On Reaction-Based Massively Multiplayer Gaming 82
Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing why massively multiplayer games that require player dexterity are so much more intriguing. The author explains that "...the reason I don't play a lot of the conventional massive player games is because there's no skill involved in them", and goes on to detail: "In most of the MMORPGs, battles have almost predetermined conclusions based on the level and abilities of those player avatars involved in the fight and the creatures they're fighting against." He concludes by recommending his current skill-based MMOG of choice: "That's where PlanetSide has struck a chord with me. It takes the player interaction I enjoy in these games and combines it with a skill-based game." Do players want "the ability to use their brains and their hands to succeed" in MMORPGs, not just progress based on the "amount of time they played the game"?
I liked Planetside too until... (Score:5, Interesting)
To add insult to injury, they come out with their first paid expansion while endlessly balancing and rebalancing the game, forcing people to pony up more money for a beta.
No freaking thanks.
Planetside Sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, planetside, while much better than games like Everquest and Asheron's call, is still crap. Why? Planetside has two large armies that are fighting against each other for land and power. But neither side ever wins. Neither side ever can win. The game is in permanent stalemate. Without goals or purpose the fps game is meaningless. It's just a ton of people running around fragging each other. Because there are no goals or victory condition the game is pointless.
This is why I have found solace in Puzzle Pirates. It's completely skill based, puzzle game skill. Not only that, but there are clear goals. Getting lots of poe to get shops to get poe to get boats to get rum to get canonballs to destroy the boats of other crews. The economics are extremely complex and if managed improperly crews and flags can go bankrupt inside a week.
The thing that makes puzzle pirates so awesome is that there is a "7th puzzle" the social puzzle. Stinky fanboys can't succeed at puzzle pirates no matter how good their puzzling skills. Crews are closely knit social groups, and if you have no social skill none of the larger flags/crews will take you in. There are plenty of nice normal people who are good at the puzzles that nobody has any reason to let you in if you're an asshole. I set up a teamspeak server for our flag and now I talk in real time to my pirate friends every night I decide to play. The pirate theme is awesome too.
Oh yeah, puzzle pirates is cheaper than just about every other MMO there is. And there's a free trial too.
RPGs can take no skill (Score:4, Interesting)
I know I'll get modded down big time for this... but the only major reason why RPG is still an existing genre is because they are the only genre that can guarantee 80+hrs of original gameplay.
I have a number of relatives and friends that can play RPGs all day long. None of them can handle a fps for example, they simply get destroyed. Vice versa I have never seen anyone who mastered a fps... and can't handle an RPG. I don't call it a coincidence.
Asheron's Call (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, AC seems to have the best in-game physics (you can actually dodge missiles) and landscape (you can run to pretty much any part of the world you can see, and you can see far from the top of a mountain). Too bad about the graphics...
Re:Planetside Sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
I just started in with Puzzle Pirates this week after they advertised on Penny-Arcade and love it... Since I joined, I can't say whether it has long term staying power for me or not, but I will say that the quality of the players' personalities is far above what Planetside was... I have a feeling that puzzling just doesn't have the appeal to the l33tspeak crowd the way PS did...
Re:RPGs can take no skill (Score:5, Interesting)
MAngband (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, seriously, Angband (a roguelike) is fun as heck when you're playing it in realtime, and that giant grey P is blazing across your screen. There's a certain element of "Quick! Get me my red coat... and my brown pants!" to running away from large packs of hounds/demons/summoners on sight, too.
Planetside (Score:2, Interesting)
I wouldn't say Planetside combines player interaction and skill-based action too well at all. People group together in that game because most early weapons are nearly useless, sure you got a big ol assault rifle and you can tear apart a stealth guy, but do you really think a stealth guy is gonna let himself get caught out in the middle of nowhere with his cloak off? Course not. The game also uses a "certificate" system, great except now everyone gravitates towards the "best" class with few people left for other classes, yet another reason to band together (Medic or Engineer anyone?).
The game FORCES players to group together by stripping them of individuality. Sure you have X weapon, but its so big you can't carry any extra weapons, no medipaks, and you used all your certificates to get it so you can't drive yourself around. Good luck trying to "lone wolf" that way.
The game also isn't that skill based. I played in the beta with a couple friend of mine and we discovered all sorts tricks more like standard MMORPGs rather than the game's MMOFPS gameplay. Some players would play as a stealth guy and have a friend fly them up into a tree and then camp there. When an enemy came near, he'd drop out of the tree and quickly kill him. Not very FPS-like is it?
Fights for bases also degrades into a traditional game of "seige". Since any competant defender will build all sorts of defenses inside, along with having actual players guarding it, entering any base without some SERIOUS preparations means suicide. So what do attackers do? Wait them out. Occasionally bombard the place to kill those careless enough to get caught outside the base. Same with the defenders, occasionally pop out to kill those who get too close, jump back in, heal/reload, repeat. Not exactly skill based is it?
My friend and I would participate in some of these... to an extent. Sometimes we'd take turns watching the game in case something important happened while the other went to eat/Alt-Tabbed out to surf the net/went to the bathroom/etc. Yeah, it was lame, but it worked. Too well for the style of gameplay we were expecting. Needless to say, we stopped playing after the beta ended.
I actually liked Planetside (Score:5, Interesting)
One afternoon I'd be zooming along in my stealth ATV, single-handedly taking over enemy positions that were left undefended during a big battel elsewhere on the planet. The next night, I'd meet up with a squad that I randomly bumped into and joined so that we could do some scout-work in preperation for the next big fight. The day after, we'd all join up in a huge base fight and sweep through an entire continent.
And it was fun! No AO/E&B "Okay, do the same thing over and over until you level" crap... the other side would constantly be doing new things, and so would we. Any game that can give me the joy or strafing the enemy base in a transport bomber before jumping out, -and- sniping the enemy from a distance, -and- playing anti-aircraft defense in a jumping mini-mech, -and- parking my stealth ATV next to an enemy sniper, getting off, putting my gun to his head, and shooting him three-four times, slowly, while he looked around trying to find my invisible ass, is a fun game.
If I ever find myself in some money, I may just pick it and the expansion up and start playing again. Pity I'm so poor.
another way around lag (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd always thought that a MMORPG that gives a player captain-level control over a giant ship (naval, space, whatever) would be a nice middle ground between the first-person MMORPGs and the MMORTS games - the fact that the ship is so massive and has so much inertia can make up for the lag - then the action really boils down to short-term tactics, which is what most FPS games come down to in the end anyway.
Anyway, thoughts like this are a dime a bzillion, so I'll just go shush now.
I see a lot of people defending MMORPGs (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically what I'm trying to say is that if getting to the point of the game where actual skill is involved requires months of treadmilling, that's not a good thing. It also means that skill is only required in the small percentage of people who play the game for hours at a time, which makes the whole thing moot.
Rob
Experienced Planetsider talking (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I've been playing PS since European release in late May and I can tell you this game is changing. The performance (FPS wise) is so much better now. The memory leaks and most bugs are gone. The features and tweaks come every month and in fact the game is doing just fine (as most of the Leet geeks have gone back to their CS or UT caves to play). Intentional griefers are far between and becoming rarer. Sure there are still problems, but no worse than any other MMOG.
Planetside is in fact the first and only game to hold my interest for more than a few weeks and why? Because of the teamwork and teamplay. To really planetside is all about not going out thinking of kills, or being leet or getting loads of XP to increase your rank. PS is fun when you play with other people (Teamspeak is also quite useful here). I am apart of one of the top European Vanu Sovereignty Outfits (The Immortal Serial Killers aka ISK) and I have yet to find finer buddies in any game.
Finally the reason I got into PS in the first place is exactly for almost the same reason as the author notes, the game manages to balance rewarding players spending alot of time in, but also allows the newest character to wack the leetest uber killer from one of the two other empires.
theICEBear
-C328 with the Immortal Serial Killers on Werner (PS)
Skill in MMORPG (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's the story of one of my experences in UO (Pre-UO:Resistance), all the actions took place in about 1 minute:
I was traveling from Britain to Cove on my horse. Suddenly 2 hidden red character (murders) jumpped in front of me, one paralyzed me with a spell, the other one start casting a explosion, energy bolt combo on me. At the same time, I started bandaging before I got any injury, blew up a trapped pouch to get me out of paralyze and drink greater heal potion at the same time in order to not die from the spell combo and the other bad guys halberd that's aiming at my head.
Seeing I've freed myself, one guy start casting stone wall and the other guy tried to paralyze me again. I ran behind a tower so their spells won't reach me, and I hid myself using my hiding skill. One of them start casting reveal and the other one threw a purple potion (bomb) at the place where I was hidden. Just as the spell is about to finish casting and the bomb almost exploded, I armed myself with a deadly poisoned dagger and took off.
The bone heads followed me and took the full blast of the bomb, I turned around and poked one guy with my dagger. I disarmed the dagger and casted greater heal, without applying it to me, I armed the dagger again, the other guy hit me with his halberd and I wacked him with my dagger and applyed heal so I'm at full health.
At this time, they're both scared (because of the deadly poison's fast effect)and start running and tried to cure the poison. Of course I won't let them do this so I chased one of them until he's poisoned to death. (the other guy ran off leving his friend to die)
Well, as you might be able to imagine, I had a lot of decision to make, and so did the bandits. I had to react fast enough to counter them. I had to know what to do and when to do it in order to have an edge.
By the way, my character's skill wasn't at the top at all, that wasn't even my pvp character but my newly created thief. It's not the character's skill that won me the fight, but my own.
I've had this kind of fights almost every day, most required much more skill than this one. So don't tell me MMORPG doesn't require skill or dexterity of the player. :P
Re:MMOFPS (Score:2, Interesting)
As for XP counting for a lot in PS; it counts a lot less than it does in most MMOGs... you don't get any more hit points or get any faster or more accurate or anything of the kind through XP. The two things you gain from XP are access to a broader range of equipment and the ability to use more cybernetic 'implants' (1 at level 6, 2 at level 12, 3 at level 18). A level 1 character can quite easily kill a level 20 (max level) character in Planetside, it just depends on the situation. If you're level 1 and you shoot a level 20 character with your tank then he's just as dead as anyone else. You could even just gun him down with the basic machine gun, you'd just have to find him when he's wounded, not paying attention or when numbers are on your side. Or you'd have to be *really* good.
As for commanders, planetside has two ranking systems; Battle Rank (the 'levels' I mentioned earlier) and Command Rank. You earn Command Rank by leading squads to victory rather than by killing people directly and with Command Rank comes the ability to place way-points for your squad-members, draw battle plans on the map and ultimatley call in orbital strikes on key enemy troops emplacements.
It sounds like Planetside might actually be the game you've been waiting for...
Min/Maxing is a skill... (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a final skill to these guys that ties the other two together: Deluding yourself into thinking that anything else is going on.
Perhaps the first person who figures out what it takes to kill the uber-monster and coordinates the players to do it is applying skill, but the ones who go with him? They might as well be AI party members.
I want those MMORPG's to be more than they are, I really do. I'm an old school pen and paper player, and the idea of having those amazing worlds displayed on my screen in full 3d wonder makes my heart leap with joy. But the gameplay is everything I disliked about pen and paper honed to a razor sharp edge. Everyone is a munchkin, the game IS about the leveling, and everyone talks in a modern game specific slang (uber, agro, mog), occasionally peppered with the odd "hail".
With Planetside, I feel like something new has been added to the table. The twitch component makes me feel like I'm doing something to earn my experience, regardless of the fact that the game itself is relatively shallow at this point.
Here's hoping the next batch will take the best of both worlds and make something truly extraordinary.
Re:I liked Planetside too until... (Score:3, Interesting)
Compared to any other MMO game, Planetside does suffer from some of the same problems, but generally deals with them as well or better than other games. I mean, complaining about the game having morons in its userbase? Oh, come ON - which MMO DOESN'T?
As for being "tedious", well, some people enjoy some games and some enjoy others. In my opinion, saying that playing Planetside is tedious is like saying skydiving is a real snooze. Provided you have a few elementary skills and some sense of strategy, it's one of the most action-packed games out there, WAY more exciting than Counterstrike, BF1942, and so on. There's just nothing like running into battle with 100 of your closest pals and assualting some base with your tanks, vehicles, aircraft, rockets, Mechs, and so on.
If you find the game "tedious", you're probably one of those people who simply keeps respawning at the same location and zerging straight at the enemy over and over. The best players are the ones who look at the big picture and change the course of a battle singlehandedly. For us, the game is incredibly deep.
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)
1) You don't know what cards you're going to get
2) You don't know what cards your opponent is going to get
3) You don't know how your opponent is going to play his/her hand
Does skill make a difference? Yes, ofcourse, but skill will lose out to luck.
--trb