The Lameness of Warcraft 354
Slate is running an article lamenting the fact that, despite World of Warcraft's popularity, it is a deeply flawed game. Author Chris Dahlen makes the statement that Blizzard's MMOG should take its cues from single-player RPGs by offering further customization, morality based choices, and dynamic events. From the article: "Blizzard has written new storylines before. Last winter, it challenged players to team up and fuel a worldwide war effort. As a payoff, it unlocked new territory. This was a good example of letting the users drive a story, but Warcraft needs more of them. New wars should break out, cities should rise and fall, and all hell should break loose at least once a month--and the players should be the ones to make it happen. After all, in a world that never changes, you can never make your mark." I want to be snarky and point out that this guy obviously has no idea how these games are designed, but I think he pretty much nails what every MMOG player really wants out of a game. Now, if only it were feasible within the bounds of money, time, and talent.
It's that bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's that bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's that bad... (Score:5, Funny)
*grin*
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D2 is much better technically, creatively, and for the genre (turns out that's what most people like) IMO.
Re:It's that bad... (Score:5, Funny)
I *must* remember to draw my DM's attention to this next time we play...
You've never had a good DM, have you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dice Rollers are numbers wranglers who want a good game of chance. The most common sub-species is the Hack-n-Slasher, but that's just because most rule sets lend themselves to that kind of dice rolling. In games that have skill rolls, you'll find these guys rolling for damn near every feat up to and including getting up in the morning. "An 18?!? I spring from my bed and land in my shoes in one smooth motion! Hurrah!"
Problem Solvers like puzzles and planning. These are the guys who calculate exactly how many miles your party will average per day trekking across the Great Arid Waste and know exactly how much food and water to pack. When the party stumbles across a series of levers and switches in the dungeon, these are the guys to call. "Gruntmore the Dwarf pulls the red lever, goes through the blue door, pushes the star shaped switch, coems back out, pushes the green lever to a 45 degree angle disabling the secret blade trap and we all go merrily on our way!"
Role Players like to have long, drawn out in-character conversations with every shopkeeper and passing peasant they encounter. Whereas Dice Rollers will do whatever it takes to win, and Problem Solvers playing stupid characters will still come up with genius plans, these guys are apt to do utterly stupid things if they think that's what their character would do. They also tend to talk about their characters in the first person. "I leap from behind the tree and run screaming at the horde of orcs- What? Yes, I know the plan was to sneak up on them, but I'm overconfident with anger management issues. But you should really say that in character..."
But perhaps I missed your point, were you saying RPGs are about item finding or RTSs are? In any case, I think the real trick to either is actually basing it on a good simulation of some sort, but having story telling hooks that can effect the sim in the scripting interface, and have those hooks have flexible triggers and random details so that the same basic plotline can be activated from many different starting points using characters and locations tailored to the individual players. But I understand how hard it would be to scale a system like that up to WoW levels.
The real problem with WoW is that it isn't an RPG and it isn't for people who traditionally like RPGs so the players who would bring real quality to the game are driven away by all the Azkiker4921s and l33tWariers in the game.
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The Real Man
The Real Roleplayer
The Loonie
The Munchkin
Re:You've never had a good DM, have you? (Score:4, Insightful)
These players tend to spend more time on character creation than playing. They plan out all their stats, profession changes, skills to practice, etc (depending on the game of course) long before they begin their first mission. Often perfectionists, but nearly always they want to create something-- to build something that wasn't there before, usually different than anything else and customized to their liking.
I think there's a little of this trait in everyone you mentioned, but nearly every hardcore MMORPG player falls into this category. Levelling and more often finding good items fuels this player type. Diablo II did (imho) a better job of feeding this kind of player, with ever stronger items and more varied builds. WoW does it by having a pretty well-defined "best" gear, but making sure to continually add new, better, gear over time.
As I think about it, this player probably fits pretty well into your Problem-Solver type, but it removes a lot of the roleplaying aspect of it. Rather than finding ingenious solutions to in-game problems, players now compare DPS in offline calculators.
Re:It's that bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're looking for a good marathon 2-night game, you're correct. If you're looking for potentially years of quality game-play while interacting with others, then WoW is the game for you, IMHO.
I say this, having played EverQuest for about four years, and having been impressed with much of the world and the story, but ultimately cheated by a company that wanted to milk the game without adding to its depth or richness. In many ways the depth of story and complexity of gameplay in WoW out-strip even early EQ, and they have fixed much of what made EQ painful (tradeskills, quests that weren't worth doing, etc.)
Heck, it's even beautiful, which EQ never really was for some reason (ignoring the progress that graphics have made, I almost never found the sense of art to be satisfying in EQ). When I fly into Orgimmar and see the red rooves and watchfires, it's truly imposing, which none of the EQ cities were (though the dragon city in Velios came close).
Fun story: yesterday I ran into a quest for the first time that involved nothing more than leaping off a tall mesa, presumably to my death. It was kind of cheesy, but really fun as a one-off quest. They seem to be much more playful with quests/missions than any game I've played.
Re:It's that bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I have a main and to the whole raid grind, but those alts bring alot of fun to the experience.
Just recently I logged into my very first character created at launch (but only lvld to 20), and oh was he a horrible mess, leather armor purchased from a vendor, a grey weapon... oh it was embarrassing.
Knowing the game mechanics and story, then traveling through
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You couldn't be more wrong. WoW end-game is incredibly rich. In fact, in many ways its almost a separate game. The problem is, its not accessible to the casual player. End-game consists of a series of raid instances, with a max raid size of 20 or 40 people. Progression through these i
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I am annoyed that I can't play it multi-player any more though, the modem/null modem/ipx-spx connection methods don't exactly work on my network these da
More Content (Score:4, Interesting)
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The problem is in practice (so far), most people would rather do well cr
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I don't mean in a Second Life kind of way, which I personally find very boring. I mean in a way where player and groups of players can change the political scene, move boundaries of empires and manage a complete, highly complicated economic system.
The only game I have found so far that even approaches the goal of the "Player Driven Universe" is Eve-Online.
I think the key component in the games success is that the entire game runs on a single
Top MMOGS of teh future (Score:3, Interesting)
Castles that rule housings. You have to conquer the castle to get it, then people who farm the land and run crafthouses pay tithes to you. Any band of adventurers can try and steal your Castle off you, but your offline guildmates show up and defend it.
Real time combat like Mortal Kombat or Tekken. It'd be like Zelda Ocariana of time MMOG. You would have to do all sorts of sword play or aiming bows like a FPS.
Those are just 3 of my big ideas.
I already did #3, but I'm making it multiplayer over the next couple months. I got some bugs with directdraw not working, but it doesn't stop the 3d action combat.
Re:Top MMOGS of teh future (Score:4, Informative)
1/ Consumables based on collected items exist in every game. This is not new, and WoW does this quite well. [OT: I thought AC motes were used for the weapons? Its been awhile...]
2/ See Shadowbane [shadowbane.com]. See 5am raids, see 'zerg [wikipedia.org]'. See server wide alliances. L2 also had something like this castle thing, I haven't heard much about it, so there is no comment on it. DAoC was the first to implement something like this with thier Artifacts: 3 static world objects that grant 1 of 3 realms various bonuses.
3/ Uhh, lag. Also, see "dialup users". Positioning doesnt work when the server and client have to sync up for positioning and time sensitive distance checks.
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sheer genius (Score:5, Insightful)
People never tire of making that analogy, do they? But it's probably about the most worthless analogy you could make. Reducing an activity to stimulus/response may seem clever, but the trouble is that it works for pretty much every human behavior imaginable. And it certainly works for every leisure activity.
The problem is that games are supposed to be fun. You're going to have to work really hard to come up with an alternative criteria. And since fun is pretty subjective, there's really not much room for criticism.
Art, literature, poetry, drama and film all have associate bodies of academic criticism and pop-derivatives. So there's a semi-objective framework from which you can criticize these works even if they are popular. Everyone rushes out to see "Titanic", but it still had some really, really lame dialog.
Unless you're going to make a similar attack on gaming (e.g. lame dialog, bad graphics, etc.) it's really hard to make any criticism that doesn't reduce to petulant whining. There simple is no cohesive theory of gaming criticism (outside of technical elements), and so before you start slinging criticisms you need to build the framework. I don't see that happening in this article.
So basically, it's just whining.
-stormin
All Games Are Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
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You'll also have a lot of users who leave their mark by creating giant penis statues. Enjoy.
Re:sheer genius (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I don't like that analogy... Personally I like to call WoW and EQ the games they are...
"Kill things over and over again so you can kill bigger things over and over again."
That is the problem I have with WoW, EQ, and various other Diki mud derivatives. Its solely focused on killing AI Mobs.
Ultima Online was more fun even though it was dated until they removed player interaction (Player killing and thieving). Sure many of you can't stand PvP, but in truth static quests, bad scripting, and poor AI will never beat playing against a human mind.
Even if you took the PVP away from UO, it still had crafting, housing, and plenty of non-combat activities that WoW and EQ lacks.
And the fact you only had to spend 3 months to generate a character with casual play rather than 6 months of hard core grinding.
Re:sheer genius (Score:5, Insightful)
New pet peeve: my style of game play is better than yours
I suppose I shouldn't be to harsh. This is just a public message board, not a peer-reviewed academic journal. But it's still annoying when people try to pass off personal preference as some kind of objective value statement. in this case you say "Sure many of you can't stand PvP, but in truth static quests, bad scripting, and poor AI will never beat playing against a human mind".
Aside the question-begging (does non-PvP have to involve bad scripting?) what I found truly obnoxious is the false idea that you can either play against an AI, or against a human. Believe it or not, some people don't see that question purely as picking your opponent, but they turn your dichotomy on its head and ask "who can I play with ?"
I get that you like PvP. And I'm not going to try and tell you that you shouldn't. But your myopically conflict-oriented viewpoint isn't the only one out there, you know. A lot of people like WoW because they enjoy cooperation. I love to shoot my buddies with a rocket launcher in the original Halo, but I also got intense satisfaction out of playing cooperatively with them against hordes of AI. Now you could play team vs. team, but A - some people don't enjoy "killing" each other, especially in an RPG where you actually do some type of damage to the person you "kill" and B - it's (so far) impossible to wrap massive PvP into a story line with any kind of script.
So in the end, you're no better off than the original article. You're trying to pass off personal preference as objective criticism.
-stormin
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I think the implied meaning is that MMORPGs are already reduced to basic stimulus/response, like masturbation. You just keep doing the same thing to get the same result. In other activities -- chess, scrabble, skiing, basketball -- you usually try to increase your actual skills, instead of just having a sign pop up sa
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You don't need a large body of academic knowledge to fess up to the skinner-box model of gaming. Its real.
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There is very little depth of gameplay when it comes to WoW. It deserves all the stimulus/response criticism it gets, because it is overly simplified. MMOs never have much in the way of gameplay, and that is why I don't play them. Without an element of skill, the game becomes repetitive once the shine of materialism wears off the players.
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No argument there. But a game can be addictive without being fun, and addictiveness is arguably easier to achieve than fun in game design. It's certainly far better understood.
I haven't played WoW or any of the other MMORPGs, but a lot of players seem to fall into this trap. I don't think I've ever h
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So what, pray tell, is the ultimate point of the game in the first place? If the answer is "to have fun" (and it should be) and if people have fun leveling up their characters (and several million seem to) than it seems you have no point.
-stormin
Yes Yes (Score:5, Funny)
You have been warned
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The author makes some excellent points but theyre not exactly new. People have been asking for more dynamic content and world changes since the early days of mudding.
Personally, I dont think most players would want things to get too dynamic. The game is driven by predicatable and published actions to gain levels. I doubt many players will take too kindly to "You town has been invaded and destroyed. Here is a new map that isnt on thott
Re:Yes Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
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Let's cry about it... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Have been playing it since early this year, never looked back to any other graphical MMOG.
I still casually play some browser/text-mainly not-so-massively multiplayer online games, but that's about it.
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I don't know about "deeply flawed", but I will call it an incredible implementation of a bad idea. WoW has sales numbers that are hard to argue with, but a lot of players want a lot more from an MMO and are already bored silly of WoW. I was a serious addict myself, did all the raids, got all my epics, played 40 or more hours a week, and haven't bothered to log in for 3 months. From what I see I'm not alone in hitting a point at which the game seems to just run out of steam.
Contrast that with SWG, a terrib
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Not really. (Score:2)
Money? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Other MMO's have/might get it right (Score:3, Insightful)
Players never face moral quandaries and never get to choose between an upstanding act and an evil one.
Everquest allowed you to do this on a daily basis. EQ2 as well. Vanguard (will be released Q1 2007) will have this element as well.
And on storytelling
And Vanguard is doing away with static spawns. It should be a good thing
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Everquest is bland and clunky. Ditto for EQ2.
Enough of the generalizations. (Score:5, Insightful)
Warcraft succeeds because blizzard realizes something the pundits don't, people still play games for fun.
Logging into an unknown situation isn't what most gamers want, if so many other games would have done well that haven't. For the most part players cannot be trusted, especially those who want anarchy and the like. Oh yeah they will repackage it as something other than anarchy but that is all they really want. Fun at someone else's expense drives that other off.
His ideas for character customization are fine, many would like that. Housing can wait, if ever. The game doesn't need it. As for the morals section, most players still wouldn't care. They will do the task presented. While it might be interesting to have the choice to cheat a NPC what real point is there? A lot of his ideas are best suited to PvP aspects of the game.
For the most part he seems to be lamenting that WOW does not have features he found interesting in another game. It goes without saying that that other game obviously is lacking in the rest of the department that he'd rather play WOW - just with some things added. WOW is a very good game. That people want to add features to it only proves that point. Unpopular games rarely get lauded and have recommendations placed to them as much as WOW does.
Look at it this way, there are games that do offer what he wants, and some are coming that will also. Will they succeed? Well it really comes down to one important factor : Is it fun? WOW still passes that test more than any other game for a majority of MMORPG players.
For everyone claim of WOW being lame I just have to ask, with population numbers like it has what does that make the other games?
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(Having never played WoW, I know next to nothing about it. I just hate that argument.)
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I agree with the article's premise, but not with its conclusion.
Bicycle Repair Man! Thank goodness you're here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Try Wurm Online - Players alter the world (Score:5, Interesting)
But the land is what's magic about Wurm. You can terraform almost everything in the game - chop down forests and make plains, plant trees and make plains into forests, dig canals, flatten mountaintops and build fortification, dig tunnel labyrinths, and more. About the only thing players haven't done yet is fill in the ocean with dirt, but that should be possible the way the game engine is written :-) . So it is more than a war game, in fact the war is almost incidental to building the villages that fight the wars.
Oooo, screenshots [z42.us]
Booster Gold couldn't beat Wonder Woman (Score:2)
"The reason I never really got into MMORPGs, despite trying several including WOW was that you're living in a world where every real person is a hero."
Well, but that's a bit like saying everyone in the Justice League is like Batman or Superman. There's going to be a difference between the guild leader who main-tanks Naxx and the rogue who only gets into the run when there's an open DPS slot. You've probably got a lead priest who coordinates the healing. There's likely a guild on the server that everyon
Tough to say (Score:4, Insightful)
He is describing Shadowbane (Score:2)
Shadowbane has cities and empires that rise and fall, server wars, people driven politics. No safe areas, you are always in danger of being killed, that really makes guilds, nations, alliances, territory claims really matter.
When I tried WoW, all I could do was laugh.
Shadowbane is an amazing game because the players make things matter, not the programmers.
I don't play anymore because after 18 months it had taken over my real life, but it was the best 18
come back in about 15 years. (Score:2)
Yes, I know I'm delusional, I'm gonna be a cube rat in the end but I can always dream.
not too difficult? (Score:2)
I want to be snarky and point out that this guy obvious has no idea how these games are designed, but I think he pretty much nails what very MMOG player really wants out of a game. Now, if only it were feasible within the bounds of money, time, and tale
Motivation??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Attention Seeking/Copy Grabbing for circulation (Score:2, Insightful)
If there's anything thought provoking about this article, it's made me wonder how WoW stacks up in profitability versus OFFLINE RPGS.
How much money did Neverwinter Nights make?
It's almost unthinkable that an online RPG could reach that critical mass, it seems like only yesterday I was outraged when I bought Ultima Online and learned it had a monthly fee.
Does anyone have that kind of information on hand?
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Interesting example. I played through the original campaign once. Shadows of Undrentide twice. Hordes of the Underdark three times (once with each of the previous three characters).
But you buy NWN for the engine, not the campaign. So I'm playing a computer, but it's running player-written content. I've spent a whole more time in Shadowlords, Dreamcatcher and Demon than in all of the original modules... Is that so much worse than spending all my time in a game w
Personally, (Score:2, Funny)
This is why I'm quitting the game after 16 months of playing.
Let's take Freeport (Score:3, Interesting)
Was never going to happen.
DAoC had the territory system and that was good, though organising 100s of people to do a raid was always a bit random.
Dynamic systems are a tricky business though. Keeping the balance right is an obvious challenge.
Eventually it will work out, all the MMO people know it. It's just a matter of time.
Warcraft was an awesome game... (Score:2)
New Player (Score:2)
Morality and choices would change WoW (Score:2)
I started playing WoW with a friend who's a polic
Take Queues from Eve-Online (Score:2)
I dunno. (Score:2)
Already Done (Score:2)
It was built on the idea of "Guild Warfare", where guilds and townships would defend their territory from others with largescale, epic battles.
It worked great when it was happening but you quickly saw it was a fringe thing. People didn't like risking their things they played so long to aquire.
In the end, most people are care bears and just want to chat and farm while was
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no moral quandaries?!? (Score:2, Funny)
Obviously this person has never been ninja'ed out of loot, had a priest suddenly drop out mid-instance, or had a gold-farmer train him. =P
MMORPG Design Forum (Score:2)
VNBoards MMORPG Concepts and Design [ign.com]
I would say that pretty much no idea has been left unnoticed there.
Time to play something else... (Score:2)
Wow is about raiding/PVP. This guy is a retard. (Score:4, Insightful)
1. 90% of the people who play this game don't give a rats ass about the story and when presented with a quest, skip the text and just try to finish it as fast as possible as the means to level up or get an item that they need.
2. The real appeal of the game is the challenging raid encounters and the social environment that has evolved around beating said encounters. People end up in every social guilds that all work together to defeat very difficult content. It's like the same reason people play team sports, there is no story around the sport that makes it interesting, it's the strategy, the socializing, the working together that makes people keep playing team sports. Also, imagine a team sport where once you have mastered one level of the sport you are presented with new and even more difficult challenges. If your "team" is good enough and cohesive enough, there is even the thrill of being able to spend months working on encounters and being the first group of people in the world to beat them. This teamplay/challenge comes into play in both PVE and PVP aspects of the game. This is what bridges the gap between the FPS/RTS type players and the RPG type players out there (being able to fullfil a class based roll in a highly strategy scenario and evolve your class/gear over time).
He clearly has misconceptions about WoW and would like to play a game that involves more role playing gayness and less strategy/teamwork/progression.
I don't want an f'n house. I want to be challenged 100% of the time.
Lack of customization is a plus (Score:2, Informative)
Article autor has it very wrong. Explanation: (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only I beg to differ, but furthermore, I cannot find words to express my disgust with that event. Let me explain.
Ok, Blizzard announced that in next content patch there will be some huge event, which everyone can take part which will unlock some new content. Content patch arrived, and for each server both factions (alliance and horde) needed to chinese-farm *ridiculous* amounts of materials (which drop from monster, can be gathered etc). Then, when all the materials were gathered, the Guy-with-the-key can open the gates of the new content ("Ahn'Qiraj"), which everyone should enjoy. Well, that one can sound kinda fun, but lets see some facts first.
Amount of materials were too much for like 98% of servers (look at the sheer number of materials here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wareffort/wareffor
At the same time with those huge farming effort, there was a quest line which could effectively be only taken by one(!) person in the whole server. Only that guy could initiate the boss fights, pick rewards, see quest text etc. But that guy needed help from his guild (best guild on the server) and other guilds in defeating some bosses. On some boss fights there was such a big slowdowns that server(s) couldn't handle it and crashed repeatedly. At the end of that ridiculously long quest line (for just that one guy), he got [Scepter of the Shifting Sands] by which he could open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj and ultimately unlock the new content (assuming that war effort - materials gathering was done). So what happened on our server (Ragnaros, EU)? Our server was average in gathering materials so after a month or more, they gathered them "for us". But there was a problem with the guy who needed to open the gates. Some major guilds (me included) helped him and his guild defeat some bosses and make that Scepter. When he finished the scepter somewhere in the middle of the night, he didn't came online for days, telling on the realm servers that whole realm population didn't "deserve" the gates to be opened, that he will not do it, generally flexing his e-peen. The guy single handedly held whole realm as a fools. Some seven days later guy opened the doors after some ass licking by his guild mates on forums. And this was not the one and only incident, there were a lot of them on other servers.
So to conclude, the event was total fiasco because of server crashes, non-existent story for 99.999% of players, e-peen flexing moron with the key, nolife kids telling others that they should farm materials more so they (nolifers) can go into the new instance, mind-puzzling number of materials to farm for *all* of the population etc.
We'll, that was my take on that glorious event.
PS Sorry for the grammar
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Look at the materials that need gathering. Then look up some of the research on economies on games like World-of-Warcraft. Ahn'Qiraj may have been merely a sink to pull crafting resources out of the economy until there was a player base to support the crafted item economy, or at least provide partial value to selling crafted items.
After all, crafted items to work well need a large player base to sell the items to. Howeve
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That you failed to take advantage of the situation doesn't lessen that it did involve much of the community to achieve. Sure, it could have been better, but like everything thats happened in WoW since it began, Blizzard are new to it. Molten Core is so pathetically boring mainly due to the fact that its the first raid they ever desi
BS. (Score:2)
It seems a little more likely that you're just buying into the excuses cooked up by the marketing departments of the MMORPG industry. Turbine pulled off most of what TFA asks for in the original Asheron's Call and made money hand over fist, and still had a
I still don't get (Score:2)
I'm not saying it's wrong, I just don't get the appeal of collecting things in an RPG. Clearly, there is a market for this kind of game, but I agree with the premise that there must be certain cataclysmic events. Things have to matter, or else who cares?
To me, WoW and others that are similar are just like the old "Hack" and "Dungeon" games except the g
Myst Online: Uru Live (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, not in such a violent fashion, but this sort of thing is the plan for Uru Live [mystonline.com].
Every day, there's a small change. Every week, a slightly larger change. Every month, a major change - a new area of the city opens, or you get access to a new Age.
A new story element is introduced roughly once each quarter... what the players do with it in the interim is entirely up to them. The players truly develop the story. There are no NPCs (in the computer-controlled sense), however Cyan does have actors who play the role of certain important people, ready to answer questions and react to whatever it is the players are doing.
This is a lot more impressive to me than Warcraft, although I do enjoy a good quest now and again.
Wait a second... (Score:3, Insightful)
Asheron's Call had new earth-shaking player-driven events every month, and they had - what - 1/100th of the income and staff that World of Warcraft does?
World of Warcraft is making tens millions of dollars a month in subscription fees alone, and has an unimaginably large staff.
Asheron's Call made significantly less each month, and yet they'd make sure that every month there was something new and player driven. In some events, they would even have developers and admins manually control NPCs who helped or hindered players in person for the quests.
So don't tell me it isn't possible. I've seen it done much better with many less resources. The WoW team is just making so much money without doing it that they don't feel the need to. If WoW was struggling at 30k users and barely paying for their servers, you can bet they'd try harder with monthly dynamic content to try and get a larger market share.
Some sympathy for what he says... (Score:2, Insightful)
it IS possible to leave your mark. (Score:3, Informative)
There ARE mmorpgs that have non-static worlds that the players feel like they can change. (Because they can)
Might I reccomend some, such as a tale in the desert [atitd.com] or possibly eve [eve-online.com]...
I'm too late to the party... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the end, a GM, in some rare NPC form finally had to come along and destroy the gate the guild was defending.
Turbine finally conceded and raised statues dedicated to the defenders of that certain server's gate. The statues were viewable on all servers, and it showed everyone who played AC just how much a player's actions actually affected a game.
It's a shame more MMORPG's aren't like AC.
The Problem Here (Score:4, Interesting)
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To be fair, as of late things have gotten more interesting. Two of the larger alliances are at war with each other, and there's a new sup
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Re:What happens if you die? (Score:4, Informative)
When you are killed by a monster, all of your equipped items lose 10% of their maximum durability. If you've ever played Diablo 2, the system is similar - item repairs are rarely going to be hugely prohibitive, but they add up, and aren't something you want to do needlessly. If killed by a player, you lose no durability.
You then have the option of waiting to be resurrected by another player, or releasing your spirit from your body Releasing doesn't keep someone from resurrecting you, but it will prevent you from getting credit for any monsters killed by your group between the time you release and the time you come back to your body. This is relevant for things like quests, and making sure you can loot an item off a boss.
If you are raised by another player, you come back to life with an amount of health and mana based on the spell or effect used to raise you. If you release, you respawn as a ghost at the closest graveyard. There's usually at least one graveyard in each zone, and it generally won't take more than 5 minutes to get back to your body. As a ghost, you can't interact with the world around you, but you don't have to worry about being attacked by wandering monsters. You can either run back to your body and get raised with 50% health and mana, or speak with an NPC called a Spirit Healer. There's a Spirit Healer at each graveyard where you respawn, and it can return you to life, but will cause all of your equipment to suffer an additional 25% durability loss, as well as giving you a debuff that reduces your stats by 75% (I think) for the next 10 minutes (one minute less for every level under 20 that you are).
There's a couple of minor exceptions, but that's the basic system. As a mostly casual player, I think the system is pretty good because it discourages carelessness that could lead to dying, but doesn't impose excessively harsh penalties for a little bit of bad luck, or the stupidity of your teammates.
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People don't always want what they say. (Score:5, Insightful)
By their very nature as rule-constituted software systems, games will tend to instrumental play. There is already one exception: Second Life, which is already available. My question is: why hasn't the world flocked there? Could it be that, despite protests to the contrary, we like a well-defined achievement path, and enjoy finding efficient methods for progressing on them? Could the grind be part of the pleasure, even if it doesn't "feel" like it is?
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What does it mean to me? Well that would be using naughty words, and I'm not nearly drunk enough.
Re:People don't always want what they say. (Score:5, Interesting)
Once you hit 60, though, what else is there to do *besides* grind or start another character? Want better gear? Better run through that instance/raid/battleground about 20 times to get it. Want that epic quest reward from the Argent Dawn? Better start grinding skeletons, crypt fiends, dark iron dwarves, and all kinds of other crap for weeks to get it. Want to buy that epic mount? Better start grinding for cash. It'll probably take you several weeks, if that's all you do.
Almost nothing in the end-game instances require any skill whatsoever, and that includes raid encounters. Either you have the gear and the people and you know how to do it (note: following instructions != skill), or you don't. PvP requires a marginal amount of skill, but it's far too gear-dependent. Getting killed (or killing someone) in 2 hits, before there's even a chance to react, isn't fun, nor is it skillful play.
Unfortunately, Blizzard hasn't addressed any of this. I think it's surprising that they haven't -- because by requiring these insane grinds, they *force* people to play *all the time* to achieve their goals, otherwise they'd take years to complete. If they just made everything take less insane amounts of work to do, they could actually lighten the load on their servers.
Of course, maybe that's what they're partially afraid of -- if people have extra time, they might try other games. Those other games might show them that, at its core, WoW is really not very innovative. I mean, just look at what they had players do to for the supposed "world-changing" event when the gates of AQ opened. It wasn't a series of quests designed to be extremely challenging to even the best players. It wasn't even a massive battle that would require dozens of people working together to win. No, instead it was a massive, server-wide farm-fest. You can change the world by bringing 100 million linen cloth to Generic Alliance NPC Smith! Gee, how exciting is that?
--Jeremy
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The fact that people are willing to grind for that uber item rather than play another game only goes all the more to my point.
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The only reason Linden Labs still exists is people are willing to put up with it for thier flavor of fantasy and the openess, but that is changing.
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Yes. Half of my current enjoyment of FF:XII is wandering around and finding the areas that will level my characters fastest so I can always be a little overpowered for the main story line.
Of course, that's just how I role.
Re:People don't always want what they say. (Score:4, Funny)
~Rebecca
Re:People don't always want what they say. (Score:4, Informative)
"But I *should* be more powerful!! I spent more time playing the game!"
MMOs are infested with this type of player.
When details of WoW's honor system were announced, I made several posts here and on WoW's forums about how the honor system was "just another grind," and rewarded time played instead of actual PvP skill. I predicted that the players who have the highest ranks would spend 60+ hours a week grinding their PvP rank. And I also said that this is a bad thing.
The most common response I got was "But these players *should* have the highest ranks! They spent more time playing the game!"
IMO, games shouldn't encourage and reward players who give up their lives to play the game. Doing any single activity for 60+ hours a week is not healthy. No game should explicitly encourage this kind of behaviour, but most MMOs do.
Granted, some players would play this much a week without the extra rewards for doing so, but I still don't think we should give players extra rewards just for playing more. Playing the game should be reward enough. If a so called "ranking system" requires a 60+ hour time commitment a week to maintain the highest rank, then a rule change is certainly in order.
Fortunately Blizzard is ditching the current system shortly. I said they should dump it before the system was even in place. Guess that's what they get for not consulting me...
The replacement system is better in two ways. First, it no longer purports to be a ranking system. Second, it no longer depletes your honor by 20% each week, thus eliminating the requirement that players spend ridiculous amounts of time each week to maintain high pvp ranks. Unfortunately the replacement system is still "just another grind."
There is hope for the future though. BC will have a PvP arena system, complete with a ranking system. Here's hoping it's not "just another grind."
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