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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Koster's Laws Of Online Gaming Revisited 74

Posted by simoniker from the MUDshead-revisited dept.
Thanks to F13.net for its article attempting a re-appraisal of the original 'laws of online gaming' document, as first posted by Raph Koster and others starting on October 9, 1998. The curmudgeonly analysis includes rebuttals of original laws such as "No matter what you do, someone is going to automate the process of playing your world" ("There's a very simple fix for this. Dump the treadmill, dump the numbers, and make gameplay fun"), and there's an equally tetchy rebuttal of the rebuttal at F13, suggesting: "Any amount of development time spent making the game more realistic or lifelike is wasted development time, stolen from useful tasks like making the game fun."
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Koster's Laws Of Online Gaming Revisited More

Koster's Laws Of Online Gaming Revisited

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  • Couldn't agree more! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @07:54AM (#9505350) Homepage Journal
    I used to be able to play games like Final Fantasy 6. And I still think that FF6 is the best one of them all. I love the plot and the music and everything. But I just can't go back and play it anymore. The game has no intellectual stimulation for me. It's just a leveling treadmill. Push buttons to continue the plot. Imagine if you went to see LOTR and they made you figure out a correct button sequence to make the movie continue playing?

    I'm tired of fancy graphics. I'm tired of treadmills. Nowadays I live only for the kind of action that a zelda game or a quality fps can provide. Either skill based gameplay where the best gamer wins. Or lots and lots of riddles and puzzles to solve, by thinking.

    I wrote about this awhile ago in my /journal.
  • a) At any one time, you'll be playing against at least three, and likely five stinking thirteen year old kids, who talk in l33tsp33k and haven't seen the outside for a while.

    2) No matter what speed your connection, the game will be slow and laggy and therefore, annoying.

    d) All the real games players are playing LAN games anyway.
    • The rules of online game were written by a developer of Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, and nearly all the rules apply only to MMORPGs with persistent worlds and rpg character development.

      Thus this if you'd read the link you'd see it has absolutely nothing to do with FPSs or RTSs, or anything else that can be played over a LAN. And depending on the game, you probably spend little to no time on PvP against anyone, stinking or otherwise.
      • Um... The parent wasn't talking about LAN games. He just said that all the "real" gamers were playing games over LANs (i.e. instead of the MMORPGs he was refering to in numbers one and two)!

        Pay attention!

        • He talked about playing against 3 kids and said your connection will be laggy. Both of those statements are far more applicable to FPSs, which is only confirmed by his reference to LAN as an alternative to online.

  • Money for Time (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Synkronos ( 789022 ) <synkronos@nospam.gmail.com> on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @08:52AM (#9505836)
    So long as there is a point in the game that it is 'cooler' to be at than the starting point (eg. level whatever as opposed to level 1), people will trade money for the time taken, no matter how fun the intervening time is. They want to have more fun now, which to them means being 'cooler' and hence higher level. Basically this is a form of automated grinding, except that you are getting another person to do it rather than arbitrary code.

    The same situation applies for coded grinders. Now, instead of paying money, you are paying with idle computer time... leave your machine grinding while you go to work. Again, irrespective of how fun the time ground might have been. So basically this kind of thing will never be eliminated.
    • It will be elimated when the games are designed so that you're playing for the journey, not the destination, so to speak.

    • Re:Money for Time (Score:3, Insightful)

      by coldtone ( 98189 )
      The reason that people pay for stuff isn't just to be cooler, (But I admit it is part of it) it's to be able to enjoy the game.

      Take EQ for example, as you gain levels the games becomes easier and more fun to play, you start off in the games weak, poor and slow. Little snakes kick your ass. You can't really travel outside your zone (Without encountering certain death) and you don't even have a fraction of your classes true abilities. And since the vast majority of players are high level you can't even find

  • Terrible Rebuttal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Singletoned ( 619322 ) <singletoned@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @09:04AM (#9505954) Homepage
    The guy doing the rebuttal makes a terrible job of it. When he agrees with the original rule, he uses clever arguements such as "Well, duh". When he disagrees, he does so just for the sake of it, and generally entirely misses the point, or picks up on some minor point and makes his entire rebuttal about that. For example:

    You're trying to provide as many modes of expression as possible in your online world. Character classes are just modes of expression, after all.
    Say it with me: "MMORPGs require more time and effort to create than pen and paper games."
    This law is flawed - heavily. It doesn't matter how many different classes you have - because there are only four base classes - fighter, spellcaster, rogue, and crafter....(continues)

    He misses the point about about having differant forms of expression and instead picks up on the secondary point that classes are modes of expression. Koster never mentioned that you should have lots and lots of clasess, but instead the rebutter rambles on for a very long and tedious paragraph about how you don't need lots of classes, when he's actually agreeing with the guy. He even says "It's about time we left the character design up to the player". What's that you say, increase the amounts of expression available to the player? You're agreeing with him, you idiot!

    To be fair I couldn't bring myself to finish the article. Koster's laws are very interesting, but the rebuttal is just pointless and annoying. maybe it finishes well, but I really, really doubt it.

    • I found the rebuttal to the rebuttal a lot more interesting than the rebuttal itself. It's definitely a lot easier to read and written more smoothly, if "tetchy" as hell.
    • I agree, it feels like the author of the rebuttal was just using the laws as an excuse to whine about problems in Massive games, rather than re-evaluate the laws themselves. He'll agree with a law, and then complain how the law isn't properly implemented in current Massive games. That has nothing to do with the laws themselves. Maybe his arguments would have been more appropriate if he had made his article about evaluating Massive games and seeing if they followed the laws.

  • City of Heroes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @09:12AM (#9506025) Homepage
    There's a very simple fix for this. Dump the treadmill, dump the numbers, and make gameplay fun

    City of Heroes is an interesting case for MMOs, because it literally is nothing but a treadmill. There's no other style of gameplay in the game other than combat for levels, yet somehow it's ridiculous fun and addictive, moreso than many other MMOs on the market today.

    Personally, I think this can be attributed to the fact that they focused on this singular gameplay element and refined it so well that you never really notice that you're only ever doing one thing during your entire time playing. With a good group of strangers or good friends the hours can fly by like nothing, all the while everyone's having a pretty darn good time of things. I think that the level treadmill, when done right, can be a respectable tool for advancement in the game if the situations involved are balanced and challenging.
    • It is true that City of Heroes does this one thing well, but as a MMO player, I have never seen so many of my pals try out a game and be so dissatisfied immediately after launch. I know lots of folks who didn't make it past their first week of gameplay, due to total boredom and the pathetic chat system. IMHO the chat system is one of the key building blocks of any online game, since basically online games do 2 things. 1) allow people to manipulate objects in a database via an interesting interface. 2) a

      • Re:City of Heroes (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @10:51AM (#9507145) Homepage
        I played CoH mostly with real life friends, and we all set up a Ventrilo server for voice comms. The chat system never was an issue for us, but yes it ended up being an issue when I was grouping with strangers. A very valid point!
      • I'll agree with this. I am currenly still playing CoH (6 weeks now) but have seen then end of my playing since the first week.

        It is a great game and surprisingly fun. Partly because the leveling is soooooo fast and game play is easy and simple. I can come home and play for 30 minutes before or while cooking dinner.

        That said I am only playing because other games have not got my interest. FarCry is done and loved it. Waiting for EQII Beta... then I'll drop CoH or if something better comes along first that

    • City of Heroes is only fun and addicting for the first couple weeks.

      On the third week I was finally admitting that despite my great hopes, there just wasn't anything new coming. On the fourth week, I didn't play at all. And, right before the start of the first 'for-pay' month I cancelled.

      City of Heroes did a LOT of things right that other games totally dropped the ball on...but they also forgot about 75% of their game, and there's no chance I'm going to pay a HIGHER premium for a reduced game.

      • Re:City of Heroes (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Winterblink ( 575267 )
        Admittedly I've cancelled my CoH account a couple of weeks ago, for partially those reasons. Mostly though it was the fact that their last patch completely destroyed any group fun I was having with the group of friends I was playing with. It's interesting you use the phrase "reduced game". That's definitely a relative term to each person as an individual.

        For instance, content is usually a decent indicator overall for MMOs. CoH doesn't really have a LOT of content, but is decently fun overall. Fun eno
        • I don't look for 'content' in the terms of different monsters, I look for 'content' in the terms of different activities.

          With CoH, if you closed your eyes and played the game, you'd notice that you were always hitting the exact same keystrokes. I had nice patterns, "jab, punch, swing" then again, "jab, punch, swing". Occasionaly I'd throw in a 'brawl' if my jab wasn't back yet.

          There's nothing else to do...find monster, (missions were good because it was easier to find a monster). Run through your atta
          • A bit off-topic, but pertinent to your comments about EVE. Check out this link [eve-online.com]. It's a list of items due to come out in the next major game *patch* in Q3. If you thought the level of detail was high before, this will blow your airlock open. Personally though, I'm not too concerned with the lack of a person-type character present. I'm fine with being just a ship, since that's what the entire game has been designed around, conceptually. However I do remember EnB's character representation, and as horrib
    • I'm not certain CoH is any more of a 'pure treadmill' than other MMORPG's... Or, at the very least, I think it really comes down to the preferences and point of view of the individual. From what I've seen, the one thing that really sets CoH apart from the typical MMORPG is the lack of the 'normal' equipment system and the various effects of that(tradeskill systems, camping particular mobs for loot, the MMORPG economy in general). Yes, some people enjoy those aspects of MMORPG's, however other people find
      • However, if you enjoy and play MMORPG's for the economy aspect...

        That would be EVE Online... basically a giant space stock market and trading simulation.

  • sorry for the flame (Score:5, Insightful)

    by truffle ( 37924 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @09:12AM (#9506031) Homepage
    The original laws as stated are interesting and mostly hold true today, the commentary is uninspired, poor, and mostly incorrect. I'm now going to give one example, but I could easily come up with 30 such examples from this article.

    For example:
    Law: someone is going to automate your gameplay
    Reponse: only if you make your gameplay tedious!

    That is simply not true. To prove this is not true, I just have to come up with one automation scenario not rooted in relief of tedium. Consider a theoretical RTS in which a player controls many units. Skill is required to issue commands to those units (there are many units, each unit's state has to be evaluted and the appropriate command selected, in real time). Now enter a tool that will give commands to units under conditions you identify, for example if you fall below 25% health, run to the back of the formation. Now we have an automation tool thats purpose is to increase effective skill, not relieve tedious gameplay.

    All the reasons for automation I can think of off the top of my head are:
    - Increase power (generate money, skill points, experience)
    - Increase effective skill (previously discussed)
    - Relieve tedium
    - Break the system - in this case, a person automates the system just to prove he can

    In general the article is strong on attacks, and weak on solutions. For example, there is lots of "get rid of the treadmill" commentary with 0 solutions posted explaining how this is done. Love the original laws, hate the commentary.
    • Using your example about the RTS game, if it's a single-player game, then I agree that there's no harm in using automated tools, if that's your playing style. However, if you're playing in a multi-player environment against another person, I think it's unfair to use automated tools to increase your efficiency if the other player isn't.

    • Re:sorry for the flame (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Soukyan ( 613538 ) * on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @09:29AM (#9506199)
      To some, micromanagement in a RTS game is tedium. I am one of those people. Consequently, I don't bother playing the game at all. But those who may automate the task do so to alleviate that bit of tedium so they can concentrate on the fun portions (or so that they can win, although using an external tool to alleviate tedium is actually just cheating to increase the odds of winning, but I digress).

      A fun game lacks tedium. I do not automate my moves in a chess match because I am having fun when I play. Mind you, this is just in comparing a game (chess) to a game (a computer-based RTS), and I understand that it's apples to oranges if we start to involve elements of each game. But in a RTS computer game, shouldn't the gameplay be fun and engaging enough that the player will want or need to be involved in every aspect? Does chess not involve strategy? Just some thoughts on that.

      As to the lack of solutions in that rebuttal, I can probably guess why that is the case. Raph Koster is the CCO (Chief Creative Officer) of SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) these days. He's making plenty of money and he busted his ass to earn that position. In terms of creativity though,some people are hesitant to share their ideas for solutions not because they may come under equal criticism, but because there is money to be made from good ideas. Koster did not share his money-making ideas until after he had earned his money from them. I wouldn't expect free solutions from anyone, especially not in the capitalist societies of today. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
      • You may find giving commands to individual units tedious, and you could use a tool like the one I described to relieve tedium.

        But, my original point is that a player who did not find giving commands tedious, could automate for the purpose of obtaining a competitive advantage.

        Anything can be called tedious, but that is not always the motivation for automation of gameplay.

        • You may find giving commands to individual units tedious,

          Giving commands to individual units is not tedious - it's micromanaging, but not tedious. While there may be tedium from micromanagement, there is no causation between the two inspite of the strong correlation.

          More often than not, the tedium from RTS games comes from flaws with how units act or behave when given orders. You know the very classic example - you order a unit to attack a target, and when it's destroyed, it stops in its tracks. The

      • Re:sorry for the flame (Score:5, Insightful)

        by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @11:59AM (#9508007)
        Ah... and we get back to my favorite Mulligan quote:
        "would-be game designers take note: Ideas are a dime a dozen and worth what they cost"

        People don't tend share their 'solutions' to gameplay problems because they either don't have them, aren't confident in them, or are deluding themselves into thinking that their idea is original, and carries some sort of value locked away in their head. (right up there with everyone's big movie idea, and unwritten great american novel)

        The simple truth is that it's easier to point out problems than to fix them. Constructivie criticism takes time and thought. Bitching can be done on the fly.

        While I wouldn't expect, for example, Brad McQuaid to bother sharing what he thinks about a thorny design issue (although on more than one occassion, he has joined such discussions), there's no reasonable excuse for unfunded critics to keep quiet.

        And you're dead wrong about Koster sharing only after he started getting paid. He was sharing his ideas on Mud-Dev well before he started 'making plenty of money'. The guy honestly cares about sharing information to advance the state of virtual world design ... or at least spends a hell of a lot of time and effort into making legitimate contributions as his front. He gets paid, not for thinking of things that other people haven't, but by seeing them through.

        An Idea is to an Implmentation as Criticism is to Constructive Criticism.
        • Ah... and we get back to my favorite Mulligan quote:
          "would-be game designers take note: Ideas are a dime a dozen and worth what they cost"

          And with that, you have earned a fan.

          Coming up with ideas is easy. Coming up with the simplest idea that most minimally impacts the development schedule but will greatly improve gameplay is a little harder. And, of course, pushing it through to the point of implementation, testing, adjusting, re-invisioning, re-implementing, and tweaking is where the meat of design l
      • You don't automate your chess moves, but if you incorporated a chess game into an MMORPG and gave winning any kind of reward, then some moron would use a chess game to tell them what moves to make to increase their odds of winning. If there was a way to play against NPCs for cash or rewards, someone would design a chess bot to get those rewards while they were offline. The point is perfectly valid. People will automate just about anything they can get away with if its technically and logistically feasibl
    • If you need a proof:
      Aiming can't be that tedious!
    • Good example, but I think I have a better example of automation that breaks the rebuttal:

      Counter-Strike is hardly "tedious." How many flavors of cheats were made for that? How many other really, really fun FPS games have been made, and how many more aimbots have been made for each of them?

  • The Automated Online Role-Player (Score:5, Funny)

    by ksiddique ( 749168 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @09:22AM (#9506124) Homepage
    This [gamespy.com] is definitely a fun read about a bot that plays Star Wars Galaxies.

  • Soooo these games suck - got a better idea? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fallingdown ( 709840 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @09:47AM (#9506412)

    Both of these guys have specific axes to grind. Schild is clearly responding to the mess that is SWG. He continually calls for the removal of "treadmills," etc. without offering clear alternatives. Rather than adding additional insight to the discussion, his entire rant could have been cut-n-pasted from any one of a thousand message boards.

    Snowspinner is a bit more interesting and his statement that "Stories aren't the fun parts about games any more than worlds are. Play is" should become the marquee screensaver for game developers every where.

    F13.net, Corp News, et.al. continue to try and fill the shoes of the original rant sites like Lum the Mad and they constantly come up short. I'm sure these guys are all clever and smart people but it's all pretty much been said - and said better - when the MMORPG genre was a little more fresh.

    On a side note: I think the player base should expand their definition of what "roleplay" is. Lots of people "roleplay" in these games, its just not the sort that was intended or expected. Look at PvP in any form - FPS or MMORPG - and you'll see people acting and talking in ways they would never dream of in real life. Alliances are formed. Arch enemies are made. Roleplay driven by the environment rather than some hackneyed back story. It's much more interesting and you never hear a thee or a thou uttered once. That's the sort of roleplay that these games should encourage.

    • I think that the illusion of anonymity that maves folks, especially in PvP, act differently than they would in real life is a two edged sword. On one hand it creates personal and group dynamics that are vastly different thatn the ones that people form in the real world. But, on the other hand it encourages a kind of Sociopathic behavior in which players fail to realise that the other people playing with them are actual people and instead, objectify them. This allows some players, who may not be in the be

      • I don't believe that all PvPers are Sociopaths. I think it's possible to seperate griefers from PvPers.

        I think Eve Online does a pretty good job of encouraging the kind of dynamic that I'm trying to illustrate. The game is incredibly dull taken at face value - the worst of the "treadmill grind" that these games have to offer. However, if you choose to throw caution to the wind and take a few pot shots at people, the game changes drastically. It suddenly has all the aspects of MMORPGs that gamers clai

        • Re:Soooo these games suck - got a better idea? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Mongoose Disciple ( 722373 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:38PM (#9508558)
          I don't believe that all PvPers are Sociopaths. I think it's possible to seperate griefers from PvPers.

          I agree, but it's often a matter of perspective as to what separates the two.

          To a typical MMORPG player, the game is the kind of thing where "everybody wins" -- the game is about getting levels and phat loot, triumphing over the computer-controlled adversaries and the environment. If there's a sense of "beating" another player, it's in doing more (being higher level, having phatter loot, etc.) or doing it faster (being the first to kill the Pseudonatural Diremongoosaurus and steal its magic pants). Your achievement doesn't inherently disallow the achievement of others.

          Your typical PvPer is cut from a different mold. To them, for someone to win the game, someone else must lose. I'll laugh at anyone who says this is a juvenile or abberant thought pattern -- chess, basketball, poker, and a million other familiar games are built in this mindset.

          Let's say a PvPer, on a game in which it's possible, playerkills your typical MMORPGer and takes his magic pants. It's unlikely that you'd find the truly archetypal examples of both types of players playing the same game, at least for very long, but let's pretend.

          From the MMORPGer's perspective, the PvPer is an immature griefer. Why, he didn't earn those magic pants the proper way by killing the Pseudonatural Diremongoosaur! He just took someone else's! That isn't fair. Griefer!

          From the PvPer's perspective it looks very different. If he wants magic pants and it's easier to PK for them, he certainly will. If he wants to establish himself as king of the game, he's going to do that by going out and beating people, not by trying to out-catass them. If they complain, call him names, and generally give him a bad reputation, that's not a sign that he's doing something wrong... it's a sign he's doing something right.

          I guess you could call that mindset sociopathic, but then, basically everyone in the real world who is successful at anything is a sociopath.

          • I didn't want to suggest that all PvP players are Sociopaths. I play SWG am the leader of a large guildm and I PvP most of the time I am online. I think that PvP, is the best part of any online game, at any level, from the competition for resources and guild influence on a server to one on one fights between high end players. I have observed, however, over the past few years of online gaming, that there is a small portion of the PvP population that behaves in a manner analagous to a sociopath. That is o
    • I'm the designer of A Tale in the Desert. I read about 100 "I hate X" posts for every "I love Y, do more stuff like that" post.

      Consequently, I tend to give those "I love Y, do more stuff like that" posts a lot more consideration than the rants. They're much harder to come up with, and infinitely more useful.

      In fact, of all the people reading this post, I wonder if three can pick a game they've played recently, and name an activity in the game that they enjoyed doing.
      • Hmmmm, that's tough, you're right. You're probably asking this question retorically but I'll give it a shot.

        I'm currently playing City of Heroes and like many people I enjoyed the character creation process. It offers lots of choices - enough so that if you have a particular idea for a hero in mind, you can come pretty close to making it happen.

        Combat in CoH has also been a positive. While it still relies on the turn based mechanic required by most MMORPGs, they've tuned it in a way that makes it seem

        • That's good! No, wasn't a rhetorical question at all. I often ask people that, and I try to identify the parts of games that I like. Usually when I ask they'll ignore the question and tell me that travel takes too long, or they're sick of glassblowing, or whatever's frustrating them at the moment. (All examples from ATITD, and true) But occasionally I'll hear something like "seeing what comes up when I crossbreed two roses", and so I'll go and code something that sort of has the same feel, but maybe from a
  • Planetside: mega treadmill

    But not dreadfully boring since it's an FPS and there are perks such as interchangeable "licenses" to for vehicles/weapons, and the heart of its fun factor revolves around the team aspect. There is a sense of heroism in gathering 150 soldiers scattered across a dozen squads, and coordinating a full-scale invasion on an enemy continent. Even the carrier pilot gets a kick out of assisting a successful airdrop.

    I think where it shines is that you don't have to be Level 50 to see al
  • No really...someone tell me.

    A game that requires you to complete challenges in order to gain a reward is, in effect, a treadmill.

    Tetris is a treadmill - stack shapes, clear, new level, repeat
    Doom is a treadmill - Kill enemies, find widget, proceed to next level, repeat.
    The Sims is a treadmill - Manage daily activities, increase abilities, make money, buy stuff, repeat.
    Ico is a treadmill - Lead the girl, find widget, kill enemies, solve puzzles, unlock next level, repeat.
    Metal Slug is a treadmill - Go forw
    • Well, since you want to know, I'll tell you. The treadmill is gameplay so tedious and automatic that someone could write a fairly simple program with minimal AI that would do a pretty good job of it for them. Treadmills have very little change of pace or scenery and require very little thought. Indeed, it's like walking on a treadmill, thus the name. Tetris is not a treadmill -- Figuring out what to do with the blocks requires constant thought and planning. Writing a program to play a good game of Tetr
    • Yeah. Of course games are a treadmill; life's a fucking treadmill.
    • Arguing what the term "treadmill" really means I think, misses the point of the parent post. All games are treadmills sure, its when they're boring treadmills that we have a problem.

      Treadmill = = boring.

      Here's the thing about treadmills though - ANY game will get boring if you play it 40+ hours a week. You cannot create any form of activity that can hold up to that kind of attention.

      Heck even sex starts to chafe a bit if you do it often enough.

      Our expectations for the genre is too high. If the gam

    • <i>The Sims is a treadmill - Manage daily activities, increase abilities, make money, buy stuff, repeat.</i>

      I disagree- it's more like cheat, buy stuff, repeat.

  • Here is where I stopped reading the rebuttal (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Durindana ( 442090 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @12:48PM (#9508703)
    I'll go ahead and say that the right rule here comes from Kelly Flock, when he noted that players "just fuck us up." Players know shit. Especially not players who are bitching about the game on message boards. And Especially not players who are bitching about how they want PvP. Look, I know I'm going to get ripped by any PvP enthusiasts who are still here, but let's be honest. 95% of people who want PvP in a MMOG should be banned from MMOGs, and preferably from breeding.


    I don't care nearly enough about the whole meta-genre of MMOG design to go deep into this, but frankly I hold precisely the opposite view. The thrill that most MMORPG players get from leveling, crafting, exploring, etc., I find a symptom of a socially debilitated person. PvPers, on the other hand, I feel largely have their heads on straight in reality and merely seek a greater challenge and greater exhilaration than any PvE design can give them. Much as can be found in the real world.

    Griefers, on the other hand, are the fault not of the PvP playerbase but the game designers. Real unnacountable griefing shouldn't be possible. "Griefing" as in messing up your fun on a limited basis, on the other hand, is what comes from playing with people instead of playing with yourself, as in PvE.

    Example: I play Shadowbane. PvE is an afterthought (or more accurately, a mostly-brief pre-requisite to getting a character in shape to fight other players); the real fun to be had is fighting other people, either singly, in raiding parties or in enormous city sieges.

    There is really no unaccountable griefing in SB, because political dynamics hold players accountable for what they do. Some few players enjoy lurking in the shadows, with no group to defend them and nothing to lose, but they are the distinct minority. And "griefers" have no advantage in PvP, indeed they have the disadvantage of having no one to help them when you come to kill them.

    For my purposes, PvE treadmilling is brain-dead. So are the people who want to bake bread or whatever. Unless it involves engaging in combat or negotiations or meaningful dialogue with other human beings, why is it worth checking out of reality? One of the linked articles suggests to stop thinking about games as "working from 9-5 at Initech (nice Office Space namecheck) and working from 6-11 farming some rare form of copper." PvE games will always face this dilemma of uselessness, because your accomplishments and explorations are meaningless without any human context. That's fine, but why not play Civilization instead? Or better yet, re-engage with the human race in brutal combat.

    • Agreed wholeheartedly, and... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mongoose Disciple ( 722373 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @01:40PM (#9509370)
      Disclaimer: I'm tres biased, but I think I still have some interesting points. You've been warned.

      It's all just a side-effect of society, really. (Isn't everything, but...)

      We live in a society that praises the achiever/PvEer mindset, and, importantly, recognizes its goals as valid. For achievers to function, there must be others who recognize their achievements, and agree with the "rules" of the game in which they're achieved. That's not to say that everyone who wants a big house in a good neighborhood, trophy spouse, expensive car, prestigious job, etc. etc. etc. wants each of those things solely to impress others -- but an awful lot of people do, whether they admit it or not. If having a luxury car had the same functionality as it does in our world, but for some reason everyone thought they were dumb and that it was anything but cool to own one, they'd sure sell a lot less of them. This holds for any of the achiever goals.

      Society rewards the killer/PvPer mindset to a point, but it generally doesn't overtly encourage it. There are definitely rewards to be had by going out in business, life, etc. and simply just beating everyone else, but don't expect to make a lot of friends doing it. Expect to hear a lot of complaints about being mercenary or unfair. Especially expect people to hate you if you fuck up their proverbial achiever cabbage patch.

      In a lot of ways, I think the people who fall deeply into MMORPGS or other achiever games are people who are, at their heart, achievers but are unable to succeed in the traditional achiever rat races. If you can't be a captain of industry or marry a supermodel, well, maybe you can be the leetest guy on EverQuest. Maybe in your success of nightly level-grinding and monster farming will serve as a nepenthe to ease the dull ache of your failures in the great achiever contest that is life.

      • "Society rewards the killer/PvPer mindset to a point, but it generally doesn't overtly encourage it."

        For every winner in most elections there is one or more losers. The path to political power is built on the backs of those you defeat. As politics is an integral part or our society, and the rewards of power are great, I have to fundamentally disagree with this.

        PK'ers rule our society.

        -Jeff
    • But what happens is, as a side effect, you lose the majority of the "casual" gamers who want nothing more then to spend 1-3 hours relaxing, maybe accomplishing some minor goal but nothing too stressful.

      What PvP does is reward the "hard-core" players who want to show-off their 'leet-skillz' in the most annoying and intrusive way possible -- ie, ruining someone else's day. It almost ruined UO, and it's the foremost barrier to anyone wanting to try Lineage II.

      If you want a PvP experience, fine. Go play Cou
      • While your point of view is definitely valid, it's also kind of beside the point of the post you were replying to. Here's the argument chain:

        Article: PvP doesn't work in MMORPGs. People who engage in it are deranged.

        Original Poster: This is wrong, because PvP works very well in Shadowbane. It has systems that allow PvP with very little griefing.

        You: PvP is only fun in games that are designed for it. In other games, it ruins other people's fun.

        So, even if what you said is true, it doesn't affect what the

        • My reply was in response to the insinuation that PvE wasn't nearly as satisfying as PvP and any MMO that didn't have PvP was just coddling it's stupid, timid users and thus was an inferior design.

          relevant quote: For my purposes, PvE treadmilling is brain-dead. So are the people who want to bake bread or whatever. Unless it involves engaging in combat or negotiations or meaningful dialogue with other human beings, why is it worth checking out of reality?

          It's bullshit like this that made me stop playing CS
    • I don't disagree with your premise but somewhere along the line you lost me.

      For my purposes, PvE treadmilling is brain-dead. So are the people who want to bake bread or whatever. Unless it involves engaging in combat or negotiations or meaningful dialogue with other human beings, why is it worth checking out of reality?

      So...What about the entire HISTORY of single player videogames made before MMORPGs or MUDs were around (or popular, at least)? What about Zelda? What about Metal Gear? What about fucking

    • "...but frankly I hold precisely the opposite view. The thrill that most MMORPG players get from leveling, crafting, exploring, etc., I find a symptom of a socially debilitated person. PvPers, on the other hand, I feel largely have their heads on straight in reality and merely seek a greater challenge and greater exhilaration..."

      I agree with this entirely. Competition with others is by definition a social activity. So we can choose between PvE'ers who try to constrain each other to fit certain molds and
  • It doesn't matter how many different classes you have - because there are only four base classes - fighter, spellcaster, rogue, and crafter.

    I don't know what games this guy's been playing, but I've never seen a crafter as a "base class" - only as an option that one of the other three base classes can take, given that the time and money are available to pursue it.
  • I played Tale in the Desert for a good long while, but never managed to get to the fun part.

    I made a lot of bricks, picked up a lot of flint, and ... some other spinning machines and whatnot, but I never seemed to get to anything that was interesting. Everything I did, while interesting, had been done by every other inhabitant, and what's more, it really had very little to do with me. I could maybe arrange my distaffs in a pattern that nobody else had done, but that was about all I could come up with. A
    • The art discipline in atitd, like the other 6 disciplines, has 7 tests that you compete in. The sculpture you refer to isn't even one of those. Its just the initiation to allow you to sign up for the tests. The tests are all much more in-depth and challenging than the initiations. The initiations are necessarily easy so as not to discourage newbies.

      The architecture discipline is really full of tests of resource management, not "architecture", and its only suitable for die-hard players. But every ne
      • "And there are dozens of things to do in game that have nothing to do with building."

        Can you elaborate on some of those? I played for about two weeks, but didn't see where it was I should be going other than camp-building and resource-gathering.
        • Breed a pretty new strain of beetles or flowers. Learn to brew your own unique blend of beer or wine or spirits and experiment with the local microclimates, hold festivals and max out your tasting skill. Perfect your fireworks displays until they are impressive enough to compete, and get them immortalized to pass some out to others for special events. Campaign for demipharaoh, win the test of patronage, write a ridiculous law, be a mentor. Design some puzzles, solve everyone elses puzzles. Go to the plan
    • Interesting.

      I've been thinking of trying out Tale for awhile now, but just really haven't gotten off my ass to do so, though it does sound promising. Now reading your post I feel a bit disheartened.

      Are you sure you're just not creative?

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