Profile: vesavius
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• • DC Universe: Fan Faire Hands-On

  • Not another casual lite solo quest grinder... jeez...

    btw, this is a self stated ACTION game....

    This site is for mmoRPGs right?

    With the slow death of the mmoRPG, this site needs to rename itself or whatever. Its gettin stupid.

  • Posted: 8/26/08 3:57 PM
    General Discussion
• • Poll: Hirelings a good idea for an MMO?

  • 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.

  • Posted: 8/18/08 3:03 PM
    General Discussion
• • Community as a design Choice

  • Originally posted by Terranah
    

    Okay, I am going to agree with you that part of the problem I think is the current mmo design which to me is flawed.  Current mmo design seems to concentrate more toward quest grind, a more single player game type mechanic, as opposed to appealing to the more obvious strength of the genre, which is as an online medium of social interaction.

     

    I have an analogy from my experiences as a youth.  I remember going to this dance in high school.  The DJ sucked and the music was horrible.  No one was dancing, but rather just standing around, irritated with the music and complaining.  Well, that's where I feel  we are as a community.   It's not that we don't like to dance, or that we don't like mmo's. 

     

    Finally, enough people complained and the DJ put on some better music and people started to dance.   Happy faces and happy times, and no time to grumble and complain because we had found our groove.

     

    I hope we can find our groove.

    
     

    Ok, I will stop spam posting now, but I was gone for a few days and the quality of so manyreplies here made me wanna reply.

    Including this one.

    Really nice analogy.

  • Posted: 8/18/08 1:00 PM
    General Discussion
• • Community as a design Choice

  • Originally posted by gillvane1
    

    Maybe this will help the solo advocates get the picture.

     

    I want to play football. Football requires you have  a team.

     

    You're telling me, you want to play, but without a team, so could I please change all the rules so you can play the game solo?

    Yes, we can do that, but then it's not football anymore.

    It's not that I want to force you to be on my team. I don't care if you aren't on my team. It's that I want to play football, and once we change all the rules so you can play solo, it's not football anymore.

    And the solo players are saying, well you can still go off and form a team, can't you? No, I can't because you've completely changed the field to the point I can't use it to play the game of football anymore. You've removed one of the goal posts, and shortened the field by 50 yards.

    Sure, I can go form a team, but what the hell are we going to do with a 50 yard field that only has one goal post?

    
     

    Yes, QFT, nicely put.

  • Posted: 8/18/08 12:58 PM
    General Discussion
• • Community as a design Choice

  • Originally posted by Loira
    

    I call foul for using the word Asshat 3 times in the same post.

     Hah! ok, fair enough :)

    I agree with some of your points, but just having a game be accessible to casual players does not lead to bad community. 

    No, I agree, I wasnt saying that.

    I was saying that making the game too easy (fully described quests, marked objectives on GPS style full detailed maps, safe paths to all quest points etc) DOES though...

    I do not feel casual games have to be easy... I am not sure where the idea they do came from... The notion didnt exist before very recently tbh...

    Casual games have to be accessable, sure, but why does that not mean challenging? Even a casual MMORPG (and I think there are enough of though already... time for a semi-casual at least plz?) should be designed to be more them moving wallpaper you barely have to click on to play?

    I think maiking it too easy to solo does.  Games also tend to be missing something that ties gamers together now.  No "For the Greater good" feeling anymore.

    Spot on :)

    There is no reason for me to help John Doe because him sucking means nothing to me.  If John Doe sucks it only matters to him, not the community.  If Billy is an Asshat then it only matters to him.  There is nothing that ties the two of us together in any way. 

    Now if Billy being an ass means he will be ostricised by the community then maybe he will be nicer so he can get in groups and raids.  If John sucks and it means that all these players like John that suck will mean I get less reward and loose more often then I will be more willing to help John get better so we can win more.

    So I agree with community being a design choice, but making games accesible and more casual friendly does not mean bad community.  But making them solo friendly does IMO. 

    Agreed :)

    
     

  • Posted: 8/18/08 12:45 PM
    General Discussion