SWTOR

[Paelos]

Cross server/not cross server is just a scale thing.

If information flow went across those lines, I would agree. It doesn't. A person cannot talk to anyone from cross-server. They cannot put them on a friends list and bypass the system next time if they are good players. They also cannot use the system to blacklist people from their own server who can't play nice.

People that use the LFD system aren't inherently anti-social, either. They may not have time on their side. They may not be a leadership mentality.

[Fordel]

I want to say putting someone on ignore from a cross-server will prevent you from ever seeing them again the LFD queue?

Social Blacklists don't work on servers with thousands of players.

[sinij]

And if people aren't going to play a game because they can't tick a checkbox on a fucking feature list, the game is better off without them.

... and the game is better off not cloning DIKU, but they are. Now what?

Maybe I'm wrong and everyone will embrace forming their own groups and fostering social relationships in-game, but I just don't see it happening.

About as likely as embracing return of the corpse runs, and about as suicidal to release with (without) feature like that.

[Sjofn]

LFD is a fine feature is you don't start doing it cross-server. There has to be some level of community building through it. Cross-server just takes that and kicks it in the balls.

I like the way it is now in WoW, actually. It tries to match you with people from your server first. I've wound up in LFD groups where four of the five of us were from the same server. It feels like a decent compromise to me. Because fuck waiting around 45 minutes for a healer because no healer on your server feels like queuing.

And spamming trade or whatever for a group? Fuck that forever. Take that luddite bullshit elsewhere.


EDIT: And yeah, Fordel, if you ignore someone, you will never be matched with them again.

[Fordel]

LFD is a fine feature is you don't start doing it cross-server. There has to be some level of community building through it. Cross-server just takes that and kicks it in the balls.

I like the way it is now in WoW, actually. It tries to match you with people from your server first. I've wound up in LFD groups where four of the five of us were from the same server. It feels like a decent compromise to me. Because fuck waiting around 45 minutes for a healer because no healer on your server feels like queuing.

And spamming trade or whatever for a group? Fuck that forever. Take that luddite bullshit elsewhere.


EDIT: And yeah, Fordel, if you ignore someone, you will never be matched with them again.

Just /who X0 druid and send a tell to every one in the list asking if they are resto and if they want to heal for you! COMMUNITY!  

[Ingmar]

ICE, I think the thread has moved past our little argument, so I won't toss another wall of text in here. I'm sure we'll have another derail eventually where it will be appropriate.  

[Fordel]

You don't believe in page 1000.

[Surlyboi]

And if people aren't going to play a game because they can't tick a checkbox on a fucking feature list, the game is better off without them.

... and the game is better off not cloning DIKU, but they are. Now what?

[/quote[

False equivalencies are fun!

[Merusk]

Would it be entirely pointless to point out that the need for lfd and quick instanced dungeon access stems entirely from mmo's being entirely dinggrats based with gameplay totally lacking in any sort of actual fun?

Yes, because the flashpoints are tied the story in this case.  So I can skip the story or I can never see it.  How fun!

I could wait and spam, but  I really don't want to return to the BC-WoW era where a DPS spends 2-3 hours looking for a group for whatever reason.  LFD tools help those of us not interested in playing past 11pm a lot.

[Ingmar]

Also, there are in fact people who enjoy the gameplay in MMOs, and LFD gets you more fun/hour if you're one of those people.

I won't say it is entirely pointless to post such a thing, though, because at least it makes you feel better about yourself for being more discerning in taste than those poor losers who actually are enjoying themselves.

[Merusk]

No.. surely those people don't exist and haven't been saying "no really, I'm ok with cloned WoW" for 300+ pages.

[Mosesandstick]

Honestly, the importance of a LFD tool depends a lot on the context, i.e. the rest of the game, and because NDA is up there's no easy way to discuss the pertinence of a LFD tool without breaking NDA.

[Numtini]

Also, there are in fact people who enjoy the gameplay in MMOs, and LFD gets you more fun/hour if you're one of those people.

There are a lot of different forms of gameplay in MMOs. LFD decreases as many as it increases.

[Nebu]

My only gripe with LFD is that it removes the need to develop a reputation within the server community.  It also seems to encourage the worst possible behavior from others... particularly those playing healer/tank roles.

[Ingmar]

Also, there are in fact people who enjoy the gameplay in MMOs, and LFD gets you more fun/hour if you're one of those people.

There are a lot of different forms of gameplay in MMOs. LFD decreases as many as it increases.

Even hand formed groups benefit from being able to queue for a random dungeon and not having to walk to it. I think the positives vastly outweigh the negatives.

[Sjofn]

Being able to queue for a random dungeon as a guild group or whatever is a fucking godsend when you're with, say, Slap in the Face. Decision making is impossible for us.

[kildorn]

My only gripe with LFD is that it removes the need to develop a reputation within the server community.  It also seems to encourage the worst possible behavior from others... particularly those playing healer/tank roles.

Tanks and Healers had entitled dick issues far before LFD. Especially if you raided, and they knew damned well that you'd have to cancel 39 people's entertainment for the evening if you didn't appease them.

I've never really found LFD to increase the dickishness ratio. It just makes it easier to group with completely random people, so you wind up bumping into more dicks instead of only grouping when your friends are on. Pre LFD I had just as much of a problem with ninja looting, my way or the highway, and dropping out as soon as the boss you cared about dies. The only "new" issue I've found with WoW's LFD is the queue as healer/tank then refuse to play the role bullshit.

[Kageru]

It's "world" versus "game". Forming a group and travelling to a place to explore some content gives the feeling of a world, makes it an experience and bonds you with the people you did it with. On the other hand if it's a capsule of content you are going to have to run a lot of times to earn points for completion then efficiency becomes paramount and LFD and even teleport to content is mandatory. At this point in time, and especially for SWTOR, it looks like the game side is so dominant the other is forgotten.

... then again, it's also based on the correct observation the mass market isn't going to be patient or immersed enough to care about "world" concerns. Which does make it sort of weird they think they'll be immersed enough to give a crap about the story, but oh well, will be fun to watch.

[kildorn]

It's "world" versus "game". Forming a group and travelling to a place to explore some content gives the feeling of a world, makes it an experience and bonds you with the people you did it with. On the other hand if it's a capsule of content you are going to have to run a lot of times to earn points for completion then efficiency becomes paramount and LFD and even teleport to content is mandatory. At this point in time, and especially for SWTOR, it looks like the game side is so dominant the other is forgotten.

... then again, it's also based on the correct observation the mass market isn't going to be patient or immersed enough to care about "world" concerns. Which does make it sort of weird they think they'll be immersed enough to give a crap about the story, but oh well, will be fun to watch.

From this thread, you already just enter all the flashpoints/instances from the fleet, so you're not exactly hoofing it to the instance anyways.

Anywho, I like walking to an instance. Really. I don't mind it too much, though it sucks to wait 45 minutes for one party member to show up because due to the desire for an immersive world fast travel isn't much of an option (next game to not have rapid travel Dies.)

The reason I like LFD tools is that it's not immersion to me to sit in town spamming /4 or whatever for a group for 45 minutes. I feel like we've moved beyond that in game design. Much the same way that I feel a game with level loss on death would be archaic, or a game where I had to edit a boot disk to free up enough high memory to start it.

[Merusk]

There is no such thing as "Server Reptuation" anymore.  It only mattered iin games that limited content to 1% of the population.   In the bad old days you'd know who sucked and who didn't, and who was an asshole because only a tiny portion of the population interacted at that level.

Reputation mattered in EQ, for example, because you'd be locked out of spawn camps. In DAOC you'd be booted from DF or Relic groups.. what's the punishment for being a dick when everything is instanced?  When server transfers or name changes are only a few dollars away?

No, you all are pining for a world that doesn't exist anymore.  In that world LFD may have destroyed 'community structure' but that's not the case anymore.  We're moving farther away from that each year. 

Now suppose they hadn't done the server thing in the first place.  (Which is also a relic.*)  Would you still be arguing for 'server cohesion' and reputation?

* It would have been just as easy to pull an Eve and not have 'servers' because the bulk of the game isn't in world space. That part that is can be handled like Guild Wars or EQ2 with instanced spaces.

[Sheepherder]

My only gripe with LFD is that it removes the need to develop a reputation within the server community.  It also seems to encourage the worst possible behavior from others... particularly those playing healer/tank roles.

Yeah... No.

There's a guild on my WoW server that was founded in 2006-ish after it's future guild leader was told they were no longer in charge of the raid alliance because of glaring inconsistencies in the DKP spreadsheets, who was joined in their fledgling raiding guild by a bunch of defecting guild officers who were told they were no longer welcome in their former guilds after they had been discovered attempting to recruit people in their former guild's Vent/TS servers, along with sizable portions of several guild banks.

[Kageru]

If you need to run an instance 20 times to earn the needed valor points for shiny_foozle_01 you don't really care who you run it with. You want a group formed fast, in the instance ASAP, and speed run it. Same thing happened in EQ with LDON where you only cared about the points at the end. On the other hand if you are going to form a group to travel for 30 minutes, to a dungeon which has an element of risk, where you might be there for a couple of hours you are going to want to make sure you are going with good and sociable gamers who won't leave you hanging.

LFD is more a symptom of which type of system you are in than a cause.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

ICE, I think the thread has moved past our little argument, so I won't toss another wall of text in here. I'm sure we'll have another derail eventually where it will be appropriate.  

And so the waiting begins...


But really I think we can all agree that Planescape: Torment would have been a much better game with an LFD tool included.

[stray]

It's "world" versus "game".

If they really wanted to create a world, complete with storytelling, then they wouldn't have made an MMO in the first place. You can't even have an enjoyable world in a coop experience. Let alone an mmo. Even your own friends will fuck up your immersion.

Co-Op games take a quick and dirty approach to storytelling to keep the pacing fast, and not causing too many frustrations with cutscenes, dialogue, quest explanations, etc.., etc.. When people play in groups, they tend to think more in terms of action. If you're going to try to do both at the same time, someone's going to get pissed off. Either your friends for waiting around while you listen to dialogue or look over a quest text. Or you for feeling pushed into brushing quickly through things. The most enjoyable experience for a story and immersive world is to cut off all human beings entirely...except you and the game designers. MMOs just can't accomplish a story based group experience. It's a theme park, at best.

[eldaec]

It's "world" versus "game".

If they really wanted to create a world, complete with storytelling, then they wouldn't have made an MMO in the first place. You can't even have an enjoyable world in a coop experience. Let alone an mmo. Even your own friends will fuck up your immersion.

You can and EVE demonstrates that, but what you'd have to accept is that players, acting like players, are the characters and generate your story. Where I agree is that I don't see how you could achieve an immersive world-MMO with a story and setting directed by writers.

[Sheepherder]

Incidentally, EVE is another good example that a lot of players are complete fucking knobgoblins even without a blanket of anonymity.

[Simond]

Also, there are in fact people who enjoy the gameplay in MMOs, and LFD gets you more fun/hour if you're one of those people.

There are a lot of different forms of gameplay in MMOs. LFD decreases as many as it increases.

Sitting in Orgrimmar spamming "3 DPS LF tank and healer for Strat" for hours on end is not gameplay.
HTH.

My only gripe with LFD is that it removes the need to develop a reputation within the server community.  It also seems to encourage the worst possible behavior from others... particularly those playing healer/tank roles.

"Server reputation" hasn't really mattered since instancing. One uninstanced mob dropping a key item of loot and people are keeping blacklists? Better behave if you ever want it. Instanced dungeons? Who cares if group_A has a blacklist, you'll get a group eventually and it's not like group_A can lock you out from the mob any more. So...are you suggesting that instancing is removed? 

[Lantyssa]

If they really wanted to create a world, complete with storytelling, then they wouldn't have made an MMO in the first place. You can't even have an enjoyable world in a coop experience. Let alone an mmo. Even your own friends will fuck up your immersion.

You're doing it wrong if playing with friends screws things up for you.  Mine only enhance it.

[Kirth]

* It would have been just as easy to pull an Eve and not have 'servers' because the bulk of the game isn't in world space. That part that is can be handled like Guild Wars or EQ2 with instanced spaces.

I wish they were going to do this with tor. heck WoW should do this. 

[palmer_eldritch]

Also, there are in fact people who enjoy the gameplay in MMOs, and LFD gets you more fun/hour if you're one of those people.

There are a lot of different forms of gameplay in MMOs. LFD decreases as many as it increases.

Sitting in Orgrimmar spamming "3 DPS LF tank and healer for Strat" for hours on end is not gameplay.
HTH.

My only gripe with LFD is that it removes the need to develop a reputation within the server community.  It also seems to encourage the worst possible behavior from others... particularly those playing healer/tank roles.

"Server reputation" hasn't really mattered since instancing. One uninstanced mob dropping a key item of loot and people are keeping blacklists? Better behave if you ever want it. Instanced dungeons? Who cares if group_A has a blacklist, you'll get a group eventually and it's not like group_A can lock you out from the mob any more. So...are you suggesting that instancing is removed? 

Server reputation matters in some games. It doesn't have to be about blacklisting people either.

Playing EQ2, if we were going to do a difficult dungeon we'd go through people we knew were a good DPS or good tank and see if we could get them to join us. You'd know who was good at what they did and who was not. And most of the dungeons there are instanced at high level.

[Numtini]

I think looking at EQ2's dungeon finder experience is helpful in looking at what effects an LFD system has on gameplay. Right now, a couple of weeks in, it's a complete failure. The reason is simple: they added a dungeon finder without changing core gameplay to trivialize the dungeons. EQ2 has a very complicated gameplay. Not all healers, dps, support, or tanks are the same interchangeable parts that they are in Rift or WoW. And people can't do the dungeons because they're too difficult with a purely random group. They are contemplating ideas, but the basic solution is simple. They either need to nerf dungeons to make them trivial or they need to massively escalate requirements so that nobody is matched to a dungeon that isn't trivial for them.

I enjoy random dungeon gameplay, but it's not just about making it easier to find groups for instances. It's an entirely different sort of gameplay.

[Fabricated]

If you seriously think sitting around in a hub spamming for group members builds community or is a valuable part of the gaming "experience" you may be autistic.

Way before LFD ever showed up in WoW, finding groups was a pain in the ass, and there was no "reputation" that people built outside of really extraordinary cases. I think there were like 3-4 guys everyone knew not to group with on my heavily populated release day server (that was also home to a ridiculous amount of drama), and that was for pickup RAIDS.

[Nebu]

If you seriously think sitting around in a hub spamming for group members builds community or is a valuable part of the gaming "experience" you may be autistic.

I disagree with you therefore I'm autistic.  Awesome. 

I don't like being matched with random people for the sake of convenience.  If you do, that's great.  I just don't happen to like cross server LFD systems.  I think that they break the exact kind of community that these games were designed to build.  MMO's to me are still a 3D chat interface more than a game.  That's why I continue to tolerate the fact that they're fundamentally shitty games in and of themselves.

[eldaec]

To be fair, I also remember the initial WoW looking-for-group/member tool (if there was one?) being complete ass. I never had any issues finding a group to do whatever in games with a decent lfg tool (DAoC, CoH, EQ2 all spring to mind).

I'm not sure WoW's current system is the only possible solution. The simple act of putting all dungeon base camps in one location on each planet is a decent start.

[Murgos]

3:10: Question: Is there a dungeon finder? Answer: James Ohlen: Works for established games, not in yet.

http://darthhater.com/2011/10/14/nycc-2011-main-panel-live-blog/

Is that good enough?  Can we carry on now?