SWTOR

[Lantyssa]

There's got to be some mechanism to allow grouping that doesn't interrupt solo questing, though?

Public quests.  Without the construction equipment to the crotch.

Something like the begining area WAR PQs, and making NPCs to fill unused slots, and not making it an ever-increasing grind would be a start.  (I didn't get to see CO's version working to know if they could add something to this.)  It wouldn't work for every quest chain, but in certain situations it could.  Stopping the horde descending on the town, invading the castle, diversionary force for a small strike team, the strike team while a diversionary force attacks, etc.

[Goreschach]

Back in the day we used to call these "single player" and "multiplayer" games.

That was before WoW the emergence of social networking and growing media acceptance of popular gaming, now every studio is trying to make moneyhats the next market expanding subscription based virtual community.

[Typhon]

Maybe you don't understand what the term "Straw man" means?

No, let's force people who just want to blow off some steam playing a casual game to play the way you want to play. When I shop at walmart, I often lash together six carts and make people shop with me, and I talk incessantly the entire time.

No?

Oh please.  The first part of his quote was on-target, the second part was for laughs... and it WAS/IS funny.  If the image of a hyper-friendly lunatic lashing together six carts and jabbering endlessly doesn't make you laugh, well you're just broken.

Edit: endless instead of endlessly

[Ratman_tf]

Back in the day we used to call these "single player" and "multiplayer" games.

I just play Torchlight if I feel like soloing nowadays.

[Typhon]

Public quests.  Without the construction equipment to the crotch.

Something like the begining area WAR PQs, and making NPCs to fill unused slots, and not making it an ever-increasing grind would be a start.  (I didn't get to see CO's version working to know if they could add something to this.)  It wouldn't work for every quest chain, but in certain situations it could.  Stopping the horde descending on the town, invading the castle, diversionary force for a small strike team, the strike team while a diversionary force attacks, etc.

I was thinking the same thing.  I think PQs are a good idea and we'll see different dev shops try different approaches that will build off each other until we get something decently fun.  I don't think the idea will get there until there's better information given to player not currently at the PQ whether or not anyone is running it (in the case where multiple people are required) OR the PQ scales itself to the number of people participating and the more that participate the tougher/better rewards involved.

The other thought I had was to allow for cross-realm friend lists (or something like a friend list).  So if you "friend" someone, and they are looking for a dungeon/encounter at the same time you are, you'll have a increased chance to group with them again.  Kind of encourages you to be a bit more social when running a dungeon and tagging someone that you enjoyed running with.

[Ingmar]

CO's PQs seemed to me to be exactly the same as WAR's, only nobody was ever doing them. 

On the other hand, people *did* do the fleet actions in ST:O which are also the same thing.

[Draegan]

The original point that Sky quoted me was that if you are in the mood for grouping and dungeon going the current WOW dungeons are stupid.  There isn't much to them.  You blast your way through them, constantly pulling groups non-stop in a dungeon where you can only go one way.  There is no time to idly chat and discuss things; let alone the need to do it.

I'm not sure where this forced grouping discussion sprung up.  Having to be forced to group to advance in the game is silly.

[Typhon]

I think the comparison of PQs in WAR and CO emphasized the point that I was trying to make that these early implementations need a be of refinement to make them more compelling.

I had fun in CO, and in general thought that it wasn't given enough credit, but I thought COs PQ implementation sucked ass.  I only did a few of them, but the scripting that tried to tie the different phases together was poorly executed.  The fact that the rewards also sucked ass just made it worse.

WAR, for all it did wrong, had some decent PQs in the first two tiers.  I might be rose-coloring the memory, or my experience might have been more positive because the population was high enough and people cooperated enough to make doing them fun.  That said, after tier 2 it went into the crapper.

Neither game gave you any info about who/what were currently doing (or wanting to do) a particular PQ or it's current status, which made often made it a waste of time to run out to see if anyone was doing the quest.  Both systems only work if you are already in contact with people who are planning on doing the PQs (or there are always people available).  Given that this content gets stale pretty quickly, it seems to be more bang for the buck to help coordinate people who have an interest in doing that PQ.

I think that sort of thing can even be incorporated into the game experience (e.g. criers in different towns pointing out that a PQ is kicking off in X amount of time and additional support being needed).  Make it so that people doing the quest (or trying to do the quest) can port in reinforcements - as someone said just recently, reduce the logistics of grouping down as low as possible if you want people to group.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The original point that Sky quoted me was that if you are in the mood for grouping and dungeon going the current WOW dungeons are stupid.  There isn't much to them.  You blast your way through them, constantly pulling groups non-stop in a dungeon where you can only go one way.  There is no time to idly chat and discuss things; let alone the need to do it.

I'm not sure where this forced grouping discussion sprung up.  Having to be forced to group to advance in the game is silly.

You are saying two different things here.  If someone is in the mood for a wow dungeon, then they are perfectly happy with what they get.  There is no "this is what a dungeon is" standard. Some dungeons are short, some are long.  Some dungeons take up entire games or DnD modules and some are meant to be knocked out in an hour.  Wow raids are also, dungeons and none of them are terribly quick(togc perhaps)  and there's quite a lot of talking in them. 

Let's look at everquest for a moment.  In original eq you grouped up with six people for hours on end, sitting in one spot and waiting for things to kill to appear.  Of course it fosters a social dynamic, it was either that or go insane.  Also think about it, is a 6 person group in eq vastly different from a 10person "raid" in wow?  Maybe if raid wasn't a dirty word people would try forming ten man groups more often.  I have actually found 10mans to be a more sociable experience than any online game I've played.  They are just hard enough that you are talking, taking your time and small enough that you really get to know the people in your group.

[Draegan]

The original point that Sky quoted me was that if you are in the mood for grouping and dungeon going the current WOW dungeons are stupid.  There isn't much to them.  You blast your way through them, constantly pulling groups non-stop in a dungeon where you can only go one way.  There is no time to idly chat and discuss things; let alone the need to do it.

I'm not sure where this forced grouping discussion sprung up.  Having to be forced to group to advance in the game is silly.

You are saying two different things here.  If someone is in the mood for a wow dungeon, then they are perfectly happy with what they get.  There is no "this is what a dungeon is" standard. Some dungeons are short, some are long.  Some dungeons take up entire games or DnD modules and some are meant to be knocked out in an hour.  Wow raids are also, dungeons and none of them are terribly quick(togc perhaps)  and there's quite a lot of talking in them. 

You completely missed my point.  If someone is the mood for a WOW dungeon, of course they're happy with what's in WOW because they're playing the game.

Of course there isn't a "standard" dungeon, and I'm not advocating that there should be.  Koyasha was talking about an experience he had in WOW when he tried out the Dungeon Finder.  I rebutted with my statement that WOW dungeons are terrible (obviously my opinion) and described why I thought no one talked in them and why they were bad.

[Rishathra]

While what you say is valid, if some casual players just want to blow off some steam, they can do that just as effectively in a single player game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAsp4rn9QnM

[Lakov_Sanite]

My point was also missed.  Classic dungeons in older games are now called "raids" in wow.  In fact a ten-man wow raid is infinitely more fun than a 6man mistmoore or lguk.  The terms are changing but similar content is still in there, you just need to look for it.  Wow dungeons are indeed pellet factories and for me, who blocks maybe an hour of wow at a time, that is perfectly fine. 

[Sky]

So far I've learned two things from this thread: I'll probably like SWTOR and I need to check out WoW again at some point  I wish Blizz would bundle expansions the way SOE does, though. That's the main barrier to (re-)entry for me, I only have the launch box.

[Draegan]

My point was also missed.  Classic dungeons in older games are now called "raids" in wow.  In fact a ten-man wow raid is infinitely more fun than a 6man mistmoore or lguk.  The terms are changing but similar content is still in there, you just need to look for it.  Wow dungeons are indeed pellet factories and for me, who blocks maybe an hour of wow at a time, that is perfectly fine. 

Raids are multi-group affairs and dungeons are single group affairs.  I think that has remained consistent for a while. 

In any event, I don't give a shit what you call it.  It's fine if you like pellet factories that are WOW dungeons.  That's why WOW is there.  It's also why my original point still stands as those dungeons do not foster social interaction and community.

[Fordel]

So far I've learned two things from this thread: I'll probably like SWTOR and I need to check out WoW again at some point  I wish Blizz would bundle expansions the way SOE does, though. That's the main barrier to (re-)entry for me, I only have the launch box.

They only have the two at least.

[jakonovski]

They only have the two at least.

It's rather depressing how little content Blizzard has bothered to create for WoW in five years.

[Musashi]

If I need an incentive to talk to you, the thought occurs to me that I might not have found it worth talking to you without it.  So if you're currently hell bent on incentivizing others to talk to you, what the fuck does that say about you?  What kind of hollow conversations are you asking for if people are just talking to you for a foozle drop.  I don't care about that.  And quite frankly, if you do, I have to wonder about your motivation.  I'd much rather find organic conversation partners on my own than be forced to sift through twats like you.  And I mean 'you twats' in the most formal plural.

[LK]

They only have the two at least.

It's rather depressing how little content Blizzard has bothered to create for WoW in five years.

Par the course, if you ask me.

[Ingmar]

They only have the two at least.

It's rather depressing how little content Blizzard has bothered to create for WoW in five years.

Was this supposed to be green?

[Ratman_tf]

If I need an incentive to talk to you, the thought occurs to me that I might not have found it worth talking to you without it.  So if you're currently hell bent on incentivizing others to talk to you, what the fuck does that say about you?  What kind of hollow conversations are you asking for if people are just talking to you for a foozle drop.  I don't care about that.  And quite frankly, if you do, I have to wonder about your motivation.  I'd much rather find organic conversation partners on my own than be forced to sift through twats like you.  And I mean 'you twats' in the most formal plural.

A: "Hi total stranger, let's socalize!"

D: "im fuking harry pttr rt now"

A: "What?"

D: "pull plz"

A: "Jesus man, are you high?"

drizzt has gone offline

A: "Man, what was up with that guy?"

C: "SHUT UP YOU STUPID AMERICAN FAGGOT!"

[LK]

Playing games with strangers is no way to play. You just want them to do their job and at least be competent enough to advance your own agenda.

[Musashi]

Well, I'm definitely not opposed to playing with strangers.  I'm just saying, there are times when I'd rather not be subjected to what Ratman said.  When I'm playing TF2, I like playing on public servers.  But occasionally, I'll turn off the in game vent because I can only handle so much.  I need to have that option to turn it off, or I'm not going to play.  If you want me to sit inside Crushbone, dodgning trains, and 'interact' with people in order to begin playing, I'm probably going to pass.  I've got enough friends. 

And for the guy who's about to say, well but what about the guy who doesn't have enough friends.  Nothing about what I'm saying prevents him from making them.

[Stabs]

I wonder how SWTOR will combine the Choose Your Own Adventure gameplay with the Greater Internet Fuckwad experience.

They muttered something in the last vid I watched about players in a group choosing in a way that implied skill.

In other words, say I'm in a group with 3 guys, first guy afks during dialogue, second guy always picks the top option, third guy picks whatever sounds the most evil.

Will I somehow, by choosing intelligent options, be able to open up a dominant dialogue line that the other players are denied?

In the April Fool Gamespot interview one of them mentioned that the Sarlacc Enforcer's dialogue options would get narrower and narrower the hungrier it got until the only option left was "Eat him." While it's speculative to the extreme to make assumptions about genuine gameplay based on a mechanic alluded to in a spoof it would be very interesting if picking good and non-obvious answers meant you could get to a position where an NPC would listen to you, not your dickhead companions because your answers fit the continuity and their answers don't.

At the very minimum they need something better than whoever clicks fastest or everyone wait around 3 minutes while the new guy watches the cut-scene.

[UnSub]

I think the comparison of PQs in WAR and CO emphasized the point that I was trying to make that these early implementations need a be of refinement to make them more compelling.

I had fun in CO, and in general thought that it wasn't given enough credit, but I thought COs PQ implementation sucked ass.  I only did a few of them, but the scripting that tried to tie the different phases together was poorly executed.  The fact that the rewards also sucked ass just made it worse.

Another thing that ChampO did was tone down the difficulty on the PQs, so that small groups could complete them. This meant that overpowered characters could roll them solo and ChampO also lacked some of the open teaming tools that made teaming up in WAR much easier. Plus there was little point to team in ChampO as well.

Take the Prison Breakout PQ, for instance - any moderately capable character can solo it. As such, I didn't mind the rewards not being fantastic since they were so easy to get.

The thing I've found with PQs in both WAR and ChampO is that you need to be the player who says, "I'm starting a PQ - come join me", then update the zone on every phase. As the PQ goes on, more people start to join up. It isn't really socialising, rather broadcasting, "Rewards coming up soon!" that is the basis of these kind of open quests.

... which has no link at all to SWOR. How will SWOR reduce the same kind of open team problems? Probably by making all such things scalable and for a limited number of players i.e. it won't be 25 players milling around and all having a chance to talk when the team leader gets a mission off Darth Fed'Ex.

[Malakili]

  Maybe if raid wasn't a dirty word people would try forming ten man groups more often. 

We shouldn't forget that people frequently got groups of 10-15 people together (NEED KEYHOLDER!!!!) for UBRS back in classic WoW, and that was "technically" a raid.  Sure it didn't drop epics, well aside from a few extremely small chance drops, though it did drop the dungeon set chests, which were a hot commodity for a while, and other good blue loot.

There was no lock out, which I think is part of it.  You didn't need to worry about getting saved to it or anything, you just got a group and went with it, worst case scenario you end up with a repair bill and in LFG again, but you weren't hosed until next week or something.

I kind of miss that small raid experience without having to worry about lock outs now that I think about it, though of course there were tons of absolutely god awful UBRS groups back then, because it was sort of difficult for bad groups.   Maybe its part of my expectation now and part how the game has changed, but now noone would dream of running a non-epic dropping instance they weren't sure they would be able to finish.

[Ingmar]

  Maybe if raid wasn't a dirty word people would try forming ten man groups more often. 

It isn't that, it's risking your lockout for the week on a bunch of randoms.

[Kageru]

I've tried PQ's in post-collapse Warhammer (we can solo / duo the trash, but there's no one to help with the boss) and Champions (broken mechanics and risk / reward) and I think the idea is by and large a waste of time. Because it is open field and open population it can't really be tuned to present a meaningful challenge as compared to a WoW (or EQ) dungeon. So they're okay as an alternative to XP grinding but not a particularly useful focus for group gameplay. And spending too much time on levelling content, where it is going to be quickly trivialized by levelling, just doesn't seem like a good idea.

I mean I hope SWTOR can come up with a meaningful alternative to the dungeon / raid model but I'm not sure that PQ's are a good foundation.

[eldaec]

On the other hand, if you stuck a PQ in Atlas Park, CoH players would have eaten that shit up. The difference is that CoH was able to maintain a population, both casual and hardcore, at all levels.

Even in WAR they were a fun novelty until population problems emerged, first at lower levels and then throughout the game.

[taolurker]

Is it ok if maybe we concentrate a slight bit on SWTOR?

Dark Horse comics announced at WonderCon (San Francisco) about new comics involving the Star Wars universe including a "prequel" called "Star Wars the Old Republic the Thread of Peace" which is supposed to link the MMO to the previous RPGs. There's also going to be an online comic "SWTOR Blood of the Empire" supposedly coming in the next month.

Still not updated on the SWTOR or Dark Horse pages, but I saw this on g4tv's Attack of the show.
Link to video clip

[Velorath]

Is it ok if maybe we concentrate a slight bit on SWTOR?

Dark Horse comics announced at WonderCon (San Francisco) about new comics involving the Star Wars universe including a "prequel" called "Star Wars the Old Republic the Thread of Peace" which is supposed to link the MMO to the previous RPGs. There's also going to be an online comic "SWTOR Blood of the Empire" supposedly coming in the next month.

Still not updated on the SWTOR or Dark Horse pages, but I saw this on g4tv's Attack of the show.
Link to video clip

Uh... The Threat of Peace is a webcomic that they've been putting up on the SWTOR site here for some time now.

[Spiff]

I wonder how SWTOR will combine the Choose Your Own Adventure gameplay with the Greater Internet Fuckwad experience.

They muttered something in the last vid I watched about players in a group choosing in a way that implied skill.

In other words, say I'm in a group with 3 guys, first guy afks during dialogue, second guy always picks the top option, third guy picks whatever sounds the most evil.

Will I somehow, by choosing intelligent options, be able to open up a dominant dialogue line that the other players are denied?

In the April Fool Gamespot interview one of them mentioned that the Sarlacc Enforcer's dialogue options would get narrower and narrower the hungrier it got until the only option left was "Eat him." While it's speculative to the extreme to make assumptions about genuine gameplay based on a mechanic alluded to in a spoof it would be very interesting if picking good and non-obvious answers meant you could get to a position where an NPC would listen to you, not your dickhead companions because your answers fit the continuity and their answers don't.

At the very minimum they need something better than whoever clicks fastest or everyone wait around 3 minutes while the new guy watches the cut-scene.

I have to say I'm very intrigued to see how the 'multiplayer Bioware convo wheel' works out.
It would need a vastly complex array of options to not feel extremely scripted and limiting for it to allow the meta-gaming you're describing, but then they've been making a huge deal about the ginormous amount of voice-acting they've been recording.
Part of why grouping doesn't always feel so dynamic is that people are just lazy, which in an online game translates into: 'too lazy to even type some convo if not forced to do so'.
Basically sounds like Bioware is trying to make socializing its own reward here (as they've been doing quite well for a while in their RPG's now), sort of a soft way of forcing it   .

In DA and especially ME the whole voice-acted convo choice thing made me empathise with NPC's more than I often do with actual players, but I have to wonder if it could have the same effect with players, or if instead it wouldn't feel like them at all 'cause all they did was click a pre-set option.

Most of what I read here is about the reward and the framework there is for grouping, but that feels circumstantial to me tbh.
Having to converse with other players basically to make sure they fulfil their class-role hardly creates a real bond, it differs only minutely from scripting an NPC to do it and completely relies on the ingenuity of the encounter design (which I don't have much faith in as far as MMO's go tbh).
The only times slightly more in-depth conversations about game-play are in order is if you happen to be in a position to take part in freshly created content: i.e. a new raid for which the tactics haven't been plastered all over the net already; not a frequent occurrence.
Or of course like Sky mentioned in a completely different type of MMO.

How much of a difference the framework for grouping makes? Apparently lowering the difficulty for grouping in WoW hasn't had a beneficial effect (as far as socializing goes anyway), LoTRO on the other hand had (and to an extent still has) some of the most atrocious support for grouping I've ever seen, this doesn't make the group 'a band of brothers' either.
I don't think the PQ's from WAR or fleet actions from ST:O have a specific effect on the groups being created either (and by extension the people in them) because all they really do is set up a private chat-channel and share xp/loot.

In real life you socialize with people 'cause your entire being is created to do so; not just talking, simply being in someone's vicinity often leads to some form of socializing through non-verbal communication.
Sky (jokingly) made the comparison to a super-market, but in a super-market you do socialize. Have you never talked to a girl looking at the same vegetables as you? Of course there is an incentive there  , but that's not enough, there are factors that directly motivate you; a look she gave you, the way she smells, ...

These 'game-worlds' are constructs that almost completely sever you from that physicality/instinct, so if socializing has to be part of it it has to be programmed in I'd say. Not in a round-about 'maybe they'll talk to each other if this raid forces them too?' way that only takes incentive into account, but directly, by making social interaction an intricate part of the gameplay experience and by giving the player the tools to do so in a smooth/instinctive manner.

This is what Bioware has done quite brilliantly in some of their single-players (you could argue they've built an entire reputation on it), if they can actually port that to a multiplayer environment, I will group up; heck, I'll stand in a wasteland /shouting for hours to find a group (well maybe not  ).

[Edit] sorry for the slightly in-cohesive wall of text by they way 

[Lantyssa]

Uh... The Threat of Peace is a webcomic that they've been putting up on the SWTOR site here for some time now.

It's also really bad and very disjointed.  It's barely worth being free.  Don't buy the hard copy.

[Draegan]

If I need an incentive to talk to you, the thought occurs to me that I might not have found it worth talking to you without it.  So if you're currently hell bent on incentivizing others to talk to you, what the fuck does that say about you?  What kind of hollow conversations are you asking for if people are just talking to you for a foozle drop.  I don't care about that.  And quite frankly, if you do, I have to wonder about your motivation.  I'd much rather find organic conversation partners on my own than be forced to sift through twats like you.  And I mean 'you twats' in the most formal plural.

 

My only point is that WOW dungeons don't allow any time to type anything.  There is no down time at all.  Now I'm not advocating putting in forced downtime or anything else either.  I'm just pointing it out.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The biggest problem with wows cross-realm dungeons is there is no cross-realm friends list.  It would be really awesome to be able to chat or re-group with people I've met.  Sure most are tards but every so often you meet some really good tank/healer and while you might wanna keep in touch, you'll probably never see them again.  That is what fosters silence in dungeons today, not the linear nature of them

[Draegan]

I wonder who will be the first game to have IM software with these games.  As in you download outside the client software and it links with your friends list in-game.

Maybe it's been done, but I haven't seen it.