not a "world to get immersed in".
This all relates to how earlier in the thread I was saying many of these games nowadays are like "arcade games". There are tons of features added these days that "show" to the player that what you are doing, is obviously playing a game, not immersing yourself into a world.
So, in my opinion, basically everything in the way you are designing your "world" (if this is the style of game you choose of course) and its systems (if you want to have an immersive rpg world) is to absolutely prioritise keeping onto the immsersive world aspect of the game. This means basically this is the most important thing, it is the priority, so something like instancing is a no no.
But is it the fact the dungeon is obviously instanced which to me would be an immersion issue or the fact that you know it is instanced?
You can set up instanced dungeons in such a way that is hard to notice, you don't have to port players in from remote locations or have small groups all standing around the entrance. You could do that porting with a cutscene showing you riding into the instanced dungeon area to meet your group for example.
However if it is the mere fact that you know it is instanced I think you need to work on your "theatre of the MMORPG" skills more to ignore such things. It is all in the mind and we have to put so much of that aside...Hello Mr User Interface.
You can't immerse yerself into a dungeon unless you're playing it in virtual reality. Fix the server issue of it can't support 500+ players and instances don't have to exist anymore anyway.
This user is a registered flex offender. Someone who is registered as being a flex offender is a person who feels the need to flex about everything they say. Always be the guy that paints the house in the dark. Lucidity can be forged with enough liquidity and pharmed for decades with enough compound interest that a reachable profit would never end.
You can't immerse yerself into a dungeon unless you're playing it in virtual reality. Fix the server issue of it can't support 500+ players and instances don't have to exist anymore anyway.
I don't think that's true, especially since "immersion" means different things to different people.
Was playing the Skryim Mod "Darkend" over the weekend and I was thoroughly engrossed and "immersed" with what was going on in the game.
I'll add that I've played some VR games and the experience was amazing. Too bad for me that I get nauseous with the headset.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
EVE Online ..... None of those are considered to be "problems," they are sanctioned game play....
Maybe not problems for a few people. But how many have left because of this reason. I will bet most of the people had this in their list of grievances. Getting ganked while trying to do their content then stealing the kill, top guilds dominating the main content etc... yeah I dont play Eve but I know just by its design this is a problem. This is probably the #1 reason the game doesnt get the numbers like the top PVE instanced MMO's.
Sure maybe the devs want this in there to facilitate PVP, but its still a problem for the larger player base that doesnt want it.
well "good." The game is able to continue running as it is patronized by people who want this type of game play. Perfect. That's the way it should be.
No game should have to cater to large groups if it means changing what the developers want.
They dont have to cater to large groups, but normally people that own companies want to get as many people as possible.
So looking at the numbers, are you saying that only 20k or less people concurrent want a game like this? Is this the maximum cap for this type of Sci-fi MMO. If No, then why isnt this game reaching its potential. Smarter devs would figure out the formula to capture their entire market base and build towards that.
Whats more likely, is the dev team is out of ideas on how to do that. This is the entire problem, dev teams are clueless about what the playerbases really want and cant make good enough games to capture that target customer.
I have said many times, games can be both niche and popular at the same time by caputuring their entire niche with a great product.
I am not advocating that games have to appeal to every customer. I am just saying make a game that is really good and continues to grow. People are born everyday, more people have internet access, these games should be growing by default yet they are all shrinking to incredibly small numbers.
You do realize that "niche" and "popular" are two opposing terms? A game can NEVER be both.
Niche: appealing to very few.
Popular: appealing to the masses.
Google (I think) defines a generation as 25 years. How many 25 year old games do you plat today? UO and EQ struggle getting new players today, if they get any at all. Technology changes too fast. How we interact with technology changes too fast. Looking at babies born today as "future customers" is bad business for games. Of course, I'm not a millionaire business game making tycoon, so I may just be wrong. I certainly would look at those born today as future gaming customers, but NOT for a game I make today. I'd be looking at them for future games.
Yeah I understand the difference in terms, but you are confusing the context. I am not saying popular to the entire human race. You can be popular within a niche, and still be niche to the larger segment of society. Think rocky horror picture show, its popular to a small segment, but its very niche compared to the entire population at large.
So what I am saying is, if you make a niche product, make a game that appeals to the entire niche. 50 people is not the going to represent a large enough base. Even 1 million people is still small, but its at least something to work with.
Targeting 1% of .00001% of 1 billion potential gamers is too small a number to be successful. Devs need to move the decimal to remove some zeroes but not necessarily all the zero's.
Instances do not themselves define content as fixed any more than static spawn nodes in an open world/dungeon does. Applying randomization of content to one scenario can just as easily be applied to another.
That's true that they don't have to. But they always do. Because designers who think "Instances" are also designers who think Fixed Content is good. Instances are an answer for games that lack socialness, because they don't want it. They want a SP game, in reality. Because they don't understand anything else but the status quo. It's still falling back on the old system, and still comes with all the negatives I mentioned.
Amaranthar said: Instances are artificial barriers with fixed content.
Gamers are leaving that old and boring design. It's not a "World", it's Lobbies and SP/MP stuff. The whole meaning of "Massively" in a "World" goes out the door. Socialness goes with it. Meaning goes with it. Excitement goes with it.
It doesnt have to appeal to everyone, it just needs to appeal to a big core, and do it well. It obviously appeals to people or it wouldnt be rated at 91% on steam.
How many of those 20+ million left a rating?
90%?
75%?
50%?
Less than that? (I didn't check.)
How many players who gave up took the time to leave a "review?"
Stats are wonderful thing. People will use the exact stats to prove two sides of an argument
Just asking
A good rule of thumb on steam reviews is around 2%-4% leave a review fyi. The larger the number of reviewers, the more accurate that is.
I personally dont think the hater negatives outweigh the fanbois positives fully unless the game just really pisses on the fanbois. The reason being is that many failing games seem to get 50%+ positives.
So for me anything below 75% positive usually means is below my standards.
It doesnt have to appeal to everyone, it just needs to appeal to a big core, and do it well. It obviously appeals to people or it wouldnt be rated at 91% on steam.
How many of those 20+ million left a rating?
90%?
75%?
50%?
Less than that? (I didn't check.)
How many players who gave up took the time to leave a "review?"
Stats are wonderful thing. People will use the exact stats to prove two sides of an argument
Just asking
That's the thing, I would bet dollars to donuts that a LOT of people bought the game thinking "harder skyrim" and instead got more difficulty than they imagined.
I'm thinking it's the marketing that drove those sales.
So if they come out with an Elden ring 2 and it was even more popular would you agree your entire opinion is completely wrong?
A lot of people doesnt really mean anything to me, alot can mean 100 people out of 20,000,000. When you say alot are you saying a majority? Are you saying these people are so dissatisfied they will not buy the product next time?
I think this studio has a history of making hard products, and has created a market for their product that its core can depend on. Its playing to that core, and its being well received and rewarded for that.
I don't think that really solved for the concerns presented in the quoted statement. You're arguing mechanical game solutions to problems of human nature.
Those problems of human nature are based on opportunities, and in this case limited. Remove those opportunities, or the limits, and you remove the problems, no?
In theory.
In practice, people look for new opportunities.
People also have this habit of using rationality to justify the irrational.
This is the thing with talking about instances versus server shards for example. If one is not talking about having a game world large enough to accommodate all players, then you're already fragmenting them across servers/shards. What's the justification that defines where the cutoff between that and more granular instancing of content is? What's the argument that says one is good while the other is bad, that doesn't have crossover implications?
It's justification of preferred or familiar conditions, more than an actual rational division and assessment, for just about anyone.
Or like the fast travel thing. On one end, is a one-time travel penalty really a solution to making things work, or does it still end up diminishing any reason for having a large game world? If it's justified by exploration, how quickly before that becomes an Ubisoft "collect all the nodes" type of experience where people feel compelled to do simple repetitive tasks to fill out achievement checklists in hopes of some reward?
If no reward, then how well will exploration actually compel players or justify said open world?
As for the human nature thing.
This was addressed in part by my point on how players would rank things too. Just because there is a dungeon with the same drop table as another, perhaps is even a carbon copy as another, does not mean it will be assessed as the same value as another. Placement in the game world for ease of access matters, how heavily it gets camped by others matters, even almost entirely superficial elements like distance to preferred hub cities and what-not matters.
Consider as well the statement from my post you originally quoted;
"Resource denial is as important as resource gain for PvP scenarios."
Even ignoring expressly PvP scenarios, guilds competing against one another in any manner have a motive for denying other guilds and other players access to resources. When that happens, it's not about locking down one dungeon or one boss, but whatever ones that allow the perceived competition from gaining.
Fast travel to any sort ends up being a threat as much as a benefit in such situations, because if members of a guild or alliance are able to just warp over and occupy any dungeon after unlocking them, then it's not really solving the more basic problem at play.
Big problem here is thus-far, there is no perfect solution. They all come with problems and the resulting choice is what type of game experience do you want to build for what kind of audience. Everything is a compromise.
Per your last comment, if that's true, then what's your argument against my comments?
But the reality is that there are answers. And if they don't work in one place, you have this whole huge world to find another place. You say that the big guilds will follow you just to deny resources to other players. Ok. So how do they know where those other players went? Huge world, remember?
You state that they'll have a list of the best places. But what if there's plenty of small places, far down said list, that offer just as much reward per player in a small group?
UO had an answer to this, in large part, too. Loot was divided by overall damage done, it lasted for 2 minutes or so, then whatever wasn't claimed dropped into the community loot for anyone to take. The only issue there, according to your pointed situation, is if the offending guild targets any MOB anyone else is going for and does, overall, the vast majority of damage. That's a good time to go to another spot. Or, if there are as many "other players" as there are in that big guild, it's a wash. No problem.
Then again, there's always another day too.
What you are doing is using the fact that nothing is perfect to argue that our desires won't ever work. That's just not the case.
It's time for a change and you can't change that, no matter what you say, anyways. If change doesn't happen, you can expect to watch the decline continue, snowballing faster as it goes.
I read your posts and think, "This person seeks "Utopia." You do NOT factor in human activity. Your answers is trying to "control" other players. Killed by a PvP player? other players will come to your aid and reek vengeance. What if all the humans playing decide they are too busy playing their OWN game?
There are TWO sides to every coin. Game making IS a series of compromises. You will only get "your Utopia" only if YOU make the game from scratch including only the aspects YOU find fun. It will be YOUR perfect game and no one else's.
I'm NOT attacking you. It is your ideas and dreams of your "Utopia."
I truly hope you find a game (MMORPG) that meets enough of your criteria. I'd love for you to find happiness in your gaming. EVERY player should be able find games that help them to be happy.
I'm NOT attacking you personally and DO like many of your ideas. But my practical/cynical side wants you to understand that every rule can be broken. Do laws stop murders? Nope. Murder still happens today. Same with theft and every other law ever created. Rules can, and will, be broken. Even a "hard coding" be worked "cheated" around.
I mean this in all sincerity: Never give up hope
I think your AI be a little quirky, sir. I've given answers to the problems. You're ignoring them and restating your issue.
Now, if you start coming up with work-arounds to my answers, which you haven't because you can't, then we can discuss it.
But is it the fact the dungeon is obviously instanced which to me would be an immersion issue or the fact that you know it is instanced?
You can set up instanced dungeons in such a way that is hard to notice, you don't have to port players in from remote locations or have small groups all standing around the entrance. You could do that porting with a cutscene showing you riding into the instanced dungeon area to meet your group for example.
However if it is the mere fact that you know it is instanced I think you need to work on your "theatre of the MMORPG" skills more to ignore such things. It is all in the mind and we have to put so much of that aside...Hello Mr User Interface.
Both. It is both that you can notice it in the world, and also that you 'know' it is breaking away from the world.
A cinematic mid-play would totally break the immersion. That is definitely something I wouldn't want.
It is pretty straighforward really. I see it as something avoidable depending on the game design, and so it is one of those things that I would want to have avoided if you want as much immersion as possible.
Just like watching a movie or reading a book, many people like to escape into a fantasy world, and one of the writers/directors purpose with it is an attempt to do this, to immerse the reader/watcher into the story. They are not going to have things in their book or movie which harkens back to the real world. Anything which would take you out of the world is avoided.
Some people don't have this perspective on games though and never will, that is up to them. I try to see past the systems and if they start leaking into gameplay, showing you it is a game, something is wrong in my opinion, unless it is a true technical limitation (loading screen might sometimes be required).
Some people don't care for immersion and they are fine with just pressing a bunch of buttons and getting better stats. The priority for me is adventure, and imagining you are a character in the world as a priority, then the stats etc come second.
There are lots of people who are like this, especially a lot who play D&D and liked the old adventure game books or many who liked old MMORPG's. I'm definitely not unusual here at all. In fact I think at the highest quality, the best MMORPG's, books, movies, are actually the ones who attempt and are successful at immersing yourself into the world. If it fails to do this, like the story makes no sense in a lot of places, or if there was an obvious prop from something in real life, it is failing to do one of the things it aims, it breaks immersion. So similarly, something like instancing should be avoided in this perspective because it is something behind the scenes, a system from the real world, which is leaking into the gameplay, into the world you have created.
Started playing mmorpg's in 1996 and have been hooked ever since. It began with Kingdom of Drakkar, Ultima Online, Everquest, DAoC, WoW...
Both. It is both that you can notice it in the world, and also that you 'know' it is breaking away from the world.
A cinematic mid-play would totally break the immersion. That is definitely something I wouldn't want.
It is pretty straighforward really. I see it as something avoidable depending on the game design, and so it is one of those things that I would want to have avoided if you want as much immersion as possible.
Just like watching a movie or reading a book, many people like to escape into a fantasy world, and one of the writers/directors purpose with it is an attempt to do this, to immerse the reader/watcher into the story. They are not going to have things in their book or movie which harkens back to the real world. Anything which would take you out of the world is avoided.
Some people don't have this perspective on games though and never will, that is up to them. I try to see past the systems and if they start leaking into gameplay, showing you it is a game, something is wrong in my opinion, unless it is a true technical limitation (loading screen might sometimes be required).
Some people don't care for immersion and they are fine with just pressing a bunch of buttons and getting better stats. The priority for me is adventure, and imagining you are a character in the world as a priority, then the stats etc come second.
There are lots of people who are like this, especially a lot who play D&D and liked the old adventure game books or many who liked old MMORPG's. I'm definitely not unusual here at all. In fact I think at the highest quality, the best MMORPG's, books, movies, are actually the ones who attempt and are successful at immersing yourself into the world. If it fails to do this, like the story makes no sense in a lot of places, or if there was an obvious prop from something in real life, it is failing to do one of the things it aims, it breaks immersion. So similarly, something like instancing should be avoided in this perspective because it is something behind the scenes, a system from the real world, which is leaking into the gameplay, into the world you have created.
To me a cut scene would not break immersion, how would you avoid what we are talking about with game design?
Both. It is both that you can notice it in the world, and also that you 'know' it is breaking away from the world.
A cinematic mid-play would totally break the immersion. That is definitely something I wouldn't want.
It is pretty straighforward really. I see it as something avoidable depending on the game design, and so it is one of those things that I would want to have avoided if you want as much immersion as possible.
Just like watching a movie or reading a book, many people like to escape into a fantasy world, and one of the writers/directors purpose with it is an attempt to do this, to immerse the reader/watcher into the story. They are not going to have things in their book or movie which harkens back to the real world. Anything which would take you out of the world is avoided.
Some people don't have this perspective on games though and never will, that is up to them. I try to see past the systems and if they start leaking into gameplay, showing you it is a game, something is wrong in my opinion, unless it is a true technical limitation (loading screen might sometimes be required).
Some people don't care for immersion and they are fine with just pressing a bunch of buttons and getting better stats. The priority for me is adventure, and imagining you are a character in the world as a priority, then the stats etc come second.
There are lots of people who are like this, especially a lot who play D&D and liked the old adventure game books or many who liked old MMORPG's. I'm definitely not unusual here at all. In fact I think at the highest quality, the best MMORPG's, books, movies, are actually the ones who attempt and are successful at immersing yourself into the world. If it fails to do this, like the story makes no sense in a lot of places, or if there was an obvious prop from something in real life, it is failing to do one of the things it aims, it breaks immersion. So similarly, something like instancing should be avoided in this perspective because it is something behind the scenes, a system from the real world, which is leaking into the gameplay, into the world you have created.
To me a cut scene would not break immersion, how would you avoid what we are talking about with game design?
Cut scenes in an MMORPG? They would be a blatant slap in the face of immersion to me.
It seems to me from the number of posts on this thread that we don't want it but we want something and we are not getting it.
Exactly what though? I am not a fan of instances, but they solve problems like dungeon waiting, sometimes you just have to except that good gameplay comes before good open world.
I'd actually prefer a game to be designed in a way to minimise dungeon/boss waiting (eg. spreading similar loot among multiple areas, not having such unique items that makes people want to camp, having a large enough world relative to population, etc etc etc) over implementing instances.
Instances break the entire concept of role playing a character within a world to me. It no longer becomes a "world that you are to immerse yourself into", it becomes a "game" to me, and I think there are many who would agree.
This is one reason I like a few games in the survival genre currently. The worlds are tiny, but no instances etc, none of these "work-arounds" implemented just because it allows scaling of content and adding on content easily. It works with some games because they have designed it around instancing in the first place, it lends itself to it, and sure instancing gives some benefits and solves some problems well for that type of game. The problem is just to re-iterate, for some, it is one of those systems that moves towards creating a "game to play" not a "world to get immersed in".
This all relates to how earlier in the thread I was saying many of these games nowadays are like "arcade games". There are tons of features added these days that "show" to the player that what you are doing, is obviously playing a game, not immersing yourself into a world.
So, in my opinion, basically everything in the way you are designing your "world" (if this is the style of game you choose of course) and its systems (if you want to have an immersive rpg world) is to absolutely prioritise keeping onto the immsersive world aspect of the game. This means basically this is the most important thing, it is the priority, so something like instancing is a no no.
But is it the fact the dungeon is obviously instanced which to me would be an immersion issue or the fact that you know it is instanced?
You can set up instanced dungeons in such a way that is hard to notice, you don't have to port players in from remote locations or have small groups all standing around the entrance. You could do that porting with a cutscene showing you riding into the instanced dungeon area to meet your group for example.
However if it is the mere fact that you know it is instanced I think you need to work on your "theatre of the MMORPG" skills more to ignore such things. It is all in the mind and we have to put so much of that aside...Hello Mr User Interface.
Yeah I dont think its about cutscenes or load screens. Every game has zoning and instances to a degree. The "vast" worlds they speak of cannot even be made with todays technology on most of the PC's that people are playing them on. They are not going to have a seemless world and load all the assets in and it still be graphical.
I think its more about they want other random players in the instance with them, so they can ruin your day and somehow that makes things more exciting for them. More likely they are the people ruining peoples day and laughing thinking thats somehow fun.
Its the same way griefers defend the griefing mechanics, thinking they can control that human behavior if left unchecked.
Instances do not themselves define content as fixed any more than static spawn nodes in an open world/dungeon does. Applying randomization of content to one scenario can just as easily be applied to another.
That's true that they don't have to. But they always do. Because designers who think "Instances" are also designers who think Fixed Content is good. Instances are an answer for games that lack socialness, because they don't want it. They want a SP game, in reality. Because they don't understand anything else but the status quo. It's still falling back on the old system, and still comes with all the negatives I mentioned.
I think you got this all wrong, first off, I am a big group player and the complete opposite of a single player. Instances allow people to group and focus on the pve content. They allow people to approach bosses with strategy instead of worrying about getting ganked at 10% health, or seeing their boss get trained on by some guy running 100 mobs on purpose just to mess up your boss attempt so they can kill steal for their guild. Instances allow for cooperation so you dont have to always look over your should for some dbag human player.
I cant tell if you are living in your own dream world and have your head buried in the sand of what obvious open world problems are. Or you are just pretending not to understand because you like these griefing systems.
Instances do not have to be fixed. I can give you a few examples 1) instance portals can be completely random where they pop up in the game world. 2) the content inside instances can be completely random, I have seen instances worlds with a million different seeds.
Diablo does both of these.
The content could be fixed, but doesnt have to be.
I could easily argue that instances can allow for an even bigger world than any open world. An open world truely is fixed, where instances dont have to be. So your entire fixed static content for instances is actually completely backwards.
Instances do not themselves define content as fixed any more than static spawn nodes in an open world/dungeon does. Applying randomization of content to one scenario can just as easily be applied to another.
That's true that they don't have to. But they always do. Because designers who think "Instances" are also designers who think Fixed Content is good. Instances are an answer for games that lack socialness, because they don't want it. They want a SP game, in reality. Because they don't understand anything else but the status quo. It's still falling back on the old system, and still comes with all the negatives I mentioned.
I think you got this all wrong, first off, I am a big group player and the complete opposite of a single player. Instances allow people to group and focus on the pve content. They allow people to approach bosses with strategy instead of worrying about getting ganked at 10% health, or seeing their boss get trained on by some guy running 100 mobs on purpose just to mess up your boss attempt so they can kill steal for their guild. Instances allow for cooperation so you dont have to always look over your should for some dbag human player.
I cant tell if you are living in your own dream world and have your head buried in the sand of what obvious open world problems are. Or you are just pretending not to understand because you like these griefing systems.
Instances do not have to be fixed. I can give you a few examples 1) instance portals can be completely random where they pop up in the game world. 2) the content inside instances can be completely random, I have seen instances worlds with a million different seeds.
Diablo does both of these.
The content could be fixed, but doesnt have to be.
I could easily argue that instances can allow for an even bigger world than any open world. An open world truely is fixed, where instances dont have to be. So your entire fixed static content for instances is actually completely backwards.
I think both of you are missing the point which is "having no instances in a pvp game promotes another type of game play."
And neither of you would be playing that game. You wouldn't be playing a game where you are ganked at 10% health or some such thing.
What you are essentially describing was Lineage 2.
And I have to say some of my best mmorpg memories are because of player vs player gameplay. That was the fun. It felt like a living world because of the players.
So many great stories. And no instances.
We were once downing Lilith and a farmer group showed up and demanded that we leave. So we took them all out.
An alliance once took over Cruma and wouldn't let anyone in, so another alliance poured in and removed them.
That's the game play.
Now, I get it, that's not for everyone. but again neither of you would be playing a game like that. But it's fun for those who want it.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Instances do not themselves define content as fixed any more than static spawn nodes in an open world/dungeon does. Applying randomization of content to one scenario can just as easily be applied to another.
That's true that they don't have to. But they always do. Because designers who think "Instances" are also designers who think Fixed Content is good. Instances are an answer for games that lack socialness, because they don't want it. They want a SP game, in reality. Because they don't understand anything else but the status quo. It's still falling back on the old system, and still comes with all the negatives I mentioned.
I think you got this all wrong, first off, I am a big group player and the complete opposite of a single player. Instances allow people to group and focus on the pve content. They allow people to approach bosses with strategy instead of worrying about getting ganked at 10% health, or seeing their boss get trained on by some guy running 100 mobs on purpose just to mess up your boss attempt so they can kill steal for their guild. Instances allow for cooperation so you dont have to always look over your should for some dbag human player.
I cant tell if you are living in your own dream world and have your head buried in the sand of what obvious open world problems are. Or you are just pretending not to understand because you like these griefing systems.
Instances do not have to be fixed. I can give you a few examples 1) instance portals can be completely random where they pop up in the game world. 2) the content inside instances can be completely random, I have seen instances worlds with a million different seeds.
Diablo does both of these.
The content could be fixed, but doesnt have to be.
I could easily argue that instances can allow for an even bigger world than any open world. An open world truely is fixed, where instances dont have to be. So your entire fixed static content for instances is actually completely backwards.
How many gamers want ganker games? Will you please stop spawning Strawman Bosses?
But that's a good point about random locations, etc., through Instances. But it still leaves all the other problems.
And "socialness" is NOT about your relatively little group. It's about the game as a whole, players meeting new players, making new friends and associations, finding new economic suppliers and buyers, and all the things that make up a "living, breathing" WORLD rather than the SP/MP game you evidently want. And that's Same-Old-Same-Old at its core. That's what needs changed.
Instances do not themselves define content as fixed any more than static spawn nodes in an open world/dungeon does. Applying randomization of content to one scenario can just as easily be applied to another.
That's true that they don't have to. But they always do. Because designers who think "Instances" are also designers who think Fixed Content is good. Instances are an answer for games that lack socialness, because they don't want it. They want a SP game, in reality. Because they don't understand anything else but the status quo. It's still falling back on the old system, and still comes with all the negatives I mentioned.
I think you got this all wrong, first off, I am a big group player and the complete opposite of a single player. Instances allow people to group and focus on the pve content. They allow people to approach bosses with strategy instead of worrying about getting ganked at 10% health, or seeing their boss get trained on by some guy running 100 mobs on purpose just to mess up your boss attempt so they can kill steal for their guild. Instances allow for cooperation so you dont have to always look over your should for some dbag human player.
I cant tell if you are living in your own dream world and have your head buried in the sand of what obvious open world problems are. Or you are just pretending not to understand because you like these griefing systems.
Instances do not have to be fixed. I can give you a few examples 1) instance portals can be completely random where they pop up in the game world. 2) the content inside instances can be completely random, I have seen instances worlds with a million different seeds.
Diablo does both of these.
The content could be fixed, but doesnt have to be.
I could easily argue that instances can allow for an even bigger world than any open world. An open world truely is fixed, where instances dont have to be. So your entire fixed static content for instances is actually completely backwards.
I think both of you are missing the point which is "having no instances in a pvp game promotes another type of game play."
And neither of you would be playing that game. You wouldn't be playing a game where you are ganked at 10% health or some such thing.
What you are essentially describing was Lineage 2.
And I have to say some of my best mmorpg memories are because of player vs player gameplay. That was the fun. It felt like a living world because of the players.
So many great stories. And no instances.
We were once downing Lilith and a farmer group showed up and demanded that we leave. So we took them all out.
An alliance once took over Cruma and wouldn't let anyone in, so another alliance poured in and removed them.
That's the game play.
Now, I get it, that's not for everyone. but again neither of you would be playing a game like that. But it's fun for those who want it.
I'm not missing any points. I don't think wide open PvP games such as he's describing are viable. I've been talking about other designs and better games. He's just circling me, over and over again.
Instances do not themselves define content as fixed any more than static spawn nodes in an open world/dungeon does. Applying randomization of content to one scenario can just as easily be applied to another.
That's true that they don't have to. But they always do. Because designers who think "Instances" are also designers who think Fixed Content is good. Instances are an answer for games that lack socialness, because they don't want it. They want a SP game, in reality. Because they don't understand anything else but the status quo. It's still falling back on the old system, and still comes with all the negatives I mentioned.
I think you got this all wrong, first off, I am a big group player and the complete opposite of a single player. Instances allow people to group and focus on the pve content. They allow people to approach bosses with strategy instead of worrying about getting ganked at 10% health, or seeing their boss get trained on by some guy running 100 mobs on purpose just to mess up your boss attempt so they can kill steal for their guild. Instances allow for cooperation so you dont have to always look over your should for some dbag human player.
I cant tell if you are living in your own dream world and have your head buried in the sand of what obvious open world problems are. Or you are just pretending not to understand because you like these griefing systems.
Instances do not have to be fixed. I can give you a few examples 1) instance portals can be completely random where they pop up in the game world. 2) the content inside instances can be completely random, I have seen instances worlds with a million different seeds.
Diablo does both of these.
The content could be fixed, but doesnt have to be.
I could easily argue that instances can allow for an even bigger world than any open world. An open world truely is fixed, where instances dont have to be. So your entire fixed static content for instances is actually completely backwards.
I think both of you are missing the point which is "having no instances in a pvp game promotes another type of game play."
And neither of you would be playing that game. You wouldn't be playing a game where you are ganked at 10% health or some such thing.
What you are essentially describing was Lineage 2.
And I have to say some of my best mmorpg memories are because of player vs player gameplay. That was the fun. It felt like a living world because of the players.
So many great stories. And no instances.
We were once downing Lilith and a farmer group showed up and demanded that we leave. So we took them all out.
An alliance once took over Cruma and wouldn't let anyone in, so another alliance poured in and removed them.
That's the game play.
Now, I get it, that's not for everyone. but again neither of you would be playing a game like that. But it's fun for those who want it.
I'm not missing any points. I don't think wide open PvP games such as he's describing are viable. I've been talking about other designs and better games. He's just circling me, over and over again.
Fine but they are viable.
We had a great time in Lineage 2. I do think they are niche games and I do think that there is a delicate balance that the dev teams have to manage in order to make them compelling to their core demographic.
I can certainly tell you I had more fun in Lineage 2 than any other mmorpg ever. Probably because the game play wasn't stale and the world with its various factions made it feel alive.
But again, not for everyone.
um no sure why he's circling you?
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Instances do not themselves define content as fixed any more than static spawn nodes in an open world/dungeon does. Applying randomization of content to one scenario can just as easily be applied to another.
That's true that they don't have to. But they always do. Because designers who think "Instances" are also designers who think Fixed Content is good. Instances are an answer for games that lack socialness, because they don't want it. They want a SP game, in reality. Because they don't understand anything else but the status quo. It's still falling back on the old system, and still comes with all the negatives I mentioned.
Amaranthar said: Instances are artificial barriers with fixed content.
Gamers are leaving that old and boring design. It's not a "World", it's Lobbies and SP/MP stuff. The whole meaning of "Massively" in a "World" goes out the door. Socialness goes with it. Meaning goes with it. Excitement goes with it.
Not necessarily. Just consider games like Warframe that lobby/instance out almost everything and how they use procedural tilesets and randomized event behavior to vary missions.
It also demonstrates that while you could argue many devs fall back on static conventions, they demonstrably don't have to.
Similarly I could still flip this argument the other direction and point at the static nature of most open world designs that have been thus-far delivered. The amount of open world games with dynamic resource nodes, dungeons, etc, can be counted on but a few fingers. This brings with it all the previously mentioned faults/concerns as a result too.
It seems to me from the number of posts on this thread that we don't want it but we want something and we are not getting it.
Exactly what though? I am not a fan of instances, but they solve problems like dungeon waiting, sometimes you just have to except that good gameplay comes before good open world.
I'd actually prefer a game to be designed in a way to minimise dungeon/boss waiting (eg. spreading similar loot among multiple areas, not having such unique items that makes people want to camp, having a large enough world relative to population, etc etc etc) over implementing instances.
Instances break the entire concept of role playing a character within a world to me. It no longer becomes a "world that you are to immerse yourself into", it becomes a "game" to me, and I think there are many who would agree.
This is one reason I like a few games in the survival genre currently. The worlds are tiny, but no instances etc, none of these "work-arounds" implemented just because it allows scaling of content and adding on content easily. It works with some games because they have designed it around instancing in the first place, it lends itself to it, and sure instancing gives some benefits and solves some problems well for that type of game. The problem is just to re-iterate, for some, it is one of those systems that moves towards creating a "game to play" not a "world to get immersed in".
This all relates to how earlier in the thread I was saying many of these games nowadays are like "arcade games". There are tons of features added these days that "show" to the player that what you are doing, is obviously playing a game, not immersing yourself into a world.
So, in my opinion, basically everything in the way you are designing your "world" (if this is the style of game you choose of course) and its systems (if you want to have an immersive rpg world) is to absolutely prioritise keeping onto the immsersive world aspect of the game. This means basically this is the most important thing, it is the priority, so something like instancing is a no no.
Does your "world" have any form of teleportation, flying, fast travel?
If so, then claims about instances destroying someone's immersion don't impress me.
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
The only reason it seems I am circling you over and over on this. Is because your only open world all the time arguement has a fatal flaw in it that you seem to be either ignoring or not addressing properly. Until that it solved, your arguement is pointless to me.
You can have a wonder pill that cures almost every ailment, but if you take it and die, does it even matter all the good things it cures?
Thats how I am looking at your open world only environment. No matter how many positives you come up with if the 1 fatal flaw results in driving all the players away.
Players can be completely toxic to eachother. Most players will not put up with that and will just leave. At a minimum they need the content that is most important to them to be safe so they can cooperate in an overall fun environment.
This is the main reason open worlds fail currently is the playerbase is forced to deal with jerks all the time for their important content, their is only so much people can take and most are fed up.
This is the main reason open worlds fail currently is the playerbase is forced to deal with jerks all the time for their important content, their is only so much people can take and most are fed up.
What about having a real ignore button? Not just ignoring what they say but ignoring the entire character completely.
And of course all the subsequent things that must happen because of it like messages indicating the player "is about to join a party with an ignored character ... " etc.
Of course that would only work in a pve game. I'm all for strict moderation for pvp games.
Then again I doubt game companies are going to be good about that but you never know.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
This is the main reason open worlds fail currently is the playerbase is forced to deal with jerks all the time for their important content, their is only so much people can take and most are fed up.
What about having a real ignore button? Not just ignoring what they say but ignoring the entire character completely.
And of course all the subsequent things that must happen because of it like messages indicating the player "is about to join a party with an ignored character ... " etc.
Of course that would only work in a pve game. I'm all for strict moderation for pvp games.
Then again I doubt game companies are going to be good about that but you never know.
Yeah hard to really visualize how you implement this. They cant see a mob you tagged? You cant see the mobs they train into your party? What happens if someone in your group attacks the mob they are attacking.
Yeah I dont see how this works. People do things not just by typing in chat, they also actively use the game world to jack people.
I have seen people at high level slaughter ever single rabbit/pig/goat in a newbie zone just so newbs cant skill up. Some people think ruining other peoples day is funny.
This is the main reason open worlds fail currently is the playerbase is forced to deal with jerks all the time for their important content, their is only so much people can take and most are fed up.
What about having a real ignore button? Not just ignoring what they say but ignoring the entire character completely.
And of course all the subsequent things that must happen because of it like messages indicating the player "is about to join a party with an ignored character ... " etc.
Of course that would only work in a pve game. I'm all for strict moderation for pvp games.
Then again I doubt game companies are going to be good about that but you never know.
Yeah hard to really visualize how you implement this. They cant see a mob you tagged? You cant see the mobs they train into your party? What happens if someone in your group attacks the mob they are attacking.
Yeah I dont see how this works. People do things not just by typing in chat, they also actively use the game world to jack people.
I have seen people at high level slaughter ever single rabbit/pig/goat in a newbie zone just so newbs cant skill up. Some people think ruining other peoples day is funny.
There was once an indie game in development, Citadel of Sorcery I think whose lone pitchman (Jarek?) used to claim they planned to design an ignore system which could let a player permanently banish another from ever being seen again.
They never actually demo'd the system, or showed much beyond a few crap videos including footage for their failed Kickstarter.
They kept the farce going for quite a while, including a $1000 a pop premium pledge which some suckers actually bought.
One day Jarek posted the developers had hit an impassible block in their design for which there was no recovery and shut down their website.
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
Most people want to play the content on their term and that's why instancing became the norm for group content.
WoW stopped with open world raid bosses for very good reasons, if you weren't in a guild that could get 25+ to show up immediately as they spawned you never saw them. It was a design that promotes nolife gaming.
You can't design encounter in open world like you can do for instanced content although it does lead to absurd choreography sometimes.
The race between mechanics and UI can get bit troublesome, but I find that UI limitations lead to problems that shouldn't exist in the first place. Without good UI you get limited amount of mechanics that are really slow and very obvious.
I don't find level and gear progression interesting anymore, its a carrot on a stick design that allows developers to be lazy and make copy paste content. To keep my attention the actual content has to be interesting, if its no longer interesting I play something else.
PS: the last part might not be completely true because I find that I do way too much simplistic content with silly rewards than I like to admit.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Cut scenes in an MMORPG? They would be a blatant slap in the face of immersion to me.
It just shows you how different we are when it comes to immersion. To me we use a user interface, we chat with text, we chat on Discord, we are constantly favouring gameplay and ease of play over immersion. So a cut scene would be fine. Where I have immersion issues is in things that don't have to be there for any gameplay reason. Like modern humour in a MMO set in the medieval ages, or reference to a modern political issue (Vanguard referencing a UN mess up for example). Another would be the thing that is clearly out of place, I remember this beautifully created Dunnish town in Lotro, you had this amazing feeling of really being there and then you saw the ubiquitous stripped barber pole that pops up in every town and you just gnash your teeth.
Also, still interested in how you avoid with design what I think of as "sleight of hand" in a game (like a cutscene) to avoid dungeon queues outside the door and the like?
Comments
You can set up instanced dungeons in such a way that is hard to notice, you don't have to port players in from remote locations or have small groups all standing around the entrance. You could do that porting with a cutscene showing you riding into the instanced dungeon area to meet your group for example.
However if it is the mere fact that you know it is instanced I think you need to work on your "theatre of the MMORPG" skills more to ignore such things. It is all in the mind and we have to put so much of that aside...Hello Mr User Interface.
Someone who is registered as being a flex offender is a person who feels the need to flex about everything they say.
Always be the guy that paints the house in the dark.
Lucidity can be forged with enough liquidity and pharmed for decades with enough compound interest that a reachable profit would never end.
Was playing the Skryim Mod "Darkend" over the weekend and I was thoroughly engrossed and "immersed" with what was going on in the game.
I'll add that I've played some VR games and the experience was amazing. Too bad for me that I get nauseous with the headset.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
So what I am saying is, if you make a niche product, make a game that appeals to the entire niche. 50 people is not the going to represent a large enough base. Even 1 million people is still small, but its at least something to work with.
Targeting 1% of .00001% of 1 billion potential gamers is too small a number to be successful. Devs need to move the decimal to remove some zeroes but not necessarily all the zero's.
It's still falling back on the old system, and still comes with all the negatives I mentioned.
Once upon a time....
I personally dont think the hater negatives outweigh the fanbois positives fully unless the game just really pisses on the fanbois. The reason being is that many failing games seem to get 50%+ positives.
So for me anything below 75% positive usually means is below my standards.
A lot of people doesnt really mean anything to me, alot can mean 100 people out of 20,000,000. When you say alot are you saying a majority? Are you saying these people are so dissatisfied they will not buy the product next time?
I think this studio has a history of making hard products, and has created a market for their product that its core can depend on. Its playing to that core, and its being well received and rewarded for that.
I've given answers to the problems. You're ignoring them and restating your issue.
Now, if you start coming up with work-arounds to my answers, which you haven't because you can't, then we can discuss it.
Once upon a time....
Once upon a time....
I think its more about they want other random players in the instance with them, so they can ruin your day and somehow that makes things more exciting for them. More likely they are the people ruining peoples day and laughing thinking thats somehow fun.
Its the same way griefers defend the griefing mechanics, thinking they can control that human behavior if left unchecked.
I think you got this all wrong, first off, I am a big group player and the complete opposite of a single player. Instances allow people to group and focus on the pve content. They allow people to approach bosses with strategy instead of worrying about getting ganked at 10% health, or seeing their boss get trained on by some guy running 100 mobs on purpose just to mess up your boss attempt so they can kill steal for their guild. Instances allow for cooperation so you dont have to always look over your should for some dbag human player.
I cant tell if you are living in your own dream world and have your head buried in the sand of what obvious open world problems are. Or you are just pretending not to understand because you like these griefing systems.
Instances do not have to be fixed. I can give you a few examples
1) instance portals can be completely random where they pop up in the game world.
2) the content inside instances can be completely random, I have seen instances worlds with a million different seeds.
Diablo does both of these.
The content could be fixed, but doesnt have to be.
I could easily argue that instances can allow for an even bigger world than any open world. An open world truely is fixed, where instances dont have to be. So your entire fixed static content for instances is actually completely backwards.
And neither of you would be playing that game. You wouldn't be playing a game where you are ganked at 10% health or some such thing.
What you are essentially describing was Lineage 2.
And I have to say some of my best mmorpg memories are because of player vs player gameplay. That was the fun. It felt like a living world because of the players.
So many great stories. And no instances.
We were once downing Lilith and a farmer group showed up and demanded that we leave. So we took them all out.
An alliance once took over Cruma and wouldn't let anyone in, so another alliance poured in and removed them.
That's the game play.
Now, I get it, that's not for everyone. but again neither of you would be playing a game like that. But it's fun for those who want it.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Will you please stop spawning Strawman Bosses?
But that's a good point about random locations, etc., through Instances.
But it still leaves all the other problems.
And "socialness" is NOT about your relatively little group. It's about the game as a whole, players meeting new players, making new friends and associations, finding new economic suppliers and buyers, and all the things that make up a "living, breathing" WORLD rather than the SP/MP game you evidently want.
And that's Same-Old-Same-Old at its core. That's what needs changed.
Once upon a time....
He's just circling me, over and over again.
Once upon a time....
We had a great time in Lineage 2. I do think they are niche games and I do think that there is a delicate balance that the dev teams have to manage in order to make them compelling to their core demographic.
I can certainly tell you I had more fun in Lineage 2 than any other mmorpg ever. Probably because the game play wasn't stale and the world with its various factions made it feel alive.
But again, not for everyone.
um no sure why he's circling you?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It also demonstrates that while you could argue many devs fall back on static conventions, they demonstrably don't have to.
Similarly I could still flip this argument the other direction and point at the static nature of most open world designs that have been thus-far delivered. The amount of open world games with dynamic resource nodes, dungeons, etc, can be counted on but a few fingers. This brings with it all the previously mentioned faults/concerns as a result too.
If so, then claims about instances destroying someone's immersion don't impress me.
"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
The only reason it seems I am circling you over and over on this. Is because your only open world all the time arguement has a fatal flaw in it that you seem to be either ignoring or not addressing properly. Until that it solved, your arguement is pointless to me.
You can have a wonder pill that cures almost every ailment, but if you take it and die, does it even matter all the good things it cures?
Thats how I am looking at your open world only environment. No matter how many positives you come up with if the 1 fatal flaw results in driving all the players away.
Players can be completely toxic to eachother. Most players will not put up with that and will just leave. At a minimum they need the content that is most important to them to be safe so they can cooperate in an overall fun environment.
This is the main reason open worlds fail currently is the playerbase is forced to deal with jerks all the time for their important content, their is only so much people can take and most are fed up.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Yeah I dont see how this works. People do things not just by typing in chat, they also actively use the game world to jack people.
I have seen people at high level slaughter ever single rabbit/pig/goat in a newbie zone just so newbs cant skill up. Some people think ruining other peoples day is funny.
They never actually demo'd the system, or showed much beyond a few crap videos including footage for their failed Kickstarter.
They kept the farce going for quite a while, including a $1000 a pop premium pledge which some suckers actually bought.
One day Jarek posted the developers had hit an impassible block in their design for which there was no recovery and shut down their website.
"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
WoW stopped with open world raid bosses for very good reasons, if you weren't in a guild that could get 25+ to show up immediately as they spawned you never saw them. It was a design that promotes nolife gaming.
You can't design encounter in open world like you can do for instanced content although it does lead to absurd choreography sometimes.
The race between mechanics and UI can get bit troublesome, but I find that UI limitations lead to problems that shouldn't exist in the first place. Without good UI you get limited amount of mechanics that are really slow and very obvious.
I don't find level and gear progression interesting anymore, its a carrot on a stick design that allows developers to be lazy and make copy paste content. To keep my attention the actual content has to be interesting, if its no longer interesting I play something else.
PS: the last part might not be completely true because I find that I do way too much simplistic content with silly rewards than I like to admit.
Also, still interested in how you avoid with design what I think of as "sleight of hand" in a game (like a cutscene) to avoid dungeon queues outside the door and the like?