SWTOR

[Lakov_Sanite]

Blizzard is already implementing this with their new battlenet revamp, much like an xbox live type thing.  How soon it goes live is anyones guess though.

[SnakeCharmer]

SOE's Station Launcher has an IM client built in that allows you to chat with your friends in game as well as those just signed into the launcher.

[Draegan]

I'm thinking of something more lightweight like AIM or whatever.

[Lakov_Sanite]

this is what we've seen so far. so it looks cross-game/realm but also in-game interface.

[Koyasha]

  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.

Yep, raid lockouts are what makes this not happen now.  As Malakii said, 15 man groups were common for UBRS.  However, 50% or more of the expeditions tended to result in failure.  With raid lockouts, people are no longer willing to risk that failure, so grouping randomly for such things went away for the most part, at least until the raids become so easy that you can expect to be able to complete them pug-style without failure.

This is one thing I really hope is avoided in SWTOR and such - lockouts suck.  A lot.  Unless it doesn't engage until you've completed the instance.  If they're going to have lockouts, I don't want to be saved until I complete the instance.  Have rewards tied to mission completion, not killing a particular enemy, so that you can't just leave before finishing and get a whole bunch of rewards again.  This makes optional bosses tough to manage too - if I want to do an optional boss, I might be back to square 1.  This might mean optional bosses might have to have their own secondary instance, that you can access even after you've cleared the main instance.  That way if random group A doesn't want to do the optional boss, you can finish the instance, then find a group just to do the optional.

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.

This is another thing I hope they do better somehow in SWTOR.  I don't know how it could work.  I haven't got a clue how to design something that people would still think is exciting but would also give ample time to communicate while fighting.  But there has to be something between constant combat and lots of downtime.  Something that allows me to converse without having to sacrifice effectiveness of my character in order to do so.  Without having to resort to voicechat, of course.  I don't want to have to listen constantly, ask people to repeat, or have to talk for the entire time I'm playing.

SOE's Station Launcher has an IM client built in that allows you to chat with your friends in game as well as those just signed into the launcher.

EQIM was probably one of those 'ahead of its time' things.  It wasn't part of the launcher, it was an entire separate program - this was before the Station launcher really existed, EQ had its own patcher back then.  They didn't maintain and improve it for long, though, or it might have caught on better.  Hooking it directly into AIM and other standard IM services would be better, since most people use one or more of those already - most people won't open up a separate program in order to chat with friends who might be playing, but if people playing could log on AIM from in-game without having to alt-tab, they could easily chat with friends not playing just that moment.  I seem to recall Lineage II did something like that with MSN Messenger, but its in-game interface sucked and nobody ever used it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

But there has to be something between constant combat and lots of downtime.  Something that allows me to converse without having to sacrifice effectiveness of my character in order to do so.  

Elevators inside the dungeons  

[fuser]

EQIM was probably one of those 'ahead of its time' things.  It wasn't part of the launcher, it was an entire separate program - this was before the Station launcher really existed, EQ had its own patcher back then.  They didn't maintain and improve it for long, though, or it might have caught on better.  Hooking it directly into AIM and other standard IM services would be better, since most people use one or more of those already - most people won't open up a separate program in order to chat with friends who might be playing, but if people playing could log on AIM from in-game without having to alt-tab, they could easily chat with friends not playing just that moment.  I seem to recall Lineage II did something like that with MSN Messenger, but its in-game interface sucked and nobody ever used it.

I wish there was a possibility of XMPP federation, heck even just setup an XMPP to internal chat service like facebooks.

[PalmTrees]

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.

Also, CoH's nearest equivalent to PQ's, the Rikti and Zombie invasions, utilize the GM code where the mobs are relative to your level (+4 to your lvl) instead of a fixed level (lvl 10). So you could join up with whoever was in the zone and not worry about levels.

[UnSub]

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.

Also, CoH's nearest equivalent to PQ's, the Rikti and Zombie invasions, utilize the GM code where the mobs are relative to your level (+4 to your lvl) instead of a fixed level (lvl 10). So you could join up with whoever was in the zone and not worry about levels.

I hold the view that CoH/V's zone events were proto- PQs, but the rewards were never worth doing it more than once.

The key problem with such repeatable content is that it is, well, repeatable. Players get bored with the repetition. If the rewards are too good it makes other parts of the game less worthwhile to do.

[Ollie]

Elevators inside the dungeons  

Well, Bioware did pioneer their brand of elevator boredom back in 2007 with Mass Effect. 

Back on topic, the days of excessive downtime are over, and with them the types of socialisation they fostered. Sure, you were bored out of your tits camping Jboots in EQ, but that encouraged social ties – if for no other reason than to stay awake.

I'm sure most of us are relieved such punitive vision no longer rules MMORPGs, and the trend in the genre has been pretty clear for several years now: games are moving away from collaborative effort and toward individual experience in a shared space. We are no longer playing together as much as we are advancing alone but within the framework of shared persistence.

In this contemporary context, I think PQs could offer a nice way of inserting some of that collaborative feel back to the genre, and more specifically to Dikus. Like Lantyssa, Typhon and many others, I support the idea of a gameplay mechanic that facilitates easy grouping with little logistical overhead. Done right, PQs can provide a hassle-free collaborative experience and a viable gameplay alternative to people who usually like to solo or have time constraints.

Too bad neither WAR nor ChampO could implement the idea better.

[Typhon]

Crafting is your only hope for socialization Koyasha, people who want combat have too many options to choose a game with forced downtime in their combat.

That and cities with auction houses.

Course, whenever I think of cities with auction houses I head "barrens chat" and my fingers move unconsciously to type "/leave trade" so your selection of random strangers to socialize with is probably more narrow then you'd hope for... but I guess that's why most of us are going, "you miss what?!"

[Sky]

The key problem with such repeatable content is that it is, well, repeatable. Players get bored with the repetition. If the rewards are too good it makes other parts of the game less worthwhile to do.

Isn't that the key problem with PvE mmo in general? All the non-story content is just repeatable stuff for loot. Use your website of choice to find the best loot drops and take out any adventure whatsoever.

[Goreschach]

I don't think you really need to force downtime to encourage socialization. Rather, you should design the system so that downtime doesn't need to be forced in the first place. Truthfully, most players would probably enjoy periods of downtime between blitzing mobs, except for the fact that combat earnings are essentially linear and any downtime will just make you fall behind. If xp/income/whatever was scaled and buffered to reduce this, I think it would solve a lot of problems in MMO's.

I think a greatly expanded system of WoW's rested xp could work. For instance, the more xp you gain in a close period of time, the smaller your xp rate becomes, with the rate slowly returning back to normal over a period of a day or so. Pulling numbers out of the air, lets say that after roughly an hour's grinding worth of xp gain, your xp rate has dropped down to around 50%, with the rate returning to normal at approximately 5% per hour. This would make long stretches of mob/quest grind eventually impractical, and thus would make it easier for casuals to keep up with hardcore friends, would encourage players to slow down and talk or try different gameplay. Since they wouldn't feel like they're falling behind because they stop every couple minutes to rest/chat/bio/make a snack the game would be a lot more player friendly.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I don't think you really need to force downtime to encourage socialization. Rather, you should design the system so that downtime doesn't need to be forced in the first place. Truthfully, most players would probably enjoy periods of downtime between blitzing mobs, except for the fact that combat earnings are essentially linear and any downtime will just make you fall behind. If xp/income/whatever was scaled and buffered to reduce this, I think it would solve a lot of problems in MMO's.

I think a greatly expanded system of WoW's rested xp could work. For instance, the more xp you gain in a close period of time, the smaller your xp rate becomes, with the rate slowly returning back to normal over a period of a day or so. Pulling numbers out of the air, lets say that after roughly an hour's grinding worth of xp gain, your xp rate has dropped down to around 50%, with the rate returning to normal at approximately 5% per hour. This would make long stretches of mob/quest grind eventually impractical, and thus would make it easier for casuals to keep up with hardcore friends, would encourage players to slow down and talk or try different gameplay. Since they wouldn't feel like they're falling behind because they stop every couple minutes to rest/chat/bio/make a snack the game would be a lot more player friendly.

You're talking about EQ, just a different way around it.  People aren't looking to pay $15 a month to log on and sit down to talk anymore.  If people want to know where socialization went it's on facebook,twitter, and all the im programs now.  People are communicating less in game and more out of game.  They communicate in guild chat occasionally and trade chat less.  Yes some of us remember the good old days where you'd chat for hours waiting on spawns, those days are gone now.

[Malakili]

You're talking about EQ, just a different way around it.  People aren't looking to pay $15 a month to log on and sit down to talk anymore.  If people want to know where socialization went it's on facebook,twitter, and all the im programs now.  People are communicating less in game and more out of game.  They communicate in guild chat occasionally and trade chat less.  Yes some of us remember the good old days where you'd chat for hours waiting on spawns, those days are gone now.

Well, yes and no.  I think people are looking for socialization in MMOs, and I think WoW actually does it better than many. The key issue here is that people want to socialize with people they know in real life.  Most of us (quite a sample size, all being posters on a forum like this) have no problem randomly talking with people we don't actually know, but you have to remember there is still a pretty big stigma about talking to "strangers" on the internet, and that is MORE pronounced when you don't have only the computer "enthusiasts" playing MMOs like you did 10 years ago.    Instead, people want to play with their friends, and chat with their friends, and other people that they play with or run into are generally just sort of there.

One of the draws of the MMO genre, to me at least, was always that I could meet all these people in game who are taking part in a hobby that I also enjoy, sure some people are jerks and some people are nice, but thats just part for the course anywhere.    So, when I say MMOs were a social game, I mean that for many years much of my social life was with people I didn't "really" know.  When people say MMOs are social games now, they mean they like to socialize with their real life friends.

[Typhon]

Yes some of us remember the good old days where you'd chat for hours waiting on spawns, those days are gone now.

I remember being at spawn points for hours.  I remember using the in-game IM to chat during these torture sessions.  Where you lost me was the "good old days" part.

[Draegan]

I tend to find my socialization when I create a guild or join one with people I like and talk on vent.  More hands-free communication. 

[UnSub]

The key problem with such repeatable content is that it is, well, repeatable. Players get bored with the repetition. If the rewards are too good it makes other parts of the game less worthwhile to do.

Isn't that the key problem with PvE mmo in general? All the non-story content is just repeatable stuff for loot. Use your website of choice to find the best loot drops and take out any adventure whatsoever.

True, but PQs have been designed thus far to be incredibly repeatable - you know they reset every 5 minutes, so the next 'ride' is only a short distance away. So if they offer really good rewards, you don't have long to wait for them to start over again.

To some extent, PQs might work better if they start at random periods - this at least slows players down from blowing through them in the first 48 hours after launch.

[Sky]

Blowing through them in 48 hours? So running all the PQs up to the level cap in two days and farming all the rewards out of them? How about we just never talk about the retards who would play like that. If we don't then to be fair we should code for the dribbling retard who logs in and can't read or type, the other end of the spectrum.

Having to 'spawn camp' a PQ start sounds like a horrid idea. I think the only real problem is the level migration, finding enough people to run mid-low level PQs as the game matures. I think having a fun grouping alternative is worth that trade-off. PQs were some of the most fun I've had in MMOs in a few years, and I'm pretty rabidly a soloer. Even in AoC I grouped a lot more than I have in years, mostly for PQs (or whatever they call them there), and the was AoC set it up you could run the PQ while doing the majority of the group-only quest errands in the area. Worked pretty well, imo...if people were around for it.

[Malakili]

Blowing through them in 48 hours? So running all the PQs up to the level cap in two days and farming all the rewards out of them? How about we just never talk about the retards who would play like that. If we don't then to be fair we should code for the dribbling retard who logs in and can't read or type, the other end of the spectrum.

Having to 'spawn camp' a PQ start sounds like a horrid idea. I think the only real problem is the level migration, finding enough people to run mid-low level PQs as the game matures. I think having a fun grouping alternative is worth that trade-off. PQs were some of the most fun I've had in MMOs in a few years, and I'm pretty rabidly a soloer. Even in AoC I grouped a lot more than I have in years, mostly for PQs (or whatever they call them there), and the was AoC set it up you could run the PQ while doing the majority of the group-only quest errands in the area. Worked pretty well, imo...if people were around for it.

I know Cryptic is working on some more leveling scaling things.  You can already sidekick (change your level to anyone in the party), and they've added in some mechanics to get rewards from doing quests with people that way.  I think thats really the only way to get this sort of thing not to go ghost town after the first couple months.   

I think a way to make them more interesting would have them be more rare events.  Maybe once or twice a day per level range there is a server annoucement "So and so is attacking the town of X, calling for defenders!" and then players have a few minutes to get over there (maybe even give them the option to somehow teleport or fast travel there).  This would make it so when they happen they feel worth doing, and it would pull in people who weren't immediately in that area too.  It would also have the side benefit of making the world feel a little dynamic and unpredictable instead of the current PQ model which is just the eternal cycle of the same event happening over and over again.

 Of course the downside is that people like to be able to do what they want when they want, so having to stop doing something else or god forbid miss it all together becuase you weren't online at all would probably cause plenty of people to cry on the forums.   

[LK]

First and foremost, if there is an activity available, and players want to do it, they should be able to start that activity when they want. Imagine you want to play a D&D module, but the DM forces you to find the activity-starting item by meandering around town or some other pointless activity until the module "spawns."

[Grimwell]

Protip: Don't create "downtime" in your online game as a mechanic to encourage socialization. The intersection of people's lives into the game creates downtime on it's own - just give them good social tools to use while they are waiting for the main tank to get back from bio and wife aggro.

[Malakili]

, if there is an activity available,

This is the relevant bit for my post above.  Namely, limit the availability of the PQ, so that it doesn't just go -> end -> restart endlessly.  Of course while its running you should be able to do it though.

[LK]

I think it's a bad idea to make players play a game by your schedule rather than accommodating theirs.

[Typhon]

I think there should multiple types.

1) You, the player, are the initiator of a PQ by gathering enough troops to "go show those fucking gnomes a thing or three!!1!"
2) Every night at full moon the bitches, er, witches come to enslave the children of Poxmire!  Won't someone help the poor pockmarked tykes?!
3) Holy crap! SmugTheMagic Dragon has become overly self-satisfied again and is on a rampage, this is completely unexpected and RANDOM!!! All available goblins to area X ASAFP!!!

(clearly, I'd like the word "fuck" included in more of my MMOs)

[Malakili]

I think there should multiple types.

1) You, the player, are the initiator of a PQ by gathering enough troops to "go show those fucking gnomes a thing or three!!1!"
2) Every night at full moon the bitches, er, witches come to enslave the children of Poxmire!  Won't someone help the poor pockmarked tykes?!
3) Holy crap! SmugTheMagic Dragon has become overly self-satisfied again and is on a rampage, this is completely unexpected and RANDOM!!! All available goblins to area X ASAFP!!!

(clearly, I'd like the word "fuck" included in more of my MMOs)

This would be a neat solution to the problem, and i think be overall much more interesting than the current way PQs have been going.

[Ollie]

Agreed. Sadly, the kind of dynamic mob AI that would really spice things up and help create diverse encounters is still some ways away.

In addition to Typhon's suggestions, looking at past PQ blunders should help future adopters hone the formula. Things like:

1) Dynamic scaling in real time
The PQ needs to work regardless of how many people are participating, and dole out appropriate rewards according to effort. No excuses.

2) Meaningful reward structure
Classes (if you decide to have any, that is) need to be rewarded for doing class-appropriate things. Stop hanging on the DPS teat and figure out ways to reward support classes for their contribution.

3) Population control and zone design
This is a big one. Zone design needs to support the PQ and funnel a steady stream of participants to the area. Fragmenting your population and littering the landscape with PQs are big boo-boos (I'm looking at you, WAR).

4) Pedestrian PQ quest structure
Kill a hundred small rats, kill ten bigger rats, kill one really big rat. While I do enjoy the classics, could we aim a little higher next time?

No idea if Bioware has even hinted at PQs in SW:TOR, though, so chalk this one up to general design chatter.

[Koyasha]

First and foremost, if there is an activity available, and players want to do it, they should be able to start that activity when they want. Imagine you want to play a D&D module, but the DM forces you to find the activity-starting item by meandering around town or some other pointless activity until the module "spawns."

I don't know about you, but in my games it's pretty common for the characters to have to kill time until something happens.  Of course, at the tabletop that's summarized into a sentence or two, but that can't happen in an MMO.

Thing is, part of the whole point of MMO's is the idea that they're a world in which things happen beyond your control, and things happen whether you're there or not.  The idea that every single activity should be available on-demand to players is silly - at best - in my point of view.

[LK]

Downtime is good, but I would prefer that was a player's choice to undertake. I mean, if someone wants to play your game, why would you get in the way of that?

[Ratman_tf]

Part of the game, a huge part of these games, is pitting yourself against the world. The developers set up these situations and the players try to overcome them to accomplish their goals. But what is too hard and what is to easy? And (I think this is the crux of the issue) what challenges do you offer to the players? Spawn camping is trading time for a chance to experience content. Raid lockouts are a variation on rare spawns, making them more accessible to players by making the time of the respawn, and the mob's environment controllable by the players.

Take a foozle quest. In WoW, the only way to get 10 foozles is go go out and kill a specific set of monsters until the foozles drop. And they're usually nodrop quest items. Or maybe gather the foozles from the ground. That is the only way to accomplish that task. If you made the foozles drop from more types of monsters, made them rarer drops, and made them tradeable items, you get the Green Hills of Stranglethorn quest, and to my mind, that's a lot more interesting than the usual glut of 10 foozle quests that abound in WoW.

I never experienced the PQ's of WAR. The game itself chased me away before level 5. The few times I have seen PQ type systems in CO and STO were a bit underwhelming. Everyone jumps into a quest, usually already in progress, there isn't any communication or socalization, people just kind of move in a brownian motion until the quest event is over and then go on their ways again.

[Ollie]

The few times I have seen PQ type systems in CO and STO were a bit underwhelming. Everyone jumps into a quest, usually already in progress, there isn't any communication or socalization, people just kind of move in a brownian motion until the quest event is over and then go on their ways again.

I think that's an absolutely fair assessment of how most PQs turn out. Part of the problem, though, is the relatively modest degree of hand-crafted content in the PQs we've seen thus far. If the quest space is just a mindless killing field, players will drone around whacking everything that moves until the pellet dispenser doles out the reward. Injecting a bit more scripted content into the PQ would spice things up and encourage player interaction.

Of course there's the problem of parity to consider. Players will gravitate towards the easiest and quickest PQ, so balancing them all requires care. In addition, there's still the question of accessibility and inclusivity; make the encounter too complex, and the required degree of player coordination becomes a problem.

At the end of the day a cooperative quest space such as a PQ provides the players a reason to come together. How individual players choose to participate socially is up to them, which is as it should be.

[UnSub]

Blowing through them in 48 hours? So running all the PQs up to the level cap in two days and farming all the rewards out of them? How about we just never talk about the retards who would play like that. If we don't then to be fair we should code for the dribbling retard who logs in and can't read or type, the other end of the spectrum.

Sorry, my badly-explained point was that PQs need a certain number of players to make them viable, but if PQs run 24/7 it leads to players getting to them in dribs and drabs, with the end result of there not being enough players around to do the PQ successfully, especially as the bulk of players starts to move up the levelling tree.

WAR saw this - early zone PQs were empty, especially as the bulk of players moved their mains out of Tier 1 and Tier 2. So if you weren't playing launch week and / or in a peak time, it became a lot harder to find players to complete the early PQs.

Run a PQ once an hour or something like that. Make it a more meaningful event, not something that is meaningless because it is always there. However, CoH/V's experience is even doing that sees players stop taking part in such content over time. Few players bother to take out Troll raves, for instance, unless they need the badge.

[Koyasha]

Downtime is good, but I would prefer that was a player's choice to undertake. I mean, if someone wants to play your game, why would you get in the way of that?

I'm not talking about downtime in this case, I'm saying that some things shouldn't be available whenever the player wants.  That's not downtime.  The player can still do any of the things he does want to do, without downtime, if that's the prevailing mechanic of the game.  But if it's going to even slightly try to pretend to be a world, it can't have everything revolve around you.  That means at least some shit has to happen on its own schedule, and you have to react to what is happening.  The game forcing you to react to what is happening is what I mean.  It's not even forcing you in this idea, it's just saying you can do a bunch of stuff whenever you want, but these few things happen whenever they happen and you have to catch them when they're happening.

I feel that the CoX system of semi-randomly triggered events is the best way to go about this sort of PQish thing.  As far as the lack of people doing it, CoX also has a relative lack of reward for these things.  I did some Supernatural Activity thing with banners in Grandville just the other day, got a bunch of badges for it, but I think I got a whole 2 Merit Rewards.  Whee?  Ok, it didn't take me a hell of a long time, but honestly...I'm not gonna drop what I'm doing and go do the event for just 2 merit rewards.  So next time, I'll go only if I'm not doing anything else.  But from what I've seen since I started playing again, there's still enough people doing these things to get them done, even if they're not done every time they pop.  CoX's design also has the massive advantage that anyone of any level can participate and help.  If the Rikti are attacking a zone, everyone from level 1 to 50 is able to fight them.  And since the normal zone mobs go away during the attack, low levels can even help in zones that would be too high level for them.

[eldaec]

Part of what made that possible in CoH was an effective sidekicking system.

5 years later still noone else has an effective sidekicking system.

[Merusk]

Part of what made that possible in CoH was an effective sidekicking system.

5 years later still noone else has an effective sidekicking system.

I'm beginning to suspect WoW is finally looking at implementing one in Cataclysm.  They're removing "ranks" of spells and moving them all to a percentage system that scales with level.  You've also seen them tinkering with scaled gear with the Heirloom items they implemented.  (Which was a clever way to try something without wrecking the whole game if it didn't work if I'm right.)