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the Dao of "games journalism"

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    PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    FUCK YES

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    I like MMOs, in theory anyway.

    It should capsulize people working together towards a singular goal. bringing a nation to power, rediscovering lost artifacts, defending a nation from those artifacts.

    The problem is they are all now world of warcraft, which has kinda shitty psedu turn based combat and a set narrative structure. it's not very interesting. TOR seems to be trying to play with part of it, Guild wars 2 seems to have taken a step towards it, but is doing enough different things to be kind of interesting, but it feels a lot more like an mmo then i remember this first one.

    Basically, someone needs to make an mmo with a lot of the mmo trappings, but get rid of the fucking combat and play being shit to make up for thousands of people being in it at once. i can understand why it happens, but when instancing is a thing for quests, make it so instance combat plays like a multiplayer game. i can shoot dudes in real time in halo 2, why can't i do it years later in this?

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    YukiraYukira Registered User regular
    Yukira wrote: »
    MMOs are fine if you're with a group of people you like and enjoy playing with. But they're intentionally designed to have everything take much longer than it would in single players so you keep paying that 15 dollars a month. Nothing is short in an MMO.

    The entire Madness of Deathwing encounter.

    Yeah, pretty much. Raid bosses in WoW at least don't take very long once you've got them down (even Madness doesn't, 12 minutes on the final boss isn't so long in a single player game) but they're set up in such a way that you have to take multiple attempts to get to that point. So a 12 minute boss is actually, depending on difficulty, a 12+ hour boss over the course of a few weeks.

    12 minutes is too damn long.

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    StiltsStilts Registered User regular
    Antimatter wrote: »
    I've never really gotten into an mmo before

    I've tried a few times but they've always just totally bored me

    Which is a shame because on paper they sound like they're right up my alley

    same

    i'm even starting to get bored of spiral knights

    I think the biggest thing that hinders MMO design is the fact that they expect you to play them for as long as the servers are up.

    Which means their pacing becomes horrendously bloated, because what team could create enough content to last for upwards of a year and not burn through an absurd amount of development time and cash? Even doing everything there is to do in Skyrim probably wouldn't take you a year. So they create a typical RPG's-worth of content, but make getting to that content as slow as they dare.

    And for several million people, that pacing is fine. But for a whole lot of others (myself included), I'd rather just play a 40-hour RPG to get a better story, better pacing and the same amount of content. I think the only reason I stuck with Guild Wars 1 as long as I did (over two years) is because it felt less like an MMO and more like an RPG I could play with friends.

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    Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    Yukira wrote: »
    Yukira wrote: »
    MMOs are fine if you're with a group of people you like and enjoy playing with. But they're intentionally designed to have everything take much longer than it would in single players so you keep paying that 15 dollars a month. Nothing is short in an MMO.

    The entire Madness of Deathwing encounter.

    Yeah, pretty much. Raid bosses in WoW at least don't take very long once you've got them down (even Madness doesn't, 12 minutes on the final boss isn't so long in a single player game) but they're set up in such a way that you have to take multiple attempts to get to that point. So a 12 minute boss is actually, depending on difficulty, a 12+ hour boss over the course of a few weeks.

    12 minutes is too damn long.

    When you're trying to learn it and the hardest part of the fight to master is in the last 2 minutes, yeah. But I don't think it's too long on principle. So long as we one shot it, it's not even too long now. Although, I wasn't present during progression for him, so it probably doesn't count.

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    DichotomyDichotomy Registered User regular
    standard MMO gameplay design needs to be torn down such that one brick is not stacked upon another

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    QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    I wonder what an MMO might look like if it didn't rely on awkward pacing to stretch limited content

    Like, what kind of relatively iterative tasks would people want to repeat that aren't grinding, what kinds of interactions are most fulfilling

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    All of these things being said, i'm glad a lot of games are going to a free to play set up. It lets them take risks they might not be able to other wise. yeah it means more compromises, but a lot of them if you're paying for stuff you get about the same level of game from a paid mmo, and it's often a bit more interesting then just now my horse is purple.

    Also means you tend to have to make an excellent opening, because most f2p players i know, if the game doesn't grab them quickly they're gone forever. paid mmos you got them for a bit because "well i paid 60 bucks for this"

    I'm also interested in seeing where this neverwinter game will end up. now that it's full free to play and now kind of an action game?

    I'm interested to see what cryptic can do when spending more then 18 months on an mmo.

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    EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    The more I think about "my" kind of MMO, the more I realise that what I'm describing wouldn't really be an MMO, it'd just be some generic mulitplayer game with some level of faction consistency/rankings and territory

    Hmmph

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    Edcrab wrote: »
    The more I think about "my" kind of MMO, the more I realise that what I'm describing wouldn't really be an MMO, it'd just be some generic mulitplayer game with some level of faction consistency/rankings and territory

    Hmmph

    you should check our hybrid. it's a team based cover shooter with a conquest meta game.

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    TheStigTheStig Registered User regular
    I want a Trails: Evolution MMO.

    bnet: TheStig#1787 Steam: TheStig
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    EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    Melding wrote: »
    Edcrab wrote: »
    The more I think about "my" kind of MMO, the more I realise that what I'm describing wouldn't really be an MMO, it'd just be some generic mulitplayer game with some level of faction consistency/rankings and territory

    Hmmph

    you should check our hybrid. it's a team based cover shooter with a conquest meta game.

    When did "cover shooter" become a widely used term anyway

    FPSs have always seemed to have cover of a sort but then one day someone had the wonderful idea of letting you snap to cover and regenerate health

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    WietWiet Mao Mao Registered User regular
    Edcrab wrote: »
    The more I think about "my" kind of MMO, the more I realise that what I'm describing wouldn't really be an MMO, it'd just be some generic mulitplayer game with some level of faction consistency/rankings and territory

    Hmmph

    This is what Mechwarrior Online is gonna do. It's basically giant robots slugging it out foremost, capturing planets and the like comes second. I'm really hoping that kind of game model will work because oh God this game can't fail on me.

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    QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    Can we compile a list of typical MMO components?

    Grinding
    Collecting
    Delivering
    Exploring
    Crafting
    Auctioning/trading/selling
    Colonizing
    Dueling
    Raiding
    Conquering/occupying

    What else?

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    Kuribo's ShoeKuribo's Shoe Kuribo's Stocking North PoleRegistered User regular
    Pharezon wrote: »
    FUCK YES

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    calling @pipthefair

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    Edcrab wrote: »
    Melding wrote: »
    Edcrab wrote: »
    The more I think about "my" kind of MMO, the more I realise that what I'm describing wouldn't really be an MMO, it'd just be some generic mulitplayer game with some level of faction consistency/rankings and territory

    Hmmph

    you should check our hybrid. it's a team based cover shooter with a conquest meta game.

    When did "cover shooter" become a widely used term anyway

    FPSs have always seemed to have cover of a sort but then one day someone had the wonderful idea of letting you snap to cover and regenerate health

    i blame Tom Clancy and gears of war.

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    FishmanFishman Put your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain. Registered User regular
    Quoth wrote: »
    Can we compile a list of typical MMO components?

    Grinding
    Collecting
    Grinding
    Delivering
    Grinding
    Exploring
    Grinding
    Crafting
    Grinding
    Auctioning/trading/selling
    Grinding
    Colonizing
    Grinding
    Dueling
    Grinding
    Raiding
    Grinding
    Conquering/occupying
    Grinding
    Grinding
    Grinding
    Grinding
    Grinding
    ...

    What else?

    X-Com LP Thread I, II, III, IV, V
    That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
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    QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    My follow up question was going to involve which of those things was most annoying and how to address that

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    DichotomyDichotomy Registered User regular
    have they yet made an MMO that rejects all of the standard MMO design decisions and instead chooses to be a fun video game first and a large-scale multiplayer experience second

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Dichotomy wrote: »
    have they yet made an MMO that rejects all of the standard MMO design decisions and instead chooses to be a fun video game first and a large-scale multiplayer experience second

    nope.

    wait, does gta 4 multiplayer count?

    Melding on
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    ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    Quoth wrote: »
    Can we compile a list of typical MMO components?

    Grinding
    Collecting
    Delivering
    Exploring
    Crafting
    Auctioning/trading/selling
    Colonizing
    Dueling
    Raiding
    Conquering/occupying

    What else?

    what does "getting fucked in the ass by some dude who thinks it's hysterical to run through a lower zone with his max level character and prevent anyone from doing anything for like an hour straight" fall

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    Buttlord wrote: »
    Quoth wrote: »
    Can we compile a list of typical MMO components?

    Grinding
    Collecting
    Delivering
    Exploring
    Crafting
    Auctioning/trading/selling
    Colonizing
    Dueling
    Raiding
    Conquering/occupying

    What else?

    what does "getting fucked in the ass by some dude who thinks it's hysterical to run through a lower zone with his max level character and prevent anyone from doing anything for like an hour straight" fall

    trading, and conquering.

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    QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    I think that falls under dueling but we can add griefing if you want

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    Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    Dichotomy wrote: »
    have they yet made an MMO that rejects all of the standard MMO design decisions and instead chooses to be a fun video game first and a large-scale multiplayer experience second

    I would wager that none of them have ever been built the other way around either.

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    ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    that was literally the day i quit wow

    like

    nah i like playing with friends but it ain't worth it if this happens

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    StiltsStilts Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Buttlord wrote: »
    Quoth wrote: »
    Can we compile a list of typical MMO components?

    Grinding
    Collecting
    Delivering
    Exploring
    Crafting
    Auctioning/trading/selling
    Colonizing
    Dueling
    Raiding
    Conquering/occupying

    What else?

    what does "getting fucked in the ass by some dude who thinks it's hysterical to run through a lower zone with his max level character and prevent anyone from doing anything for like an hour straight" fall

    That dumb competition for enemy spawns is why I loved the heavy instancing in Guild Wars 1.

    So of course they got rid of it in GW2...

    Stilts on
    IKknkhU.gif
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    EdcrabEdcrab Actually a hack Registered User regular
    I still don't really get how/why PvP griefing works in MMOs

    As in I can't really wrap my head around why such a thing is even possible, I can easily understand the manchild mindset that finds it hilarious

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    Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    Griefing is shitty in any multiplayer game, because even in a PvE environment jerks will always find a way to do it.

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    ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    Stilts wrote: »
    Buttlord wrote: »
    Quoth wrote: »
    Can we compile a list of typical MMO components?

    Grinding
    Collecting
    Delivering
    Exploring
    Crafting
    Auctioning/trading/selling
    Colonizing
    Dueling
    Raiding
    Conquering/occupying

    What else?

    what does "getting fucked in the ass by some dude who thinks it's hysterical to run through a lower zone with his max level character and prevent anyone from doing anything for like an hour straight" fall

    That dumb competition for enemy spawns is why I loved the heavy instancing in Guild Wars 1.

    So of course they got rid of it in GW2...

    i was talking more camping in a central area and killing any low level characters that happen to be nearby

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    ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    the only game where i'm remotely ok with griefing is EVE because it's usually based around the economy and EVE has that insane ass economy that allows for and encourages that shit

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    StiltsStilts Registered User regular
    Buttlord wrote: »
    Stilts wrote: »
    Buttlord wrote: »
    Quoth wrote: »
    Can we compile a list of typical MMO components?

    Grinding
    Collecting
    Delivering
    Exploring
    Crafting
    Auctioning/trading/selling
    Colonizing
    Dueling
    Raiding
    Conquering/occupying

    What else?

    what does "getting fucked in the ass by some dude who thinks it's hysterical to run through a lower zone with his max level character and prevent anyone from doing anything for like an hour straight" fall

    That dumb competition for enemy spawns is why I loved the heavy instancing in Guild Wars 1.

    So of course they got rid of it in GW2...

    i was talking more camping in a central area and killing any low level characters that happen to be nearby

    Oh!

    Okay, yeah, that sucks WAY more. And thankfully it isn't possible in GW2. PvE and PvP are kept separate from each other.

    IKknkhU.gif
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    Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    EVE online is the most fascinating game to watch I never ever want to play.

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    ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    EVE online is the most fascinating game to watch I never ever want to play.

    pretty much yeah

    the entire 0.0 space war is insane, especially given that the original tactics that the goons used can be considered griefing

    and that some of the things that have caused major victories on that side were exploits or tricks or what have you

    and then the player-driven economy gets into and whoa

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    Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    And how one group is apparently trying to reset the economy by killing everyone around the central economic hub and force them to go to a different hub or some such. Heard about it on the bombcast, it sounds pretty amazing.

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    i love that the devs love this kind of shit. they are so fucking proud they made a game where this can happen. No other game could do this. And that's amazing.

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    PaperLuigi44PaperLuigi44 My amazement is at maximum capacity. Registered User regular
    Edcrab wrote: »
    Melding wrote: »
    Edcrab wrote: »
    The more I think about "my" kind of MMO, the more I realise that what I'm describing wouldn't really be an MMO, it'd just be some generic mulitplayer game with some level of faction consistency/rankings and territory

    Hmmph

    you should check our hybrid. it's a team based cover shooter with a conquest meta game.

    When did "cover shooter" become a widely used term anyway

    FPSs have always seemed to have cover of a sort but then one day someone had the wonderful idea of letting you snap to cover and regenerate health

    Gears of War was pretty big in popularizing that stuff.

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    ButtlordButtlord Fornicus Lord of Bondage and PainRegistered User regular
    Melding wrote: »
    i love that the devs love this kind of shit. they are so fucking proud they made a game where this can happen. No other game could do this. And that's amazing.

    pretty sure people were actually studying eve's economy for a bit

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    Buttlord wrote: »
    Melding wrote: »
    i love that the devs love this kind of shit. they are so fucking proud they made a game where this can happen. No other game could do this. And that's amazing.

    pretty sure people were actually studying eve's economy for a bit

    yeah, there is like, a real working economy in there, and that's fascinating. I'm looking forward to what the world of darkness game is like. cause apparently they want to do a similar thing.

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    Cilla BlackCilla Black Priscilla!!! Registered User regular
    I usually hear it as cover-based shooter, which is different than cover shooter. Plenty of shooters have had cover before, but only since Gears have you really gotten ones where the whole idea was you had to be tactical with using cover all the time, as opposed to your call of duty 2 and 4 types where cover is just a place to temporarily stop running and gunning for a few seconds.

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    MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    i say cover shooter because the cover is as important as the shootering. so like hybrid would be a flying cover shooter.

    I will admit this is not a universal style.

This discussion has been closed.