Schild doesn't like WoW

[Shockeye]

Housing. Is. Awesome.

Man I just so hate housing in a game.  The last thing I need is some other useless thing to waste my time when I log in.  My character doesn't need a place to live while I'm offline (and he certainly doesn't need a place to sit and stare at walls when I'm online!).  A place to store stuff can be accomplished with a bank or more bags or whatever less pain in the ass system the developers want to use.  I don't need another money sink.  I do not play to interior decorate.  I don't care for any more virtual e-peen collectors garbage to have (I'm rich in game, my house is teh big!!!1!).  I don't need an excuse to not cancel my account when I'm done with the game (I'm bored to tears by this game, but I'm going to pay $14.95 X 20 ad nauseum so that my e-peen city doesn't poof!).  I HATE the clutter housing puts in game (SWG sucked ass because of all the buildings anywhere I ran).  Housing fucking sucks, I hate it, I hope it stops being a "feature" that is added to these games.

I agree with cevik. Now I must go wash myself because I feel dirty.

[Furiously]

The Jobe city appartments in AO were cool. 

Otherwise - housing is a blight.

[Alkiera]

Um.  If you're going to start talking about TV's, you need to realise the enormous importance of networks and Advertising subsidies.

We want neither in Mmmogs.

I thought about it.  I agree ads in games would frequently suck.  "You are now zoning into the Wailing Caves... Why not go grab a refreshing Coca-Cola?"   Yikes.

Agreed.  And many people want to claim that because MMOs are a service, they should get entertainment value equal to other services they pay for, like TV.  Perhaps if we had tons and tons of people paying $75+ per month for an MMO, they'd be able to hire enough content people able to keep up with players.  Or at least do a better job than they do now.  The problem is, no one is willing to pay $75/mo for a game.  Why they do it for TV, I have no idea.

Alkiera

And just like with television, eventually the characters have been developed, the stories have been told, the content has been used, and your $75 a month cable bill goes towards paying for a different show about 6 single friends living in New York.

Nothing is endless.

Yes.  And to further play with that analogy...

People expect $15/mo to entertain them for 80+ hours a month.  The average TV show, which probably has similar staff size(actors, writing/directing staff, camera/stage crew, etc) provides appriximately 4 hours of new content per month(one new episode per week).  Now, your cable bill includes dozens and dozens of these shows...  but costs 5x what an MMO does.  Do any MMOs really provide 4 hours of new content per month?  I mean real content, not camping Foozle in dungeon_A to get the rare drop for the key quest so you can open the door to dungeon_B.  I mean, say, 4 new WoW-style instances that take an hour each to complete, have their own storyline and whatnot.  Or even two that take 2 hours each.  Is that even possible?  I know Blizzard has added a few dungeons since release.  EQ2 has had a couple Adventure Packs, and an expansion.  Do they add up, time wise, to 4 hours/month from their respective release dates?

From another standpoint, would it be legitimate to take an MMO, release it with enough dungeons/zones/whatever to explore and do things in for, say, 15 hours, then add a few(4+) hours of new areas and whatnot every month?  This is on top of the whole 'virtual world' kinda setup... crafting, markets, items, etc.  Just regularly introduce new stories to work through and areas to check out.  Have the advancement curve, if any, be such that the initial content is enough to get you to some balance point, and then you reach a point of diminishing returns.  I'm talking like a UO level of balance here, where time played is not the primary power factor.  A complete newb might be owned by a vet, but someone who's played for a couple weeks (up to the 'balance point', soft cap, whatever you wanna call it) ought to at least have a decent chance in a fight.  The itemization curve would be pretty low.  Include more variables on items, so you have different options that don't affect the power level a huge amount.

I think most of the inital development of such a game would be on game systems(skill sets, combat, markets, housing, etc), and content development systems.  You need to make it very easy to add art assets(to avoid the 'every dungeon looks the same'), and to add new dungeons/areas/items/quests/etc.  And have a mechanic in the game for people to be able to find this new content without having to read patch notes.

The biggest problem would be, IMO, finding some way to satisfy those players who insist on playing 80+ hours a month.  In fact, I'd agrue that this is the same problem for all MMOs...  IMHO, the solution is to re-train the userbase to play less.  Offline training like Eve, offline tasks like ATitD.  All the 'My, this is certainly boring' tasks, make them be done by your character while offline...  I think this is one of the biggest problems of the medium.  You have the people who play the game like it's a job, so you either design for them, and get complaints from casuals that it's like having a job to play, or you don't, and they say there's nothing to do, and leave.  Something needs to be modified within the base levels of the medium to work towards having the time your are online is always fun, but that there is encouragement to NOT spend all your time online.

Sorry about the length, ADD people.

Alkiera

[sarius]

Deep down, my dislike of WoW all stems from the fact that it's not Starcraft 2.

After Blizzard makes Starcraft 2, I can start liking their games again.  Until then, every game they put out just makes me bitter that they could have made Starcraft 2 instead.

There, I've admitted it.  Carry on with your rational discussion.

VOTED: BEST COMMENT OF THE THREAD!  Oh why can they not get a Starcraft MMO going!?!

[Rasix]

VOTED: BEST COMMENT OF THE THREAD!  Oh why can they not get a Starcraft MMO going!?!

They're still coming up with plans on how to put elves in. Once that's done.. watchout.. 5 year develop cycle coming your way!

[Nebu]

Housing helps give players the "special snowflake" feel. In games with limited character customization, housing offers people some sense of being unique in a generic mmog world.  I personally like housing in games. Especially games where character customization is ass.  I think WoW would benefit greatly from housing in 2 regards: 1) it might alleviate the obvious lack of character customizability and 2) it would give players something else to do when they finish the 1-60 trip.  I could easily go off on some diatribe about housing being more attractive to players more connected to their avatars rather than those that merely control their avatars, but that's Terra Nova territory.

On a side note: I've been struggling lately with the fact that I really enjoy EQ2 but hated WoW.  I can't really put a finger on why.  The PvE isn't really any better.  The quests aren't really much better.  Both are improvements over the tired Diku paradigm.  Perhaps it's some combination of the lack of cartoonish graphics coupled to some sad attempt to recapture the nostalgia of early EQ.  I've been playing EQ2 with a RL friend that I played in early EQ with as well... that could be part of it.  I prefer the class interactions, I enjoy the landscapes, and I like the subtle connections to EQ storyline.  Yeah... it's probably nostalgia. 

[Dren]

VOTED: BEST COMMENT OF THE THREAD!  Oh why can they not get a Starcraft MMO going!?!

They're still coming up with plans on how to put elves in. Once that's done.. watchout.. 5 year develop cycle coming your way!

Blue boobie elves that shoot guns while wearing lingerie.

[Xanthippe]

The biggest problem would be, IMO, finding some way to satisfy those players who insist on playing 80+ hours a month.  In fact, I'd agrue that this is the same problem for all MMOs...  IMHO, the solution is to re-train the userbase to play less.  Offline training like Eve, offline tasks like ATitD.  All the 'My, this is certainly boring' tasks, make them be done by your character while offline...  I think this is one of the biggest problems of the medium.  You have the people who play the game like it's a job, so you either design for them, and get complaints from casuals that it's like having a job to play, or you don't, and they say there's nothing to do, and leave.  Something needs to be modified within the base levels of the medium to work towards having the time your are online is always fun, but that there is encouragement to NOT spend all your time online.

The new content that's so far been released with WoW appears to be aimed at the top tier catasses.  As long as this doesn't continue, I have no problem with it, given the lack of endgame stuff for catasses to do at release.

(No, 20 man raids instead of 40 man raids is not what I'm talking about when speaking of noncatasses).

But I do hope that Blizzard understands that 90% of their customers are not in that top tier, and will go away unless given new shinies.  I'm not hopeful however I tend toward cynicism.

Re: housing.  I don't want to see houses cluttering up zones, but I have no problem with housing zones a la DAOC.  It's another way to customize.

Speaking of which, why don't more games allow plastic surgery, hair dressing, or tailoring of armor type of crafts so that people could, if they wanted to, look how they want to?  I thought SWG was really onto something with that but it went nowhere, correct?

[Rasix]

Being that I still draw the line between "world" MMOs and "game" MMOs, I have a mixed feeling on housing. In a "world" MMO, I feel it's essential, it's part of my character.  It shows off the journey I've made in the game better than any gear my character can wear. 

In SWG I started off with a modest house on the shores of a Naboo lake. It was small, we as a group were still fairly unfocused, but it provided a home and helped us feel our way through the game.  Later we moved to Tatooine and formed a corporation.  I moved up from a small house, to a medium sized single story house that allowed me to flourish as a droid engineer.  The house was one part show room, one part parts warehouse and one part domicile.  Later when we became a city on Corellia, I moved back into a small house due to zoning restrictions and by then had given up the dream of being a droid engineer.  A smuggler doesn't need the comforts or the visibility that a larger house draws.  This was very similar for me in UO; my house tended to mimic my character in design and function.

In a "game" MMO like WoW, I really don't give a shit. It never mattered for me in AO or EQ2 and it never appealed to me in Dark Age.  It wasn't a reason I quit AC2, SB, or EQ. Being a character in with a narrative is not a concern for me in the gamier MMOs.  I want to meet new and exotic flora/fauna and kill the ever living crap out of it.  Anything that does not further me in this area is fluff and honestly I'd rather the developers not put any resources toward it.  As useless as I want them to go is 0.0 dps pandas and holiday celebrations.

Sure a troll hut might be neat for a few minutes a week, but if it for one second slows server performance or contributes to some sort of landscape blight, I want it gone and the guy responsible for it crucified.  If housing isn't part of my story and isn't an integral part of my journey, it really isn't going to influence my love for the game one way or another.

[Llava]

you're not entitled to endless fun

Endless fun?

No, probably not.

But people are over in the D&D forum right now saying the exact same thing that I said- the trip from 1-10 is fun, but it's short and there's nothing to do afterwards, so it's not worth the monthly fee. Why is this different?  1-60 in WoW isn't much longer, depending on how you play. Hell, I got to 41 in under 2 months.

[cevik]

Housing helps give players the "special snowflake" feel.

Have a place to dump my crap does not make me a unique and special snowflake.

[Nebu]

Housing helps give players the "special snowflake" feel.

Have a place to dump my crap does not make me a unique and special snowflake.

In your case, no.  If housing only serves as an extra container then it hasn't been properly implemented.

[schild]

Cevik's comments mean nothing. I'm happy with instanced housing. I don't need people to see my house like a fucking obelisk on a hill.

[Llava]

But if you saw an obelisk on a hill for sale, you know you'd buy it.

[cevik]

Housing helps give players the "special snowflake" feel.

Have a place to dump my crap does not make me a unique and special snowflake.

In your case, no.  If housing only serves as an extra container then it hasn't been properly implemented.

Then what is "properly implemented"?

I've told you all the reasons I hate housing, so far the best defense of housing in this thread (other than the obligatory "no, you're wrong"s that always come when you let a bunch of retards post their inner most thoughts on teh intarweb), has been "Housing. Is. Awesome.", and that's a direct quote.

Exactly how is housing awesome?  Or is this strongbadia where stuff is just awesome in it's awesomeness?

[Azazel]

Blue boobie elves that shoot guns while wearing lingerie.

Lineage II? WoW?

As for housing, I'm not personally interested, though if it could be done in an instanced way so as to not clog the world up with useles shit, (as in EQ2) then I say go for it.

I had an awesome time when I started playing WoW, right up to when my guildless Pally hit 55 or so and I saw the end of the fun I'd been having was imminent, since my thoughts on the few WoW options at 60 at the time were:

1) I'm not interested in PvP.
2) If I want to raid, I can go back to EQ1, raid with my guild twice-weekly, have a huge choice of targets.
3) Since there's no more "ding", quests become meaningless.
4) Faction grinding sucks ass. I'd hoped I left that behind in EQ.
5) At 60, you can still work to improve your character with AAs in EQ.

So I went back and played EQ1 with my bro again for a couple of months, until he suddenly died and I got to be the one who found his day-old corpse and contact everyone in the family and his wife who was interstate. Since we were super-close and played EQ1 together for pretty much 5 years, Norrath is just too painful for me to go back into. Since I'm on break and have lots of spare time, (and honestly, I need the break from an intensive 6 months of uni with the death in the middle of it - working over this summer would be a bad idea.) I decided to play WoW again as a timesink to get my mind off things. So I limped the rest of the way to 60, though looking at that list of why WoW at 60 is a pretty average game, all of them are still true (to me) today.

So why am I playing it again, still?

1) The wife started playing it with me, gave it a try thanks to the $2 14-day trial. It's a hell of a lot of fun playing mages side by side, and it's social, and fun to spend time together in a new way.
2) A few RL friends started playing their 60's again, so we can almost put a group together.
3) We met another (larger) nice bunch of guys in the same city as us, and have started playing and raiding with them.
4) When our holidays end, I may or may not stop playing. It's not a huge concern. I'll play until it bores me again.

I agree that the game is great fun from the start till the mid-fifties, and is seriously lacking once you reach 60. To this end, I only play my mage with my wife, and I'm levelling up a rogue other times. I log on my Pally to PL my wife, farm, raid/instance run every few days or when a friend needs help on something.

But, you know, It's cheap entertainment. When it stops entertaining me, I'll stop paying and playing. If I could stop playing EQ where I had 5 years of my characters, I can certainly give up WoW with only a few months on them. In the meantime I'm not buying a new PC or console game every other week, and enjoying myself.

..and yeah, if it wasn't for the personal bit I mentioned above. I'd be playing EQ over this summer break, not WoW. Much more to do at max level, and honestly, a better game at that point. Lucky I'm playing WoW in alt-land.


off the main topic a little...

And Schild, I genuinely enjoy this board, and my views and opinions are real (ie my posts aren't trolling), but don't take anything I say too personally. My f.13-ing is as much self-distraction for my brain as is my WoW-ing. ie I believe what I said about "whores", but I don't actually give a fuck about that forum mod chick. Sharing this stuff with you here? It's the anonymity of the internet in a way. 95%+ of the people here couldn't give a shit about my problems, and thats why I can talk about them. Ahh Schild, you with your sometimes-wacky sometimes completely insane, steadfast opinions and ideas, provide an excllent virtual brick wall to bang my head against at times. Most entertaining.

..thats where on the doll I was touched, since you asked before.  

[cevik]

Man that middle part got heavy.

[Azazel]

Yeah, it sucks. But it's all wrapped right up in my MMOGing and why I'm playing the one I'm playing now.

[Soukyan]

Neocron, AO and EQ2 went with the instanced housing route (btw, while y'all may have hated it, Neocron had instanced housing, customizable missions and FPS combat before those other big MMOGs had it - not quite sure why it never hit the big time... oh yeah, shite character models) and that makes all the difference. They are neat in concept and those who want to use them can without the houses inhibiting the play of others. If you choose not to have a house or apartment in those games, you can simply not use them. In EQ2, you can entirely get rid of your house. Sure, you may still get items every now and then that are placeable in a domicile, but you can either (a) not do those quests or (b) get the experience and cash and destroy (or sell if possible) the item. Housing in EQ2 does not get in the way of those who do not want it. Although I will admit that the newbie storyline quests make you go into it 3 times. And with Neocron, you never had to use your apartment although it was essentially your bank.

[Hoax]

I dont think Margalis checks on this forum so I'll say it.  FFXI had good housing, I dont know if any other game comes close to that but I doubt it.

It was good because the housing mini-games in FFXI were fun complex and rewarding for those who wanted to participate.  Otherwise it was just a place where you could store items and get some minor buffs from furniture.  Plus moogles are great.

[Shockeye]

Housing in EQ2 does not get in the way of those who do not want it. Although I will admit that the newbie storyline quests make you go into it 3 times.

That did irritate me quite a bit.

[Samwise]

Exactly how is housing awesome?  Or is this strongbadia where stuff is just awesome in it's awesomeness?

I for one explained why I think it's awesome, with a screenshot even.  (I don't expect you to agree that it's awesome, since you said you're not interested in interior decorating.)

[cevik]

Exactly how is housing awesome?  Or is this strongbadia where stuff is just awesome in it's awesomeness?

I for one explained why I think it's awesome, with a screenshot even.  (I don't expect you to agree that it's awesome, since you said you're not interested in interior decorating.)

You are right, I did disregard the fact that you did defend housing and I'm glad you enjoy it.  Have you ever tried The Sims?  It was made for you.

[Nebu]

Exactly how is housing awesome?  Or is this strongbadia where stuff is just awesome in it's awesomeness?

I for one explained why I think it's awesome, with a screenshot even.  (I don't expect you to agree that it's awesome, since you said you're not interested in interior decorating.)

You are right, I did disregard the fact that you did defend housing and I'm glad you enjoy it.  Have you ever tried The Sims?  It was made for you.

I have a new game.  It's called "let someone mention something they like and make fun of them for it."  Wanna play? 

[Rasix]

I like Gilmore Girls.

[cevik]

I have a new game.  It's called "let someone mention something they like and make fun of them for it."  Wanna play? 

In all honesty, I wasn't making fun at all.  You said you enjoyed a gameplay style, I mentioned another game with the exact same gameplay style and asked if you liked it.  I was mainly curious because I'd be interested in knowing if the playstyles are similar enough to capture your interest.

As I said above, I don't get any enjoyment from interior decorating, and what I take from this thread tells me that the only good use of a house is to decorate it (for whatever reason, schild says it's not to impress people, but I have no clue what else it could be for).  So it's safe to assume I will not like housing, even if "properly implemented".  It's okay though, I don't like a lot of things.

If you want to make fun of me, I'll give you material.  I played the sims long enough to make two chicks fall in love for the lesbian sex aspect, and then I locked their neighbor in a room with no doors and sped up time until he died.  Surely decorating houses in a mmog is much saner than I.

[Bunk]

Exactly how is housing awesome?  Or is this strongbadia where stuff is just awesome in it's awesomeness?

I for one explained why I think it's awesome, with a screenshot even.  (I don't expect you to agree that it's awesome, since you said you're not interested in interior decorating.)

You are right, I did disregard the fact that you did defend housing and I'm glad you enjoy it.  Have you ever tried The Sims?  It was made for you.

I'm on Sam's side here. Well implemented housing adds to a game. AC1 did the best job of it in my opinion:
 > multiple types of housing: off map apartments, houses, villas, and castles
 > not everyone got to have a house (especially the big ones) so it created an economy around them
 > pre placed  - no blight because the devs placed them all in organized communities

Now why did they matter? Small houses and apartments were essentially just about storage and epeens, but the bigger houses were where you and your guildies gathered. It was a huge influence on the social aspect of the game. You just seem to bond better with people in your guild when your characters are in the same area rather than just chatting through channels.

There had to be an in game reason to use the guild houses, and in AC there was. You had group storage, guild vaults, bind points, and in the case of Darktide, the guild house was a safe refuge.

AC1 got a shit load of things right, and this was one of them.

[Nebu]

Housing isn't the core gameplay of a combat-centered mmog, it's a feature.  I figured that your recommendation of the Sims was sarcasm as you'd certainly realize that a game like AO and the Sims had very contrasting styles despite the fact that both had a housing component.  

Housing is a bonus.  It's a feature within a game that can be treated as its own mini game.  For people that enjoy the immersion and/or distraction an mmog can be from the real world, it's nice to have a portion of that virtual world that is uniquely your own.  I'm not a rabid housing fan, but see the value and enjoy being given the option to have my own piece of the virtual world to paint/decorate/design.  As long as it isn't mandatory and doesn't affect the performance of the rest of the game, I don't see how it's even an issue.

[cevik]

Housing isn't the core gameplay of a combat-centered mmog, it's a feature.

And it's certainly not a make or break feature either.  Which was my point.  I personally think the drawbacks of housing are more than the actual benefit of housing.  Others think houses make a nice touch (I do find it interesting that every game listed with "good housing" was a game I skiped, and none of the games I played with housing are considered to have had decent housing in this thread, perhaps that is why I'm biased).  But either way, in the mmogs we play, I hardly see where housing is gonig to make a game (such as EQ2) or break a game (such as WoW), if you don't like the game, the presence of housing will not affect your decision much, if you do like the game, the absence of housing isn't going to affect you much.  I do not see a reason to believe that "Housing. Is. Awesome."

[Nebu]

[And it's certainly not a make or break feature either.  Which was my point. 

Noone here thinks housing is a make or break feature.  Housing just has the potential to make a good game better. 

I don't recall saying housing was awesome.  I just felt that some titles would benefit from its addition.  Are we disagreeing?

[Shockeye]

[And it's certainly not a make or break feature either.  Which was my point. 

Noone here thinks housing is a make or break feature.  Housing just has the potential to make a good game better. 

I don't recall saying housing was awesome.  I just felt that some titles would benefit from its addition.  Are we disagreeing?

I think cevik is referring to this post:

Housing. Is. Awesome.

[cevik]

Noone here thinks housing is a make or break feature.  Housing just has the potential to make a good game better. 

I don't recall saying housing was awesome.  I just felt that some titles would benefit from its addition.  Are we disagreeing?

The housing is awesome comment came from schild.  I personally think that WoW would worse if housing was added.  Just give me more bank space if you want to give me more storage, as I said above.

EDIT:  What I am saying:  Housing, when done right, adds very very little to the game.  Housing, when done wrong hurts the game.  Most developers do things wrong, rarely do they do things right.  Housing has a net negative effect due to this axiom.

[Nebu]

EDIT:  What I am saying:  Housing, when done right, adds very very little to the game.  Housing, when done wrong hurts the game.  Most developers do things wrong, rarely do they do things right.  Housing has a net negative effect due to this axiom.

Can you cite some examples?  DAoC housing helped the game.  UO's housing was a great feature.  Housing in CoH/CoV, SWG, AO, and EQ2 all seem to be nice additions.  I can't really think of a good example of a game where housing was a game breaker and I've played nearly all of them.  Maybe we just see the effects differently.

[cevik]

Can you cite some examples?  DAoC housing helped the game.  UO's housing was a great feature.  Housing in CoH/CoV, SWG, AO, and EQ2 all seem to be nice additions.  I can't really think of a good example of a game where housing was a game breaker and I've played nearly all of them.  Maybe we just see the effects differently.

SWG's housing DESTROYED the game.  Everywhere I went there were crappy little houses planted, annoying the hell out of me.  It hardly felt epic to stand next to some "uber" beast in someone's back yard.  I hated the housing in that game, it was the most annoying thing ever.  My house was a place to store all the crap I didn't want to carry, thus is looked like my college apartment, with shit strewn all over the floor.  Much like my college apartment, there was a bug that didn't allow you to pick half that shit up ever, so it was all lost to me.  I believe that bug may have been fixed months after I quit.

UO's housing caused the real estate market in that game to become outrageously stupid.  It was also another eye sore.  If you started the game too late you never had a chance to buy a lot (unless you were willing to spend real life cash on it), thus it created haves and have nots.  The housing market forced people like Angelstorm to activate 20 accounts for years and years, only to speculate on the outrageous prices of lots that she had reserved.

I quit DAoC and CoH before they had houses.

I never played EQ2.

AO's housing seemed nice because nothing else in the entire game worked for the first 2 years.  So at least when your big boobed chick alt got stuck in her apartment because the door wouldn't open, you could take all her clothes off and masturbate.

[Nebu]

SWG's housing DESTROYED the game. 

I'd argue that SWG was just a bad game.  I think that housing actually may have retained many players longer than they would have otherwise stayed.  Of course, neither of us has anything but anecdotal evidence to support this unless Raph wants to pipe in.

UO's housing caused the real estate market in that game to become outrageously stupid.  It was also another eye sore.  If you started the game too late you never had a chance to buy a lot (unless you were willing to spend real life cash on it), thus it created haves and have nots.  The housing market forced people like Angelstorm to activate 20 accounts for years and years, only to speculate on the outrageous prices of lots that she had reserved.

Ask yourself this: Why were people speculating on the housing market?  Because player housing was a valuable and attractive component of the game.  Players were willing to spend a lot of real life cash to obtain quality housing in UO.  Thank you for making my point for me.