Lol I read the title as "weather immersion" and I thought, yea games should have more realistic weather to help players feel immersed in the game.

Originally posted by templarga

The biggest immersion killer for me is honestly guilds that require vent and use Vent.

In games where I *try* and get immersed, LOTRO now for example, and DAOC ages ago, I would refuse to use Vent or any form of voice software.

Nothing like getting prepared for that big boss fight and someone screams over Vent: "OMG! Did you see that home run that Manny hit?!?!". Or the guys getting yelled at by his wife to take out the trash and he forgot he is holding down the push to talk button.

Rule #1 for me is: if I want immersion, stay away from voice chat.

I came to post about the same to this this article, at least I can agree with you totally :)
I understand the need, and sometimes even the wish, to use voiceware and there are times I did use them for and/or while in game. But everytime I do the world I dive into to have my gaming fun shrinks down to what it actually is: moving an avatar around on my computer's screen. Not only breaking the immersion, taking away a large part of fun, too...
 

Anyhow, maybe you could make a series out of this article: Major Immersion Breakers today. I feel that judging from its headline it only touches some very few aspects.

Ya wow, i can't believe i actually read through all of that.  A few good points, but you really failed to discuss "immersion" which WAS the topic, yes?  Instead you ranted on crafting and foraging and how drawling it is. No sh!t, eh? 

Well in her defense she did admit it was somewhat of a rant, did she not?

But the rant still follows with immersion. When developers make things like crafting, gathering and similar events painful and irritating it takes away from the immersion of the game because the player will generally say or think to themselves... "What F'n idiot put that into a game?"   instead of just rolling with the flow of the game.

Funny piece but not sure i really agree with much of it.

Which MMOs of the last 5 years really allow you to fail to craft stuff? Let alone fail to gather? Vanguard does, but only because it has a crafting system that is a full game in in itself. Other than that. all the others I've played are pretty much No Fail, at least once you have levelled past the recipe.

Domino, the crafting Dev in EQ2, is probably the most hands-on I've seen. I'd bet she crafts in real life as well as in game. Crafting there improved about 1000% after she took over.

I liked the sheer physicality of original EQ crafting. Having to open the forge and put the items into it, and having them actually "there" in the world, so that if you walked off and left something behind it would still be there for someone else to come across when they went to use the forge... that's immersion. But all the same I didn't craft to high levels there, whereas i did in later MMOs where it was just "stand vaguely near crafting station and press one button". Immersion doesn't always equal playability.

I do like complex interactions of wildlife/NPCs, though. Ryzom has some of the best.  You can watch the wildlife for a long time there and its as immersive as going on a nature walk. WAR has a very surprising degree of subtlety and variety in this regard, too, especially considering how "thin" the PvE is generally.

I do think a lot more could be done in this area in most MMOS, and it really does make a huge difference to player loyalty, Ithink.

mmos, by there very nature, completely obliterate immersion.  Every chat channel breaks it.  Seeing some 'tard bunny hopping down the road wearing a flowery dress and carrying a giant battle axe breaks it.  Voice applications break it.

ETC.

The only way I can ever get immersed in an mmo is to turn off (or hide) all chat channels and ignore every other player on the server.

As far as I remember there were no skripts at night spawn mobs in Midgard - but i hated to wait for Lynnleigh  on the island near Vasudheim. :)

Nice writing with some good points - i have still the hope for an entertaining, challenging and usefull crafting system in the future ... 2020 seems to be a good date for it *g*

I remember a night spawn in Hibernia . If I'm correct it was a quest to do with a thief in Bri Leith near a lake. Oh I miss the old days...

Nice article, I thought it was kinda funny, especially the repeating script part.

While I agree with you that a game shouldn't have every mundane little action included for the sake of immersion, I do think there should be a significant effort put into the game to make it feel fairly believable.

Right now, I'm only really looking to Indy developers to do something real innovating in this department, even though I'm real hyped for SW:ToR, but for different reasons than immersion.

Good read, keep 'em coming.

Originally posted by Mandalore

As far as I remember there were no skripts at night spawn mobs in Midgard - but i hated to wait for Lynnleigh  on the island near Vasudheim. :)

Nice writing with some good points - i have still the hope for an entertaining, challenging and usefull crafting system in the future ... 2020 seems to be a good date for it *g*

Actually, there were several.  One was for a spraggon type mob right outside of Huginfell, the tree by the lake.  There was also one near Dvalin for a named ghost that would pop at night near the fort on the road. 

I played all three realms and I know that DAoC had more time of day  spawn events than any other game I played.  EQ had a lot of long spawn timers period, didn't matter if it was night or day.  It was their primary method of prolonging content, if you can even call it content.

Originally posted by Bhagpuss

I do like complex interactions of wildlife/NPCs, though. Ryzom has some of the best.  You can watch the wildlife for a long time there and its as immersive as going on a nature walk. WAR has a very surprising degree of subtlety and variety in this regard, too, especially considering how "thin" the PvE is generally.

I do think a lot more could be done in this area in most MMOS, and it really does make a huge difference to player loyalty, Ithink.

That's big on my list too. The more a world is simulated, the more immersive it is. Even little things like the sounds of footsteps on different surfaces adds to immersion.

Whenever I'm in a dungeon, I always wish that looking for secret panels to push for a discovery was in the game. I always wish that books told stories that gave me clues as to what to do to reveal a secret room. It's ok if some things have been discovered before, UO had those "hidden locations" that everyone wanted, but some were darn few who had. It's also ok if it takes a year for someone to finally make a discovery, all the more interesting.

There are loads of ways to make a game world more immersive. A lot of it is fluff, but fluff is good.

After the last several articles from MMORPG.com, I fully expected this to be a rant about how immersion is a bullshit buzzword referring to an exclusively personal phenomenon espoused by only the loseriest of losers and oh don't we all pity them--but instead I found Sanya echoing some of my own thoughts. All I can say is, 'Yay'.

Originally posted by Sanya

Before anyone else says it... yes, I'm having some cheese with this wine.

 

Whine is an understatement. More like rampant nagging and nitpicking. I guess it really depends on the goal of the feature. Is it supposed to add immersion or just a time sink? Many mmorpgs acts as a quasi-slot machine. Pull the crank and see what you get. This design feature is in nearly every part of generalized mmorpgs. Its usually a safe way to go as well, since the harder you try to make something immersive, the bigger the risk you just make it more alienating. Some of those slot machine like mechanics are fun, they are getting old sure, but not necessarily a bad thing.They are time sinks where the run is in the chances, even failing is a chance.

Now i agree the immersion factor needs to be re-addressed, but you are getting way to whiny for it to be truly constructive. Less cheese more meatBALLS!
 

"when the project manager, promoted for his charm and not his talent, fails to hit his deadlines."

We have one cat here who did not get her cream. Who was this charming lack wit I wonder? :)

Originally posted by freejackmack

Originally posted by thamighty213

Great article this week Sanya a good whine but also a good insight.

 

A couple of excellent points that are oh so true especially the play testing is the first to go.

 

Sadly that shouldnt be the case as dev should always have a grasp on their own game and community but it just never works out that way and as soon as those overtime figures are in it gets pulled.

 

Devs playing the game is good but focus testing is better. For instance take the devs of swg. They are by far the most clueless devs I have seen. Why would you create an mmo with space combat content and then have nothing to do at max lvl accept mine or grind on npcs for loot. You need a pvp objective that gives a reward of some kind! But they give us new houses? What the hell are they thinking? Crafting is great in swg although vanguard crafting is better I think, but crafting is not the most important part of the game. If you don't have fun combat you don't have a good game.

SWG could be easily fixed with focus testing and lots of it. Actually they need a new engine for the ground game and then focus test the piss out of it like ND is doing for Jumpgate evolution.

Depends on the focus testers TBH.

Lets face it a Focus Test group brought us the NGE.

MMO's will run many types of Focus Testing and then try and find the middle ground.

Your current playerbase.

Gamers but not playing your product.

Non-Gamers

They are just a few example's and often will include varying age ranges of the above groups,  you then have to try and design a system that will appease your current playerbase whilst appealing to the new players and often that is a very hard judgement to make,   The MMO that gets that right will be a critical success.

Good article! I know I wanted to kill the frackin 'speech' NPCs in Freeport in EQ2 that would hail me with the same stupid one liner until I clogged up my quest logs with their inane run around town quests just to avoid the speech :p

That whole crafting business has a simple solution and I can't for the life of me understand why not more mmo's follow suit of games like Neocron.

You make crafter a specific selection that doesn't exist alongside classes or combat skill-sets, but is a class or a skill-set of it's own. So that if you choose to be a crafter, you can't be a warrior too. You're either a crafter, a warrior or a wizard. Or you either choose a next tier of a craft or an improved warrior skill, but not both.

Why would people bring a poorer fighter to a fight? Simple, cuz they need the crafter for other things and they wouldn't dream of shutting that player out.

f you do this, crafting can be so much phatter and starts to really shine.

I played a crafter in such a game and I loved it. I was maybe.. 30% less combat effective than my warrior or wizard counterparts, but it never bothered me at all cuz I knew that after the fighting, those same people would literally line up at my door and politely comission me for something they wanted.

MMO's has GOT to stop trying to be everything for everyone all the time everywhere. If you wanna talk about immersion breaker, it's right there. ALL players look for uniqueness and if MMO designers think that their customers are vaccinated against coming to terms with real sacrfices in order to play a specific role, they're dead wrong. Players starve for this opportunity. The more uniqueness they can cram inside one server population without stagnating overall progression, the better.

The principle can easily be transferred to other roles as well, and would fit right into the "solo mmo" debate. For years now, MMO's have sacrificed social fundamentals like symbiosis on the altar of independence and accessability and have chemically removed identity in the process.

 This is one of the better articles i have read lately.  Your topic isn't so obvios that were all going "duh!" or so contrived that we're all wondering why your wasting the finger excercise writing this out.

Well chosen topic and I have to say I'm with you on the contrived content.

Well done.

Your article fails because it's really a rant about crafting, not about immersion. These issues have little to do with immersion and everything to do with economic and skill balance from a design perspective.

Originally posted by Trenchgun

Your article fails because it's really a rant about crafting, not about immersion. These issues have little to do with immersion and everything to do with economic and skill balance from a design perspective.

You fail, because every single mechanic and every bit of content and every nuance of art and sound has absolutely everything to do with immersion.

Originally posted by Trenchgun

Your article fails because it's really a rant about crafting, not about immersion. These issues have little to do with immersion and everything to do with economic and skill balance from a design perspective.

You also fail, because she specifically talks about questing and timed spawns as well.

Originally posted by Trenchgun

Your article fails because it's really a rant about crafting, not about immersion. These issues have little to do with immersion and everything to do with economic and skill balance from a design perspective.

No.  You simply believe your way is the only way to achieve immersion.

No one can possibly say what defines immersion, especially not for someone else.  Immersion is an idea, there are no universal laws that determine whether something is considered immersion.

Originally posted by Trenchgun
Your article fails because it's really a rant about crafting, not about immersion. These issues have little to do with immersion and everything to do with economic and skill balance from a design perspective.

At the risk of riding the fence, Trench is right, but I believe the article was written judging MMORPG's for what they are, not necessarily what they should be. So from my point of view the article didn't fail. From Trench's point of view, it sounds to me like, it just wasn’t thorough enough.

All you have to do is read the presentation in my sig to find out what I think of MMORPG economics as they exist and I even define my own solution to the problem.

The #1 thing that ruins immersion for me is the chat system. All modern MMOs have whispers and global / area-wide chat channels where everyone can communicate telepathically and every school kid can use it as their playground. UO didn't have this originally - restricted communication is something I really appreciate now that it's gone.

It also used to make cities more meaningful as people would naturally gather there in order to socialize, meet-up, and do business. It's all "new and improved" but imo it's most certainly not better.

Nowadays you can be alone, deep within a forest in the middle of the night. You kneel down to examine the deer's mutilated corpse. It's fresh and the beast that killed it must be close. Suddenly you hear a twig snap loudly behind you and you spin around to confront the....

Bumnugget whispers: "U HEEL?"
You reply: "Sorry busy atm"
Bumnugget whispers: "K"

.. werewolf. The first thing you notice are it's piercing yellow eyes which almost seem to glow in the darkness. Suddenly it crouches down to pounce and snarls loudly. You fumble...

[General Chat] Imtwelve: "anal [Ravage]"
[General Chat] ChickNurras: "anal [Backstab]"
[General Chat] Lolwut: "STFU"

... for your silver dagger. The werewolf leaps towards you. It's roar thundering through you, causing near-heart stopping panic, with it's sharp claws outstretched, glimmering in the moonlight.

Joe whispers: "Hey man. Work sucked today :("
You: ":("

Your hand closes over your dagger's hilt and you draw it and thrust outward in blind fear as the monster crashes in to you, it's huge body pinning you to the ground. You're aware your left shoulder is injured but it's still numb and you stab frantically with your right arm, burying the dagger in to it's ribs over and over.

Joe whispers: "Yeah. My boss is really getting on my nerves. He gave me a written warning for being late again."
Xdsfkljsdflkjsdf whispers: "Visit www.gold4mmostuff.com"
Xdsfkljsdflkjsdf whispers: "Visit www.gold4mmostuff.com"
Xdsfkljsdflkjsdf whispers: "Visit www.gold4mmostuff.com"
Xdsfkljsdflkjsdf whispers: "Visit www.gold4mmostuff.com"
[General Chat] ChickNurras: "anal [Rip]"
Bumnugget whispers: "U HEEL?"

/logout

 Almost every game has filters, just use um...