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Author Topic: One Medium, Many Genres  (Read 16206 times)
HaemishM
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on: June 15, 2005, 01:41:21 PM


sidereal
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Reply #1 on: June 15, 2005, 03:21:46 PM

MMOG is Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Games with instancing in which you can cram 150 people into one instanced zone is the definition of a multiplayer game. The fact that all players can interact with all other players on the service, no matter how many concurrent users are online means the game is massive AND multiplayer. The fact that it's played over the Internet means it's an online game. Is it suddenly not a massively multiplayer online game if you and 40 of your friends cannot be interrupted by one lone dirtbag training an entire dungeon's worth of monsters onto your dragon raid? Does the fact that one person can isolate himself in an instance for a little solo play and not have to listen to the cybersex fantasies of B0n3d00d lessen the importance of a service with 100,000 concurrent users? No, it's not the holy grail of MMOG, but it is a useful design tool of a medium desperately in need of such good tools. Stop trying to diminish a game because you happen to like global chat channels filled with random asshats arguing over the size of Lindsey Lohan's breasts in Herbie: Fully Loaded.

I'll take up the banner for the people who say Guild Wars isn't massively multiplayer:   It isn't.   Some people may mean that to diminish the game.  I don't.  I have an unhealthy lust for a large number of games that aren't massively multiplayer, and in fact I hate most massively multiplayer games, so if anything it's a compliment.  The distinction is important because it's useful when you make statements like 'technology x is good for massively multiplayer games' or 'I like massively multiplayer games because of the community' or whatever.  You need to define the category if you're going to use it.  What's the difference between Guild Wars and Diablo II (+ Battle.net) in terms of mutiplayer functionality?  It isn't much.  They moved Battle.net into the game engine.  You still only see no more than 20-30 people at once.  You still form small groups with people you know, or form random groups in the lobby/city.  You still have no impact on the game world outside your experience.  Do you call Diablo II + Battle.net massively multiplayer?  You can make a reasonable argument for it, but I don't.  Because I don't think it's a useful inclusion for the purposes of the conversations we have about massively multiplayer games.

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HaemishM
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Reply #2 on: June 15, 2005, 09:14:32 PM

Quote
You still only see no more than 20-30 people at once.  You still form small groups with people you know, or form random groups in the lobby/city.  You still have no impact on the game world outside your experience. 

For the most part, that echoes 99% of my experiences in MMOG's. Up that number to 50-60 and it encompasses all of my experiences in MMOG's that didn't end in 1) a server crash, 2) a slideshow, or 3) a slide show, followed by a client crash on top of a server crash.

sidereal
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Reply #3 on: June 15, 2005, 09:50:56 PM

But at least the other games pretend that maybe someday you can do more.  They keep hope alive.

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Paelos
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Reply #4 on: June 16, 2005, 07:03:39 AM

I think MMOGs will always be a genre before they can finally move out and establish themselves in a more revolutionary way than what we currently see. I would think the medium is still computer games, just like the medium for Goldeneye is console. MMOGs can become a medium if they perhaps become independant of my regular computing. Say for example, they sell an MMOG console, then we're talking.

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Stephen Zepp
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Reply #5 on: June 16, 2005, 07:20:12 AM

First, let me say that I do agree with the general viewpoint of the article--the terminology in use currently is in no way validly expressing the actual state of the various games out there--but then again, game terminology has always been an issue (see the "PvP" purists, vs the non-combat PvP definition, etc.).

Now, on to some specifics:

1) I agree that use of the term genre is completely out of synch with historical definitions. For instance, people call "RTS" a genre, but it's actually not--it's a playstyle (or interface style if that's what you like). The actual genre is science fiction, or fantasy, or steampunk, or whatever, but the fact that it is a game where you primarily do empire management and use numbers of troops to accomplish goals which normally involve directly interacting with enemies (AI or human), including combat and asset destruction, makes it an RTS--and that's not a genre at all: it's simply the style in which you play the game.

I think this definition is important--in fact, in the article itelf you discuss both "romance games", and "turn based strategy games" as if they were in the same logical grouping, and label that grouping "genre"--when in fact they have zero relationship at that level.

2)
Quote
The fact that all players can interact with all other players on the service, no matter how many concurrent users are online means the game is massive AND multiplayer.

I personally disagree completely with this qualification definition--because you are not in fact interacting utilizing the game mechanics other than pure communication and item trading in games like GW. All of this functionality could be implemented to be performed over an IRC channel, or a web page, and no real change would occur in the game itself. I know that you and I disagree in the utilization and benefits of instancing, and this isn't the place for that debate, but I think it's ultimately an important clarification to make here: to me massively multiplayer all, or at least a majority, of the game mechanics should be what you are using for this interaction, not a very limited subset. And yes, I happen to agree, EQ and their clones that limit PvP types of interactions are arguably NOT massive in this regard: I just think the terminology isn't matured enough yet to make the clarification.

3) It's arguable either way, but I personally feel that GW falls into a "Minimally Muiltplayer" definition: it's an online game (obviously), where you can at most interact directly with a proportionally small subset of the total game population--and that's only in PvP arenas. Games like Shadowbane fall more inline with the concept of massively multiplayer, because there in fact you have the ability to interact fully in most situations (safe zones excluded obviously) with any particular player at any particular time--with no restrictions about being in a particular zone or a particular copy of a zone. Sidreal expressed similar viewpoints, and I'm in full agreement with his position as well.

When it comes right down to it, we are currently caught up in the industry in trying to apply marketing terms as if they had technological meaning--and they don't. Honest marketers will be the first to tell you that they will twist phrases that sound good into applying to their products, with little real regard to how technically accurate they are--and this is leading us down the path of being locked into terminology that actually makes little sense as the medium of onling gaming is evolving. Here's an interesting example:

Currently, most of us (I would suggest) hear the term "persistent world", and think of being able to save our characters from play session to play session--and that's pretty much it. But what about games that are persistent (your game state in whatever form saves from play session to play session), but the game itself only lasts 2 weeks to a month? Is this no longer persistent worlds, because you can come back a year from now and your saved game state is gone? Or is the original definition itself faulty--and it was the character that was persistent, not the world? John Pritchett is the first one that I've personally witnessed come up with a new set of definitions to cover these states, so I'll through them out here as a reference:

a) persistent persona: Your in game presense in whatever form is saved in a controlled location, and is consistent between play sessions.

b) persistent world: actions performed within a game world are saved in a controlled location, and can be witnessed in some form by other players, even if after the action was performed, until the end of the world's play duration (for limited time worlds).

c) perpetual world: a persistent world where there is no set world play duration.

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Stephen Zepp
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Reply #6 on: June 16, 2005, 07:21:27 AM

Quote
You still only see no more than 20-30 people at once.  You still form small groups with people you know, or form random groups in the lobby/city.  You still have no impact on the game world outside your experience. 

For the most part, that echoes 99% of my experiences in MMOG's. Up that number to 50-60 and it encompasses all of my experiences in MMOG's that didn't end in 1) a server crash, 2) a slideshow, or 3) a slide show, followed by a client crash on top of a server crash.

As I described above, to me this means that 99% of the "MMOG"s out there aren't in fact massively multiplayer, but the marketing term is currently being used as a technical definition.

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HaemishM
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Reply #7 on: June 16, 2005, 08:28:15 AM

3) It's arguable either way, but I personally feel that GW falls into a "Minimally Muiltplayer" definition: it's an online game (obviously), where you can at most interact directly with a proportionally small subset of the total game population--and that's only in PvP arenas. Games like Shadowbane fall more inline with the concept of massively multiplayer, because there in fact you have the ability to interact fully in most situations (safe zones excluded obviously) with any particular player at any particular time--with no restrictions about being in a particular zone or a particular copy of a zone. Sidreal expressed similar viewpoints, and I'm in full agreement with his position as well.

But see, that's incorrect about Guild Wars. You CAN interact with every bit of the population, and you can do so OUTSIDE of PVP arenas. Every town zone you go to has its own set of players. You can talk with them, you can trade merchandise with them, you can see them, you can still give them a tell. Each town is like a mini  East Commons from EQ. If you want to fight against them, you can arrange to go to PVP arenas. If you want to fight with them, you can join up and go into the instanced PVE areas. The ONLY fundamental difference between Everquest and Guild Wars in this respect is that not every single person who wants to go to a place in the game world called Lion's Arch will end up in the same copy of Lion's Arch, whereas in EQ, every person trying to go to a place called East Commons would be in the same place. Except, if more than 200 people tried to all go into EC at once, that zone would crash, meaning no one could. In GW, it just makes another copy of the zone, but does not cut you off from communication with other players, nor does it prevent you from meeting up in Lion's Arch if you agree to meet in one particular instance.

Why is that not massively multiplayer? Not only is it a more elegant solution technologically, because it does away with the possibility that the zone will crash and be unavailable, but it makes for a more enjoyable play experience for the individual. Fundamentally, he can see about the same amount of people in one area as he could in EQ; he just has MORE people available in other instances.

No, if both people are in Lion's Arch in GW, they can't be attacked by a wandering orc like they could in the East Commonlands of EQ. So? That somehow makes GW minimally multiplayer?

You are correct in that we are completely becoming mired in the marketing terms, but that's what the industry has stuck itself with. MMOG, for better or worse, is what these things are going to be called from hereon out. So we as players need to get used to that. IMO, people who try to say things like "Guild Wars isn't an MMOG" are doing so to diminish it in comparison to a more traditional MMOG, which is limiting the medium right back to a genre.

Typically, genre has been used for subject matter, such as romance/sci-fi/etc. but the computer game industry has also used it to describe playstyle, which is why I equated RTS with Romance game. I think that's a valid use of the word genre, because playstyle really can determine whether or not you like a game. Defining MMOG's as a medium also allows us to more easily give the medium its own genres, such as Sci-fi RPG or Romance Persistent World or Fantasy FPS.

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Reply #8 on: June 16, 2005, 08:39:39 AM

3) It's arguable either way, but I personally feel that GW falls into a "Minimally Muiltplayer" definition: it's an online game (obviously), where you can at most interact directly with a proportionally small subset of the total game population--and that's only in PvP arenas. Games like Shadowbane fall more inline with the concept of massively multiplayer, because there in fact you have the ability to interact fully in most situations (safe zones excluded obviously) with any particular player at any particular time--with no restrictions about being in a particular zone or a particular copy of a zone. Sidreal expressed similar viewpoints, and I'm in full agreement with his position as well.

But see, that's incorrect about Guild Wars. You CAN interact with every bit of the population, and you can do so OUTSIDE of PVP arenas. Every town zone you go to has its own set of players. You can talk with them, you can trade merchandise with them, you can see them, you can still give them a tell. Each town is like a mini  East Commons from EQ. If you want to fight against them, you can arrange to go to PVP arenas. If you want to fight with them, you can join up and go into the instanced PVE areas. The ONLY fundamental difference between Everquest and Guild Wars in this respect is that not every single person who wants to go to a place in the game world called Lion's Arch will end up in the same copy of Lion's Arch, whereas in EQ, every person trying to go to a place called East Commons would be in the same place. Except, if more than 200 people tried to all go into EC at once, that zone would crash, meaning no one could. In GW, it just makes another copy of the zone, but does not cut you off from communication with other players, nor does it prevent you from meeting up in Lion's Arch if you agree to meet in one particular instance.

Why is that not massively multiplayer? Not only is it a more elegant solution technologically, because it does away with the possibility that the zone will crash and be unavailable, but it makes for a more enjoyable play experience for the individual. Fundamentally, he can see about the same amount of people in one area as he could in EQ; he just has MORE people available in other instances.

I'm having difficulty expressing the breakdown here that I see in my own mind, and Sidreal said it best I think:
<paraphrase>
Do you see the combination of Battle.net and Diablo 2 as being massively multiplayer? Because in GW, they simply gave you the battle.net functionality "in game".
</paraphrase>

Quote
No, if both people are in Lion's Arch in GW, they can't be attacked by a wandering orc like they could in the East Commonlands of EQ. So? That somehow makes GW minimally multiplayer?

No, but it is an artifact of the instancing implementation that two characters could be in the exact same geographical location (except in different instances), and NOT see the same orc. Not really relevant to the massively definition here I admit.

Quote
You are correct in that we are completely becoming mired in the marketing terms, but that's what the industry has stuck itself with. MMOG, for better or worse, is what these things are going to be called from hereon out. So we as players need to get used to that. IMO, people who try to say things like "Guild Wars isn't an MMOG" are doing so to diminish it in comparison to a more traditional MMOG, which is limiting the medium right back to a genre.

What I think is really interesting is that by my general definition of massively multiplayer, even EQ or WoW doesn't qualify...so anyone that is comparing the two on that basis is being influenced by the marketing vs technical definition dichotomy you agree on below. What that means to me is that the term itself is so deeply ingrained in the industry that trying to change it is going to be a nightmare, yet problems like you describe are going to exist until it is.

Shadowbane is an example of my definition simply because (theoretically, the tech obviously can't handle it) each and every player that participates in the same "world" could be in the same geographical location at the same time, and use full game mechanics to interact (I'm talking player city siege here specifically).

Personally, I think that in many, many cases, minimally multiplayer is better than massively multiplayer. I think that GW accomplishes it's design goals in a much more refined, much more efficient, and much more capable implementation than EQ/WoW does (well, WoW is an advance over EQ's, but). GW implemented their design goals exactly as they were envisioned in this regard, and it makes for a MUCH better game in my opinion. It's fundamentally a different game design, and a different game...so it shouldn't be compared to EQ in the first place.

Quote
Typically, genre has been used for subject matter, such as romance/sci-fi/etc. but the computer game industry has also used it to describe playstyle, which is why I equated RTS with Romance game. I think that's a valid use of the word genre, because playstyle really can determine whether or not you like a game. Defining MMOG's as a medium also allows us to more easily give the medium its own genres, such as Sci-fi RPG or Romance Persistent World or Fantasy FPS.

Fair enough, but I think it will continue to be more and more confusing. My current project is an RTS/3rd person RPG/first person console/political-economic sim virtual world with a fantasy setting--now THAT is a unique genre!
« Last Edit: June 16, 2005, 08:42:15 AM by Stephen Zepp »

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Yegolev
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Reply #9 on: June 16, 2005, 08:50:34 AM

Whatever the name, MMOG or something else, I do consider Diablo II/battle.net a MMOG.  I log in, I'm surrounded by jackholes who, given the chance, will steal my kills or loot, or murder me, or just generally be an illiterate ass until I get sick and log out, or use a password to lock them out of my instance.  I play only with friends since everyone else sucks.  I am constantly outclassed by catasses that camp/bot Pindle.  I contend with scammers, and items are available on ebay (I assume).  Very little difference from many MMOGs, particularly the ones with unregulated PK.  The big difference is, of course, the implementation of instancing.

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Reply #10 on: June 16, 2005, 08:52:43 AM

Ah Pindleskin. The great dropper of many items. The moment I heard there were bots for him is pretty much the moment I stopped playing the game.

Ok, sorry, carry on.
HaemishM
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Reply #11 on: June 16, 2005, 09:15:57 AM

I think the only way in which Diablo/B.net couldn't be considered an MMOG is that there is no "game world" per se in which to interact with outside the mission structure. The hubs are chat channels in a lobby type of interface, correct?

But by strictest technical definition, using the parts of MMOG, massively multiplay online game, yes, Diablo 2/b.net IS an MMOG. It has asstons of players, interacting with each other, it's online and it's a game. It's just a really shitty one. :)

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Reply #12 on: June 16, 2005, 09:21:44 AM

I think the only way in which Diablo/B.net couldn't be considered an MMOG is that there is no "game world" per se in which to interact with outside the mission structure. The hubs are chat channels in a lobby type of interface, correct?

But by strictest technical definition, using the parts of MMOG, massively multiplay online game, yes, Diablo 2/b.net IS an MMOG. It has asstons of players, interacting with each other, it's online and it's a game. It's just a really shitty one. :)

Hehe...and I think that this is the strongest support for why I personally think the current definitions are totally screwed up. Diablo II simply isn't anything at all like EQ, WoW, or even GW (really)...

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Yegolev
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Reply #13 on: June 16, 2005, 11:32:18 AM

Diablo II simply isn't anything at all like EQ, WoW, or even GW (really)...

Or is it?



No, really the only difference is the amount of instancing and chat implementation.  In original EQ you were stuck in one "instance" permanently, if you get me, only able to chat with/be griefed by/trade with those on your "server".  Suppose you zoned into Freeport and your /yell on Bristlebane could be heard by me on The Nameless, then suppose I could log my char into Bristlebane without forking over money, and there you go: GuildWars v0.5.  Guild Wars is Diablo II with better graphics, better chat/lobby and ladder, no SP component, and shitty loot.  Oh, the loot is so, so shitty.  It feels very different, though, and that does count for quite a lot.  Note the supposed differences in DAoC and WoW, most of which come down to flavor.

I'm waiting for the sun to rise on the "they are all instances" idea.  Or any one of my ridiculous ideas, really.

Why am I homeless?  Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question.
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sidereal
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Reply #14 on: June 16, 2005, 01:07:16 PM

I think the conversation turned upside down a bit.  GW isn't a non-MMOG because of what happens in the lobbies, it's a non-MMOG for what happens outside the lobbies.  The lobbies are the only element which you could reasonably describe as MMOG, which is why I brought them up.  The point is, once you leave them, you're just playing multiplayer Diablo or the fantasy equivalent of Unreal, a playstyle that is perfectly fine but existed a decade before anyone had any good reason to dream up the term 'MMOG'.  And if you tried to extend the definition of MMOG to include UT2K4, you'd just make it equivalent to 'multiplayer game with a lobby', and it'd be meaningless.

When I play a MMOG, I run out there in the world and see people I didn't plan on seeing doing things I didn't plan on seeing them do.  Sometimes I run over and help them, sometimes they ninja my loot. . whatever.  The point is that it's unscripted, and I think that's a large part of the draw.  As soon as you leave the GW lobby for an instance, you know exactly what's going to happen beginning to end.

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HaemishM
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Reply #15 on: June 16, 2005, 01:11:33 PM

That reminds me of the reason I got so excited about Unreal (the first Unreal) back during its vapor/hype stage. They described having linked servers where exiting a portal caused you to leave one server and go play on another, so that all Unreal servers would be some larger linked world. And for the most part, that hasn't worked out for any shooter, anywhere except for Planetside. Sort of.

To me, the lobby is what makes it an MMOG, because it unifies the story, the backbone of the game in one world, one setting. Going from one Unreal game to another really doesn't do that, because there really isn't any in-game type of thing unifying all of those different worlds. The idea of the Unreal Tournament could do that, if the game itself actually supported that with more persistence and some unifying gameplay, such as the "lobby" or "hub" areas of Guild Wars.

And it sounds like if you don't like that aspect of GW, you won't like D&D Online either.

sidereal
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Reply #16 on: June 16, 2005, 01:28:15 PM

The reasons I won't like DDO are legion.

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Daeven
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Reply #17 on: June 16, 2005, 03:58:28 PM

John Pritchett is the first one that I've personally witnessed come up with a new set of definitions to cover these states, so I'll through them out here as a reference:

a) persistent persona: Your in game presense in whatever form is saved in a controlled location, and is consistent between play sessions.

b) persistent world: actions performed within a game world are saved in a controlled location, and can be witnessed in some form by other players, even if after the action was performed, until the end of the world's play duration (for limited time worlds).

c) perpetual world: a persistent world where there is no set world play duration.

For me, the 'holy grail' of the above would be the following:
d)persistent state: actions of the individual player alter the stae of the persistent world in such a way that impacts the meta gameplay possibilities.

and
e)dynamic: new games states are Emergent in reaction the actions of players.

IMO when d and e are included in the genre it will break out of its current shell. And to get there people are going to have to get out of their current cul-de-sac of the definition of *is* for a MMOG.

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Reply #18 on: June 16, 2005, 04:12:41 PM

It will be a long while before any developer will have the courage to give the state of the world into the hands of an individual or guild through provided mechanics. Because frankly, uberguilds would ruin that more than they ruin economies now.

People are too stupid to be trusted with having an effect on the world.
Kail
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Reply #19 on: June 16, 2005, 06:09:12 PM

People are too stupid to be trusted with having an effect on the world.

I don't know about 'stupid', per se, just... ah... inclined to act in a way that might not be good for the community as a whole?  I mean, there's a difference between just randomly screwing shit up and making a deliberate, informed choice (even when the consequences are the same).  A designer can correct for a game that rewards selfishness/destruction, but they can't correct for players who don't know what the hell they're doing, or what it'll lead to.

That's why Haemish's line about development "involving economic, psychological, and sociological thought processes" struck me as interesting.  People in MMOGs aren't just stupidly shambling around thumping each other, they're rationally (well, often, anyway) making decisions to manipulate the rules that the designer built into the world, because these games are virtual worlds.  You have economies in them, you have conflicts and beliefs and values and everything else that a developing society has.  If you're designing an MMOG, you're designing a world, not just a game, no matter how much you might want it to be otherwise.  And if you're trying to shape your world towards a certain ideal (and, in my opinion, a failure to identify this ideal is a huge, huge problem), you need to examine how exactly each of the game's features is going to advance this goal. 

This is something that's typically fairly easy in a single player game (because the only thing you've got to control for is the player's behavior) but massively more complex in multiplayer.  In single player games, the general solution to a problem is to constrain the action of the player; to make it impossible for him to leave the room before he's spoken to the king, or whatever.  But in a multiplayer game, if you take away a player's ability to do something, you're making a statement about the nature of the world, and if that statement is inconsistent with the world the player wants, that's going to cause frustration.

So, I'm sure that's a very wordy way of saying it, but anwyay, yeah, I agree that it's not really a great idea to just treat MMOGs as a subtype of video games.
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Reply #20 on: June 16, 2005, 09:39:08 PM

That reminds me of the reason I got so excited about Unreal (the first Unreal) back during its vapor/hype stage. They described having linked servers where exiting a portal caused you to leave one server and go play on another, so that all Unreal servers would be some larger linked world. And for the most part, that hasn't worked out for any shooter, anywhere except for Planetside. Sort of.
I think you are thinking of Prey not Unreal.

Quote
To me, the lobby is what makes it an MMOG, because it unifies the story, the backbone of the game in one world, one setting. Going from one Unreal game to another really doesn't do that, because there really isn't any in-game type of thing unifying all of those different worlds. The idea of the Unreal Tournament could do that, if the game itself actually supported that with more persistence and some unifying gameplay, such as the "lobby" or "hub" areas of Guild Wars.
I agree with sidereral, Stephen and others who don't think GW is an MMO. For my personal definition, an MMO must have massive battles or whatever the primary gameplay mechanism is and that's the part GW lacks.
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Reply #21 on: June 17, 2005, 06:47:32 AM

To me, the lobby is what makes it an MMOG, because it unifies the story, the backbone of the game in one world, one setting.

Been driving all night, too spaced to be insightful, but I'm with Haemish on this.

I guess I see MM as being like the definition of species I remember: "Actually or potentially interbreeding populations of organisms"  Italics are mine.  Actually or potentially interacting players.  If I can potentially interact with everyone, even if not at exactly the same time, then it's MM.

I remember that Atlantis, the first PBEM I played, touted the ability to move all the objects in the world to a single place, because coding that so it wouldn't blow up the game was tricky.  I think requiring that kind of ability in an MMO is too restrictive, and the underlying point of the original article was to make things less restrictive, thus freeing up our thinking as an industry.

Besides, there is a lot to be said for being able to lock up 99.9% of your fellow men, in order to keep them out of your face.  And it is so much better when you can hear them pounding on the cell door.

I need some sleep.

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Reply #22 on: June 17, 2005, 09:31:55 AM

That reminds me of the reason I got so excited about Unreal (the first Unreal) back during its vapor/hype stage. They described having linked servers where exiting a portal caused you to leave one server and go play on another, so that all Unreal servers would be some larger linked world. And for the most part, that hasn't worked out for any shooter, anywhere except for Planetside. Sort of.
I think you are thinking of Prey not Unreal.

No, I'm thinking of the original Unreal. Of course, I'm thinking of articles that ran at the original announcement of Unreal, so the hype was strong in that one. But I remember it clearly being listed as a feature and it exciting my imagination.

Quote from: schild
People are too stupid to be trusted with having an effect on the world.

Or: We can't have nice things.

Daeven
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Reply #23 on: June 17, 2005, 09:47:38 AM

It will be a long while before any developer will have the courage to give the state of the world into the hands of an individual or guild through provided mechanics. Because frankly, uberguilds would ruin that more than they ruin economies now.

People are too stupid to be trusted with having an effect on the world.

Which is why d and e are tightly coupled requirements.

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Reply #24 on: June 17, 2005, 09:52:59 AM

Quote from: schild
People are too stupid to be trusted with having an effect on the world.
Or: We can't have nice things.

No, being able to have a direct effect on the world is a nice thing we simply DON'T DESERVE.
Evangolis
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Reply #25 on: June 17, 2005, 01:37:11 PM

SP games and toys are monologues. MMOs are dialogues.  A lecture is not a play.  They may use similar techniques and abilities, but they are different forms, with different goals, and should be created with that in mind.

More sleep now.

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Reply #26 on: June 19, 2005, 09:44:41 PM

Part of why I always say "it's the same as muds" is because there was widespread awareness of muds as a medium, not a genre. Diku was a genre of mud.

As regards the definitional issues, including the issues of persistence, I refer you all to what there is of "Insubstantial Pageants," which I gave up on writing quite some time ago but which provides my answers, anyway, to all these questions.

http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/book.html

By my lights, GW is a mud, but it's a very fe-featured one except for its hyper-developed embedded instanced games. In other words, the lobby is the mud/mmo, and the PvE and PvP parts are basically comparable to the crafting windows in other games. It's just a matter of where the emphasis was placed.

Diablo conversely, is not a mud/mmo, because of the lack of a spatial metaphor.

This was also all recently argued over here:

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2005/06/playing_alone.html

if you can stand the beardiness. ;)
HaemishM
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Reply #27 on: June 20, 2005, 09:03:27 AM

Just read your comments over on TerraNova, Raph. I had to reply on these bits:

Quote
- the argument that you need to put world-affecting changes in an instance for social reasons doesn't wash either given the genre's history. Instead, it's usually for technical reasons. You want to blow up a bridge at the end of the instance for a dramatic reason, but leave the bridge intact for everyone else. Well, there ARE other ways to achieve that, they're just more work. One of the greatest potentials for the medium is shared worlds where players have an impact; reducing all the impacts to illusions is not the direction towards realizing that promise.

The thing this is forgetting is that, to the individual player, the illusion is all that matters. If he never sees that the bridge isn't destroyed in someone else's version of the world, he doesn't care. It's all good to him. Where that breaks down is in the reliance MMOG's have typically placed on grouping. In a world where grouping is forced on the player, eventually that wall of illusion will break down.

I think one thing that isn't being talked about is the potential for non-massive games to be played over the Internet, where the content is all or mostly single-player or small-group co-op or competitive, yet the game is online all the time. I'm surprised more people aren't trying to lean that way, considering how much the industry bitches about losing money to piracy. I'd imagine right now, the budget's aren't able to sustain that sort of thing, but in the future, who knows? Especially as off-the-shelf client-server packages get cheaper or more uibiquitous.

Quote
- copping out on solving the issues of interaction and interference is just going to lead to a retreat from the potential of massively multiplayer environments in general. Just to be clear: the reason to be massively multiplayer is SO THAT PLAYERS CAN INTERACT. Pursuing design choices to prevent it as much as possible is essentially a retreat from the genre.

But you don't need to be massively multiplayer for players to interact in interesting and fun ways. You don't need 3,000 people on one server for people to interact. MUD's knew this, why are MMOG's resisting this idea so much? Oh yeah, because they have to justify $20-30 million budgets.

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Reply #28 on: June 22, 2005, 02:16:18 PM

The thing this is forgetting is that, to the individual player, the illusion is all that matters. If he never sees that the bridge isn't destroyed in someone else's version of the world, he doesn't care. It's all good to him. Where that breaks down is in the reliance MMOG's have typically placed on grouping. In a world where grouping is forced on the player, eventually that wall of illusion will break down.

I posted more on this on the Terra Nova thread Raph posted further up however I would like to point out that I feel instances take something away from that illusion.  The illusion of being part of a living breathing online world is missing when you segregate players by means of an instance.  To have the bridge blown up for one player outside of an instance but not another presents the obvious problem of both players arriving at the bridge, one walking through mid air to cross in the other's point of view with one being unable to cross the bridge that is obviously there and useable by the other.

The obvious and easy solution would be to have the bridge explosion event occur only within an instance.  However I would say this could be done the "right" way by allowing the bridge to be blown up in the event for everyone, only to shortly there after have a horde of angry dwarves or whatever faction/race owns the bridge show up and begin rebuilding, maybe tossing up a small rope/wooden bridge nearby to allow players to cross in the interim.  I think instancing is just the easy way out.

Instancing also has the lovely effect of removing "randomness" (which could almost be replaced with "life") from the game.  No AI to date can replace human interraction and even having some asshat be a dick to me does more to make an online world feel full of life than countless NPCs that stay in character.  They may hold up the theme better but they still feel lifeless.  *shrug*
AOFanboi
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Reply #29 on: June 23, 2005, 09:46:29 AM

The illusion of being part of a living breathing online world is missing when you segregate players by means of an instance.
What, as if level segregation, mob respawning and the inconsequential quests doesn't already ruin that illusion? Instancing has a log way to go before it can measure up to those.

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Pococurante
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Reply #30 on: June 23, 2005, 12:44:16 PM

The illusion of being part of a living breathing online world is missing when you segregate players by means of an instance.
What, as if level segregation, mob respawning and the inconsequential quests doesn't already ruin that illusion? Instancing has a log way to go before it can measure up to those.

Bah.  How immersion breaking is it when just before Gandalf shatters the ridge and the Balrog drags him to his death "L33roy" and "BuSh666" leap in to mana dump on Gimle.

Instances do a lot to make sure the Hero atmosphere is maintained and avoids the "sow plz" nonsense.
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Reply #31 on: June 23, 2005, 02:43:05 PM

The illusion of being part of a living breathing online world is missing when you segregate players by means of an instance.
What, as if level segregation, mob respawning and the inconsequential quests doesn't already ruin that illusion? Instancing has a log way to go before it can measure up to those.

I fail to see the relation to level segregation as levels simply represent "skill".  I dunno any real "soldier" who would want some untrained civilian with a pitchfork as a partner in an assault they would just be a liability.  Just like taking a level 10 along on a level 50 quest would be rather pointless.  Making the jump to translate a number into skill should be a lot easier than pretending you are an elf in the first place haha.

Mob respawning is sorta lame, however how would you propose to keep the world alive?  If we as humans can barely stop ourselves from depopulating our RL world of life what would prevent us from completely wiping a gameworld clean?  Respawn of some sort is pretty much a necessity in my opinion.  Instancing is not.

Inconsequential "quests" are what make up life.  Or do you not have to wash clothes, go to the grocery store, or fill up your car with gas?  What about putting in your 8 hours 5 days a week so "The Man" doesn't take your computer away?  They seem pretty inconsequential in the greater scheme of things.


As for the post after that one...  The people with stupid names thing is something easily resolved by naming conventions, name filters, etc.  It doesn't require segregating the population to do so.

Anyway none of this is really what I am referring to.  I am saying the lifeblood of the MMOG is human interraction.  If you remove interraction with other human's you no longer have a MMOG.  Instancing overused removes this interaction from the game.

*edited cuz I suck at typing
« Last Edit: June 23, 2005, 02:46:37 PM by mven »
HaemishM
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Reply #32 on: June 23, 2005, 02:48:53 PM

Instancing doesn't remove human interaction, it allows the player to choose to compartmentalize such interaction according to their wants and needs. It allows you to play the game the way you want to play it, sometimes.

It's a tool, just like shiney graphics and good netcode. It can be done badly and it can be done well.

I still say there is nothing virtual worldly about trains in Karnor's Castle, about not being able to kill other people, or being asked to have SOW plz every five minutes.

And just to SirBruce you:

Quote
Inconsequential "quests" are what make up life.  Or do you not have to wash clothes, go to the grocery store, or fill up your car with gas?  What about putting in your 8 hours 5 days a week so "The Man" doesn't take your computer away?  They seem pretty inconsequential in the greater scheme of things.

This isn't life, it's a game. You want life, go live life. You want a game, go play a game. You want some kind of social experiment? Go play a MUSH.

Quote
The people with stupid names thing is something easily resolved by naming conventions, name filters, etc.

No, it isn't. It's been a problem in every MMOG I've ever been in, especially those with naming conventions and name filters.

Margalis
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Reply #33 on: June 24, 2005, 01:02:26 AM

Lots of SINGLE PLAYER games feel like living breathing worlds. And AC2 feels more dead than Zelda 1. I myself think that the instancing debate is a waste of time - different strokes for different folks. Is Magic:TG a massive online game? What about Diablo? What about Phantasy Star Online? What about Internet Freecell? Who gives a fuck? Standard nomenclature often hurts creative endeavor anyway, at least nomenclature that tries to jam broad ideas into specific slots.

There are arguments for instancing and against - it's really just the game vs. world again. Some people want one, some want another. It's just different. Some people want racing games, some want flying games. "But in a plane you can move in 3 dimensions!" Yeah...ok...

Online gaming is still very young. Online is just an added dimension. Sound is a dimension. Control is a dimension. Graphics are a dimension. Online is a dimension. You can use online to make a game based around online stuff, you can make a game where being online simply facilitates play (as in M:TG), you can make a game where online stuff is just keeping global high scores. Is Golden Tee a massive online game? Does it matter?

Instancing vs. non-instancing is a non-starter just like PvP vs. non-PVP vs. structured PvP. You can make arguments for all of them because there is no accounting for taste.

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AOFanboi
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Reply #34 on: June 24, 2005, 07:59:18 AM

I fail to see the relation to level segregation as levels simply represent "skill".
It's really quite simple: Why does the Machine in Matrix Online employ level 3-4 Agents and send them after level 3-4 players instead of beating their ass down with a level 20 one? Why do non-aggro easily killable troggs roam a WoW starting area while aggro higher-level troggs roam other parts?

Because they are games first, second and third, with "living world" a distant fourth. The game part lets the player whack mobs of a comparative level as they level up and explore new areas. The "living world" part must bow down to this, even though it really wanted armies of higher-level mobs to swarm low level areas - much like players in PvP mode do - precisely because it's the smart thing to do.

E.g. in a MMO world, stuff like the Beslan school massacre would not have happened because the school was a too low-level area for the terroriest mobs to spawn in.

Quote
I dunno any real "soldier" who would want some untrained civilian with a pitchfork as a partner in an assault they would just be a liability.
Well, a good thing the MMORPG "civilian with a pitchfork" never would run into enemy soldiers then, because the enemy soldiers would spawn in "soldier" level areas only.

Quote
Mob respawning is sorta lame, however how would you propose to keep the world alive?
Instancing the Guild Wars way. Basically, if you have a team of players setting out to do a task, other players are just in the way, or competitors for the same resources you are going after.

Quote
Or do you not have to wash clothes, go to the grocery store, or fill up your car with gas?
How does that even relate to MMORPGs? I am talking about stuff like, say, a platoon from the U.S. Army arresting Saddam Hussein, getting accolades for doing so, but then Saddam Hussein mysteriously reappears in the presidential palace. Inconsequential because the world resets the conditions for the next player, not because they are routine actions which is what you confuse the concept with.

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