General Discussion

Originally posted by altairzq

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by altairzq

Yes they are absolutely needed to destroy the MMOs once and for all.

 

I am not quite sure how people arrive at this point of view.

 

Do you actually ...

 

What on earth are you talking about.

I am talking about; you know ... stuff.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by altairzq

Yes they are absolutely needed to destroy the MMOs once and for all.

 

I am not quite sure how people arrive at this point of view.

 

Do you actually believe that a social animal (humans) when given freedom to choose will choose not to be social?

 

Do you believe that soloing is fundamentally more efficient than grouping?  It certainly does not need to be.  In general an intelligent division of labor saves time on almost any enterprise of even moderate complexity.  Until you have too many people which is usually over the size of 5-8 which is normal MMO group size.

 

The only rational thing I have seen that actually argues against people naturally trying to group with no incentive other than the naturally existing ones, is the networking overhead.

 

In order to think this "destroys" MMOs you must believe the the networking overhead is extremely onerous.  So bad in fact that  it overcomes the extremely strong motivations of socializing and efficiency.  And anyone who think humans do not put a large emphasis on socializng and effiecieny it pretty much living in a fantasy world, of coruse may be that is why we need more sci-fi games I dunno.

 

And hirelings is basically an attempt to reduce networking overhead or at least the penalties (downtime) associated with it.

 

It seems to me that to truly assert what you are asserting you must either be putting a lot of stock into things that are going to be very very hard if not impossible to prove, i.e humans are not that social or doing things in a group is less efficient.

 

Or you are trying to fall back on the network overhead argument and in that case you will be arguing against yourself.  Since this should lower your downtime while you follow the natural human inclinations of socializing and effiiciency and try to put together a well run fun group.

 

Therefore I think this is just flat out wrong.  It amazes me how many people seriously try to put forward that a human are somehow not social.  That is simply preposterous.  Or that grouping is not efficient. 

 

The only major functional downside anyone can point to in grouping is networking overhead.  The rest is just I got unlucky and ran into some kind of asshat complaint.

 

So we have two powerful motivating forces, socialness and efficiency vs. one de-motivating force, networking overhead.

 

So how can lessening one make grouping worse?  Because the socialness/efficiency factors have not been artifically enhanced?

 

Um why do they need to be enhanced?  Hello!  They are two of the biggest motivators for humans through out all of history.  There are entire universities devoted to these concpets.  Trillions of dollars spent every year just to make sure these things are maximized.  They are their own reward.  People naturally gravitate towards maximizing them.    They don't need to be enhanced.  In fact you probably cannot enhance them anymore than they are. 

 

Reducing the obstruction is a far better idea.

Given all this, and all you say, I will ask you this...

Why are the most popular games so fundamentally solo if we are all so social by nature?

Why has game design gone against the flow of human nature, as you paint it, and become so much more popular then the old social models?

I would also ask, honestly for an honest answer, do you usually solo or group?

Not interested in arguing here, just would like to hear your view.

I have stated in othe threads why I think solo orientated play systems destroy community, and the value, of these games by reducing the player pool to the pont where even social players can not play the way they wish to, so I will not bang that drum here.

All I will say is that I personally feel NPC hirelings are not good for a MMORPG if they are designed to replace, and not supplement, a group of living players. It would be great in a single player game, but it is just yet another community destroyer and way for the solo lite anti-social brigade to actually avoid people in a muli-player game.

Originally posted by vesavius

I have stated in othe threads why I think solo orientated play systems destroy community, and the value, of these games by reducing the player pool to the pont where even social players can not play the way they wish to, so I will not bang that drum here.

All I will say is that I personally feel NPC hirelings are not good for a MMORPG if they are designed to replace, and not supplement, a group of living players. It would be great in a single player game, but it is just yet another community destroyer and way for the solo lite anti-social brigade to actually avoid people in a muli-player game.

Agreed.

In the case of DDO, this is what happened:  the developers at DDO noticed that the remnants of their playerbase consisted of mostly-antisocial metagamers that were helping destroy any chances of new players latching onto the game.  So, instead of adding social mechanics to the game (the lack of which was what caused the previously described playerbase state) that would attract a different style of player, they simply removed the social mechanic of needing to group with other players.

As if the social aspect of grouping to complete quests wasn't the thread the game was hanging by...

...it really does seem like a self-destruct mechanism.

Originally posted by vesavius

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by altairzq

Yes they are absolutely needed to destroy the MMOs once and for all.

 

....

 

Given all this, and all you say, I will ask you this...

Why are the most popular games so fundamentally solo if we are all so social by nature?

I am not sure whether you mean non-MMO games or are talking about WoW and a few other MMOs.   Also i do not consider a game like WoW fundamentally solo.  But this is my opinion on the matter and it involves several factors:

1) creating computer game that have social components is a computational arduous task.   Therefore it is a much less settled due to technological and investment issues.  There are far more single player games made simply because of invesetment stuff

2) People are both social and individual.  I don't invite 4 people over to do the dishes yet people spend ass tons of money paying triple the price of a bear to watch a ball game at a bar just to be around other people.  Clearly people do not want to be saddled with others at all times, yet also it is clear that people will expend serious resources and place a very high importance on gathering with others.

3) Given #2 above it really does not make sense to try to make everything a group or solo endeavor.  When you make doing the dishes a group endeavor people will get pissed.  When you have a house party and its "solo" people will get pissed.  People want both because they are inclined towards both.  In fact some people do solo activites to prepare for social activies.  If someone was trying to comb my hair for me I'd get pissed since its annoying.  Yet the only reason I comb my hair is to look good for other people.  I do not think the solo versus group dichotomy even exists.

4) social things tend to last long and take a while.  Yet generally are highly valued AS LONG AS THEY DO NOT INTERFERE with everyday activities.  Most everyday activities are individual, private things.   House parties, team sports, clubs, etc etc.  People put in serious time and effort to participate, create and find these things.  But at the same time as soon as they interfere with private things they will get dropped.

 

5) Privacy.  It may seem counter-inutive, but it is a cornerstone of human socializing.  It is a faux pas to dig too deep into private things.  Humans go nuts when they don't have privacy.  Everyone has different ideas about what should be private.   I believe that this is something that is vatly overlooked in what is considered a social atmosphere because these a virutal worlds and subtle issues that seem counter-inutive like have not really been tackled.  It seems strange to say it maybe, but without solo stuff, private stuff your social fabric will dissolve if it is composed of humans.  We may be social but we aren't ants.  We aren't even dogs.  Humans are funny they are both highly individual and highly herd oriented.  When dealing with each we have subtle unsaid boundaries that we do not really fully consciously understand but we bow to out of practicality.

 

6) The get a bigger hammer solution.  I think the social aspects of MMOs have been taken in a very simplistic and hamfisted way.  And so the supposedly more social games of the past are in fact just putting square pegs into round holes.  They assume that shoving people together is the same thing as social.  I do not think this is true at all and thus they wind up with strange problems where nothing ever quite fits right.  

 

 

Why has game design gone against the flow of human nature, as you paint it, and become so much more popular then the old social models?

I don't think current game design is against social models.  I consider Guild Wars for example to be very much akin to a pick up game of basketball.  I consider EQ1 style forced grouping to be very similar to a Union in a non-right to work state.  There is a reason people call EQ1 a job.

I would actually say the games are becoming more social not less.  I ansered some of this above.  But basically I do not accept your premise that they are less social.  I think they are more social because I do not see quantity as superior to quality.  As many people together as often as possible is not the same thing as social.  I think this is definitely born out by people who have only Played City of Heroes truying other games out.  They often get a culture shock and feel the games are very inferior in the social aspects.

 

I would also ask, honestly for an honest answer, do you usually solo or group?

I do both.  I often quit games in frsutration that do not let me solo.  I often get bored of games where the grouping is not good.

Not interested in arguing here, just would like to hear your view.

I have stated in othe threads why I think solo orientated play systems destroy community, and the value, of these games by reducing the player pool to the pont where even social players can not play the way they wish to, so I will not bang that drum here.

All I will say is that I personally feel NPC hirelings are not good for a MMORPG if they are designed to replace, and not supplement, a group of living players. It would be great in a single player game, but it is just yet another community destroyer and way for the solo lite anti-social brigade to actually avoid people in a muli-player game.

I think here is perhaps where we differ the most.  I do not believe there is truly such a thing as what you describe.    Why do I say this?  My reason is very simply EVERY SINGLE person in this entire world eventually falls into the category you just mention.  There is not a single person in this world that eventually does not want some alone time.  There is almost no person playing an MMO at one point in time that still wanted to play and INTERACT WITH THE WORLD but not talk to or deal with people.  For whatever reason, a fight with a girlfriend a long night raiding, whatever. 

 

There are people who's preferred method of play is to mostly solo and they play MMO's to interact with the a "living" world.  But frankly they are fairly rare.  Most people are a pretty equal mix of the two.  And the most social thing is the ENGAGE with them.

You can say well then don't play a community based game.  I say to you that dealing with this IS part of the community.  You do not build a community by excluding people when they don't suit your needs.  The people who are the best at running social enterprises are often extremely graceful and rarely lay down the hammer of social obligation.

Originally posted by Raithe-Nor

Originally posted by vesavius

I have stated in othe threads why I think solo orientated play systems destroy community, and the value, of these games by reducing the player pool to the pont where even social players can not play the way they wish to, so I will not bang that drum here.

All I will say is that I personally feel NPC hirelings are not good for a MMORPG if they are designed to replace, and not supplement, a group of living players. It would be great in a single player game, but it is just yet another community destroyer and way for the solo lite anti-social brigade to actually avoid people in a muli-player game.

 

Agreed.

In the case of DDO, this is what happened:  the developers at DDO noticed that the remnants of their playerbase consisted of mostly-antisocial metagamers that were helping destroy any chances of new players latching onto the game.  So, instead of adding social mechanics to the game (the lack of which was what caused the previously described playerbase state) that would attract a different style of player, they simply removed the social mechanic of needing to group with other players.

As if the social aspect of grouping to complete quests wasn't the thread the game was hanging by...

...it really does seem like a self-destruct mechanism.

Actually  I would characterize DDO as split into two relatively equal sized camps, the meta-gamers you mention and the more immersion dungeon crawl based people.

And they do not mix well.  The immersion people hate the zergers.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by metalhead980

Henchmen need to be balanced so they don't overpower everything.

In GW they are far from balanced.

With my heroes and henchmen I get maybe two or three attacks off before they kill the whole damn pack.

It makes me feel like I'm not needed and totally kills the game for me.

It's like watching someone else play an MMO.

 

 

 

 

The higher level content in GW such as higher stuff in Realm of Torment or Eye of the north do not work this way.  Ever.

 

Stuff in realm of torment will rip you apart if you just let the NPCs attack willy nilly.

 

while I'm aware that 5-10% of the game is hard and requires actual strategy the leveling and questing leading up to that point is actually easy as hell and those damn henchies/heroes are OP. Even setting targets, pullling mobs back to my hencies they rip all the mobs apart before my Dervish could cleave them all down.

In the later content I would normally use my guild to run stuff, its a lot cooler to run a mostly real player team into those areas.

Other than unbalanced hencies and heroes I actually find GW one of the better games i've played in the last few years. GW is unrivaled in solo pve content and pvp balance.

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by metalhead980

Henchmen need to be balanced so the