"MMO" term dilution

[ghost]

This is why I don't understand the epic amounts of Darkfall hate on this forum.  The game has its issues (I stopped playing it, I can't really talk), but it has lots of these "old school" feeling mechanics.   It has most of the features people always say that they want, yet almost no one was even willing to try the game.  Is in the full loot/ open PvP mechanic that people don't like?  I know the PvP stuff is what people always focus on, but it has a deep crafting game, a more old school/quest light PvE game, and the spawn camping isn't nearly so bad as something like EQ.

I tried it.  It sucks all over.  I believe that my computer will hate me forever for installing it. 

[WayAbvPar]

I love the idea behind Darkfall, but by all accounts the actual deployment of said concepts is wrapped up grindtastic and buggy gameplay. Shadowbane had the grind part close to right- took a week or two of reasonably casual play to get to real PvP levels, and some maintenance PvE farming for city upkeep. The fail part was the end game that didn't allow a smaller guild/alliance to come back from a Tree loss, and of course, the hideous crash bugs (sb.exe .!. ). I would play an unfucked update of it in a heartbeat. Some of my best gaming memories are from the brief House Daenyr salad days.

[Ratman_tf]

To re-iterate what others are saying, I'm still not clear on the "what makes a non-instanced game great".  Are people pining for the competition for resources (mobs)?  Was there spontaneous cooperation that made things fun?  Or is it just really a feeling that you exist in another world because everyone's character is there at all times?

I don't get it.  I found the mob-competition tedious and annoying.  I found the inevitable lag when there was an interesting game-world event very annoying.  Spontaneous cooperation was vanishingly rare because the game systems were set up to encourage selfish behavior.  "Getting to know" people in your game world is a lot like getting to know people in the real world, some you like, so you don't.  It never made the game more immersive for me.

I think you need to concisely define what it is you are looking for before you try to put a name (acronym) to it.  Four or five bullets-level concise.  And get a couple of people to agree on 60% of those bullets.

A little of this, a little of that.
Competition is fun when it's opt-in. Say you have a PvEvP system, or hell a straight up PvP system that's voluntary. Competing for mobs like in Everquest was crap, but Everquest was a crap game.
Spontaneous cooperation, when it happens is fun, and I was skeptical of the PQ idea, but having done it a couple of times in ChampO, I'm warming up to the idea.
And yes, when I'm in an instance, I'm locked away from the world, safe in a cocoon, and wondering why I'm not playing a single player game instead.

because the game systems were set up to encourage selfish behavior

Most of these games are designed from the ground up to encourage selfish, dickish behavior, and then "fix" it by instancing stuff. Why not try to remove or change the parts of the game that encourage dickish behavior instead?

And I'm not even saying that instancing is itself evil and should be scrapped, I'm just frustrated that it's become a crutch to prop up dumb game ideas.

[naum]

because the game systems were set up to encourage selfish behavior

Most of these games are designed from the ground up to encourage selfish, dickish behavior, and then "fix" it by instancing stuff. Why not try to remove or change the parts of the game that encourage dickish behavior instead?

And I'm not even saying that instancing is itself evil and should be scrapped, I'm just frustrated that it's become a crutch to prop up dumb game ideas.

/bingo

[DLRiley]

because the game systems were set up to encourage selfish behavior

Most of these games are designed from the ground up to encourage selfish, dickish behavior, and then "fix" it by instancing stuff. Why not try to remove or change the parts of the game that encourage dickish behavior instead?

Remove grind, remove loot incentives, allow for painless customization(no reason for me to pay or wait for a reset to be available), greatly reduce travel time, focus on repeatable content... just to name a few.

[kildorn]

So fast leveling, easily obtained gear, quick respecs (or do you mean entire class changes?), rapid travel, and repeatable content.

Sounds like you want WoW. :P

[Stabs]

So fast leveling, easily obtained gear, quick respecs (or do you mean entire class changes?), rapid travel, and repeatable content.

Sounds like you want WoW. :P

This is the inherent danger in philosophising about an ideal MMO. You end up rather frustratingly concluding that the game you're sick of, the game that prompted you to start philosophising, is in fact the answer.

[Ingmar]

It sounds even more like Guild Wars (which of course is what he's going for.)

[Malakili]

Sounds like you guys want something like Planetside.  All those things you want are common in PvP games, not PvE.  Though I'm not sure about travel time.  Travel time is necessary in a large scale PvP game to reward a side that is sly enough to mount a big enough attack on a position that isn't well defended.  That doesn't mean it should take you an hour to get there (5 minutes is probably plenty, but it does mean that smart tactics/strategy should be rewarded.

Then again, this probably goes back what I was saying about liking MMOs to be simulations, or at least sim-like. 

[DLRiley]

So fast leveling, easily obtained gear, quick respecs (or do you mean entire class changes?), rapid travel, and repeatable content.

Sounds like you want WoW. :P

That's not what WoW is lolz. Ingmar got it right I was describing Guild Wars.

[Azazel]

I dunno, I don't find much appealing about sitting in line at the bottom of a dungeon that I just walked all they way down into because there are 8 groups already there.

Yeah. I agree. I mean, there could be fun meeting new people and all of that in a PUG-camp, and interaction between people in a dungeon could be fun, but aside from Bloodworth's point here - which I completely agree with - is that non-instanced dungeons feel nothing at all like what they are supposed to be.

My gamer background comes from PNP games before EQ, And in those, when you go into a dungeon, you don't have repops behind you, nor do you find a cozy spot to camp and whack orcs as they spawn. You DO the dungeon. You start at the start, and you kill your way through the encounters until you get to the end. You don't go into the domain of the Goblin Prince in order to walk to the throne room in order to take a number from the ticket machine while 2 groups of 4 other people sit around in front of you. The non-instance scenario is more like going into a store and patiently waiting in line for your pizza order. How that's more "immersive" or "realistic" I don't know...

[Malakili]

[ How that's more "immersive" or "realistic" I don't know...

Its just the nature of PNP v. CRPGs sadly.  In pencil and paper you could think of it as having your own "instance" of the entire Forgotten Realms, complete with a DM that can tailor things to make the experience the best for your particular party.    However, that doesn't translate to MMOGs very well for obvious reasons.  I think in the end though its repeatable content thats the issue at hand for me.  Whether you are farming a goblin king in a non instanced dungeon, or "doing" Halls of Reflection for the 100th time, the only difference is presentation.

In pencil and paper you don't redo content, and when the campaign is over its over, or the DM just keeps inventing new adventures for you to do until everyone wants to try something new.  The instanced dungeons in an MMO give a more similar feeling, at least hypothetically, to dungeon crawling in pencil and paper, but the open world dungeons give more of a feeling of a big coherent world that isn't segmented off in pencil and paper.  Ideally, there would a truly huge amount of "dungeons" in the open world, with similar loot tables, such that you wouldn't all want to be farming the same guy.   Of course, MMOG players are known to over analyze, and I'm sure people would find the one that is of the closest walking distance from a town, least dangerous things on the way to it and declare it "optimal" causing the same backup and line waiting you see now, even if you could spend LESS time going to the "non optimal" dungeons.

I kind of think of it like if all those cave systems and little random dungeons in WoW that are mostly just solo quests were viable "dungeons."  There are a dozen or more per zone and there would be plenty throughout the game world for people that wanted to "do" a dungeon, if they were structured as such, but the logistics of getting to one, finding one that wasn't already being  "done" and so forth would probably be seen as too much of a time wasting affair, and I'm absolutely certain the current "press a button and afk sammich while waiting for dungeon to pop" method is 100% more popular than the other way would be.

[Azazel]

LOTRO has been removing such things already.    Hes talking about a zone and level band that hasn't had its revamp yet.

Stop defending everything?

Seriously. they did a good job in Lone-Lands, but zone revamps have been put back on the shelf. They started talking about plans to revamp North Downs, and those plans have been officially shelved indefinately. And it's not like Rivendell and Trollshaws (and Misty Mountains) are all that optional. The way you're talking is like it's happening fast and furiously. Not sure about your use of the word "already" there either.

[Azazel]

In pencil and paper you don't redo content, and when the campaign is over its over, or the DM just keeps inventing new adventures for you to do until everyone wants to try something new.  The instanced dungeons in an MMO give a more similar feeling, at least hypothetically, to dungeon crawling in pencil and paper, but the open world dungeons give more of a feeling of a big coherent world that isn't segmented off in pencil and paper.

I kind of think of it like if all those cave systems and little random dungeons in WoW that are mostly just solo quests were viable "dungeons."  There are a dozen or more per zone and there would be plenty throughout the game world for people that wanted to "do" a dungeon, if they were structured as such, but the logistics of getting to one, finding one that wasn't already being  "done" and so forth would probably be seen as too much of a time wasting affair, and I'm absolutely certain the current "press a button and afk sammich while waiting for dungeon to pop" method is 100% more popular than the other way would be.

Sure, I get the difference between PNP and PC roleplaying (there's no actual roleplaying in CRPGs, for starters  ) but we'll have to agree to disagree on the instanced dungeon issue - I find it more coherent with instances fenced off instead of "camp check?" To coin a phrase, this makes instances seem more worldly to me.

At the same time, I do like the cave systems with small quest boss mobs and such in them that WoW has. Not to mention forts and keeps and so forth. The stuff that you encounter while levelling. That and the fact that regular zones aren't instanced leave enough non-instanced world to me, since you can still interact with other people in most of the content - but when it's time for you to go kill the leader of the Defias, you fight through his domain and all his minions, rather than breezing through the already killed mobs to his doorstep and taking a number.

I haven't played WoW since awhile before the new dungeon and instance queueing changes, but I'm older and have less time than I used to have when I played EQ, so I can appreciate the ability to get on and accomplish something in a short time. Whoever it was earlier int his thread that basically said that "you're older have kids and less time because you have a job - MMOGS aren't for you" appears to be wrong, since they've moved in the direction of being more flexible for those of us who can't and would not camp Iceclad Ocean for Stormfeather anymore.

[Lantyssa]

Sure, I get the difference between PNP and PC roleplaying (there's no actual roleplaying in CRPGs, for starters  ) but we'll have to agree to disagree on the instanced dungeon issue - I find it more coherent with instances fenced off instead of "camp check?" To coin a phrase, this makes instances seem more worldly to me.

It's what people remember from their first MMO so it becomes "the way it should be".  I'm with you on this.  Taking a number doesn't work for me at all.

[Nebu]

Instances are mandatory.  Vanguard showed me this immediately.  They minimize queues, griefing, and other issues.  I have no nostalgia toward shared dungeons at all.

[ghost]

I'm not sure why instances are considered taboo to good design.  I find instanced PvP to be generally much preferable to open world PvP.  Instanced PvP has clear objectives, usually somewhat equal sides (yes, Pugs versus premades, I know....) and doesn't take all goddamn night to play.  I like that.  Many more problems are caused by other issues, such as crappy class balance, the holy triad, CC mechanics, etc. 

[Malakili]

I'm not sure why instances are considered taboo to good design.  I find instanced PvP to be generally much preferable to open world PvP.  Instanced PvP has clear objectives, usually somewhat equal sides (yes, Pugs versus premades, I know....) and doesn't take all goddamn night to play.  I like that.  Many more problems are caused by other issues, such as crappy class balance, the holy triad, CC mechanics, etc. 

Its not a question as to whether or not its good design, its a question as to whether or not it makes sense to even bother making a game an MMO if you are going to stick everything there is to do inside an instance.  If you are going to do that, there really isn't any advantage to just making a good old fashioned server based multiplayer game (ala TF2), which is FINE, but no one is going to do that because most MMO game play sucks an no one would play that shit unless there was some sort of showing of your gear, or chat box to talk to people with. 

If Steam would get its chat windows to be transparent and pop up in some certain condition without forcing you to shift tab to bring up the entire interface,  you could argue TF2 literally has everything WoW does if you like instanced PvP.

Its not that you can't have good GAMES with tons of instanced content, thats obviously true.  I guess the big problem is that anything and everything is calling itself an MMOG these days so they can keep charging you for shit.

[ghost]

I guess the big problem is that anything and everything is calling itself an MMOG these days so they can keep charging you for shit.

That's the fucking truth, isn't it?  Damned leeches might as well have a direct siphon to my wallet.


However, not all instancing is the same.  For instance , EVE is heavily instanced but manages to do a good job at remaining an MMO.  Actually, EVE may be the perfect MMO, I just wish I found it a little more interesting.  I guess I need to get into their PvP.

[DLRiley]

I guess the big problem is that anything and everything is calling itself an MMOG these days so they can keep charging you for shit.

That's the fucking truth, isn't it?  Damned leeches might as well have a direct siphon to my wallet.


However, not all instancing is the same.  For instance , EVE is heavily instanced but manages to do a good job at remaining an MMO.  Actually, EVE may be the perfect MMO, I just wish I found it a little more interesting.  I guess I need to get into their PvP.

Fastest way to fall asleep.

[Malakili]

I guess the big problem is that anything and everything is calling itself an MMOG these days so they can keep charging you for shit.

That's the fucking truth, isn't it?  Damned leeches might as well have a direct siphon to my wallet.


However, not all instancing is the same.  For instance , EVE is heavily instanced but manages to do a good job at remaining an MMO.  Actually, EVE may be the perfect MMO, I just wish I found it a little more interesting.  I guess I need to get into their PvP.

Heavily instanced? No.  Loading screens and instances aren't the same thing.

[Ratman_tf]

Instances are mandatory.  Vanguard showed me this immediately.  They minimize queues, griefing, and other issues.  I have no nostalgia toward shared dungeons at all.

[Nebu]

Instances are mandatory.  Vanguard showed me this immediately.  They minimize queues, griefing, and other issues.  I have no nostalgia toward shared dungeons at all.

Not sure why the comment.  It's probably the most recent, big budget MMO to employ the open dungeon concept.  While the game was an overall failure, there were enough people at release to readily recognize that open dungeons were an artifact of the past that needed to be done away with.

[Paelos]

Really, the more I think about the Massively part of the MMO, I only think we need it for the showing off / social / economic aspects of the game at all anymore. I mean if every game just had a series of towns or cities where the people could socialize, interact, show-off, have housing, trade, or cyber-hump that would solve about 90% of what people need from the Massively part of an MMOG. I believe all combat should be instanced, pvp or otherwise. It makes for better quality control, environment-changing, story-telling, etc.

The idea of a "world" is over-rated, because most of the time that world is barren and void.

[Lantyssa]

Guild Wars with Housing and an Auction House?  Yes please.

I really don't care if other people are in the open world or not.  Passing by another individual can be interesting, but generally it only affects me negatively to not at all.  (I'm really curious if GW2 changes this to where it can be a positive.)  I'm fine with only seeing people in social hubs.

That said, I'm aware it's a playstyle choice.

[ghost]

Heavily instanced? No.  Loading screens and instances aren't the same thing.

Not exactly, but its very, very close when you look at the way it plays.  I would consider them basically the same. 

[Ingmar]

LOTRO has been removing such things already.    Hes talking about a zone and level band that hasn't had its revamp yet.

Stop defending everything?

Seriously. they did a good job in Lone-Lands, but zone revamps have been put back on the shelf. They started talking about plans to revamp North Downs, and those plans have been officially shelved indefinately. And it's not like Rivendell and Trollshaws (and Misty Mountains) are all that optional. The way you're talking is like it's happening fast and furiously. Not sure about your use of the word "already" there either.

I dunno, I'm at 48 and didn't do even half of what was available in Trollshaws/Misty Mountains. I keep outleveling areas before I get very far into them.

Re: Eve, a lot of those PVE mission areas are essentially instances, or at least that is how it seemed to me.

[Malakili]

Heavily instanced? No.  Loading screens and instances aren't the same thing.

Not exactly, but its very, very close when you look at the way it plays.  I would consider them basically the same. 

I have to disagree.  If I zone into a zone and I might go into ThatZone 43, or my own version of that zone, its instanced.   If I go through a loading screen to get to ThatZone, and everyone that goes there is in the same place, thats pretty different to me.  (Example: Lord of the Rings has lots of loading screens, especially in a place like Bree in which going into almost any building is a load, but its not instanced versions of those buildings).

[Redgiant]

Social is a big reason. Ask yourself why you don't just buy single-player games. Because you want to interact with a number of other real players.

Maybe we have different ideas of "interact" and "a number of".

I want to "interact" not in a chat lobby but in the game world itself, seeing other players in 3D and in the same landscape (if we are both supposed to be in the same world spot).

I want "a number of" to be as many players as possible who think they are also in the same world copy I am. I like bustling cities, and seeing people indoors and outdoors.

I want limitations to "a number of", ala instancing, only where there is a game reason or technically-unavoidable limitation that necessiates it, and not have gratuitous "5 at a time" or "10v10 BG" enforced on me.

PvP does seem better at justifying the open-world side of things these days, and I still think early DAoC was unbeatable for MMO battles in the Frontiers and Darness Falls (for whoever said dungeons should never be instanced, I find it hard to believe you played early DAoC and DF - unless you meant PvE which I can understand).

[DLRiley]

I like to play this with friends. I don't want to interact with people. General misunderstanding. People like the multi-player aspect of mmog, no one plays an mmo to play with 200 hundred strangers at once cooperatively. Hell the 40 man raids amongst guild members was a flaw of epic portions acknowledge by blizzard.

[Ingmar]

DF (and to a lesser degree Dodens Gruda and the other frontier dungeons) was a special case. If you ever had to fight with 234 necromancers for a place to kill stuff in Stonehenge Barrows then you know why most DAOC players will not look back on non-instanced dungeons fondly. But actually even the DF thing wasn't much fun if you were on something sub-level-50.

I mean yes I occasionally had a good time sneaking over to Hib side and dropping AE hammers on a group of mid-30s pulling the chef room, but I suspect it wasn't the most fun THEY ever had in an MMO.

[Redgiant]

DLRiley good point about friends vs. strangers. The more I think on it a really good point.

The nature of online player bases and our communications options in and out of game have changed a lot over the years. Years ago, I don't remember anything like the stupid chat channel 5-year old drivel that gets spouted on a continuous basis in any current game. The invasion of imbecilic unwashed masses behavior has led to a natural insulation desire in MMOs that once embraced shared online experiences as a cool novelty to be sought out.

Way back when, it didn't seem odd at all to make virtual friends with RL strangers as the norm, when that was the majority position. Some can gripe all they want about EQ1, but it was a giant game in its time and it was a time when strangers were "all in it together" and helpful. The difficulty of the game was meant to be conquered by groups and strangers, and interacting was itself one goal. Sure, applying today's insulation standards to EQ1 in 1999, it makes it seem way too hard, too demanding, too penalizing - EQ1 was good at necessitating cooperation.

I was in a guild with no RL friends on my server for a couple of years non-stop, but they became my friends even though it never went outside the game. Same with early DAoC through ToA. As games came and went, that ability to play and socialize purely through the simulation lens of the game suffered and "breaking the veil" became commonplace.

Maybe what drives people to think they need to play with friends now, is that it is all too painfully obvious that you are playing with strangers when you try to place them in a friendly in-game role. The increasingly fleeting time spent isn't enough to elevate them much - a group in EQ1 or DAoC never just "ended after a quest boss"; everyone often found something more to do together, even if they had not played together before.

[Malakili]

I wonder how much of that is due to the games encouraging such behavior, or just the games trying to take in the ever growing social network crowd.  Say what you want about WoW, it came out AFTER facebook, even if facebook was a lot different back then.  People were really starting to ramp up using the internet as a social networking platform with people they already knew.

When I was "social networking" with people on the internet years ago, it was with people I didn't know and never planned to meet in real life, just random strangers who by virture of being online too shared a hobby.


Edit: Incidentally, I wonder if this is why I tend to be drawn to more niche games, regardless of their mechanics?

[Azazel]

Seriously. they did a good job in Lone-Lands, but zone revamps have been put back on the shelf. They started talking about plans to revamp North Downs, and those plans have been officially shelved indefinately. And it's not like Rivendell and Trollshaws (and Misty Mountains) are all that optional. The way you're talking is like it's happening fast and furiously. Not sure about your use of the word "already" there either.

I dunno, I'm at 48 and didn't do even half of what was available in Trollshaws/Misty Mountains. I keep outleveling areas before I get very far into them.

The book quests alone involve a fucking stupid amount of running all over the zone (then back to elrond) then across the universe (then back to elrond) then over the hills and far away (then back to elrond). This is more what I meant. Though it's also present in a number of the regular quest hub quests. iIn my group we started calling it "All quests lead to Elrond".

[Azazel]

DLRiley good point about friends vs. strangers. The more I think on it a really good point.

The nature of online player bases and our communications options in and out of game have changed a lot over the years. Years ago, I don't remember anything like the stupid chat channel 5-year old drivel that gets spouted on a continuous basis in any current game. The invasion of imbecilic unwashed masses behavior has led to a natural insulation desire in MMOs that once embraced shared online experiences as a cool novelty to be sought out.

Way back when, it didn't seem odd at all to make virtual friends with RL strangers as the norm, when that was the majority position. Some can gripe all they want about EQ1, but it was a giant game in its time and it was a time when strangers were "all in it together" and helpful. The difficulty of the game was meant to be conquered by groups and strangers, and interacting was itself one goal. Sure, applying today's insulation standards to EQ1 in 1999, it makes it seem way too hard, too demanding, too penalizing - EQ1 was good at necessitating cooperation.

I was in a guild with no RL friends on my server for a couple of years non-stop, but they became my friends even though it never went outside the game. Same with early DAoC through ToA. As games came and went, that ability to play and socialize purely through the simulation lens of the game suffered and "breaking the veil" became commonplace.

Maybe what drives people to think they need to play with friends now, is that it is all too painfully obvious that you are playing with strangers when you try to place them in a friendly in-game role. The increasingly fleeting time spent isn't enough to elevate them much - a group in EQ1 or DAoC never just "ended after a quest boss"; everyone often found something more to do together, even if they had not played together before.

I agree with pretty much all of your post. But at the same time, things have moved on, and they have done so for a reason. A lot of us here on f13, and the old EQ1 players in general have gotten that much older, and (most of us) no longer have the time to sink into a game in the way we did with EQ. At the same time, most/the majority of the newer WoW players have never played a game like that before, and honestly, they would never stand for it. They just wouldn't play if it required the time investment of EQ.

Nowadays, I just want to play with my friends, and I'm someone who occasionally had a leadership role in raids back in EQ1 for my guild, leading 72 of my closest friends in the PoP era etc etc. I just don't give a shit about any of that anymore. When I started playing WoW, on release and for the year or so after. I saw people get jacking-off-excited about going to Molten Core, and I could have been amongst them, but I no longer gave a shit. A couple of RL friends played that way for awhile and encouraged me to join them, but eventually they lost interest in the raid game before I got excited. One other former RL friend became a major raid guild catass in EQ did the same in WoW, and he's still out there, somewhere, catassing his entire life away nearly 10 years later now.

These days, I'm more interested in the "Game" part of "MMOG", and now the "World" part. People like my wife would never have played EQ1, due to both the time investment and the constant cockstabbing of the game, but WoW and LotRO are doable. This perhaps makes her "not hardcore" or whateverthefuck, but her money works just like everyone else's.