A Humble Plea About Future MMO's...

Gravy wrote:

I would interpret that though as players want to win, if you give them a locked door and a axe, or a hole in the wall next to it almost everyone is going to go through the hole in the wall to their objective. Once they've finished with the game though and done with it they'll move onto a game that actually holds their attention.
If anything WoW is the perfect example of that, the devs themselves have said that they are seeing players return for patches and play the game and finish with it faster and faster. But they are too focused on trying to allow "everyone to experience everything" in the game to realise that when there is nothing else someone wants to do then they move onto a new challenge.
Just putting in a hard mode raid isn't enough, lots of forum posters say "well you haven't done this, or completed achievement XYZ", but they miss the point that these players were never interested in that part of the game.
Iif most of the player base are not hard mode raiders they'll be finished with the game when they have completed all the dungeons/quests/storylines/tradeskilling/collections that they consider part of their game. I think a lot of the game designers out there really don't understand MMO's all that well.
They're not just one game that people play, instead I'd say they are a lot of games rolled into one persistant world, for people like me they are not even purely a game (I need a immersive gameworld to really make the experience special, at least for me (and judging how graphics and appearance is so important I guess for a lot of people) and the way I play it, whereas some raiders just live in a world of numbers and beating the next challenge).
Gravy wrote:

It was an interesting presentation, not sure if they came up with the right conclusions though.
The problem is that they had a FPS game that was F2P, they got a user base but over time people played the game and left and they were not making enough money to be viable.
So they added in play to win (just 20% benefits to gear etc) to a game that already had players. To me that's the key thing that they took forgranted, how many of those players who had invested a lot of time in the game would have run a mile if it had started as pay to win right from the get go? Seeing the next game they launch with pay to win in from the start will be more interesting.
Although it is true, pay to win exists out there and in its purest forum its pretty vile, take a read of this to see the ultimate destination
http://www.danwei.org/electronic_ga..._away_in_zt.php
But as it shows there are plenty of players in China prepared to spend 1000's of dollars to "win", I am under no illusion that there are not plenty in the west (who likely now do online gambling etc), but its just not my scene, and I think companies that get involved with it (or online gambling) tarnish their reputation at best.

salty21db wrote:

Eq1/Eq2/Vanguard player here started at 23...36 now
An old eq1 raider buddy and myself were discussing this exact topic the other night over beers...
I am voting for an "old-school" ruleset server in eqnext. One with mobs that stay KoS no matter who attacks them, or who just died...that have no leash and are perfect for training. One with XP loss rather than debt. One with significant death penalties, like..oh your gear stays on your corpse and if you do not recover it then it will rot. AND the only server that is not F2P but requires a credit card and a recurrent monthly sub.
I bet they will be suprised of the population on that unique ruleset server.

Streppoch@Guk wrote:

I see your spin on things and nod my head, mostly.
But all of this is a spin.
In the end, the only way to know what's and what's no is to just let time figure it out.
I could make my own thesis on it too, but I think the rest of you are doing fine.
Without making my own opinion too wordy, I think I'll say that I agree with the OP, mostly. WoW didn't make the game especially easy. It made things accessible, sure. But accessible doesn't mean easy. That's a mistake to think that way. What I think is actually going on is that we're losing some things and gaining others. It's not getting dumber.
Me, I tend to be very action-oriented. I love to jump at the right time, dodge, swing and turn, activate my ability just when it's needed, and so on. I hate to click the same button or buttons over and over and over. I hate camping. I hate it when I run out of options or feel like the game isn't giving me enough room. I love to concentrate on strategy.
Bottom line, I don't want to win or lose by default, I want to win or lose because of the choices I made. And I think that there needs to be a lot of leeway so that slower people have the time to keep up with the faster people. Instead of the player dying quicker at less than 20 percent health, they should actually die slower so that they have more time to concentrate instead of panicking. It's a great time to give players abilities and tools to escape from their dilemma. One thing I've been thinking about is the idea that a player would lose offense ability but would gain defense and runspeed. This would happen when they have low hitpoints. This is in addition to other abilities like Feign Death or Gate or Mezzing spells. What I don't like to see is getting crippled when I'm low health and dying within a couple hits. It feels forced.
I've never enjoyed dying in games. I always get mad. I always say to myself I should have tried this or I shouldn't have done that. I think developers should focus their efforts on those last 20 percent of hitpoints and figure things out. For example. when I pushed my character to the last couple percent of his hitpoints and died, would I have instead tried to run away IF GIVEN THE OPTION??? So, in other words, maybe I pushed my luck to the last couple percent because I felt I had no other choice. What if I had a choice? I don't think the idea that players will ALWAYS push themselves is a given.

Rosss@Everfrost wrote:

Your post highlights to me the difference between people looking for challenge and people looking for the past. You, sir, are looking for the past. You're unable to grasp the underlying truths in the game(s) you play. You attach the signficance to the parts of the game but you fail to see the whole. This prevents you from understand what makes games work.
One can play a game that has no death and no KOS creatures and no training and still be challenging. Challenge doesn't just come from one particular thing. This is why you shouldn't become attached to things blindly. It'll confuse you.
Trends change, but people's thirst for challenge doesn't. Like the OP said, everybody wants everything, but they also want to feel special. If everybody had everything then who's going to feel special? Challenge is the thing that stands between us and everything. It IS the reason we play. Without it, we would all have everything and nothing at the same time.

If you can't find challenge in EQ2, then you just aren't trying. You'll never find it at level though. You'll find it 3-5 levels above you though in the orange. And if you're packing a lot more AA's than most peeps at your level..you're going find your challenge in the red mobs and names.

But you have to take some responsibility to find what challenges you. Cause the 12 yr old playing on Dad's computer deserves to have just as good of a game experience as you do.
And that experience is here in EQ2 for both of you.

Raf

Raffir wrote:

Thing is, challenge isn't being smacked down by a red thing (necessarily). More HP and more DPS do not make an encounter challenging, they simply force you to be on top of things. If you're already on top of your game then it's either a gamble with your luck or a long drawn out (and boring) fight. Challenge is smarter than that. Challenge is about learning and forming a strategy that overcome. When the strategy itself becomes too linear then ti's not fun, just a grind.
But I agree with you that there's challenge in EQ2. I can't use a merc, for example. I can't use mastercrafted or legendary stuff. I stick to progression and avoid rewards that're outside the content I'm focusing on. This forces me to use every possible tool my character has available to him. But there does come a point where you learn most of the tricks and it's just straight work or luck after that. At that point, you simply hit the wall and it's time to either change how you play or play another game. Every game eventually becomes boring when you master its ins and outs.