Guild Wars 2

[DLRiley]

Its not an expansion more of a removal. Every ones self interest will benefit the people who happen to be next to them. A real team will coordinate and stack the mitigation, while everyone else will probably just cast when their personally danger and since almost every "heal/support" skill is aoe, it benefits the players around them. Though I'm guessing most of the time that "party" heal will be wasted on a single person who drew too much aggro. In guild wars positioning and awareness were key in pvp anyway, i remember the tears when they changed the AI to actually switch targets based on the relative armor of the person they are attacking. The joy 

[Numtini]

I generally play a healer because it's useful and I have found I'm good at it and enjoy the role, but it's not so much any parts of the trinity, including healing, that make it appealing to me. What's appealing is that it requires working together. There doesn't seem to be any reason that someone couldn't make a game system that required cooperation and intra-party synergy of abilities, but was not the trinity. But so far, I can't think of a game that has. Closest would probably be some of the non-healing damage mitigators in COX. But usually it's eitiher been one of the two trinities (tank/healer/cc or tank/healer/dps) or it's been a DPS zerg with self-healing.

[DLRiley]

True teamwork requires communication, something that mmo's still haven't added. Even on the TF2 scale of a button that plays the audio of "MEDIC!". The trinity doesn't enable teamwork, its just designed to look like teamwork. Its really just well disguised self interest, tank "tank" because he can't do anything but tank, even if his objective is to kill something. A healer heals as long as the aggro is kept far far away from them. Everyone is given a hyper specialized job to do and as long as everyone shows up to work the project gets done, that's not teamwork.

[croaker69]

True teamwork requires communication, something that mmo's still haven't added. Even on the TF2 scale of a button that plays the audio of "MEDIC!". The trinity doesn't enable teamwork, its just designed to look like teamwork. Its really just well disguised self interest, tank "tank" because he can't do anything but tank, even if his objective is to kill something. A healer heals as long as the aggro is kept far far away from them. Everyone is given a hyper specialized job to do and as long as everyone shows up to work the project gets done, that's not teamwork.

wat?

[DLRiley]

True teamwork requires communication, something that mmo's still haven't added. Even on the TF2 scale of a button that plays the audio of "MEDIC!". The trinity doesn't enable teamwork, its just designed to look like teamwork. Its really just well disguised self interest, tank "tank" because he can't do anything but tank, even if his objective is to kill something. A healer heals as long as the aggro is kept far far away from them. Everyone is given a hyper specialized job to do and as long as everyone shows up to work the project gets done, that's not teamwork.

wat?

Work being whatever raid/dungeon, the project is simply actually completing the objective.

[UnsGub]

True teamwork requires communication, something that mmo's still haven't added.

Disagree.  Look at a basketball and all the non verbal communications.  The same applies to groups in mmo.  Position, timing, movement, effects, timers, etc. are all forms of communications.

[Sky]

  DL

No teamwork in mmo. Heh.

[ghost]

There seems to be a lot less of a teamwork feel to WoW now that they have the dungeon finder.  I found that a good deal of the teamwork component was actually in the setup and education of the team (if it was a new group).

[DLRiley]

True teamwork requires communication, something that mmo's still haven't added.

Disagree.  Look at a basketball and all the non verbal communications.  The same applies to groups in mmo.  Position, timing, movement, effects, timers, etc. are all forms of communications.

Counts as communication. In a mmo the above isn't an example of "non verbal communication", if your tank sprints into an open field and aggro's three mobs, you have 2 choices, take his "position" in front of three mobs as a sign of "hey I'm tanking" or call him a retard and leave him. Is it team work if you follow his lead, despite him making no previous indication that was his intentions or even bothering to see if your ready? 

DL

No teamwork in mmo. Heh.

I would say that a holy trinity done right usually requires extremely little communication especially if the GUI gives enough relevant information. When was the last time you was in a group and you actually had to tell the guy next to you or behind you what your planning on doing in a diku? Verbally or non verbally? Most people are too focused on doing their job to actually look up and say something of relevance. Most mmo's do a good job of allowing you to perform a role too efficiently if you pick a class with that "role" as the primary attribute of said class. Which alllows people to function individually despite being co-depednant on the guy behind or in front of them.

Like bee's and flowers, flowers need bee's to pollinate other flowers. Bee's need nectar. The bee getting covered in pollen and pollinating every flower he runs into isn't an example of teamwork.

[Typhon]

There is communication in MMOs, but in general it isn't initiated by the player (exception: rdy?).  The game tells the healer who is hurt (no one needs to yell 'medic!').  The game tells the tank if he has aggro (actually, the game tells the DPS when they are getting too much aggro).  The game tells the team when to interrupt.  The internet tells the players what the strategies have succeeded for a particular dungeon.  There is a great deal of communication of information, but very little of it is (or needs to be) spontaneous and between players (exception: lrn2playUdouche!).

Where comm is important, in PvP, it already happens via ventrillo (or something else).

What MMOs typically lack is an explicit leader or commander role.

Edit 2: somehow thought that I had slipped into the Rift thread given Sky's response (after mine).

[Sky]

Ok, let's LoS pull that mob, you polymorph that one, you sap that one. I'll run cures and backup heals, you MH this one. Watch out for the wanderer. Hey, this guy is using a debuff I can only single cure, you'll have to deal with it.

Etc. And that's the first instance in Rift.

I wouldn't know much about group/raid dynamics in most modern games, since the gameplay is a pile of shit played with a bunch of sociopathic retards.

[Typhon]

Sky, all that is the same shit that happens in every MMO when everyone is new to the game.  (LoS pull that mob, apply this cc to that mob, etc).  In MMOs the encounters are pretty static - you get the same types of critters and you apply the same types of strategies.  (eg: Moon = sheep!)

Unless Rifts are spawning with variable geometries (that matter to the encounter) and/or spawning different mobs in different compositions (that behave differently dependent upon the composition) then it will settle down pretty quickly to not needing communication (duh! you always ploymorph the caster!).  Communication isn't necessary when the tactics required for victory are well known.

[Sky]

Why are you playing a game where the tactics are all well-known? 

[DLRiley]

A trick question is a trick question indeed   

[tazelbain]

A trick question with weed is better.

[Ingmar]

Why are you playing a game where the tactics are all well-known? 

[Typhon]

Why are you playing a game where the tactics are all well-known? 

   I'm willing to believe that eventually someone releases a game that actually delivers enough different types of encounters that it feels something like you need to come up with the tactics on the fly.  It's called 'hope', and it, rather than religion, is the true opiate of the masses.

[Mosesandstick]

Sometimes, doing a new encounter would be the most I'd ever have, because you don't know what's coming and you have to think about it and respond dynamically. And then you die and it takes forever to do it again 

[Sky]

Best answer I've heard, but I don't like chess, either :p To get introspective for a moment, that's part of why I tend to stay away from games like Blood Bowl. When I was a kid I loved chess, but I played it totally by the seat of my pants. Then I got to be friends with a kid who was actually trained in chess, knew all the gambits or whatever. He completely sucked the fun out of it for everyone else. Technically he was a great player, and I'm sure it was fun for him to stomp people by carrying out these tactics without the opposing tactics being enacted. But the result was nobody played chess with him anymore.

Anyway. There's a reason I tend to group a lot more in mmo betas than in releases.

[Xilren's Twin]

Why are you playing a game where the tactics are all well-known? 

  I'm willing to believe that eventually someone releases a game that actually delivers enough different types of encounters that it feels something like you need to come up with the tactics on the fly.  It's called 'hope', and it, rather than religion, is the true opiate of the masses.

It's a bit of a catch-22 though; sure having some type of randomness to actual encounters would make them possibly more interesting, but a) there's only so much randomness you could reasonably expect to automatically use without them screwing up too easy/too hard, and more importantly, b) MMO players have been trained to avoid/minimize randomness as much as they can, so the sturm and drange whines over players dieing to randomized encounters would be epic.  Lets face, the "fun" part for most MMO players is NOT the encounter itself, its the rewards.  It's why people skip quest text and just look at the reward to see if it is "worth it", or look up boss fight plans someone else came up with.  It's all about the lewt.
(and who am I kidding; what I actually want is more focused on small groups with a person making encounter decisions (ala a DM) rather than random encounters anyway)

[DLRiley]

Why are you playing a game where the tactics are all well-known? 

  I'm willing to believe that eventually someone releases a game that actually delivers enough different types of encounters that it feels something like you need to come up with the tactics on the fly.  It's called 'hope', and it, rather than religion, is the true opiate of the masses.

It's a bit of a catch-22 though; sure having some type of randomness to actual encounters would make them possibly more interesting, but a) there's only so much randomness you could reasonably expect to automatically use without them screwing up too easy/too hard, and more importantly, b) MMO players have been trained to avoid/minimize randomness as much as they can, so the sturm and drange whines over players dieing to randomized encounters would be epic.  Lets face, the "fun" part for most MMO players is NOT the encounter itself, its the rewards.  It's why people skip quest text and just look at the reward to see if it is "worth it", or look up boss fight plans someone else came up with.  It's all about the lewt.
(and who am I kidding; what I actually want is more focused on small groups with a person making encounter decisions (ala a DM) rather than random encounters anyway)

If you design an mmo and you hope for it succeed, than the bolded can not be true. Otherwise play WoW. It goes back to concept of designing a "good game" verse a good mmo. One will sell more than the other. We can't talk about a new mmo if we're already deducing that the game itself won't be fun. If that is the case, people won't play it, and the reward grind won't matter.

[Typhon]

Known encounters breed douchebags that "do research" on those encounters and get pissy with the folks that enjoy thinking on their feet.  I don't care about what those players want.  They have self-selected themselves into crap games.  They want games that stroke the e-peen.  I want a game that starts difficult but will allow me to scale it based upon how much trouble I (we) are having with the encounter.

What I want is:

1) Demon's Souls (and/or Oni) character control and combat
2) Diablo (I) mob, level and loot randomness,
3) CoX scaling of difficulty based on squad size
4) The option to decrease difficulty based upon failure.  You don't get the "Ironman!" achievement, but you get to kill the encounter, you get loot.  Only giving loot to the folks that can already beat the encounter is making the rich richer.

Edit: grammar

[Sky]

Otherwise play WoW.

You've made a couple assumptions, there.

[DLRiley]

Otherwise play WoW.

You've made a couple assumptions, there.

I'm not assuming why people play WoW. I am saying if you are fixated on loot tables you could just play WoW.

[Sky]

You did it again.

[birdsguts]

*cough* GuildWars *cough*
http://www.arena.net/blog/against-the-wall-humanity-in-guild-wars-2
.. ughm.... Pretty .... bad voiceovers. I dunno. The female ones aren't AS bad but there's this one male voice in particular... Ugh.
Despite it all I'm still optimistic. If the rest of it feels good I'll barely notice the voices after about 10 minutes.

[Lantyssa]

"My sister is marrying a BARD!"

"I can accept the dead returning to life, but marrying a musician makes no sense whatsoever..."

[NiX]

I'm still saddened by the fact that they release a ton of concept work. Leave that for the collector's edition!

[Sky]

"My sister is marrying a BARD!"

"I can accept the dead returning to life, but marrying a musician makes no sense whatsoever..."

[Lantyssa]

The kids playing pretend was awesome as well.

"LightNING Bolt! LightNING Bolt!"

"I have no regrets.  <hurk>"

[Spiff]

They're outBiowaring Bioware! 

And I concur; the kids playing was excellent.

I'm so superexcitedIwantitNao!

[Sobelius]

Yikes!  

Yes,a  couple of the voiceovers were good but someone is not giving any of the actors proper context or coaching so their tone sounds horribly disconnected and deaf to the content. Or whoever is approving these doesn't seem to care that the tone matches the content.

One exchange (the one that nailed the problem for me) is in the Queen/Minister/Ebonhawke track (0:49-0:55):

Woman:  "We can't make a treaty with the Charr. They can't be trusted."
Man: "The Searing is ancient history. Get over it."

They sound like a pair of Californians drinking wine in a hot tub and discussing a neighbor who doesn't hang tasteful lights at the holidays. Yes, the words give you "facts" and "lore" but a computer could do it - heck the text itself does that without a human sound.

If you're going to spend money on voiceover work make it count. These might be throwaway lines but how much more visceral it would feel to overhear a woman whose words said what these do but her tone let you know that she must have lost someone close to her because of the Charr, or that the vitriol in her tone tells you her distrust must be partly an irrational fear. Likewise, the man's tone could tell you he is likely a survivor of countless battles with the Charr, or maybe he's just weary of hearing the woman say the same tired thing a hundred times. None of this possibility comes through in these "I'm reading the words of the script" voiceovers. The kids sound like kids because they don't have to put anything behind what they say other than make it sound like they're playing a game, which they do just fine.

[Sky]

I was just bitching about the same thing regarding F:NV. There is some decent VO on that title, but it's pretty sparse with a whole lot of non-contextual poorly-delivered lines in between.

[birdsguts]

Excerpt from:
http://www.arena.net/blog/designing-humans

I would like to say a quick word about where we stand when it comes to the “sexiness” of our armors and costumes. This is a controversial subject that I encounter frequently on forums and message boards—not just about Guild Wars, but about a lot of games. I understand that many players feel that armor should be practical, realistic, and shouldn’t leave skin exposed to attack. When coming up with ideas for armor, the character and concept department try to balance the practical with the fantasy. We make armor that looks protective and functional, but we also make armor that looks sexy and shows a generous level of strategically placed skin. We recognize the “fantasy” aspect of our game; if you are able to rain down balls of fire from the sky, your clothing should not be a factor when it comes to body temperature, whether you are wearing your underwear or a fur coat. We’ve always intended to create outfits for male and female characters that are appealing and attractive without making our players feel uncomfortable about what their character or other player-characters are wearing. I think that Guild Wars has been very successful in this regard, and we will continue to make outfits that adhere to this philosophy.

Not to be unfairly negative but the fact that someone over there equates "fantasy" with "sexy" does kind of scare me. But hey... I don't exactly play these games for the immersion so as long as those kinds of ideas are contained to the art realm I guess I'm not too worried. The world design seems to look interesting enough anyway... so I suppose if I have to run around in it dressed like an idiot that's fine. It should still satisfy that occasional "must immerse and explore" craving. A slight knock to my confidence in the team as a whole but whatever. Not the worst designs out there at least.

[Sky]

The bullshit detector, courtesy of Frank Frazetta:


It's ok if there are armors that look like that. However, if you just get the one and not the other, it's all about male developers and bewbs.