Dynamic spawn vs static spawn: preference?

[Rendakor]

Dren, that idea is retarded. What is the point of getting gear if it only going to scale up the difficulty? Nothing ever gets easy, annoying zones stay annoying forever.  This was the stupidest fucking thing about Oblivion.

Take Deadmines: Van Cleef is little more than the leader of a thieves guild, which is an appropriate challenge for a group of low level adventurers. However, one who slays dragons on a weekly basis SHOULD be able to crush him with ease.

[Grimwell]

Rendakor, this assumes that gearing up has a point, or is important to the core game design. In many games it is, but not all.

[Rendakor]

Rendakor, this assumes that gearing up has a point, or is important to the core game design. In many games it is, but not all.

His post was about WoW. He even argued that he wanted to change how he earns emblems (gearing up), so the point stands. Now, you can certainly go theory-craft up a game where this is not the case, but please don't argue that dynamic mob scaling would help make the WoW badge grind any better.

[Grimwell]

Whoops! Reading is hard. I missed the WoW part, where gearing up is highly relevant.

The only thing that dynamic mob scaling would do in any grind to make it better is offer a higher variety of targets to attack. Which isn't much variety at all.

[Koyasha]

More seriously, you can't do a modernised UO because what UO was isn't going to attract that couple of hundred thousand players at launch. EvE has worked out by slowly growing through word-of-mouth and having the time to get over a horrible start.

I see a lot of people in this thread calling for more emergent game systems and I really like that idea... in theory. The reality is that MMO history has repeatedly shown that handing emergent systems to players is much the same outcome as handing orphaned altar boys to Catholic priests. Again, EvE works because CCP allow for a lot more of the extremes at the edges and shrug off player complaints.

This is exactly what I disagree with when I say that this hasn't been tried well enough to make this claim.  A lot of people didn't think the EQ-like MMO had the potential to pull in 10 million+ subscribers.  WoW did it in a polished enough manner to do so, and changed the landscape.  I suspect there very well may be an audience for a modernized UO, but it would have to be done very well and be highly polished in order to draw and retain a large audience.  But exactly like WUA says, it has to be a professional game with well-designed systems and an IP that fits the concept well, and none of the crazy shit that SWG had like HAM and forced interaction with dancers and whatever.

[Malakili]

forced interaction with dancers and whatever.

Well, this could be a sticking point actually.  I think one of the things that has sort of been lying under the surface in all this conversation is the assumption that players are either going to be working with each other or against each other.  One of the reasons WoW is so successful is because you can never deal with other players if you don't want to.  Here, other players would have an impact on your experience all the time, even if was indirect, and probably often directly.  While I agree that it has yet to be done in a "well enough" manner to really call it for sure, I think there are some parts of it that have, and one of those things is that the vast majority of players only want to have contact with other players, direct or indirect, on their own terms and on their own time table. 

[WindupAtheist]

There's a difference between a game where the normal/best way to accomplish a goal is to interact with another person, and a game that has FORCED INTERACTION™. Running up to the public forge in Britain to buy a new sword from a player blacksmith is the former, sitting with your thumb up your ass in a cantina going "GOD DAMN MIND WOUNDS I WANT TO PLAY THE GAME" is the latter.

The former represents a player coming up with a task which is best served by interacting with someone. The latter represents the developer screaming "HEY STOP PLAYING THE GAME, IT'S TIME FOR SOCIAL INTERACTION!" while everyone flips him off and goes AFK.

[Malakili]

There's a difference between a game where the normal/best way to accomplish a goal is to interact with another person, and a game that has FORCED INTERACTION™. Running up to the public forge in Britain to buy a new sword from a player blacksmith is the former, sitting with your thumb up your ass in a cantina going "GOD DAMN MIND WOUNDS I WANT TO PLAY THE GAME" is the latter.

The former represents a player coming up with a task which is best served by interacting with someone. The latter represents the developer screaming "HEY STOP PLAYING THE GAME, IT'S TIME FOR SOCIAL INTERACTION!" while everyone flips him off and goes AFK.

In the end, if the player is confronted with "I need to interact with some people to do the thing, and I don't feel like it right now" in both scenarios, are they really that much different to the average player?  If I want to collect ore, but its too dangerous because the orc NPCs have a dynamically generated raiding of the PC settlement going on and I need a group of people to do it safely, is it really that much different in the actual experience of the player, from having to wait for a dancer to get rid of their debuff?  Either way, your waiting around in town for other PCs.

My point is, I think the playerbase needs to be open to/happy about the idea that they are going to need to be interacting with other PCs regularly, or else thing sort of thing isn't going to go well.  If you go in with the mindset that you are going to need to interact with other players, sometimes even when it isn't convenient for you to do it at that moment, then whether  you are looking for an escort to keep you safe while mining, or looking for a dancer to remove a debuff doesn't really matter.  If you go in with the mindset that you are simply going to do what you want, when you want, to hell with anyone else, well, I don't know why you're playing a multiplayer game in the first place, let alone a game like the ones we have been discussing hypothetically in this thread.

[UnSub]

But that's a huge issue Malakili - MMO players hate most other MMO players (often with very justified reasons). PUGs are despised in many games for a reason.

A lot of it comes down to the issue that cooperation is much harder than conflict. In PvP, you see an opponent, you knife them in the back, teabag them while insulting their father's sexuality and it's all cut and dried. Cooperation requires talking, making clear objectives, working together for a period and not stepping on each others' toes too much (or failing horribly and blaming each other for it). A knife to the back is much simpler.

[Koyasha]

There's a difference between a game where the normal/best way to accomplish a goal is to interact with another person, and a game that has FORCED INTERACTION™. Running up to the public forge in Britain to buy a new sword from a player blacksmith is the former, sitting with your thumb up your ass in a cantina going "GOD DAMN MIND WOUNDS I WANT TO PLAY THE GAME" is the latter.

The former represents a player coming up with a task which is best served by interacting with someone. The latter represents the developer screaming "HEY STOP PLAYING THE GAME, IT'S TIME FOR SOCIAL INTERACTION!" while everyone flips him off and goes AFK.

In the end, if the player is confronted with "I need to interact with some people to do the thing, and I don't feel like it right now" in both scenarios, are they really that much different to the average player?  If I want to collect ore, but its too dangerous because the orc NPCs have a dynamically generated raiding of the PC settlement going on and I need a group of people to do it safely, is it really that much different in the actual experience of the player, from having to wait for a dancer to get rid of their debuff?  Either way, your waiting around in town for other PCs.

My point is, I think the playerbase needs to be open to/happy about the idea that they are going to need to be interacting with other PCs regularly, or else thing sort of thing isn't going to go well.  If you go in with the mindset that you are going to need to interact with other players, sometimes even when it isn't convenient for you to do it at that moment, then whether  you are looking for an escort to keep you safe while mining, or looking for a dancer to remove a debuff doesn't really matter.  If you go in with the mindset that you are simply going to do what you want, when you want, to hell with anyone else, well, I don't know why you're playing a multiplayer game in the first place, let alone a game like the ones we have been discussing hypothetically in this thread.

It's not just a matter of whether I want to go do what I want when I want.  I can accept reasonable mechanics that cause problems or situations that I need other players to help me solve.  A dungeon that I can't survive alone is perfectly reasonable, or an example of a rich mining area that the orcs have moved into and I need help clearing them out or at least watching my ass while I mine.  But when the mechanic is obviously forced in specifically to require me to 'interact', I'm being forced to stop playing the game in order to do that.  A dynamic world creating a situation where I need the help of others in order to mine ore is logical, rational, and reasonable.  A game mechanic that tells me that periodically I just HAVE to go do some 'social interaction' and is obviously shoehorned in specifically for the purpose of forcing me to do this is not.  If I can't go do my dungeon, or go mine, because I don't have enough friends online to do it with me, that's one thing, but if I can't do it because the game says 'You must now sit in a cantina for X amount of time' that's an entirely different story.

[ghost]

Economic, i.e. crafting, interaction does seem to be the most fulfilling for a lot of online gamers. 

[Draegan]

Economic, i.e. crafting, interaction does seem to be the most fulfilling for a lot of online gamers. 

Define a lot.

I think most MMOG gamers just like killing shit and getting teh loots.  The real trick is making the killing and the looting fun, which is the point of this thread; content delivery.

[Lantyssa]

We've had the related discussion about down time before.

A game should very rarely force downtime on someone.  There should be lots of activities for players who want downtime have something to do.  Forcing it on them makes them resent it.  Likewise, the tools and options should be available for socialization to anyone who wants them.  Forcing players to use them when they don't want to is equally as bad.

It's a really simple concept:  Give your players lots of choices but try to never force them to use them.  Give them alternatives where possible.

And surprisingly, dynamically spawning content can fit with that idea, too.

[ghost]

A game should very rarely force downtime on someone.  There should be lots of activities for players who want downtime have something to do.  Forcing it on them makes them resent it.  Likewise, the tools and options should be available for socialization to anyone who wants them.  Forcing players to use them when they don't want to is equally as bad.

It's a really simple concept:  Give your players lots of choices but try to never force them to use them.  Give them alternatives where possible.

And surprisingly, dynamically spawning content can fit with that idea, too.

This is what my argument was about Warhammer from the beginning.  Most said they could give a shit about the PvE aspect of the game or the crafting, even though they were both quite lacking.  There will always be down time with PvP and the hardcore players who are online 24 hours per day will not tolerate down time.  I still think that with a more robust crafting system and better PvE implementation Warhammer would still be able to populate a significant number of servers on a regular basis. 

[Malakili]

A game should very rarely force downtime on someone.  There should be lots of activities for players who want downtime have something to do.  Forcing it on them makes them resent it.  Likewise, the tools and options should be available for socialization to anyone who wants them.  Forcing players to use them when they don't want to is equally as bad.

It's a really simple concept:  Give your players lots of choices but try to never force them to use them.  Give them alternatives where possible.

And surprisingly, dynamically spawning content can fit with that idea, too.

This is what my argument was about Warhammer from the beginning.  Most said they could give a shit about the PvE aspect of the game or the crafting, even though they were both quite lacking.  There will always be down time with PvP and the hardcore players who are online 24 hours per day will not tolerate down time.  I still think that with a more robust crafting system and better PvE implementation Warhammer would still be able to populate a significant number of servers on a regular basis.  

Yeah, downtime is bad, but I think its how the player views downtime.  I think a lot of people assume any thing that isn't combat = downtime.  Even if you go back to the cantina example from earlier posts, rather than looking at it as "not playing the game" or "downtime" look at it as an opportunity to meet new people, make yourself a cup of tea in and do some character planning, etc.   These can be very enjoyable experiences, but players get it in their heads that they need to be out killing, gaining exp, getting loot, etc, I think changing that mindset is important.

Not just important for MMOs in general, but important for this conversation, which is about dynamic content.  If a system that uses dynamic content in the way a lot of us have been talking about, you'd have to have a playerbase that is willing to look at the MMO as a virtual world, or even as a virtual playground, but not simply as an engine of character advancement.

  I think its pretty plain that static content is superior if all we are talking about is players killing shit and getting loot.  They can kill exactly what they want and work towards getting the exact loot they want.  To me, implicit in truly dynamic content is the necessity of the player willing to engage with the game world as a world, and less as a "game."  Otherwise, all dynamic content is doing is changing the shape of the thing you are clicking on before pressing 11111111.

[ghost]

After my experience with WOW, I would actually argue that most people don't really want a dynamic world.  I think semi-dynamic, with known variable possibilities for mobs/mob action would probably be best received by the average gamer.  A lot of this depends on what you're shooting for, I suppose.

[Nebu]

Wasn't the conventional wisdom in the past that downtime in MMOs was a good thing?  I remember reading a bunch of stuff on how developers thought that downtime was necessary for community building and they found ways for people to congregate in hubs to encourage social interaction and community building.  So it was an attempt to manufacture social circles that would, in turn, encourage peopel to stay subscribed longer.  

I personally hate downtime, but assumed that games would have some of it purposefully engineered into their game to help develop social circles aiding in retention.  

[Nebu]

After my experience with WOW, I would actually argue that most people don't really want a dynamic world.  I think semi-dynamic, with known variable possibilities for mobs/mob action would probably be best received by the average gamer.  A lot of this depends on what you're shooting for, I suppose.

The thread isn't about what most people want.  It's about what you, the individual, want.  At least that's how I read it.

I want dynamic.  Everyone else can play in their own scripted sandbox.  

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, downtime is bad, but I think its how the player views downtime.  I think a lot of people assume any thing that isn't combat = downtime.  Even if you go back to the cantina example from earlier posts, rather than looking at it as "not playing the game" or "downtime" look at it as an opportunity to meet new people, make yourself a cup of tea in and do some character planning, etc.   These can be very enjoyable experiences, but players get it in their heads that they need to be out killing, gaining exp, getting loot, etc, I think changing that mindset is important.

Most players disliked being made to visit the cantina.  There were, however, dancers and socialites who loved going there.  They enjoyed that aspect of the game.  Some combat types would have gone anyways, but they'd rather have done it on their time rather than in the middle of a hunt because a deranged mantigrue plagued them so all their wounds were maxed.

Then holocrons came about and people felt compelled to become dancers.  All the people who enjoyed being in that scene were driven away.  The dancer-for-a-week people resented it.  It destroyed social structures which had existed for a year in a matter of months.

Forcing it on people is BAD.

[ghost]

The thread isn't about what most people want.  It's about what you, the individual, want.  At least that's how I read it.

I want dynamic.  Everyone else can play in their own scripted sandbox.  

Discussion about what the average gamer might like is surely always relevant because games don't pay for themselves.  Any game will have to be somewhat monetarily successful to avoid a Tabula Rasa fate.  It really comes down to how far can you vary from the WOW prescription and maintain monetary viability.  

I like a little scripted in my MMOs.  I just don't have the time to put in anymore in the sandboxier games to make it worth it, e.g. Eve and Fallen Earth.  It comes down to this-  I don't want to have to spend 8 hours in-game to accomplish something any more.  That's why I've been spending most of my time in LOTRO.  It's been getting a bit boggy lately, though.

[Dren]

Dren, that idea is retarded. What is the point of getting gear if it only going to scale up the difficulty? Nothing ever gets easy, annoying zones stay annoying forever.  This was the stupidest fucking thing about Oblivion.

Take Deadmines: Van Cleef is little more than the leader of a thieves guild, which is an appropriate challenge for a group of low level adventurers. However, one who slays dragons on a weekly basis SHOULD be able to crush him with ease.

Unlike Oblivion, I'm not saying ALL CONTENT would scale.  Not sure why you would make that jump.

You took a pre-60 obvious levelling instance to make a point?  I'm talking about instance that were considered end-content for each expansion.  I essentially said this when relating the lore of "god-like" bosses being trivial now.  I'll spell it out for you.  Level 60, 70, and 80 instances.

[Malakili]

After my experience with WOW, I would actually argue that most people don't really want a dynamic world.  I think semi-dynamic, with known variable possibilities for mobs/mob action would probably be best received by the average gamer.  A lot of this depends on what you're shooting for, I suppose.

The thread isn't about what most people want.  It's about what you, the individual, want.  At least that's how I read it.

I want dynamic.  Everyone else can play in their own scripted sandbox.  

True, but heres the thing, I don't want just dynamic.  I want a dynamic world in which I am playing with other players that are approaching the game in the same way.    Maybe that isn't part of the discussion, or supposed to be part of the discussion, but if there is a dynamic world and orcs are attacking the city, I want a group to play with that wants to protect the city not wants to kill the orcs for their loot.  Its not quite role playing, per se, at least in the sense of going around talking in character all the time, and putting on some fake typed accent.    Just that idea of buying into the world as the reason for playing, rather than the meta reasons like loot collecting, etc.  To me, thats what a dynamic world represents.  So, just applying some dynamic concepts with the default player base means I would log in and see this. "Oh, how lame, I hate when the elves are in the area, their loot sucks"  and frankly, that would kill the whole thing for me.

[Rendakor]

Dren, that idea is retarded. What is the point of getting gear if it only going to scale up the difficulty? Nothing ever gets easy, annoying zones stay annoying forever.  This was the stupidest fucking thing about Oblivion.

Take Deadmines: Van Cleef is little more than the leader of a thieves guild, which is an appropriate challenge for a group of low level adventurers. However, one who slays dragons on a weekly basis SHOULD be able to crush him with ease.

Unlike Oblivion, I'm not saying ALL CONTENT would scale.  Not sure why you would make that jump.

You took a pre-60 obvious levelling instance to make a point?  I'm talking about instance that were considered end-content for each expansion.  I essentially said this when relating the lore of "god-like" bosses being trivial now.  I'll spell it out for you.  Level 60, 70, and 80 instances.

I took a "pre-60 obvious levelling instance" that is being updated to a level 85 heroic for Cataclysm. End game content.

[WindupAtheist]

UO around 2001 or so. You could teleport pretty much anywhere you wanted at will, PVP had already been nerfed by Trammel, virtually all the PVE content was soloable, and there was no real downtime. Yet it was a very social game. Almost the entire economy was player-to-player. You could go days or more without interacting with an NPC except to kill them.

I point this out because there seems to be this idea that a worldy/social type of game has to beat your dick with a hammer one way or another, when such is simply not the case. Really anymore WoW just feels terminally soulless to me. I got that achievment and pug pet for grouping with 100 random players a while back and I couldn't tell you one of their names. Not one.

[Nebu]

Thinking about this question, I wonder if dynamic content would be more susceptible to griefing (i.e. some cap-level player runs through your area leaving a wake of high level mobs behind)?  Would dynamic content also require significantly more instancing to overcome this?  That being the case, I'm envisioning a trade-off between dynamic content and world-like feel. 

[Malakili]

Thinking about this question, I wonder if dynamic content would be more susceptible to griefing (i.e. some cap-level player runs through your area leaving a wake of high level mobs behind)?  Would dynamic content also require significantly more instancing to overcome this?  That being the case, I'm envisioning a trade-off between dynamic content and world-like feel. 

Well, dynamic doesn't necessarily mean it has to scale to the players.  You could still have areas that are generally low level, but dynamic within that range.  Then again, I realize there are several different discussions going on here, and the dynamic world discussion I've been having in which the world evolves partly due to NPC "decisions" and player actions, is a very different discussion than on simple dynamic spawns.

[Lantyssa]

On that I agree.  Dynamic could cover a wide range of game mechanics.  Ability, individual behavior, environment, evolution, etc.

My ideal game is going to improve on all these, but I think if any game could do just one of these areas well then it is a huge step forward.

[Nebu]

Sadly, I'm starting to believe what was suggested in an earlier post (or maybe another thread); that we're more likely to see derivative, platform-style games being churned out in the near future. 

I'm not anticipating anything really novel coming out for PC in the MMO genre for quite some time... if ever.  It's too big a gamble. 

[Draegan]

You saw that already with every single MMOG that has come out since WOW.  WAR, AOC, AION, a shitton of Korean games, and others I'm not remembering.

[pxib]

True, but heres the thing, I don't want just dynamic.  I want a dynamic world in which I am playing with other players that are approaching the game in the same way.    Maybe that isn't part of the discussion, or supposed to be part of the discussion, but if there is a dynamic world and orcs are attacking the city, I want a group to play with that wants to protect the city not wants to kill the orcs for their loot.  Its not quite role playing, per se, at least in the sense of going around talking in character all the time, and putting on some fake typed accent.    Just that idea of buying into the world as the reason for playing, rather than the meta reasons like loot collecting, etc.

Sounds amazing, but that's not a game design issue. It's an audience issue. If everybody who liked MMOs wanted to put effort into reinforcing the world's fiction, creating their cooperative stories, and taking care of their own immersion then Ultima Online would be what Everquest was in our world. It, and its clones, would also have the same population and low-expectation production values it has now because everybody who's been playing the DIKU games we know today would be throwing their money at offline or network games instead or... hey, maybe just watching TV.

Most people are more easily entertained by consumption than by creation, even cooperative creation. The lowest common denominator is the most profitable by dint of numbers, so big budget video games were destined to go the way of Hollywood blockbusters. If you want a self-directed, purposeful, worldy MMO you need to accept that it will have inspired but limited graphics, deep but poorly designed gameplay, negligible bizzare GM involvement, and a tiny but dedicated population. Think W:AR minus the budget.

[Malakili]

True, but heres the thing, I don't want just dynamic.  I want a dynamic world in which I am playing with other players that are approaching the game in the same way.    Maybe that isn't part of the discussion, or supposed to be part of the discussion, but if there is a dynamic world and orcs are attacking the city, I want a group to play with that wants to protect the city not wants to kill the orcs for their loot.  Its not quite role playing, per se, at least in the sense of going around talking in character all the time, and putting on some fake typed accent.    Just that idea of buying into the world as the reason for playing, rather than the meta reasons like loot collecting, etc.

Sounds amazing, but that's not a game design issue. It's an audience issue. If everybody who liked MMOs wanted to put effort into reinforcing the world's fiction, creating their cooperative stories, and taking care of their own immersion then Ultima Online would be what Everquest was in our world. It, and its clones, would also have the same population and low-expectation production values it has now because everybody who's been playing the DIKU games we know today would be throwing their money at offline or network games instead or... hey, maybe just watching TV.

Most people are more easily entertained by consumption than by creation, even cooperative creation. The lowest common denominator is the most profitable by dint of numbers, so big budget video games were destined to go the way of Hollywood blockbusters. If you want a self-directed, purposeful, worldy MMO you need to accept that it will have inspired but limited graphics, deep but poorly designed gameplay, negligible bizzare GM involvement, and a tiny but dedicated population. Think W:AR minus the budget.

Yeah, this is why I've kinda of, at least for now, given up on big budget MMOs, because I simply don't think they can (literally) can afford to make the kind of game I want to play.  Shopping around for smaller projects seems to be the way to go.  Love has promise.

[Venkman]

But overall I don't buy that the audience that wants this kind of game is the minority, not necessarily.  That's the same thing people said about MMOG's in general before WoW came out, then someone did it well enough to attract a huge audience.  I expect there's a similar possibility for this type of game, if it were done well.

That's a false projection though. People weren't coming to MMOs because they were either buggy, grindy, or both. It wasn't some fundamental dislike for the game mechanics though, because class based stuff and RPGs had existed for a long time even then. Heck, I was force-respawn grinding treasure chests from Buccaneer's Den in Ultima III When freakin' scamville games are knocking off MMO mechanics, you know you've got a mass marketable mechanic.

Nah, what WoW did was bottle up all the mechanics that were popular already and just did them right. Right pacing, right amount of content, right QAing, right IP.

What they did was create a game for a market that existed, just not playing MMOs. What they very much did not do is invent something new and hoped people would show up.

Which is why people think so much of the other out there thinking is, well, out there.

Or:

It's an audience issue. If everybody who liked MMOs wanted to put effort into reinforcing the world's fiction, creating their cooperative stories, and taking care of their own immersion then Ultima Online would be what Everquest was in our world.

[UnSub]

Wasn't the conventional wisdom in the past that downtime in MMOs was a good thing?  I remember reading a bunch of stuff on how developers thought that downtime was necessary for community building and they found ways for people to congregate in hubs to encourage social interaction and community building.  So it was an attempt to manufacture social circles that would, in turn, encourage peopel to stay subscribed longer.  

I personally hate downtime, but assumed that games would have some of it purposefully engineered into their game to help develop social circles aiding in retention.  

There is (obviously) a gap between social and forced downtime. However, EQ taught a lot of players that they would be social when forced to stand around in queues waiting for mobs to spawn and some lament that they no longer are forced to wait in queues because they feel that this destroys the immersion / social aspect.

These people are idiots.

Social hubs are a great idea but they are really sidelines to the main show. Important sidelines (especially if there aren't other ways of communicating / contacting players in-game) but sidelines for the main part. Or hygiene factors rather than motivators, if I was to wank it up.

[WindupAtheist]

Big stupid superhero movies make the most money. Other types of movies still get made.

[ghost]

The audience that wants games or MMOs at all is in the minority.  I suspect that the level of money to make an online game that would be dynamic enough to satisfy a subset of those gamers, however small or large that subset might be, is going to require a big budget.  It's just not going to be feasible anytime soon on a Darkfall budget.