ThansalThe New ScumJoin Date: 2002-08-22Member: 1215Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1695241:date=Dec 5 2008, 02:46 PM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sherpa @ Dec 5 2008, 02:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695241"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I couldn't deal with the grind and never got past level 30.
TBC at least had new races which made me try it, this new expansion seems designed completely towards those who have done everything already.
If I could roll a Death Knight without the need for a lvl 60 char I'd buy this game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Have you played post TBC?
Leveling 1-70 is now a breeze (1-60 was made a breeze in TBC, 60-70 in WotLK). My GF is back to playing WoW, she finally has her first post 60+, and was going about a level a day for 60-68. She is far from a hardcore gamer <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />.
Once she hits 70 and buys WotLK I might jump on her account to see if DKs are interesting enough for me to reup, I kinda doubt it. I miss playing games with my GF, but WoW has just burned me out too far this time I think.
Gem I'd wager I'm very similar to you in my desires of a "proper" fantasy game. I crave the high adventure of books like Lord of the Rings or The Name of the Wind. I want to scale mountain tops and plunge deep into the earth's mysterious caverns with only the light of my torch to guide me. I genuinely understand where you're coming from. However it does seem like you're making a few unfair jumps on WoW.
For one, you seem to think "guild" and "shackle" belong in the same sentence. I joined a guild on a PvPRP server for the explicit reason of grand adventure. We figured every encounter out for ourselves (REFUSING to look online), with one general raid leader but everyone's input was valued and <i>used <u>regularly</i></u>. We didn't really know what was going to happen every encounter and the first initial run through every instance was some of the most fun I've had ever in my entire gaming "career". Yes, of course, we had to return, but we didn't force anyone to come on scheduled reruns. There were certainly more people who enjoyed the "GRIND" and others who liked to run it a handful of times and then take a break from raiding. We catered to it all.
And <b>shackled</b> you are <u>not</u>. O_o I don't understand why you think that because you associate yourself with a few other like minded individuals via some text underneath your avatar name you can't continue to have normal relations with the rest of the MMORPG community at your fingertips.
As for exploring new territory...the leveling pace of World of Warcraft generally has you consistently discovering new territory inside of your designated zone of play at the time. You rarely have to continually return to the same place over, and over, and over and over and over and over again on your way up to the level cap. Blizzard has done a nice job of moving you through the zone at a reasonable pace to keep things fresh and interesting to new players. To be honest, World of Warcraft is one of the most exploration focused games on the market. Where else do you have an entire almost completely seamless world to run around? There are also plenty of pointless caves to delve into that Blizzard tucks into the side for people like you or I who enjoy poking their noses around a bit more than the average quester.
I also don't know why you take issue with being <i>told</i> to go and explore somewhere. If you're tired of getting pushed around by quest givers and following directions of where to go, then don't do the quest or even talk to them. The World of Warcraft is absolutely massive and you could -- JUST like in Master Sword -- plunge deep into a cavern with a few friends with not a drop of an idea where to go. It may not be pitch black, but lighting the only thing that draws you to high adventure?
And...the grind. You don't have to participate in it. At all. If you don't want to grind on an instance for gear, fine, don't. Quest rewards are 99.9% of the time very valuable and sometimes MORE valuable than instance drops. As Quan pointed out, by the time you get to level 80 you're already prepared for taking on some heroics. You <b>have</b> <b>[u]most[u]</b> of the content available to you in the game with the choice of not repeating it <i>one bit!</i>
And I guarantee when you <i>finally</i> finish every instance available to you at least once, arrive at the level cap, have done what quests you wanted, tryed your hand at PvP, by the time you've tried <b>ALL</b> that World of Warcraft has to offer without repeating it once, you'll have spent more time with it than Master Sword and gotten your money's worth. :3
<!--QuoteBegin-Gem+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Gem)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You will get to make the same sword 50 times to boost your blacksmithing. You will get to bludgeon countless faceless enemies with the combo you've perfected over the levels, the monotony only broken for a short while when you get a new skill to adapt into it. You will kill 72 boars because the farmer is too lazy to get her own bloody ingredients, or possibly because she's been rooted to the same spot for her whole life. Oh, did I mention faction grinding? Do I need to? :3<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't recall the combat of most games changing a great deal every time you play it. Prince of Persia was cited as a good example of combat in this thread and you do the same thing in it over and over again with even fewer buttons than WoW. Why doesn't that get stale or cited as an issue? Also, you don't need to craft, you don't need to faction grind, you don't need to do the farmer's quest. You can bypass what annoys you and still play the game.
<!--QuoteBegin-Gem+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Gem)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Again, can you tell me what Gandalf's crit chance was? Did the Aes Sedia from wheel of time discuss their crit gear?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1695224:date=Dec 5 2008, 03:21 PM:name=Geminosity)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Geminosity @ Dec 5 2008, 03:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695224"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When you first heard about MMOs what drew you into playing it LF? Was it "I can't wait to plan out my talents and stack crit gear with my frost spec mage" or was it something a little more romantic?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The dream is what drew me in. "Be a hero, save the world." But you'll never get that, so give up on it.
Years ago now, I was playing Dynasty Warriors 3. A friend of mine sat next to me. I had, at that time, not read "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," but we were idly talking about the period, talking about what an exciting story it makes. And at some point he said, I don't remember the exact words, something like this: "Man, it would've been cool to live in that time period." And I couldn't let that stand. So I asked him: "Oh? Who would you have been? That guy?" My halberd snuffed the spark of the little polygon soldier's life out. "Or that one?" The blade rose and fell, another computer-generated life ended. "How about that guy over there, oh he's getting swarmed by two dozen enemies and they're taking turns kicking him in the crotch until he begs for death. How droll." "Nah, I would've been Guan Yu!" my friend said, but with a laugh: he saw my point.
Who's going to be the hero, and who's going to be the cannon fodder? In a singleplayer game, you're the hero, and the mindless, undesiring computer willingly takes on the humiliating role of your myriad victims. In a multiplayer game, you're a predator, but never at the apex. You eat those who stand below you, and are in turn devoured by those whose skill or dedication or raw force eclipse yours. You're not the peasant (although someone always is), but you're still a mere foot soldier, and somewhere out there there's a lot of people waiting to kick you in the crotch.
The dream of being the hero of not only your dreams, but of the dreams of others too, is alluring but nigh-unattainable. It doesn't matter what Gandalf's stats are, you're NEVER going to be him. Not in a MASSIVELY, MULTIplayer online game. There's ten thousand people out there wanting to be Gandalf, and many of them are better at it than you are. The best you can hope for is being a soldier in Gondor's or Rohan's armies. You'll slay your share of orcs - glorious in its own way, not the stuff of legends, but good, solid work of war that needs doing, and maybe you'll even survive to tell the tale. You won't be the hero of the age. You won't have carried the Enemy's greatest prize, his ultimate weapon, to its grim destination, struggling for your soul and sanity each step of the way, but you'll have done your part and be proud of it, and you'll feel a solid sense of accomplishment.
But The Lord of the Rings took over a decade to write, on and off. You can read it in a fraction of that time and be done with it. How infinitely much more work would it take to make that tale exciting not just from the perspective of the heroes (whom you will not be), but for EVERYONE? For the brave people tending to the fallen in the Houses of Healing? For the beacon guards, their story a vital but brief footnote?
You're asking for the impossible, for the Dungeon Master from Heaven. A man who is capable of weaving a compelling narrative, night after night, for ten thousand players. Dreams are what drive man forward, but sometimes we must settle down and allow our dreams to be tempered by reality so we can accomplish something real. The games, nay the WORLDS you envision, I would gladly lose myself in, like I did in Tolkien's. But Tolkien is gourmet fare, while MMOs are discount warehouses. You can have quantity or quality, but not both.
The grievances you describe are not the problem, they're symptomatic of a greater underlying problem. The stats will always be there, they're numbers, and they're the only medium a computer knows how to handle. Hiding the stats would be detrimental to the game. Even hiding them in a clever way so that they would no longer even be needed by the player would accomplish nothing save get rid of the incessant stats spam in guild chat (something that I would JUBILANTLY welcome, incidentally). You'd cure a symptom, not a problem, and surely an aspirin is very nice when your head hurts, but all the aspirin in the world won't solve the problem, only hide the symptom. And the problem will continue to afflict you with new and exciting symptoms that aspirin doesn't help against.
Accept the occasional headache as a fact of life, or skip out on MMOs and realize that you are asking for an experience that you can probably only get from a good pen & paper RPG group. One with five players, not ten thousand.
Your problem - YOUR problem, and I say this with respect but also conviction - is that you ask for too much. You ask for improvement, and that is valid - MMOs are in the scope of computer games no longer the budding youngling but the teenager that should be blooming. But as a NARRATIVE, they stand as infants among ancients. We all know the stereotype of the grandfather telling stories to his grandchildren, stories in which by SHEER COINCIDENCE all the heroes bear a striking similarity to the youngsters sitting around him. And really, a pen & paper group is the exact same thing, just for an older demographic. But gramps can't tell stories to his ten thousand grandchildren. <strike>- gramps died of syphilis long ago because he was too promiscuous.</strike> Telling stories is as old as LANGUAGE - no, older still by all likelihood. Even interactive stories must be older than human history. But an interactive story with TEN THOUSAND PARTICIPANTS? Nobody knows how to tell such a story.
Well written LF, but... well, let me tackle as much of your and Haze's posts as I can :3
Where to start... ok heroes. Ironically I keep asking you what got you into MMOs but it turns out it's different than my own reasons :o I use Gandalf and co as examples because they're easy to recognise. Sure, you talk about not being heroes and that's actually perfect by me as heroes are cliched, HOWEVER you go by the only alternative being a military grunt: a blurred face in a uniformed mass. You forget the world of mercenaries and frontiersmen: skilled individuals who may or may not band together of their own will or to complete a job but never truly reach the heights of fantasy trilogies (though they might get a bit part or wander through a scene as it's getting shot :p ). Honestly, how many games must you save the world in before it gets old? If anyone thought we had to be 'heroes' because I mentioned adventure they were wrong. Did checking that dark wood when you were a kid save a burning village? I doubt it but that's adventure to me: exploring the unknown and being uncertain. That dark cave? Who knows what's in there and it's frighting like in mastersword because you can't just go "it's a level 10 area and I'm level 11 so it'll be fine". Little things like lighting and whatnot matter as they're outside of your control, they make you vulnerable, it's psychological and goes beyond the safe certainty of numbers. The monsters in horror movies are always scarier when you don't know what they look like... they're considerably less so once you finally see the guy in the rubber suit (especially when you con him and see he's 2 levels below you).
As for what I'd like, really? I want a world that doesn't need a fantastic GM or author... I want a Massively Multiplayer online game. The idea of authors and stuff? sure that's cool for backstory, setting the scene and even putting in some events or quests to introduce new players and maybe give people something to do when they're not busy with the rest of the game but in an ideal game the PLAYERS become the game. I'm talking shared sandbox here... Queen, Soldier, Mercenary, Farmer, you choose your path and hey, we can NPC peons in there to do the tasks nobody takes. While the ideal is fantastical I think a lesser form can be done... there were two games that people know from the days of yore: everquest and Ultima Online. We're still playing the everquest family of games here but the ultima family is closer to the direction I crave with only small vestiges of it in sight such as Eve (which I'd love to play but I prefer people to spaceships and the interface is god awful). I'd like to say planetside too but I've never played it :3
The whole thing with stats being visible being a 'necessary evil' is flawed logic too. Take zelda for example... the only arithmatic on the surface there is how many hearts you have. Outside of that there's no levelling or crud. You gain new equipment that expands your abilities and gain access to new areas via them or changes in the world. It's transparent and intuitive enough that you don't get people asking about them because they make perfect sense and they even often have fun little nuances that give them depth (that creature that gave you hastle before because it could only attacked from behind? guess what, the hookshot tears the armoured mask off it making it much easier). We get so tied up in the carrot we forget that the best games are enjoyable experiences with the reward simply being play itself. Does everything have to be stuffed with incentives?
While I'm talking about levels and stats, levels are part of the reason I get pissed off with content and the source of 'grind'. Think about it... I talk to everyone so say I befriend someone only to find out they're uber high compared to me. If I want to play alongside them without holding them back I need to level. I level slower than anyone I know because I normally do what I find fun but inevitably I'll do a little bit of the less enjoyable stuff to play catch-up. The irony is that sometimes the things I use for my 'xp sprints' are stuff I'd actually enjoyed if I'd done it when I chose to but no, I want to play and everyone I know is higher up so I can't stay down here without causing others problems. To illustrate how bad it is, I help people in games all the times and one time in Ragnarok while sitting on a giant flower contemplating what to do today with my level 20 odd thief a super high level assassin (equivalent to like a level 120 thief if you like) was walking past with two fresh thieves in tow. He suddenly exclaimed "Oh my god! It's you! Hey guys! This is Jemma, she helped me out big time when I was level 1 and totally new to the game." The two new players seemed fairly awestruck as the uber-player gushed about how cool this lowly level 20 (only about 10 above them) was :p Turns out he was helping them learn the ropes too (said I'd inspired him with my kindness... who knows, true or not I just like people helping each other out :3 ).
Ok... what else? Ah, why don't we complain about prince of persia being all combat? Well for one it's not. It has lots of cool platform stunt parkour stuff and for another it ends. That's right, ending saves it :p The combat is more entertaining in single player games I tend to find but by virtue most of them tend to end long before repetition kicks in to the point of boredom. MMOs don't have that luxury and yet their combat outside of PvP, as I've mentioned a few times before, is not only worse than in single player games but utterly devoid of variation. Every monster outside of the instanced raid bosses are pretty much reskins of the same AI with different abilities tacked on: get into attack range and use abilities in set cycle. That's not utterly awful on it's own (though it doesn't help) but your response to these predictable encounters? It's that combo you killed the last 5 billion other forgettable battles with. You and the monster... they almost never change except when new abilities get added to your combo list. PvP is the only sanctuary from it sadly and ironically despite all these issues MMOs probably have more combat in them proportionally than even the most blood-thirsty single player games do unless you include AFK time :3
I'd love to craft in games like WoW but the actual action of making something is mindless and even those who 'enjoy' crafting only enjoy either the end result or the thought of getting to that end result while they make 50 copies of a weapon they'll probably have to vendor because they've flooded the market.
And now... the greatest novel of all... guilds :3
My problems with guilds are two fold. One is personal, the other is more general. I'll tackle the general one first as that's the important one.
The general problem isn't actually guilds but guild SYSTEMS. That is, aspects of the game that make a guild a mechanic. People hanging about and calling themselves something is fairly harmless, giving those people unique parts of the game however is harmful. It means if you don't sign on the dotted mechanical line somewhere you're missing out and this leads to some really cruddy behaviour. For example let's look at city of villians. In that your guild gets a super base and hey, who doesn't like building a cool base? Yeah, and you get free resources for recruiting. Net result? People spamming the starter zone with recruitment to the point it makes your eyes bleed and people joining guilds enmasse to see these cool features leading to unstable guilds full of infighting or people with no real interest in each other. WoW doesn't have toooo many guild-specific things but it does still have guild chat... what a wonderful mechanic: you and your guildies can speak to each other cut off from the MASSIVEMO world. Might as well call it Many Guilds Online :p Guilds will happen, some people like banding together under an identity but it's the baiting and the mechanics that go on in MMOs that truely annoys me. It's harmful to the overall community of the game in the long run. Heck, I should know... I've played several large MMOs that didn't feature guild mechanics of any form and the community was much nicer. I've also seen those games later gain guild mechanic systems and the drop in social quality was alarmingly evident to me at least.
My personal issue with guilds? I don't need them yet they're forced down my throat constantly :p Let me explain in massive detail... My first guild experience was in Aliens versus Predator. In that game I was an alien player tour de force: the maps were my playground. I'd often spend my time calmly watching from the shadows and having fun, occasionally scuttling out to push my score back up near the top or just to wreak havoc and giggle. If any other aliens crossed me or got in my way I'd kill them. Predators I generally ran out of the server with concentrated attacks and marines were my playthings... I was arrogant but rightly so :D Then one day I saw an alien player who amazed me. They did things I couldn't even comprehend and I was dazzled. I was also flattered that they immediately spotted my skill as well as they very quickly ended up inviting me to a trial for their clan as we chatted among splattered marine corpses. I passed their test easily and I'd hang out with my new friend quite often. The problem is... while in the clan not only did I not see much of the other clanners but what little I did see left me cold. They were nice enough people but most were substandard in my view. Most greviously of all were the one or two who weren't that nice... skill or not if you're not a nice person you lose by default in my book. The thought that eventually occurred to me was "why am I even in this clan? I'm only here for one person and I don't need to be part of this to be friends with them" and so I left.
Years later I found my way into the MMO genre and also PSO and the guild phenomenon popped up again though this time slightly differently. At first people asked me to be part of their guild (keep in mind that the games I'm about to talk about didn't have guild systems so this was just people sticking a tag infront of their name or whatever). I quickly realised though that I was being included not just because they liked me but because I get on with people. "what's the problem?" I hear you cry! Simple... reputation and recruitment. Let's say there's someone who helps out and gets on with people to the point where a lot of people like to be around them. Now say you can get your clan associate with such a person... BANG! Your guild's getting lots of people wanting to join... being part of your clique is like some official stamp of approval for it from that person: almost a recommendation if you will. The clan leeches from that person's reputation.
Needless to say I left these shallow groups, somewhat annoyed as I realised that my casual association had been 'used' I guess. But that wasn't the end of it... people started to gather around me still and so I made a forum for people I'd met to all chat and keep in touch. Before I knew it people were calling themselves part of this group (which had it's own lil name based off the characters I played) and despite my constant warnings to all this wasn't a guild it pretty much became one in all but name. Of course, this leads to exclusivity... people seem to like being part of something they're not: it's like the psychology behind 'elite groups'; by being in one that makes you special and gives you identity. Of course, some people started speaking for the group on some things (and quickly wished they hadn't when I found out). In the end I wandered off... I got tired of keeping people in line and playing mother all the time and in some ways it annoyed me that one of the 'guilds' that I'd unwittingly absorbed into my group was still trying to call our group by their name from time to time (it never caught on and it was the few rather than the many but it still irked me).
In other games since then I've had people begging and pleading me... either to make a guild they can all join or for me to join their guild. It gets old fast.
After all this time I've pondered on it and I've come to a conclusion that might be wrong or right but it feels like it fits.
I think people join guilds a lot of the time as a matter of identity. They enjoy being part of something, maybe because it's bigger than them or they're proud of their association: "yeah! me and my friends are awesome!". Else they wouldn't need to name it and sign a charter, it'd be called a 'friends list'. Me? I've got my identity all sorted out and in my over-confident mindset no group is bigger than I am... they can have lots of people, lots of epics and stats and levels or whatever but for me they're all overshadowed by the arrogant but charming collosus that is me :p I'm being somewhat tongue in cheek but it's honestly not far from the truth. I like helping people and I like making sure people have fun: this makes me well known and generally well liked as a side effect. Those who don't like me quickly learn I won't take their crud either and that just seems to net me even more popularity as I shut up or run off jerks, thieves and other nasty people.
Scarily, for the longest time I thought MMOs were like this for everyone as when I was around everyone I talked to would get on and chat. My only inkling that I wasn't seeing the full picture was when, in university, a lecturer was asking us about our experiences in online games and a friend of mine said that in Neocron nobody talked and it was generally quite closed off. I looked at him as if he'd just proclaimed he was the fifth teenage mutant hero turtle because it was like night to the day of my own experiences. I quickly rattled off dozens of social moments I remembered fondly with my old favourite being the time I had a whole street of people pushing me along to the nearest inventory depot because I'd been given some stuff by a friend who was leaving the game and after they logged I realised I'd went so over my carry limit I couldn't physically move anymore XD
That revelation softened my attitude towards guilds, but not much as you can tell :3
Oh as a last note, I enjoy meeting new people often and so, while I like having existing friends about I don't like the feeling of having to look after them if it means it interferes constantly with me helping newer players out. Strangely clans seem to get people into the mindset that they deserve your time more than anyone else so I'm more likely to get constantly poked for help or whatnot while in a clan and believe me, I get enough people whispering/bothering me as it is without that slapped ontop XD
~phew~ I think that covered most things plus hey, now you have a bit of my history ;D
To give WoW a lil credit and maybe get back to the topic a lil more... I'm intrigued by something I read about today in the expansion: open-world instances or 'phasing'. Anyone care to shed light on it as it sounds kinda interesting :3
TBH I'm actually looking into playing WoW again, perhaps. The issue is though, as a majorly social game, I'd need a group to play with. Neonwraith wants me to play with him (and his guild) but they are on the EU realms.
Is it still a major pain in the arse to play on the EU reals as an American or vice verse?
QuaunautThe longest seven days in history...Join Date: 2003-03-21Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1695245:date=Dec 5 2008, 11:11 AM:name=Thansal)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Thansal @ Dec 5 2008, 11:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695245"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Have you played post TBC?
Leveling 1-70 is now a breeze (1-60 was made a breeze in TBC, 60-70 in WotLK). My GF is back to playing WoW, she finally has her first post 60+, and was going about a level a day for 60-68. She is far from a hardcore gamer <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />.
Once she hits 70 and buys WotLK I might jump on her account to see if DKs are interesting enough for me to reup, I kinda doubt it. I miss playing games with my GF, but WoW has just burned me out too far this time I think.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
With DKs having a twofold resource system(Runes and Runic Power- Runic Power like rage that is only made through skills, and runes being used for the abilities that build up runic power. Then you use specific abilities to dump runic power), tons of counters, tons of abilities in general- I'd say that for PvE, they require more knowledge of how the game works than any other tank, while DPS wise work pretty simply. In PvP, they have TONS of abilities with TONS of requirements- if you know what you're doing, you can make one work beautifully. If not, you'll get steamrolled.
Overall, its a very interesting class. I'd never drop my Enhancement Shaman though(<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51532" target="_blank">Maelstrom Weapon</a> is just too good).
<!--quoteo(post=1695245:date=Dec 5 2008, 07:11 PM:name=Thansal)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Thansal @ Dec 5 2008, 07:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695245"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Have you played post TBC?
Leveling 1-70 is now a breeze (1-60 was made a breeze in TBC, 60-70 in WotLK). My GF is back to playing WoW, she finally has her first post 60+, and was going about a level a day for 60-68. She is far from a hardcore gamer <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />.
Once she hits 70 and buys WotLK I might jump on her account to see if DKs are interesting enough for me to reup, I kinda doubt it. I miss playing games with my GF, but WoW has just burned me out too far this time I think.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I played during TBC- I think my last subscription was January this year.
I see MMOs as a genre where if you're playing with people you know it's great- but if you play sporadically = fall behind your friends = playing mostly solo = it's not so much fun. As I work the 9-5 and am not online every day I end up with the latter way of thinking.
If you got xp for PvP ala WAR I could quite happily play BGs on my own, but IIRC you don't get xp so it's pretty worthless PVPing below the level cap (or at least at the lowly levels I played at)
I hear they added a small xp gain to BG but admittedly it's not really meant for proper levelling but rather it was put in as an anti-twink mechanic so it's not a lot :o
ShockehIf a packet drops on the web and nobody's near to see it...Join Date: 2002-11-19Member: 9336NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1695302:date=Dec 6 2008, 07:23 AM:name=Scythe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Scythe @ Dec 6 2008, 07:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695302"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Redford you traitor! Your home is on frostwolf, and there you will forever remain!
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> For someone in the UK, playing on Frostwolf, in a word, <b>sucked</b>. I know you get it nearly as bad Scythe, but it really, really did. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
I'll just leave this here... <!--QuoteBegin-http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=2075657#post2075657+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=2075657#post2075657)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Athens, Greece – December 5th, 2008 - Audio Visual Enterprises SA and Aventurine SA in a joint statement today announced that their highly anticipated MMORPG title <u>Darkfall Online will launch across Europe on January 22nd, 2009</u>. North American players are also welcome to participate in the European launch of Darkfall which will precede a North American launch.
More details to be announced as they become available.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think Darkfall might be more to your tastes, Gem. Well. Apart from the horrible graphics.
I like soap boxes. They're great: You can stand on them and make a speech, but flimsy and cheap enough that you can smash them with vigour to make a point. And I really like my soap boxes. It's much more fun to talk to twenty people than it is to talk to one, because some of those twenty people might actually listen. I use forums, I use IRC, and I (reluctantly) use instant messengers. Those of you I speak with the most, I speak with on forums and in IRC. Instant messengers are a barely necessary evil to me. I'd much rather that all the people I cared to talk to just hung out in the same IRC channel.
MMOs have instant messengers and they have IRC. The instant messenger is called a "friends list," IRC is called a "guild." Would be awesome if you could join multiple <strike>channels</strike> guilds, by the way. But anyway, a guild allows me to get the people I like into the same channel. Sure, MMOs have zone chat, or, rarely, even global chat. WoW calls it General, or /1. But have you SEEN those places? They're ######-clogged sewer pipes. IRC channels don't work without moderation. If you have anything but the BRIEFEST conversation in one of those channels, you'll get harassed and abused, or you'll get spammed with INANE ###### ABOUT CHUCK NORRIS. I don't want to deal with that ######. Report them to a GM? Oh please. Put 'em on ignore? NOT FEASIBLE. These games have ignore lists that can take maybe twenty people. IT'S A ######ING MMO! 75% OF THESE PEOPLE ARE JACKASSES! I NEED AN IGNORE LIST THAT CAN TAKE SEVEN THOUSAND PEOPLE, NOT TWENTY! So that's the problem. I can't keep the jackasses out of the public channels, and I can't ignore all of them. My only recourse, my only REFUGE is to make my own channel and make it invite only and LEAVE THE JACKASSES IN THE COLD. And that's what a guild is to me. Call me elitist, call me isolationist, I WELCOME IT. If I end up missing out on nice, meaningful interactions with some good people, that's a price I'm willing to pay to SPARE ME THE JACKASSES.
QuaunautThe longest seven days in history...Join Date: 2003-03-21Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1695325:date=Dec 6 2008, 04:19 AM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Align @ Dec 6 2008, 04:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695325"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'll just leave this here... I think Darkfall might be more to your tastes, Gem. Well. Apart from the horrible graphics.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Seriously? Darkfall is a joke. That thing's been in development longer than DNF, it feels like.
Let alone the fact that throughout it's existence no one's done a preview, hands on, even had a ######ing video of the game played for them. I'll be interested to see what happens to a game that no one but the creators playtested, but my hopes aren't high.
The other thing about guilds is, just how many people do you need to talk to? You can have 100s of people in them, and quite simply, you can't talk to all of them, or know all of them. Even if you join a guild with 10 people in it, that does not immediately stop you from interacting with the rest of the server.
And I want instantenous communication over something as large as WoW. Talking to someone while next to their character makes no difference than talking to them from another continent. IRC chat in an MMO is simply far more practical.
ThansalThe New ScumJoin Date: 2002-08-22Member: 1215Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1695303:date=Dec 6 2008, 03:34 AM:name=Quaunaut)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Quaunaut @ Dec 6 2008, 03:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695303"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->With DKs having a twofold resource system(Runes and Runic Power- Runic Power like rage that is only made through skills, and runes being used for the abilities that build up runic power. Then you use specific abilities to dump runic power), tons of counters, tons of abilities in general- I'd say that for PvE, they require more knowledge of how the game works than any other tank, while DPS wise work pretty simply. In PvP, they have TONS of abilities with TONS of requirements- if you know what you're doing, you can make one work beautifully. If not, you'll get steamrolled.
Overall, its a very interesting class. I'd never drop my Enhancement Shaman though(<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51532" target="_blank">Maelstrom Weapon</a> is just too good).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Oh, yah. I am a geek. I have been following the game, reading guides, checking out skills etc etc etc. But every time I am about to go and resub (I actually installed and fully patched), I realize I really don't want to play it currently.
<!--quoteo(post=1695306:date=Dec 6 2008, 06:09 AM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sherpa @ Dec 6 2008, 06:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695306"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I played during TBC- I think my last subscription was January this year.
I see MMOs as a genre where if you're playing with people you know it's great- but if you play sporadically = fall behind your friends = playing mostly solo = it's not so much fun. As I work the 9-5 and am not online every day I end up with the latter way of thinking.
If you got xp for PvP ala WAR I could quite happily play BGs on my own, but IIRC you don't get xp so it's pretty worthless PVPing below the level cap (or at least at the lowly levels I played at)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yah, WAR looked like it would have been awesome, but I ended up with some bad experiences with it, and burned out there also...
Incidentally, I agree that guilds should be for organisational purposes only. As soon as content starts becoming guild-exclusive, we're on the wrong track. I don't mind guilds, but forcing people to join them to get the full experience is just wrong.
<!--quoteo(post=1695342:date=Dec 6 2008, 05:35 PM:name=Quaunaut)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Quaunaut @ Dec 6 2008, 05:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695342"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Seriously? Darkfall is a joke. That thing's been in development longer than DNF, it feels like.
Let alone the fact that throughout it's existence no one's done a preview, hands on, even had a ######ing video of the game played for them. I'll be interested to see what happens to a game that no one but the creators playtested, but my hopes aren't high.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <a href="http://fightingamphibians.com/v/res/28322.html" target="_blank">http://fightingamphibians.com/v/res/28322.html</a> fire away
First off there's been videos of Darkfall in action released as far back as a year ago and I don't even keep track of darkfall as much as most other MMOs (mainly because it's been in dev so long). I suspect darkfall will end up being very 'risk your life' which was an ok MMO but a tad clunky. I'll give it a shot like everything else though :3
As for guilds in regards to a way of organising I have two trains of thought on that... one is, as you mentioned, if they're for organisation then just let people join multiple... that kills off some of the elitism, seperatism and a lot of other issues. The other? The other is a tad complex... or not.
My second train of thought is the utterly mad idea that if I want to keep in touch with people like I do in IRC... I'll use IRC :p Whispers, chat channels, guild chat... in this train of thought I dislike them. I even dislike area chat and trade chat. You want to talk to someone? You send them a carrier pigeon or meet them in the virtual flesh :p You want to trade? You can set up a stall and leave an NPC tending it, or even sit and manage it yourself if you like chatting to customers. Awkward? Yeah I know, but a game is about obstacles. If we just remove everything that is inconvienent we should throw away levels (I'd actually agree with that though XD ), everyone should just start with the best loot and monsters should just die when you're in the general vicinity and immediately fill your coffers with almost limitless money. If you make communication an actual part of the game it draws you in: chatting with people next to you being no different from people a continent away? Sure it is. In real-life or in-game. If you see the person you make mental attachments of what they say and their personality to the persona onscreen. If there's nobody on screen? No such attachments or the those that are made are far more vague.
On a bit of a tangent the 'jerks' you ignore on general chat are interesting. Y'see those jerks are people. Who knows why they're like that? Tell you what... you might know but you might be able to find out. Generally, if someone is being annoying on chat I'll tackle them. I can drive them off if needs be but more often than not I'll start asking them questions, I'll try and work out what makes them tick... you said earlier LF about treating symptoms rather than the illness and in many ways I feel avoiding the 'jerks', hiding from them in special channels or blocking them is symptom treatment fully at work. I've seen one of these so called jerks CREATED in a game of NS.
A new player uncertain of what they were doing joined the alien team. He asked a lot of questions and in my usual helpful manner I welcomed him to the game and started helping him out. Everyone else pretty much left me to it because they were set on winning. Straight off the bat I could hear (he was using voice) this kid was going to go either way... with some nurturing and patience they could be a nice player but it'd be very easy for him to join the 'screaming masses'. Now, along comes a crucial moment in the game where we're pushing on a major point, it's key that we keep units out of the area for reasons I no longer remember but our new player rushes in eager to help before anyone can warn him otherwise... his unknowing actions cause a crushing set back that gets many of us killed and everyone being oh-so-serious starts giving the kid abuse. At first the kid is genuinely confused, he seems to understand he did something wrong because everyone's screaming at him but he doesn't know what happened, let alone what it was he did himself that caused it but instead of anyone calmly giving feed back all he gets is a constant barrage of abuse (despite me telling people to ease off). Under this torrent of anger I heard him transform from someone with promise into another kid who hates other players and has tantrums down the mic just as he quit. You get what you give.
Another example? Ok, here I am in WoW waiting for a battleground when a 'pvp kiddie' comes up and starts poking me for a duel. I can tell they're not someone who loses well and their writing isn't stellar either... more importantly I'm not in a duelling mood. At first I politely decline a few times then he tells me I'm a coward and whatnot. I get a sense that I could do something here and so acting on my intuition I finally accept. The battle didn't last long and his gristly little gnome rogue fell before my rather peaceful looking non-uber Dranei shaman. Predictably his response come in the "OH MY GOD MY CLASS SUCKS! IT'S SO UNFAIR! THIS GAME SUX!" category. I quickly but patiently jump in and tell him that no... it's not the class or game... it's strategy. The balanced between us wasn't important instead the reason I'd won was my tactics and if he was willing I'd teach him how and what he could do to counter it. He seemed dubious but intrigued. I went on to chat to him about how he'd fought and what I'd done to capitalise on it, combined with tips on what his class could do to counter those. Feeling more confident he asks, in much better english, for another duel to try it out. We fight again and while I mostly fight him properly I let up a little and narrowly beat him. I could have let him win but it turns out I'd been right so far as he wanted another go, feeling he could improve. I gave him a few pointers and we sparred again, with me pretty much repeating what I did last match: no less, no more and he beats me. He's overjoyed and much happier and at the same time I'm pleased to notice that his manners have improved a heck of a lot as he thanks me for a good match. I didn't see that player again but the change in that small space of time was good for my soul :3
I've had people who were abusing everyone on general chat pouring out their life story and doubts to me and promising to be better people. I've had people with no respect for anyone hold me in high regard. I've had people who leetspeek and talk gibberish have very interesting conversations with me about what's on their mind in perfect english. If you know when to listen and when to shout you can snap people out of it more times than you realise.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think every 'jerk' can be taught, tamed or counselled but a lot can and many are caused by the online society they come into. Sure, you can ignore them or hide from them but it doesn't really make them go away. You often here people complain about society but the important part that many miss is that THEY are a part of that very society.
I don't expect everyone to have the will or empathy I do but a little bit of tolerance and understanding goes a long way. You don't have to accept bad behaviour either but just be aware that sometimes the reaction to being ignored is causing harm to try and draw a reaction.
I guess the risky side of this all is that you can be idolized and sometimes it can even lead to rather desperate situations as people struggle with themselves. One abusive player I talked down would follow me everywhere as a devoted follower and he'd be rather aggressive to anyone who pretty much didn't fall at my feet. I had to tell him off a lot but like some kind of puppy he'd cringe and apologize from any sharp word I gave him... it was like keeping him on a leash and while I guess it had some novelty it was quite a hastle and I'm not really the 'dominating' type who enjoys that kinda stuff :p Another player who had been quite withdrawn and quiet (not abusive in the slightest) I pulled out of their shell: I got them involved with everyone and they had a great time... the downside? Turns out in real-life he went to a special school and so had a few mental problems... while this wasn't an issue in the game it seems that his mother attempted to stop him playing at some point (I don't know the exact details) and he flew into a rage at the idea of being unable to see their only real friends (seems they didn't really talk much to their school mates either) and put a chair through a door. Kinda disturbing. I think he calmed down a lot after that though and while we saw him online with us a lot no further stories of violent outbursts reached our ears (though finding out about his special school and his life was actually quite interesting :o ).
One last of the 'darker' sides of this... one person I got chatting to online was disheartened a great deal, they never seemed to find anything cool, they didn't seem to 'gell' with people online and they took a long time to level. With a friend I took him for a spin in PSO equipped with special gear I used to boost new players and we not only netted him some pretty stuff and xp but he seemed to enjoy it. It was all going great when he accidentally got killed and his mood seemed to spiral down from there. Next thing I know he's logged off with my special training stuff still on his character! Incensed I ask what he's playing at and he's all evasive before eventually saying that he'd give my items back if I came meet him alone in a private game. I was angry and worried because not only was some of the gear difficult or nigh-on impossible to find but some were gifts contributed by friends over the time I'd spent playing. I went through, avoiding telling everyone in the lobby who seemed to notice something was amiss and started becoming concerned. I went in and I met the silly. I was civil but kurt... he demanded personal details about me... wanted to know if my character's name was my real one and other things. I told him that I couldn't be bullied into telling him anything again and again. He started whining that he never seemed to find cool things like I did and continued to try and press me for details. Keeping this up for a short while I found my patience overstretched and verbally blasted him with the facts (e.g. I found most of my stuff myself and it took time and effort, I didn't just roll in day one and have everything handed to me on a silver platter, that holding people's things, virtual or otherwise, hostage to try and force them into things was morally wrong and other truths). He burst into a grief-filled wail about life being unfair, dropped my stuff at my feet and logged out. I breathed a sigh of relief, though a tinge of regret that I couldn't have handled the situation more artfully lingered. Later he got in touch with me and apologized profusely... it turns out he was a manic depressive; a bipolar (which explains the odd mood swings at least :p ). He seemed to hold me in even higher regard than before as while I'd scorched him I hadn't blocked him, got everyone after him or anything else nasty (and believe me, a lot of people wanted to teach him a lesson but I held them back). Seems others before had been pretty nasty to him after that kind of stuff. I was pretty cautious about him after that but I'm still glad it wasn't as bad a result as it could have been.
I've lost track of what I was talking about now but it was kinda fun recounting that stuff :D
QuaunautThe longest seven days in history...Join Date: 2003-03-21Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1695441:date=Dec 6 2008, 09:13 PM:name=Geminosity)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Geminosity @ Dec 6 2008, 09:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695441"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've lost track of what I was talking about now but it was kinda fun recounting that stuff <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Remind me to never, ever, buy any book written by you. Your stream of consciousness is bad for me.
Sadly, I don't have the desire to be psychiatrist to the world. I play games to have a good time, if I wanted to be a shrink I'd get paid for the trouble. These people, they are not beautiful, unique snowflakes until they prove themselves. I've taken a lot of ###### from people I know because I KNOW they're alright. I can forgive that. But if I don't know you, you start out at zero, and if your first action is to ROCKET into ######sville, I'll treat you like one - by swiftly placing you on my ignore list. I can't have meaningful relationships with thousands of people anyway, they blur together into an amorphous mass of behavioral stereotypes. I'd much rather get the chaff out of the way with minimal fuss, and if some of the wheat accidentally ends up with them, hey, there's plenty of wheat left yet.
<!--quoteo(post=1695513:date=Dec 7 2008, 09:15 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Dec 7 2008, 09:15 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695513"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sadly, I don't have the desire to be psychiatrist to the world. I play games to have a good time, if I wanted to be a shrink I'd get paid for the trouble. These people, they are not beautiful, unique snowflakes until they prove themselves. I've taken a lot of ###### from people I know because I KNOW they're alright. I can forgive that. But if I don't know you, you start out at zero, and if your first action is to ROCKET into ######sville, I'll treat you like one - by swiftly placing you on my ignore list. I can't have meaningful relationships with thousands of people anyway, they blur together into an amorphous mass of behavioral stereotypes. I'd much rather get the chaff out of the way with minimal fuss, and if some of the wheat accidentally ends up with them, hey, there's plenty of wheat left yet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
~shrug~ like I said I don't expect everyone to be able to handle others, it's just one of my things to note that problem people are usually symptom of a society that complains about them yet never takes any responsibility for producing them in the first place... it's as much an aspect of real-life as it is games :3
That said I also think games designers should be somewhat responsible as they design the social mechanics that their game's populace will be built around. It's a lot easier to be annoying without a care if neither you nor your victim can 'physically' see each other (also see penny arcade's law of the internet :p ) and while this is more of a real-life thing a partial part of this also works in games to a certain extent: if you can see each other's custom avatars people can be a little less vicious. There's a lot of factors that could be taken into account when designing an MMO that might help fashion a better community and it goes far beyond the mere chat mechanics.
I don't play MMOs for meaningful relationships: I play them to mix with lots and lots of people... the more the better. I won't see most of them again half the time but it's fun to interact with an ever-shifting populace with every day bringing new experiences via people that static content could never fulfil. If meaningful relationships pop up along the way? That's just an expected side effect and not one I complain about :3
so... open instances? Has anyone seen this stuff in action? I wanna know about them! I've heard the death knights get a quest that uses them rather spectacularly or something? :o
The only one I know of, not having played a Death Knight, is <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>the assault on the Undercity,</span> during which you are practically godlike due to the enormous buff you receive (which is also warranted due to the odds you face). It loops: Five minutes of "warmup" followed by <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>king Wrynn leading the charge.</span> At its conclusion, the instance resets and all current occupants are booted out. The NPCs are quite capable of doing all the work by themselves, so your participation speeds events along at most. It's really more of a multi-viewer, barely interactive cutscene.
It may be. I'm told the Death Knight introductory quests are "the best in the game yet," whatever that means.
More interesting is the phasing system: After a long quest line of yours has touched off a climactic battle (which is handled through an ACTUAL cutscene), the area has changed accordingly: The battlefield is in ruins, the remainder of the army in panicked disarray, and Importantguy McHeropants, who has now thoroughly snuffed it, is missing from his usual NPC spot. I haven't fully explored the intricacies of how this system works, but I presume that if I poke Newbie McSlowlevel (who has not yet completed this quest line), who is standing right next to me on the overlook where once stood Importantguy McHeropants, and point out to him the ruined battlefield where took place the mighty confrontation in which Importantguy McHeropants fell, he'll ask me wtf I'm talking about: The battlefield is still as pristine as a battlefield can ever be, the armies are arrayed and ready for the upcoming battle, and Importantguy McHeropants is standing right next to us looking important and heroic. In short, the world as you perceive it can be changed: A questgiver such as Importantguy McHeropants can be killed off permanently once you have completed his quests. Those who haven't completed his quests can still see him, but in your continuity he's dead. I doubt it's much more than a gimmick at the moment, but one with potential.
Interesting... I always complained that quests in WoW did nothing: if you were sent in to eradicate the orc village it was still there after the 40 you killed and while the NPCs who claimed they were going to go in and finish them off never did. This could let that kind of stuff happen which would definitely be way cooler than before.
That's the upside at least... the downside is that the inconsistancy of the world between players will be a tad weird and in many ways is almost an odd kind of step towards a more 'single player' experience if you get what I mean.
Ah well, that's the way WoW was built from the start so I guess this is the next logical step and as you say: it's interesting regardless :3
puzlThe Old FirmJoin Date: 2003-02-26Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
The zoning works well.. you hardly notice it as anything other than a progression in storyline. I think WotLK has delivered what I though I would never see in an MMO - an engaging storyline. Every zone reveals characters and storylines that all converge on Mr. L. King in a very satisfying way. I'm not sure if it would be as appealing to someone who hadn't played through WC3 and TFT.
Comments
TBC at least had new races which made me try it, this new expansion seems designed completely towards those who have done everything already.
If I could roll a Death Knight without the need for a lvl 60 char I'd buy this game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Have you played post TBC?
Leveling 1-70 is now a breeze (1-60 was made a breeze in TBC, 60-70 in WotLK). My GF is back to playing WoW, she finally has her first post 60+, and was going about a level a day for 60-68. She is far from a hardcore gamer <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />.
Once she hits 70 and buys WotLK I might jump on her account to see if DKs are interesting enough for me to reup, I kinda doubt it. I miss playing games with my GF, but WoW has just burned me out too far this time I think.
For one, you seem to think "guild" and "shackle" belong in the same sentence. I joined a guild on a PvPRP server for the explicit reason of grand adventure. We figured every encounter out for ourselves (REFUSING to look online), with one general raid leader but everyone's input was valued and <i>used <u>regularly</i></u>. We didn't really know what was going to happen every encounter and the first initial run through every instance was some of the most fun I've had ever in my entire gaming "career". Yes, of course, we had to return, but we didn't force anyone to come on scheduled reruns. There were certainly more people who enjoyed the "GRIND" and others who liked to run it a handful of times and then take a break from raiding. We catered to it all.
And <b>shackled</b> you are <u>not</u>. O_o I don't understand why you think that because you associate yourself with a few other like minded individuals via some text underneath your avatar name you can't continue to have normal relations with the rest of the MMORPG community at your fingertips.
As for exploring new territory...the leveling pace of World of Warcraft generally has you consistently discovering new territory inside of your designated zone of play at the time. You rarely have to continually return to the same place over, and over, and over and over and over and over again on your way up to the level cap. Blizzard has done a nice job of moving you through the zone at a reasonable pace to keep things fresh and interesting to new players. To be honest, World of Warcraft is one of the most exploration focused games on the market. Where else do you have an entire almost completely seamless world to run around? There are also plenty of pointless caves to delve into that Blizzard tucks into the side for people like you or I who enjoy poking their noses around a bit more than the average quester.
I also don't know why you take issue with being <i>told</i> to go and explore somewhere. If you're tired of getting pushed around by quest givers and following directions of where to go, then don't do the quest or even talk to them. The World of Warcraft is absolutely massive and you could -- JUST like in Master Sword -- plunge deep into a cavern with a few friends with not a drop of an idea where to go. It may not be pitch black, but lighting the only thing that draws you to high adventure?
And...the grind. You don't have to participate in it. At all. If you don't want to grind on an instance for gear, fine, don't. Quest rewards are 99.9% of the time very valuable and sometimes MORE valuable than instance drops. As Quan pointed out, by the time you get to level 80 you're already prepared for taking on some heroics. You <b>have</b> <b>[u]most[u]</b> of the content available to you in the game with the choice of not repeating it <i>one bit!</i>
And I guarantee when you <i>finally</i> finish every instance available to you at least once, arrive at the level cap, have done what quests you wanted, tryed your hand at PvP, by the time you've tried <b>ALL</b> that World of Warcraft has to offer without repeating it once, you'll have spent more time with it than Master Sword and gotten your money's worth. :3
<!--QuoteBegin-Gem+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Gem)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You will get to make the same sword 50 times to boost your blacksmithing. You will get to bludgeon countless faceless enemies with the combo you've perfected over the levels, the monotony only broken for a short while when you get a new skill to adapt into it. You will kill 72 boars because the farmer is too lazy to get her own bloody ingredients, or possibly because she's been rooted to the same spot for her whole life. Oh, did I mention faction grinding? Do I need to? :3<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't recall the combat of most games changing a great deal every time you play it. Prince of Persia was cited as a good example of combat in this thread and you do the same thing in it over and over again with even fewer buttons than WoW. Why doesn't that get stale or cited as an issue? Also, you don't need to craft, you don't need to faction grind, you don't need to do the farmer's quest. You can bypass what annoys you and still play the game.
<!--QuoteBegin-Gem+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Gem)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Again, can you tell me what Gandalf's crit chance was? Did the Aes Sedia from wheel of time discuss their crit gear?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
32%; yes, before the instance started.
The dream is what drew me in. "Be a hero, save the world." But you'll never get that, so give up on it.
Years ago now, I was playing Dynasty Warriors 3. A friend of mine sat next to me. I had, at that time, not read "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," but we were idly talking about the period, talking about what an exciting story it makes. And at some point he said, I don't remember the exact words, something like this: "Man, it would've been cool to live in that time period." And I couldn't let that stand. So I asked him: "Oh? Who would you have been? That guy?" My halberd snuffed the spark of the little polygon soldier's life out. "Or that one?" The blade rose and fell, another computer-generated life ended. "How about that guy over there, oh he's getting swarmed by two dozen enemies and they're taking turns kicking him in the crotch until he begs for death. How droll." "Nah, I would've been Guan Yu!" my friend said, but with a laugh: he saw my point.
Who's going to be the hero, and who's going to be the cannon fodder? In a singleplayer game, you're the hero, and the mindless, undesiring computer willingly takes on the humiliating role of your myriad victims. In a multiplayer game, you're a predator, but never at the apex. You eat those who stand below you, and are in turn devoured by those whose skill or dedication or raw force eclipse yours. You're not the peasant (although someone always is), but you're still a mere foot soldier, and somewhere out there there's a lot of people waiting to kick you in the crotch.
The dream of being the hero of not only your dreams, but of the dreams of others too, is alluring but nigh-unattainable. It doesn't matter what Gandalf's stats are, you're NEVER going to be him. Not in a MASSIVELY, MULTIplayer online game. There's ten thousand people out there wanting to be Gandalf, and many of them are better at it than you are. The best you can hope for is being a soldier in Gondor's or Rohan's armies. You'll slay your share of orcs - glorious in its own way, not the stuff of legends, but good, solid work of war that needs doing, and maybe you'll even survive to tell the tale. You won't be the hero of the age. You won't have carried the Enemy's greatest prize, his ultimate weapon, to its grim destination, struggling for your soul and sanity each step of the way, but you'll have done your part and be proud of it, and you'll feel a solid sense of accomplishment.
But The Lord of the Rings took over a decade to write, on and off. You can read it in a fraction of that time and be done with it. How infinitely much more work would it take to make that tale exciting not just from the perspective of the heroes (whom you will not be), but for EVERYONE? For the brave people tending to the fallen in the Houses of Healing? For the beacon guards, their story a vital but brief footnote?
You're asking for the impossible, for the Dungeon Master from Heaven. A man who is capable of weaving a compelling narrative, night after night, for ten thousand players. Dreams are what drive man forward, but sometimes we must settle down and allow our dreams to be tempered by reality so we can accomplish something real. The games, nay the WORLDS you envision, I would gladly lose myself in, like I did in Tolkien's. But Tolkien is gourmet fare, while MMOs are discount warehouses. You can have quantity or quality, but not both.
The grievances you describe are not the problem, they're symptomatic of a greater underlying problem. The stats will always be there, they're numbers, and they're the only medium a computer knows how to handle. Hiding the stats would be detrimental to the game. Even hiding them in a clever way so that they would no longer even be needed by the player would accomplish nothing save get rid of the incessant stats spam in guild chat (something that I would JUBILANTLY welcome, incidentally). You'd cure a symptom, not a problem, and surely an aspirin is very nice when your head hurts, but all the aspirin in the world won't solve the problem, only hide the symptom. And the problem will continue to afflict you with new and exciting symptoms that aspirin doesn't help against.
Accept the occasional headache as a fact of life, or skip out on MMOs and realize that you are asking for an experience that you can probably only get from a good pen & paper RPG group. One with five players, not ten thousand.
Your problem - YOUR problem, and I say this with respect but also conviction - is that you ask for too much. You ask for improvement, and that is valid - MMOs are in the scope of computer games no longer the budding youngling but the teenager that should be blooming. But as a NARRATIVE, they stand as infants among ancients. We all know the stereotype of the grandfather telling stories to his grandchildren, stories in which by SHEER COINCIDENCE all the heroes bear a striking similarity to the youngsters sitting around him. And really, a pen & paper group is the exact same thing, just for an older demographic. But gramps can't tell stories to his ten thousand grandchildren. <strike>- gramps died of syphilis long ago because he was too promiscuous.</strike> Telling stories is as old as LANGUAGE - no, older still by all likelihood. Even interactive stories must be older than human history. But an interactive story with TEN THOUSAND PARTICIPANTS? Nobody knows how to tell such a story.
Where to start... ok heroes. Ironically I keep asking you what got you into MMOs but it turns out it's different than my own reasons :o
I use Gandalf and co as examples because they're easy to recognise. Sure, you talk about not being heroes and that's actually perfect by me as heroes are cliched, HOWEVER you go by the only alternative being a military grunt: a blurred face in a uniformed mass. You forget the world of mercenaries and frontiersmen: skilled individuals who may or may not band together of their own will or to complete a job but never truly reach the heights of fantasy trilogies (though they might get a bit part or wander through a scene as it's getting shot :p ).
Honestly, how many games must you save the world in before it gets old?
If anyone thought we had to be 'heroes' because I mentioned adventure they were wrong. Did checking that dark wood when you were a kid save a burning village? I doubt it but that's adventure to me: exploring the unknown and being uncertain. That dark cave? Who knows what's in there and it's frighting like in mastersword because you can't just go "it's a level 10 area and I'm level 11 so it'll be fine". Little things like lighting and whatnot matter as they're outside of your control, they make you vulnerable, it's psychological and goes beyond the safe certainty of numbers. The monsters in horror movies are always scarier when you don't know what they look like... they're considerably less so once you finally see the guy in the rubber suit (especially when you con him and see he's 2 levels below you).
As for what I'd like, really? I want a world that doesn't need a fantastic GM or author... I want a Massively Multiplayer online game. The idea of authors and stuff? sure that's cool for backstory, setting the scene and even putting in some events or quests to introduce new players and maybe give people something to do when they're not busy with the rest of the game but in an ideal game the PLAYERS become the game. I'm talking shared sandbox here... Queen, Soldier, Mercenary, Farmer, you choose your path and hey, we can NPC peons in there to do the tasks nobody takes. While the ideal is fantastical I think a lesser form can be done... there were two games that people know from the days of yore: everquest and Ultima Online. We're still playing the everquest family of games here but the ultima family is closer to the direction I crave with only small vestiges of it in sight such as Eve (which I'd love to play but I prefer people to spaceships and the interface is god awful). I'd like to say planetside too but I've never played it :3
The whole thing with stats being visible being a 'necessary evil' is flawed logic too. Take zelda for example... the only arithmatic on the surface there is how many hearts you have. Outside of that there's no levelling or crud. You gain new equipment that expands your abilities and gain access to new areas via them or changes in the world. It's transparent and intuitive enough that you don't get people asking about them because they make perfect sense and they even often have fun little nuances that give them depth (that creature that gave you hastle before because it could only attacked from behind? guess what, the hookshot tears the armoured mask off it making it much easier).
We get so tied up in the carrot we forget that the best games are enjoyable experiences with the reward simply being play itself. Does everything have to be stuffed with incentives?
While I'm talking about levels and stats, levels are part of the reason I get pissed off with content and the source of 'grind'. Think about it... I talk to everyone so say I befriend someone only to find out they're uber high compared to me. If I want to play alongside them without holding them back I need to level. I level slower than anyone I know because I normally do what I find fun but inevitably I'll do a little bit of the less enjoyable stuff to play catch-up. The irony is that sometimes the things I use for my 'xp sprints' are stuff I'd actually enjoyed if I'd done it when I chose to but no, I want to play and everyone I know is higher up so I can't stay down here without causing others problems.
To illustrate how bad it is, I help people in games all the times and one time in Ragnarok while sitting on a giant flower contemplating what to do today with my level 20 odd thief a super high level assassin (equivalent to like a level 120 thief if you like) was walking past with two fresh thieves in tow. He suddenly exclaimed "Oh my god! It's you! Hey guys! This is Jemma, she helped me out big time when I was level 1 and totally new to the game." The two new players seemed fairly awestruck as the uber-player gushed about how cool this lowly level 20 (only about 10 above them) was :p
Turns out he was helping them learn the ropes too (said I'd inspired him with my kindness... who knows, true or not I just like people helping each other out :3 ).
Ok... what else? Ah, why don't we complain about prince of persia being all combat? Well for one it's not. It has lots of cool platform stunt parkour stuff and for another it ends. That's right, ending saves it :p
The combat is more entertaining in single player games I tend to find but by virtue most of them tend to end long before repetition kicks in to the point of boredom. MMOs don't have that luxury and yet their combat outside of PvP, as I've mentioned a few times before, is not only worse than in single player games but utterly devoid of variation. Every monster outside of the instanced raid bosses are pretty much reskins of the same AI with different abilities tacked on: get into attack range and use abilities in set cycle. That's not utterly awful on it's own (though it doesn't help) but your response to these predictable encounters? It's that combo you killed the last 5 billion other forgettable battles with. You and the monster... they almost never change except when new abilities get added to your combo list.
PvP is the only sanctuary from it sadly and ironically despite all these issues MMOs probably have more combat in them proportionally than even the most blood-thirsty single player games do unless you include AFK time :3
I'd love to craft in games like WoW but the actual action of making something is mindless and even those who 'enjoy' crafting only enjoy either the end result or the thought of getting to that end result while they make 50 copies of a weapon they'll probably have to vendor because they've flooded the market.
And now... the greatest novel of all... guilds :3
My problems with guilds are two fold. One is personal, the other is more general. I'll tackle the general one first as that's the important one.
The general problem isn't actually guilds but guild SYSTEMS. That is, aspects of the game that make a guild a mechanic. People hanging about and calling themselves something is fairly harmless, giving those people unique parts of the game however is harmful. It means if you don't sign on the dotted mechanical line somewhere you're missing out and this leads to some really cruddy behaviour. For example let's look at city of villians. In that your guild gets a super base and hey, who doesn't like building a cool base? Yeah, and you get free resources for recruiting. Net result? People spamming the starter zone with recruitment to the point it makes your eyes bleed and people joining guilds enmasse to see these cool features leading to unstable guilds full of infighting or people with no real interest in each other.
WoW doesn't have toooo many guild-specific things but it does still have guild chat... what a wonderful mechanic: you and your guildies can speak to each other cut off from the MASSIVEMO world. Might as well call it Many Guilds Online :p
Guilds will happen, some people like banding together under an identity but it's the baiting and the mechanics that go on in MMOs that truely annoys me. It's harmful to the overall community of the game in the long run. Heck, I should know... I've played several large MMOs that didn't feature guild mechanics of any form and the community was much nicer. I've also seen those games later gain guild mechanic systems and the drop in social quality was alarmingly evident to me at least.
My personal issue with guilds? I don't need them yet they're forced down my throat constantly :p
Let me explain in massive detail...
My first guild experience was in Aliens versus Predator. In that game I was an alien player tour de force: the maps were my playground. I'd often spend my time calmly watching from the shadows and having fun, occasionally scuttling out to push my score back up near the top or just to wreak havoc and giggle. If any other aliens crossed me or got in my way I'd kill them. Predators I generally ran out of the server with concentrated attacks and marines were my playthings... I was arrogant but rightly so :D
Then one day I saw an alien player who amazed me. They did things I couldn't even comprehend and I was dazzled. I was also flattered that they immediately spotted my skill as well as they very quickly ended up inviting me to a trial for their clan as we chatted among splattered marine corpses. I passed their test easily and I'd hang out with my new friend quite often.
The problem is... while in the clan not only did I not see much of the other clanners but what little I did see left me cold. They were nice enough people but most were substandard in my view. Most greviously of all were the one or two who weren't that nice... skill or not if you're not a nice person you lose by default in my book. The thought that eventually occurred to me was "why am I even in this clan? I'm only here for one person and I don't need to be part of this to be friends with them" and so I left.
Years later I found my way into the MMO genre and also PSO and the guild phenomenon popped up again though this time slightly differently. At first people asked me to be part of their guild (keep in mind that the games I'm about to talk about didn't have guild systems so this was just people sticking a tag infront of their name or whatever). I quickly realised though that I was being included not just because they liked me but because I get on with people. "what's the problem?" I hear you cry!
Simple... reputation and recruitment.
Let's say there's someone who helps out and gets on with people to the point where a lot of people like to be around them. Now say you can get your clan associate with such a person... BANG! Your guild's getting lots of people wanting to join... being part of your clique is like some official stamp of approval for it from that person: almost a recommendation if you will. The clan leeches from that person's reputation.
Needless to say I left these shallow groups, somewhat annoyed as I realised that my casual association had been 'used' I guess. But that wasn't the end of it... people started to gather around me still and so I made a forum for people I'd met to all chat and keep in touch. Before I knew it people were calling themselves part of this group (which had it's own lil name based off the characters I played) and despite my constant warnings to all this wasn't a guild it pretty much became one in all but name.
Of course, this leads to exclusivity... people seem to like being part of something they're not: it's like the psychology behind 'elite groups'; by being in one that makes you special and gives you identity. Of course, some people started speaking for the group on some things (and quickly wished they hadn't when I found out). In the end I wandered off... I got tired of keeping people in line and playing mother all the time and in some ways it annoyed me that one of the 'guilds' that I'd unwittingly absorbed into my group was still trying to call our group by their name from time to time (it never caught on and it was the few rather than the many but it still irked me).
In other games since then I've had people begging and pleading me... either to make a guild they can all join or for me to join their guild. It gets old fast.
After all this time I've pondered on it and I've come to a conclusion that might be wrong or right but it feels like it fits.
I think people join guilds a lot of the time as a matter of identity. They enjoy being part of something, maybe because it's bigger than them or they're proud of their association: "yeah! me and my friends are awesome!". Else they wouldn't need to name it and sign a charter, it'd be called a 'friends list'.
Me? I've got my identity all sorted out and in my over-confident mindset no group is bigger than I am... they can have lots of people, lots of epics and stats and levels or whatever but for me they're all overshadowed by the arrogant but charming collosus that is me :p
I'm being somewhat tongue in cheek but it's honestly not far from the truth. I like helping people and I like making sure people have fun: this makes me well known and generally well liked as a side effect. Those who don't like me quickly learn I won't take their crud either and that just seems to net me even more popularity as I shut up or run off jerks, thieves and other nasty people.
Scarily, for the longest time I thought MMOs were like this for everyone as when I was around everyone I talked to would get on and chat. My only inkling that I wasn't seeing the full picture was when, in university, a lecturer was asking us about our experiences in online games and a friend of mine said that in Neocron nobody talked and it was generally quite closed off. I looked at him as if he'd just proclaimed he was the fifth teenage mutant hero turtle because it was like night to the day of my own experiences. I quickly rattled off dozens of social moments I remembered fondly with my old favourite being the time I had a whole street of people pushing me along to the nearest inventory depot because I'd been given some stuff by a friend who was leaving the game and after they logged I realised I'd went so over my carry limit I couldn't physically move anymore XD
That revelation softened my attitude towards guilds, but not much as you can tell :3
Oh as a last note, I enjoy meeting new people often and so, while I like having existing friends about I don't like the feeling of having to look after them if it means it interferes constantly with me helping newer players out. Strangely clans seem to get people into the mindset that they deserve your time more than anyone else so I'm more likely to get constantly poked for help or whatnot while in a clan and believe me, I get enough people whispering/bothering me as it is without that slapped ontop XD
~phew~ I think that covered most things plus hey, now you have a bit of my history ;D
To give WoW a lil credit and maybe get back to the topic a lil more... I'm intrigued by something I read about today in the expansion: open-world instances or 'phasing'. Anyone care to shed light on it as it sounds kinda interesting :3
Is it still a major pain in the arse to play on the EU reals as an American or vice verse?
--Scythe--
Leveling 1-70 is now a breeze (1-60 was made a breeze in TBC, 60-70 in WotLK). My GF is back to playing WoW, she finally has her first post 60+, and was going about a level a day for 60-68. She is far from a hardcore gamer <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />.
Once she hits 70 and buys WotLK I might jump on her account to see if DKs are interesting enough for me to reup, I kinda doubt it. I miss playing games with my GF, but WoW has just burned me out too far this time I think.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
With DKs having a twofold resource system(Runes and Runic Power- Runic Power like rage that is only made through skills, and runes being used for the abilities that build up runic power. Then you use specific abilities to dump runic power), tons of counters, tons of abilities in general- I'd say that for PvE, they require more knowledge of how the game works than any other tank, while DPS wise work pretty simply. In PvP, they have TONS of abilities with TONS of requirements- if you know what you're doing, you can make one work beautifully. If not, you'll get steamrolled.
Overall, its a very interesting class. I'd never drop my Enhancement Shaman though(<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51532" target="_blank">Maelstrom Weapon</a> is just too good).
Leveling 1-70 is now a breeze (1-60 was made a breeze in TBC, 60-70 in WotLK). My GF is back to playing WoW, she finally has her first post 60+, and was going about a level a day for 60-68. She is far from a hardcore gamer <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />.
Once she hits 70 and buys WotLK I might jump on her account to see if DKs are interesting enough for me to reup, I kinda doubt it. I miss playing games with my GF, but WoW has just burned me out too far this time I think.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I played during TBC- I think my last subscription was January this year.
I see MMOs as a genre where if you're playing with people you know it's great- but if you play sporadically = fall behind your friends = playing mostly solo = it's not so much fun. As I work the 9-5 and am not online every day I end up with the latter way of thinking.
If you got xp for PvP ala WAR I could quite happily play BGs on my own, but IIRC you don't get xp so it's pretty worthless PVPing below the level cap (or at least at the lowly levels I played at)
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For someone in the UK, playing on Frostwolf, in a word, <b>sucked</b>. I know you get it nearly as bad Scythe, but it really, really did. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--QuoteBegin-http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=2075657#post2075657+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=2075657#post2075657)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Athens, Greece – December 5th, 2008 - Audio Visual Enterprises SA and Aventurine SA in a joint statement today announced that their highly anticipated MMORPG title <u>Darkfall Online will launch across Europe on January 22nd, 2009</u>. North American players are also welcome to participate in the European launch of Darkfall which will precede a North American launch.
More details to be announced as they become available.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think Darkfall might be more to your tastes, Gem.
Well. Apart from the horrible graphics.
I like soap boxes. They're great: You can stand on them and make a speech, but flimsy and cheap enough that you can smash them with vigour to make a point. And I really like my soap boxes. It's much more fun to talk to twenty people than it is to talk to one, because some of those twenty people might actually listen. I use forums, I use IRC, and I (reluctantly) use instant messengers. Those of you I speak with the most, I speak with on forums and in IRC. Instant messengers are a barely necessary evil to me. I'd much rather that all the people I cared to talk to just hung out in the same IRC channel.
MMOs have instant messengers and they have IRC. The instant messenger is called a "friends list," IRC is called a "guild." Would be awesome if you could join multiple <strike>channels</strike> guilds, by the way. But anyway, a guild allows me to get the people I like into the same channel.
Sure, MMOs have zone chat, or, rarely, even global chat. WoW calls it General, or /1. But have you SEEN those places? They're ######-clogged sewer pipes. IRC channels don't work without moderation. If you have anything but the BRIEFEST conversation in one of those channels, you'll get harassed and abused, or you'll get spammed with INANE ###### ABOUT CHUCK NORRIS. I don't want to deal with that ######. Report them to a GM? Oh please. Put 'em on ignore? NOT FEASIBLE. These games have ignore lists that can take maybe twenty people. IT'S A ######ING MMO! 75% OF THESE PEOPLE ARE JACKASSES! I NEED AN IGNORE LIST THAT CAN TAKE SEVEN THOUSAND PEOPLE, NOT TWENTY!
So that's the problem. I can't keep the jackasses out of the public channels, and I can't ignore all of them. My only recourse, my only REFUGE is to make my own channel and make it invite only and LEAVE THE JACKASSES IN THE COLD. And that's what a guild is to me. Call me elitist, call me isolationist, I WELCOME IT. If I end up missing out on nice, meaningful interactions with some good people, that's a price I'm willing to pay to SPARE ME THE JACKASSES.
I think Darkfall might be more to your tastes, Gem.
Well. Apart from the horrible graphics.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Seriously? Darkfall is a joke. That thing's been in development longer than DNF, it feels like.
Let alone the fact that throughout it's existence no one's done a preview, hands on, even had a ######ing video of the game played for them. I'll be interested to see what happens to a game that no one but the creators playtested, but my hopes aren't high.
And I want instantenous communication over something as large as WoW. Talking to someone while next to their character makes no difference than talking to them from another continent. IRC chat in an MMO is simply far more practical.
Overall, its a very interesting class. I'd never drop my Enhancement Shaman though(<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51532" target="_blank">Maelstrom Weapon</a> is just too good).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, yah. I am a geek. I have been following the game, reading guides, checking out skills etc etc etc. But every time I am about to go and resub (I actually installed and fully patched), I realize I really don't want to play it currently.
<!--quoteo(post=1695306:date=Dec 6 2008, 06:09 AM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sherpa @ Dec 6 2008, 06:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695306"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I played during TBC- I think my last subscription was January this year.
I see MMOs as a genre where if you're playing with people you know it's great- but if you play sporadically = fall behind your friends = playing mostly solo = it's not so much fun. As I work the 9-5 and am not online every day I end up with the latter way of thinking.
If you got xp for PvP ala WAR I could quite happily play BGs on my own, but IIRC you don't get xp so it's pretty worthless PVPing below the level cap (or at least at the lowly levels I played at)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yah, WAR looked like it would have been awesome, but I ended up with some bad experiences with it, and burned out there also...
Let alone the fact that throughout it's existence no one's done a preview, hands on, even had a ######ing video of the game played for them. I'll be interested to see what happens to a game that no one but the creators playtested, but my hopes aren't high.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://fightingamphibians.com/v/res/28322.html" target="_blank">http://fightingamphibians.com/v/res/28322.html</a>
fire away
As for guilds in regards to a way of organising I have two trains of thought on that... one is, as you mentioned, if they're for organisation then just let people join multiple... that kills off some of the elitism, seperatism and a lot of other issues.
The other? The other is a tad complex... or not.
My second train of thought is the utterly mad idea that if I want to keep in touch with people like I do in IRC... I'll use IRC :p
Whispers, chat channels, guild chat... in this train of thought I dislike them. I even dislike area chat and trade chat.
You want to talk to someone? You send them a carrier pigeon or meet them in the virtual flesh :p
You want to trade? You can set up a stall and leave an NPC tending it, or even sit and manage it yourself if you like chatting to customers. Awkward? Yeah I know, but a game is about obstacles. If we just remove everything that is inconvienent we should throw away levels (I'd actually agree with that though XD ), everyone should just start with the best loot and monsters should just die when you're in the general vicinity and immediately fill your coffers with almost limitless money.
If you make communication an actual part of the game it draws you in: chatting with people next to you being no different from people a continent away? Sure it is. In real-life or in-game. If you see the person you make mental attachments of what they say and their personality to the persona onscreen. If there's nobody on screen? No such attachments or the those that are made are far more vague.
On a bit of a tangent the 'jerks' you ignore on general chat are interesting. Y'see those jerks are people. Who knows why they're like that? Tell you what... you might know but you might be able to find out.
Generally, if someone is being annoying on chat I'll tackle them. I can drive them off if needs be but more often than not I'll start asking them questions, I'll try and work out what makes them tick... you said earlier LF about treating symptoms rather than the illness and in many ways I feel avoiding the 'jerks', hiding from them in special channels or blocking them is symptom treatment fully at work.
I've seen one of these so called jerks CREATED in a game of NS.
A new player uncertain of what they were doing joined the alien team. He asked a lot of questions and in my usual helpful manner I welcomed him to the game and started helping him out. Everyone else pretty much left me to it because they were set on winning. Straight off the bat I could hear (he was using voice) this kid was going to go either way... with some nurturing and patience they could be a nice player but it'd be very easy for him to join the 'screaming masses'.
Now, along comes a crucial moment in the game where we're pushing on a major point, it's key that we keep units out of the area for reasons I no longer remember but our new player rushes in eager to help before anyone can warn him otherwise... his unknowing actions cause a crushing set back that gets many of us killed and everyone being oh-so-serious starts giving the kid abuse. At first the kid is genuinely confused, he seems to understand he did something wrong because everyone's screaming at him but he doesn't know what happened, let alone what it was he did himself that caused it but instead of anyone calmly giving feed back all he gets is a constant barrage of abuse (despite me telling people to ease off). Under this torrent of anger I heard him transform from someone with promise into another kid who hates other players and has tantrums down the mic just as he quit. You get what you give.
Another example? Ok, here I am in WoW waiting for a battleground when a 'pvp kiddie' comes up and starts poking me for a duel. I can tell they're not someone who loses well and their writing isn't stellar either... more importantly I'm not in a duelling mood. At first I politely decline a few times then he tells me I'm a coward and whatnot. I get a sense that I could do something here and so acting on my intuition I finally accept. The battle didn't last long and his gristly little gnome rogue fell before my rather peaceful looking non-uber Dranei shaman. Predictably his response come in the "OH MY GOD MY CLASS SUCKS! IT'S SO UNFAIR! THIS GAME SUX!" category. I quickly but patiently jump in and tell him that no... it's not the class or game... it's strategy. The balanced between us wasn't important instead the reason I'd won was my tactics and if he was willing I'd teach him how and what he could do to counter it. He seemed dubious but intrigued.
I went on to chat to him about how he'd fought and what I'd done to capitalise on it, combined with tips on what his class could do to counter those.
Feeling more confident he asks, in much better english, for another duel to try it out. We fight again and while I mostly fight him properly I let up a little and narrowly beat him. I could have let him win but it turns out I'd been right so far as he wanted another go, feeling he could improve. I gave him a few pointers and we sparred again, with me pretty much repeating what I did last match: no less, no more and he beats me. He's overjoyed and much happier and at the same time I'm pleased to notice that his manners have improved a heck of a lot as he thanks me for a good match.
I didn't see that player again but the change in that small space of time was good for my soul :3
I've had people who were abusing everyone on general chat pouring out their life story and doubts to me and promising to be better people. I've had people with no respect for anyone hold me in high regard. I've had people who leetspeek and talk gibberish have very interesting conversations with me about what's on their mind in perfect english. If you know when to listen and when to shout you can snap people out of it more times than you realise.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think every 'jerk' can be taught, tamed or counselled but a lot can and many are caused by the online society they come into. Sure, you can ignore them or hide from them but it doesn't really make them go away.
You often here people complain about society but the important part that many miss is that THEY are a part of that very society.
I don't expect everyone to have the will or empathy I do but a little bit of tolerance and understanding goes a long way. You don't have to accept bad behaviour either but just be aware that sometimes the reaction to being ignored is causing harm to try and draw a reaction.
I guess the risky side of this all is that you can be idolized and sometimes it can even lead to rather desperate situations as people struggle with themselves. One abusive player I talked down would follow me everywhere as a devoted follower and he'd be rather aggressive to anyone who pretty much didn't fall at my feet. I had to tell him off a lot but like some kind of puppy he'd cringe and apologize from any sharp word I gave him... it was like keeping him on a leash and while I guess it had some novelty it was quite a hastle and I'm not really the 'dominating' type who enjoys that kinda stuff :p
Another player who had been quite withdrawn and quiet (not abusive in the slightest) I pulled out of their shell: I got them involved with everyone and they had a great time... the downside? Turns out in real-life he went to a special school and so had a few mental problems... while this wasn't an issue in the game it seems that his mother attempted to stop him playing at some point (I don't know the exact details) and he flew into a rage at the idea of being unable to see their only real friends (seems they didn't really talk much to their school mates either) and put a chair through a door. Kinda disturbing. I think he calmed down a lot after that though and while we saw him online with us a lot no further stories of violent outbursts reached our ears (though finding out about his special school and his life was actually quite interesting :o ).
One last of the 'darker' sides of this... one person I got chatting to online was disheartened a great deal, they never seemed to find anything cool, they didn't seem to 'gell' with people online and they took a long time to level. With a friend I took him for a spin in PSO equipped with special gear I used to boost new players and we not only netted him some pretty stuff and xp but he seemed to enjoy it. It was all going great when he accidentally got killed and his mood seemed to spiral down from there. Next thing I know he's logged off with my special training stuff still on his character! Incensed I ask what he's playing at and he's all evasive before eventually saying that he'd give my items back if I came meet him alone in a private game. I was angry and worried because not only was some of the gear difficult or nigh-on impossible to find but some were gifts contributed by friends over the time I'd spent playing. I went through, avoiding telling everyone in the lobby who seemed to notice something was amiss and started becoming concerned. I went in and I met the silly.
I was civil but kurt... he demanded personal details about me... wanted to know if my character's name was my real one and other things. I told him that I couldn't be bullied into telling him anything again and again. He started whining that he never seemed to find cool things like I did and continued to try and press me for details. Keeping this up for a short while I found my patience overstretched and verbally blasted him with the facts (e.g. I found most of my stuff myself and it took time and effort, I didn't just roll in day one and have everything handed to me on a silver platter, that holding people's things, virtual or otherwise, hostage to try and force them into things was morally wrong and other truths). He burst into a grief-filled wail about life being unfair, dropped my stuff at my feet and logged out. I breathed a sigh of relief, though a tinge of regret that I couldn't have handled the situation more artfully lingered.
Later he got in touch with me and apologized profusely... it turns out he was a manic depressive; a bipolar (which explains the odd mood swings at least :p ). He seemed to hold me in even higher regard than before as while I'd scorched him I hadn't blocked him, got everyone after him or anything else nasty (and believe me, a lot of people wanted to teach him a lesson but I held them back). Seems others before had been pretty nasty to him after that kind of stuff. I was pretty cautious about him after that but I'm still glad it wasn't as bad a result as it could have been.
I've lost track of what I was talking about now but it was kinda fun recounting that stuff :D
<b>edit:</b> spelling mistakes :o
Remind me to never, ever, buy any book written by you. Your stream of consciousness is bad for me.
Sorry for kinda turning these into lengthy essays :3
If it's any consolation my creative writing isn't prone to stream of consciousness :D
I've taken a lot of ###### from people I know because I KNOW they're alright. I can forgive that. But if I don't know you, you start out at zero, and if your first action is to ROCKET into ######sville, I'll treat you like one - by swiftly placing you on my ignore list. I can't have meaningful relationships with thousands of people anyway, they blur together into an amorphous mass of behavioral stereotypes. I'd much rather get the chaff out of the way with minimal fuss, and if some of the wheat accidentally ends up with them, hey, there's plenty of wheat left yet.
I've taken a lot of ###### from people I know because I KNOW they're alright. I can forgive that. But if I don't know you, you start out at zero, and if your first action is to ROCKET into ######sville, I'll treat you like one - by swiftly placing you on my ignore list. I can't have meaningful relationships with thousands of people anyway, they blur together into an amorphous mass of behavioral stereotypes. I'd much rather get the chaff out of the way with minimal fuss, and if some of the wheat accidentally ends up with them, hey, there's plenty of wheat left yet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
~shrug~ like I said I don't expect everyone to be able to handle others, it's just one of my things to note that problem people are usually symptom of a society that complains about them yet never takes any responsibility for producing them in the first place... it's as much an aspect of real-life as it is games :3
That said I also think games designers should be somewhat responsible as they design the social mechanics that their game's populace will be built around. It's a lot easier to be annoying without a care if neither you nor your victim can 'physically' see each other (also see penny arcade's law of the internet :p ) and while this is more of a real-life thing a partial part of this also works in games to a certain extent: if you can see each other's custom avatars people can be a little less vicious. There's a lot of factors that could be taken into account when designing an MMO that might help fashion a better community and it goes far beyond the mere chat mechanics.
I don't play MMOs for meaningful relationships: I play them to mix with lots and lots of people... the more the better. I won't see most of them again half the time but it's fun to interact with an ever-shifting populace with every day bringing new experiences via people that static content could never fulfil.
If meaningful relationships pop up along the way? That's just an expected side effect and not one I complain about :3
so... open instances? Has anyone seen this stuff in action? I wanna know about them! I've heard the death knights get a quest that uses them rather spectacularly or something? :o
More interesting is the phasing system: After a long quest line of yours has touched off a climactic battle (which is handled through an ACTUAL cutscene), the area has changed accordingly: The battlefield is in ruins, the remainder of the army in panicked disarray, and Importantguy McHeropants, who has now thoroughly snuffed it, is missing from his usual NPC spot. I haven't fully explored the intricacies of how this system works, but I presume that if I poke Newbie McSlowlevel (who has not yet completed this quest line), who is standing right next to me on the overlook where once stood Importantguy McHeropants, and point out to him the ruined battlefield where took place the mighty confrontation in which Importantguy McHeropants fell, he'll ask me wtf I'm talking about: The battlefield is still as pristine as a battlefield can ever be, the armies are arrayed and ready for the upcoming battle, and Importantguy McHeropants is standing right next to us looking important and heroic.
In short, the world as you perceive it can be changed: A questgiver such as Importantguy McHeropants can be killed off permanently once you have completed his quests. Those who haven't completed his quests can still see him, but in your continuity he's dead. I doubt it's much more than a gimmick at the moment, but one with potential.
That's the upside at least... the downside is that the inconsistancy of the world between players will be a tad weird and in many ways is almost an odd kind of step towards a more 'single player' experience if you get what I mean.
Ah well, that's the way WoW was built from the start so I guess this is the next logical step and as you say: it's interesting regardless :3