The point you just ignored to repeat the same inane argument that travel by itself is boring, is that travel as an integrated system and a tool has depth and we can see it's application in generating such across plenty of games.
That is your problem. Just space engineer represent a small small sample of games.
Just take real games, and not stuff you imagine in your head. Open world games like Fallout, Skyrim, ACS, Division, ... many many games .. most have fast travel because even though they put stuff into the world, travel is still boring (otherwise they would not have).
So you tell me .. is there a segment of open world games that actually does not have boring slow travel?
You can spew about tool & depth all your want ... but those are just empty concept.
And btw, don't raise racing game. In racing games, you are not traveling from point A to B. You can racing from point A to B with opponents, and that is NOT slow travelling by any stretch of imagination.
Seriously dude, did you not even watch that GDC video you linked?
Cadwell talked exactly about this, stating "By incensing players to learn these tools, by putting them in situations where they have to use these tools, you actually get these players to sample in a way they actually excited about a larger percent of your content."
What you're talking about isn't even a metric of popular opinion, it's of designer implementation. If we were to delve into popular opinion then we can point out your claim only applies to the western market as the eastern market (which is also a bigger gaming market) is voting very differently. The "unknown benefits" have already shown up in the form of interactive and mobile economic factors, territorial control and strategies based on unit travel time, scalable game scope and access to content types for staged game growth, etc. The statement was "... benefits to travel that you simply can't see" for a reason. It's not that it's unknown to all, just to 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
The point you just ignored to repeat the same inane argument that travel by itself is boring, is that travel as an integrated system and a tool has depth and we can see it's application in generating such across plenty of games.
That is your problem. Just space engineer represent a small small sample of games.
Just take real games, and not stuff you imagine in your head. Open world games like Fallout, Skyrim, ACS, Division, ... many many games .. most have fast travel because even though they put stuff into the world, travel is still boring (otherwise they would not have).
So you tell me .. is there a segment of open world games that actually does not have boring slow travel?
You can spew about tool & depth all your want ... but those are just empty concept.
And btw, don't raise racing game. In racing games, you are not traveling from point A to B. You can racing from point A to B with opponents, and that is NOT slow travelling by any stretch of imagination.
I listed plenty of titles previously if you'd like to take a look at the 18 other "real games" I made reference to during the course of this thread.
You just made the same mistake as axe anyways, where you are treating the western market as the only one without realizing the size or trends of the eastern market, which is where plenty of these games and innovations are coming from.
I already described the mechanics behind controlling user experience through travel do create different tiers (common design of FF titles being the eventual airship access). I also described the mechanics behind region-based economies, resource locations and tangible scarcity to drive a better emulated economy, changes to integration with the environment so that objectives generally aren't about traveling to a specific/finite location but can instead be roaming goals in the game, and many other functions that have come from pre-existing games utilizing time and travel to create depth.
Popular example that made it west? Lets try MGS where the only auto-travel really is the travel out of the major zones with a lot of means for "slow travel" within each place in order to build the very gameplay people enjoy in the game.
And where did I raise the subject of racing games? Please try to stay in reality while you are arguing. Though if you are going to bring them up, then I'll have to point out that racing games have made a lot of progress to become more full featured simulations over time and you can see some of the more popular titles are actually integrating sandbox features. Trackmania, for example. "Point A to Point B" is quite a small part of the overall principle of a racing game as they are having much ado about vehicle performance, speed, time trials, etc that all goes into it. Travel, however, is quite literally the fundamental aspect upon which the entire genre is defined.
Since it applies rather well still to your argument and apparently means you skipped over it (also being why you cut it out of the quote);
"What you just talked about are all time elements that are drawing the experience out some so that it's not one action immediately after the next. This goes even further in example by what Cadwell mentioned with using the likes of ability cooldowns for example.
Time and travel, those are one half of that equation with tools reliant on using time to generate pacing."
Instead of pretending these very argument topics weren't already covered way back at page six and wasting all our time, please try trolling somewhere else.
"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
Sorry but the some of the arguments come down to 'my opinion is more important than yours' but you are missing the more important argument which is 'is the game is designed FOR slow or fast travel'.
I personally prefer games where travel isn't an afterthought and is actually part of the games design.
Given the choice between an MMORPG with fast travel or no fast travel I will look at what the game is trying to be and choose accordingly. Some MMORPG's NEED fast travel because there is nothing to do between travel points. Some MMORPG's NEED slow travel because without it certain game mechanics are not able to function.
YOU might prefer fast travel and see no reason for it not to be in the game but that doesn't mean the game is for you or that slow travel is wasted time.
An example. The game has a quest where you have to prevent a spy from reaching the enemies castle. If the game had fast travel when you just click a button and wait outside the enemy castle then it is a pointless quest and the game mechanics and game design is BAD. If you have to look at the map and take one of the routes to pick up the trail and hope to beat the spy on the journey then the quest is now exciting and there is risk that you might fail.
If you listened to some people everyone would need to be turned into identical clones without the ability to think for there to only be 1 design of game so that they can finally be happy. No thanks!
Regarding "opinions", I've pointed out several times this isn't my opinion. This is the observable trends of which games succeed. It's the opinion of most gamers. The fact that my opinion matches theirs is just incidental.
Regarding "reasons", the biggest asshole in your life had reasons they did those things to you. Did that make those things okay? You just accepted his reasons? Or do you think that maybe this entire discussion is actually a discussion on whether the reasons themselves are justified? If I make a game about biking across Kansas in real-time, the fact that I've established a reason the game is ultra-tedious will not magically make players enjoy the game. They won't enjoy it. They'll call it crap, and they'll be right. So it doesn't matter what game design "reasons" a game exhibits, anymore than it mattered why that asshole did those things to you; yeah he had reasons, but they were stupid reasons and he shouldn't have had them.
Regarding MMORPGs "needing" slow travel, I've already delved into plenty of details here. I've spelled out specific mechanics that do everything that a game with slow travel does, and achieves the same strategy and depth, without players themselves experiencing the tedium firsthand. You could go back and read details why the "need" assumption is wrong, or you could understand a fairly simple point: in Starcraft 2 I can instantly teleport anywhere on the map but my Zerglings have a travel time. (So I as a player can always travel instantly to wherever the interesting decisions are made, but distance still has an important strategic implication.)
Regarding "game clones", you'll note that the Starcraft example immediately calls to mind an entirely new type of MMORPG where you have many travel-time-bound agents around the world moving goods, crafting, fighting, but you yourself are able to teleport to the viewpoint of any of them at will (with no travel time.) So within the bounds of sensible game design, there is still an unimaginably broad variety of types of games that can be made and your comment is empty.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
1. Claiming your opinion is not your opinion does not make it not your opinion. And to clarify again, if we were to take your opinion as representative of "most gamers" it would more accurately be said "most western gamers" as it does not align with the eastern market's trends.
2. Again, as Cadwell said; "Tools need to be limited in some way, it could be that they are inconsistently available. It could be that you have options A, B, and C and all of them have different uses or importance. It could be that there's a lot of cool-downs. It could be that they're just not provided to you when you need them by some mechanic. I think that's really really important, it can force players (if it's done in a way that doesn't feel arbitrary and lame, it feel's natural to the game) players naturally get into this "making do" and creativity mode."
3. The claim isn't all MMORPGs "need slow travel". The claim is that MMORPGs designed as virtual worlds with travel as a tool actually creates quite a lot of depth and novelty that, unlike you wish to claim, is not replicable without it. The closes you get is circumventing or creating a different kind of obstacle that would work in a similar way. For examle your early dialogue using the Capitalism 2 game. They circumvented the use of travel and interim busy actions by representing it all with progress bars and the results, instead of being interactive measures of player skill, were randomly generated.
4. You do understand your "new type of MMORPG" is an MMORTS (of which multiple already exist) right? You break your own argument by proposing the use of a different game genre. It was also shown how you can integrate such systems without breaking apart the notion of player being a single entity/agent. The problem that exists foremost is that you have chosen to characterize the game world in a very particular way it seems, and any player interaction and controls that comes forth is something applied on top of that. Problem is, that makes all these games very "samey" right out the gate. This is basically just a rehash of 3.
"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
4. You do understand your "new type of MMORPG" is an MMORTS (of which multiple already exist) right?
It is not like MMORPG means much anymore. Certainly the discussion should include other MMOs just because there are no more new AAA mmorpg development in the west.
As far as the east go, they are catering to their audience. If the audience like to walk around endlessly, i have nothing against it. But that is not my, or the western audience's preference.
Sure, but then I'll again refer you to ~ page six again where we already addressed the nature of time and travel as it applies to the RTS genre, and how it'd equally apply to an MMORTS.
Retreading the same argument over and over in the same thread is not going to change reality.
"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
1) We are playing games ... i can easily suspend my disbelief if the screen pop a screen up and said "you just walk 2 days and now arrive at ...." and magically i appear at my destination. There is a reason why in movies, when people travel, they don't show a two hour drive .... and i don't see a suspension of belief to be a problem in movies.
You are missing the point. It's not fast travel that causes disbelief. It's tiny lands that you can walk the length of in 10 minutes, and towns with six inhabitants. Fast travel is essential and not a problem. But it should be fast travel over a landscape that is geographically credible.
so play The Division or Assassin Creed Syndicate .. you have a whole city to fast travel or slow travel in.
I'm willing to be relaxation is one of the man motivators in learning to sew. Some do learn to sew because it can be useful to know, but in today's world it's not needed any more than long travel times in a game. Someone else can be paid a cheap price to do it or you can replace whatever is ripped. As I said there may be unseen benefits to travel that you simple can't see, but refuse to accept that perhaps there is something there that you or others haven't been able to work out with logic at this point in time.
You seem to be ignoring the arbitrary emotional value we attach to hand-made things. In some cases it's also superior utility too (mass produced goods aren't always the pinnacle of quality, and sometimes hand-made goods are actually superior.) Also in this "I can make things" motivation, I'm lumping in the psychological concept of autonomy -- whether fears of a breakdown of our economy prove true or not, this person gains comfort knowing they're not as reliant on that economy.
I'm not trying to claim that all of that put together is a bigger motivation than the other two motivations, but it's all still a factor.
As for your last bit:
We haven't consistently seen tedious-slow-travel games topping the charts. So there's no logical reason to float this "unknown benefit" idea.
This makes it sound like you're saying, "there may be some way you're wrong." Well sure...but without logic or evidence that possibility doesn't feel very real, does it? So why bring it up?
Conversely, the thing that's been called "Axehilt's opinion" in this thread isn't actually my opinion but the opinion of the general gamer population*, because I'm describing traits of the games which have consistently been successful. (*Or more accurately: the way they've been voting with their wallets.)
They skip to the interesting bits.
I believe that it is a valid point. A lot of things that were thought to have no value and weren't practiced much came back into practice for various reasons. They often had unknown benefits to health and relaxation in some way. For large portions of time they were discarded by most people and still are to an extent, but we can see the benefits to the people who do them. The same could be said of traveling in gaming. Perhaps the mind was not meant to be constantly active while playing games. A lot of people ate mostly fast food in the 90s. Does that mean it was the healthy choice? I think there could be a lot of value that comes from travel and other game mechanics written off by the masses. I do think it needs to be done in the right way and perhaps that is part of why most people don't like it. Travel is often empty in today's game. It may have nice scenery, but there isn't even a good classical music tune to make it more enjoyable. There isn't even an attempt to make travel enjoyable in game.
I believe that it is a valid point. A lot of things that were thought to have no value and weren't practiced much came back into practice for various reasons. They often had unknown benefits to health and relaxation in some way. For large portions of time they were discarded by most people and still are to an extent, but we can see the benefits to the people who do them. The same could be said of traveling in gaming. Perhaps the mind was not meant to be constantly active while playing games. A lot of people ate mostly fast food in the 90s. Does that mean it was the healthy choice? I think there could be a lot of value that comes from travel and other game mechanics written off by the masses. I do think it needs to be done in the right way and perhaps that is part of why most people don't like it. Travel is often empty in today's game. It may have nice scenery, but there isn't even a good classical music tune to make it more enjoyable. There isn't even an attempt to make travel enjoyable in game.
With fast food there has always been a clear understanding that it wasn't a healthy choice. The masses choose it largely because of cost and convenience, not because they believe it's healthy.
Unlike fast food, there aren't more expensive higher quality choices in games.
More importantly, there's zero indication that slow travel provides a benefit worth the cost in tedium.
So really the analogy makes zero sense unless you turn it completely around:
Your point is maybe there's a benefit to fast food we don't know about.
My first point is there's no evidence of a game turning out particularly healthy after eating fast food. (Fast food being tedious slow travel.)
My second point is logic: we have a pretty good understanding of the set of things that cause players to enjoy games, and fast food provides none of those nutrients that allow a game to be healthy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I believe that it is a valid point. A lot of things that were thought to have no value and weren't practiced much came back into practice for various reasons. They often had unknown benefits to health and relaxation in some way. For large portions of time they were discarded by most people and still are to an extent, but we can see the benefits to the people who do them. The same could be said of traveling in gaming. Perhaps the mind was not meant to be constantly active while playing games.
lol .. really? health benefits? We are talking about games here, where the purpose is fun right? we are not talking about mental health, education, or anything like that, right?
So what if the mind is not meant to be constantly active while playing games. Just stop, quit and do something else. Is there a reason why players need to be bored?
You can certainly try to argue why slow travel is not boring (which I have not seen anything compelling yet). But trying to argue being bored is good for video games ... really?
FF games and most JRPGs thrived quite well with such mechanics in place.
Again, an easy example of a game utilizing control of travel speed as a way to influence the game being how FF titles have traditionally utilized land travel and airship travel.
Your logic also again goes against your own cited sources.
As Cadwell put it;
"Generally in Roguelikes players have diverse challenges and diverse tools, and often those diverse tools are imperfect tools." "By designing for this, you really encourage player activity and reward." "By incensing players to learn these tools, by putting them in situations where they have to use these tools, you actually get these players to sample in a way they actually excited about a larger percent of your content."
"Imperfect tools." The very principle of using an "imperfect tool" like slower travel is, again, the quality of it's integration into the rest of the game and how that can spur players into experiencing and exploring the game's content as well as it's ability to offer depth to features like region-based economies, item scarcity, etc through making such things have a tangible cause and effect.
If the argument is that fast food is more convenient, then that runs considerably more in tandem with how fast travel exists as a convenience factor. Fast food, like fast travel, is about getting in and out so you get what you need and hop to the next task. It cuts out the labor of developing something as well as the potential for anything different (for better or worse) to develop.
"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
so play The Division or Assassin Creed Syndicate .. you have a whole city to fast travel or slow travel in.
Since when were those games fantasy MMORPGs?
since when are we talking only about fantasy MMORPGs? This topic is about MMOs, and TD is close enough.
And since when MMOs cannot learn from single player games like ACS and Fallout 4?
Umm, about the whole thread. If I wanted to play a modern-setting shoot-em-up, I'm sure The Division would do well - or GTA for that matter, or Just Cause. But I don't.
Fallout 4 is an interesting case. Again, it is too small compared to the real world (Concorde MA is about two streets large) but it gets away with it to a degree because at least, in a post-apocalyptic world, one does not expect a large population and a viable economy.
Though as with ACS, we are only talking about one city, whereas Azeroth in WoW (for example) is supposed to be a whole planet. Except it seems to be a whole planet about the size of Colonsay.
The single player game that MMOs need to learn from is Daggerfall.
so play The Division or Assassin Creed Syndicate .. you have a whole city to fast travel or slow travel in.
Since when were those games fantasy MMORPGs?
since when are we talking only about fantasy MMORPGs? This topic is about MMOs, and TD is close enough.
And since when MMOs cannot learn from single player games like ACS and Fallout 4?
Umm, about the whole thread. If I wanted to play a modern-setting shoot-em-up, I'm sure The Division would do well - or GTA for that matter, or Just Cause. But I don't.
Fallout 4 is an interesting case. Again, it is too small compared to the real world (Concorde MA is about two streets large) but it gets away with it to a degree because at least, in a post-apocalyptic world, one does not expect a large population and a viable economy.
Though as with ACS, we are only talking about one city, whereas Azeroth in WoW (for example) is supposed to be a whole planet. Except it seems to be a whole planet about the size of Colonsay.
The single player game that MMOs need to learn from is Daggerfall.
well, i hate to break it to you, but this topic is not about what you like to play, but about space & time (i suppose slow/fast travel) in MMOs.
Sure you don't like TD. Do you deny the dev, and some are calling it a MMO?
What MMOs need to learn from, are successful games, not ancient ones that you like. But again, it is up to the dev of what they make, not us.
well, i hate to break it to you, but this topic is not about what you like to play, but about space & time (i suppose slow/fast travel) in MMOs.
Sure you don't like TD. Do you deny the dev, and some are calling it a MMO?
What MMOs need to learn from, are successful games, not ancient ones that you like. But again, it is up to the dev of what they make, not us.
No, the issue is not what I like, but credibility in MMO world building, of which the handling of space is a key issue. Daggerfall matters because it is an example of a game that actually does give a feel for a huge continent, which, generally, MMOs do not. How Daggerfall handled fast/slow travel is instructive for the purposes of this discussion, and the key question is whether it could be successfully updated, with modern technology, into a rich world with a credible geography, where slow travel was interesting, if you wanted to do it, and fast travel available otherwise.
And the second obvious question is - if you could make such a game, would it be successful in terms of popularity? Or to put it another way, maybe I would like it, but would everyone else?
No, the issue is not what I like, but credibility in MMO world building, of which the handling of space is a key issue.
Who needs "credibility" in MMO world building? Most MMOs are not about persistent virtual worlds anyway.
Do you see WOW not selling because the cities are too small? Do you see LoL failing because there is not even a world?
In fact, look at London in ACS and NYC in The Division. Do you really think those games will be more successful if they have twice the size of the world? Or that they take away fast travel?
In MMORPG there are almost no games not aimed at a select audience of gamers the last decade. Its equivalent of saying people who attend wine tasting tend to like wine. You can not use this a metric to say this is what all gamers or even a majority of gamers want since its a very small portion of gamers. You're not going to find people who gravitate towards empty travel through out leveled zones for no reason.
Game design does not exist in a bubble. That's why most of the things discussed like depth, decisions have only a marginal effect on games directly. A simple game that does what it does well sell better than deep games that are clunky. Even good games that have a lot of depth and quality decisions get outsold by simple games people can jump into an enjoy. Games with good symbiotic systems are quality games regardless of depth and number of decisions. To the point... travel has to be integrated into the game systems just like anything else. Deep and good combat sucks if your level design, controls, response, UI, and NPCs all are bad.
I used my example of GTA because travel is the game and it uses missions which are equivalent to MMORPG quest systems. Traveling from Los Santos to Blaine County takes time. You have options of how to travel by multiple cars, ships, planes and helicopters. Each drive there will likely be different and its own adventure.
The GTA series operates on creating your own mayhem during your travels. Its one of the greatest all time selling games. There is nothing stopping MMORPG from using similar game play because they both you a quest hub like system. This travel system revolves around things just happening which MMORPG themeparks lack due to a lot of static play and progressive levels.
The GTA series operates on creating your own mayhem during your travels. Its one of the greatest all time selling games. There is nothing stopping MMORPG from using similar game play because they both you a quest hub like system. This travel system revolves around things just happening which MMORPG themeparks lack due to a lot of static play and progressive levels.
and yet that design is not adopted by other open world games.
Of course there is something stopping MMORPGs from using similar gameplay ... audience preferences. If players want to just do dungeons, and hate the mmorpg equivalent of driving a taxi or helicopter, devs won't go in that direction.
The dark zone in The Division does not have fast travel right?
I mean, you have to wait for pick up right?
So it was a design choice to have a mechanic adding potentially a set period of time where nothing can happen.
Just like any game where fast or slow travel is a design choice based on game mechanics.
Stop trying to lump all games into the same bucket.
Some games need slow travel some need fast.
Hmm.
So, the dark zone in The Division does not have fast travel yet the game is a huge success.
But Narius would have us believe that most gamers have zero tolerance for such a thing; how did the game become so successful, and so quickly?
Are people just steering clear from the dark zone, or is it actually a popular part of the game?
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
In MMORPG there are almost no games not aimed at a select audience of gamers the last decade. Its equivalent of saying people who attend wine tasting tend to like wine. You can not use this a metric to say this is what all gamers or even a majority of gamers want since its a very small portion of gamers. You're not going to find people who gravitate towards empty travel through out leveled zones for no reason.
Game design does not exist in a bubble. That's why most of the things discussed like depth, decisions have only a marginal effect on games directly. A simple game that does what it does well sell better than deep games that are clunky. Even good games that have a lot of depth and quality decisions get outsold by simple games people can jump into an enjoy. Games with good symbiotic systems are quality games regardless of depth and number of decisions. To the point... travel has to be integrated into the game systems just like anything else. Deep and good combat sucks if your level design, controls, response, UI, and NPCs all are bad.
I used my example of GTA because travel is the game and it uses missions which are equivalent to MMORPG quest systems. Traveling from Los Santos to Blaine County takes time. You have options of how to travel by multiple cars, ships, planes and helicopters. Each drive there will likely be different and its own adventure.
The GTA series operates on creating your own mayhem during your travels. Its one of the greatest all time selling games. There is nothing stopping MMORPG from using similar game play because they both you a quest hub like system. This travel system revolves around things just happening which MMORPG themeparks lack due to a lot of static play and progressive levels.
Again, you don't quite seem to grasp the conversation.
In your wine analogy, good gameplay isn't the wine, good gameplay is almost all forms of high-quality drinks. It's water (interesting decisions in Civilization), beer (interesting decisions in Starcraft), wine (interesting decisions in MMORPG), and every other successful game genre you can think of.
Meanwhile tedious slow travel is sort of like tar: It's not part of any good drinks.
My point is essentially "there isn't evidence of tar being part of good drinks, and logically we understand how human tastebuds work so we know why we obviously wouldn't like that taste."
You seem to want to disagree with this, presumably for no reason other than to try to disagree with me.
The analogy captures the fact that I'm only saying tedious slow travel (and similar devoid-of-gameplay game mechanics) is a bad idea. It doesn't mean we don't have water (Civ), beer (SC2), or wine (WOW). It just means we don't want tar. Tons of drink variety exists in spite of that tiny limitation.
You also don't seem to understand that any game mechanic which you think requires tedious slow travel doesn't require it. Which might be expected, given that gamers are generally incapable of understanding things they haven't played. But in this case my example was Starcraft (where distances matter, but travel times don't impose a limit on the flow of interesting decisions) which is something you likely have played; so you should understand that strategy can exist without forcing the player to endure tedious slow travel. If you haven't played Starcraft, then pick any RTS game you have played.
As mentioned several times, GTA's driving mechanics offer moderately deep travel gameplay. You actually can be considered skilled or unskilled at driving, right? And how many times have I pointed out to you that the skill cap of a game (being considered skilled or not) is a strong indication of game depth and that depth is what makes travel acceptable?
GTA has never been a point of contention. The real-world, actual tedium experienced in MMORPG travel (which is shallow) is the point of contention. If you wish to agree with me that MMORPG travel sucks, then we can drop the conversation. But if you insist MMORPG travel doesn't suck, even though it involves none of the skill mastery of your favorite example (GTA), then you're going to have to pick a new favorite example of travel because GTA's travel is not representative of MMORPG travel.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
Just take real games, and not stuff you imagine in your head. Open world games like Fallout, Skyrim, ACS, Division, ... many many games .. most have fast travel because even though they put stuff into the world, travel is still boring (otherwise they would not have).
So you tell me .. is there a segment of open world games that actually does not have boring slow travel?
You can spew about tool & depth all your want ... but those are just empty concept.
And btw, don't raise racing game. In racing games, you are not traveling from point A to B. You can racing from point A to B with opponents, and that is NOT slow travelling by any stretch of imagination.
Cadwell talked exactly about this, stating "By incensing players to learn these tools, by putting them in situations where they have to use these tools, you actually get these players to sample in a way they actually excited about a larger percent of your content."
What you're talking about isn't even a metric of popular opinion, it's of designer implementation. If we were to delve into popular opinion then we can point out your claim only applies to the western market as the eastern market (which is also a bigger gaming market) is voting very differently.
The "unknown benefits" have already shown up in the form of interactive and mobile economic factors, territorial control and strategies based on unit travel time, scalable game scope and access to content types for staged game growth, etc. The statement was "... benefits to travel that you simply can't see" for a reason. It's not that it's unknown to all, just to 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
You just made the same mistake as axe anyways, where you are treating the western market as the only one without realizing the size or trends of the eastern market, which is where plenty of these games and innovations are coming from.
I already described the mechanics behind controlling user experience through travel do create different tiers (common design of FF titles being the eventual airship access). I also described the mechanics behind region-based economies, resource locations and tangible scarcity to drive a better emulated economy, changes to integration with the environment so that objectives generally aren't about traveling to a specific/finite location but can instead be roaming goals in the game, and many other functions that have come from pre-existing games utilizing time and travel to create depth.
Popular example that made it west? Lets try MGS where the only auto-travel really is the travel out of the major zones with a lot of means for "slow travel" within each place in order to build the very gameplay people enjoy in the game.
And where did I raise the subject of racing games? Please try to stay in reality while you are arguing. Though if you are going to bring them up, then I'll have to point out that racing games have made a lot of progress to become more full featured simulations over time and you can see some of the more popular titles are actually integrating sandbox features. Trackmania, for example. "Point A to Point B" is quite a small part of the overall principle of a racing game as they are having much ado about vehicle performance, speed, time trials, etc that all goes into it. Travel, however, is quite literally the fundamental aspect upon which the entire genre is defined.
Since it applies rather well still to your argument and apparently means you skipped over it (also being why you cut it out of the quote);
"What you just talked about are all time elements that are drawing the experience out some so that it's not one action immediately after the next. This goes even further in example by what Cadwell mentioned with using the likes of ability cooldowns for example.
Time and travel, those are one half of that equation with tools reliant on using time to generate pacing."
Instead of pretending these very argument topics weren't already covered way back at page six and wasting all our time, please try trolling somewhere else.
"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
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
2. Again, as Cadwell said; "Tools need to be limited in some way, it could be that they are inconsistently available. It could be that you have options A, B, and C and all of them have different uses or importance. It could be that there's a lot of cool-downs. It could be that they're just not provided to you when you need them by some mechanic. I think that's really really important, it can force players (if it's done in a way that doesn't feel arbitrary and lame, it feel's natural to the game) players naturally get into this "making do" and creativity mode."
3. The claim isn't all MMORPGs "need slow travel". The claim is that MMORPGs designed as virtual worlds with travel as a tool actually creates quite a lot of depth and novelty that, unlike you wish to claim, is not replicable without it. The closes you get is circumventing or creating a different kind of obstacle that would work in a similar way. For examle your early dialogue using the Capitalism 2 game. They circumvented the use of travel and interim busy actions by representing it all with progress bars and the results, instead of being interactive measures of player skill, were randomly generated.
4. You do understand your "new type of MMORPG" is an MMORTS (of which multiple already exist) right? You break your own argument by proposing the use of a different game genre. It was also shown how you can integrate such systems without breaking apart the notion of player being a single entity/agent. The problem that exists foremost is that you have chosen to characterize the game world in a very particular way it seems, and any player interaction and controls that comes forth is something applied on top of that. Problem is, that makes all these games very "samey" right out the gate. This is basically just a rehash of 3.
"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
As far as the east go, they are catering to their audience. If the audience like to walk around endlessly, i have nothing against it. But that is not my, or the western audience's preference.
"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
Retreading the same argument over and over in the same thread is not going to change reality.
"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
Since when were those games fantasy MMORPGs?
And since when MMOs cannot learn from single player games like ACS and Fallout 4?
Unlike fast food, there aren't more expensive higher quality choices in games.
More importantly, there's zero indication that slow travel provides a benefit worth the cost in tedium.
So really the analogy makes zero sense unless you turn it completely around:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So what if the mind is not meant to be constantly active while playing games. Just stop, quit and do something else. Is there a reason why players need to be bored?
You can certainly try to argue why slow travel is not boring (which I have not seen anything compelling yet). But trying to argue being bored is good for video games ... really?
Again, an easy example of a game utilizing control of travel speed as a way to influence the game being how FF titles have traditionally utilized land travel and airship travel.
Your logic also again goes against your own cited sources.
As Cadwell put it;
"Generally in Roguelikes players have diverse challenges and diverse tools, and often those diverse tools are imperfect tools."
"By designing for this, you really encourage player activity and reward."
"By incensing players to learn these tools, by putting them in situations where they have to use these tools, you actually get these players to sample in a way they actually excited about a larger percent of your content."
"Imperfect tools." The very principle of using an "imperfect tool" like slower travel is, again, the quality of it's integration into the rest of the game and how that can spur players into experiencing and exploring the game's content as well as it's ability to offer depth to features like region-based economies, item scarcity, etc through making such things have a tangible cause and effect.
If the argument is that fast food is more convenient, then that runs considerably more in tandem with how fast travel exists as a convenience factor. Fast food, like fast travel, is about getting in and out so you get what you need and hop to the next task. It cuts out the labor of developing something as well as the potential for anything different (for better or worse) to develop.
"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
Fallout 4 is an interesting case. Again, it is too small compared to the real world (Concorde MA is about two streets large) but it gets away with it to a degree because at least, in a post-apocalyptic world, one does not expect a large population and a viable economy.
Though as with ACS, we are only talking about one city, whereas Azeroth in WoW (for example) is supposed to be a whole planet. Except it seems to be a whole planet about the size of Colonsay.
The single player game that MMOs need to learn from is Daggerfall.
Sure you don't like TD. Do you deny the dev, and some are calling it a MMO?
What MMOs need to learn from, are successful games, not ancient ones that you like. But again, it is up to the dev of what they make, not us.
And the second obvious question is - if you could make such a game, would it be successful in terms of popularity? Or to put it another way, maybe I would like it, but would everyone else?
Do you see WOW not selling because the cities are too small? Do you see LoL failing because there is not even a world?
In fact, look at London in ACS and NYC in The Division. Do you really think those games will be more successful if they have twice the size of the world? Or that they take away fast travel?
Game design does not exist in a bubble. That's why most of the things discussed like depth, decisions have only a marginal effect on games directly. A simple game that does what it does well sell better than deep games that are clunky. Even good games that have a lot of depth and quality decisions get outsold by simple games people can jump into an enjoy. Games with good symbiotic systems are quality games regardless of depth and number of decisions. To the point... travel has to be integrated into the game systems just like anything else. Deep and good combat sucks if your level design, controls, response, UI, and NPCs all are bad.
I used my example of GTA because travel is the game and it uses missions which are equivalent to MMORPG quest systems. Traveling from Los Santos to Blaine County takes time. You have options of how to travel by multiple cars, ships, planes and helicopters. Each drive there will likely be different and its own adventure.
The GTA series operates on creating your own mayhem during your travels. Its one of the greatest all time selling games. There is nothing stopping MMORPG from using similar game play because they both you a quest hub like system. This travel system revolves around things just happening which MMORPG themeparks lack due to a lot of static play and progressive levels.
Of course there is something stopping MMORPGs from using similar gameplay ... audience preferences. If players want to just do dungeons, and hate the mmorpg equivalent of driving a taxi or helicopter, devs won't go in that direction.
I mean, you have to wait for pick up right?
So it was a design choice to have a mechanic adding potentially a set period of time where nothing can happen.
Just like any game where fast or slow travel is a design choice based on game mechanics.
Stop trying to lump all games into the same bucket.
Some games need slow travel some need fast.
So, the dark zone in The Division does not have fast travel yet the game is a huge success.
But Narius would have us believe that most gamers have zero tolerance for such a thing; how did the game become so successful, and so quickly?
Are people just steering clear from the dark zone, or is it actually a popular part of the game?
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
- In your wine analogy, good gameplay isn't the wine, good gameplay is almost all forms of high-quality drinks. It's water (interesting decisions in Civilization), beer (interesting decisions in Starcraft), wine (interesting decisions in MMORPG), and every other successful game genre you can think of.
- Meanwhile tedious slow travel is sort of like tar: It's not part of any good drinks.
- My point is essentially "there isn't evidence of tar being part of good drinks, and logically we understand how human tastebuds work so we know why we obviously wouldn't like that taste."
- You seem to want to disagree with this, presumably for no reason other than to try to disagree with me.
The analogy captures the fact that I'm only saying tedious slow travel (and similar devoid-of-gameplay game mechanics) is a bad idea. It doesn't mean we don't have water (Civ), beer (SC2), or wine (WOW). It just means we don't want tar. Tons of drink variety exists in spite of that tiny limitation.You also don't seem to understand that any game mechanic which you think requires tedious slow travel doesn't require it. Which might be expected, given that gamers are generally incapable of understanding things they haven't played. But in this case my example was Starcraft (where distances matter, but travel times don't impose a limit on the flow of interesting decisions) which is something you likely have played; so you should understand that strategy can exist without forcing the player to endure tedious slow travel. If you haven't played Starcraft, then pick any RTS game you have played.
As mentioned several times, GTA's driving mechanics offer moderately deep travel gameplay. You actually can be considered skilled or unskilled at driving, right? And how many times have I pointed out to you that the skill cap of a game (being considered skilled or not) is a strong indication of game depth and that depth is what makes travel acceptable?
GTA has never been a point of contention. The real-world, actual tedium experienced in MMORPG travel (which is shallow) is the point of contention. If you wish to agree with me that MMORPG travel sucks, then we can drop the conversation. But if you insist MMORPG travel doesn't suck, even though it involves none of the skill mastery of your favorite example (GTA), then you're going to have to pick a new favorite example of travel because GTA's travel is not representative of MMORPG travel.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If people actually have tolerance for travelling, you think they need to put fast travel in all the other places?