Originally posted by Royalkin

 

You didn't understand my post at all. Using technology is a very convenient method However when a person or group of people choose to use that method in leiu of "real" and face-to-face communication, it can lead to the breakdown of human social understanding and how we deal with each other. I would highly reccomend everyone read this article, http://socyberty.com/society/the-social-effects-of-technology/

It's not really a matter of adaptability, I use a blackberry everyday and I build computers so I am quite up to date with technology. I am very adaptable. But according to you and some other people, since I am "unwilling" to use social media (i.e., Facebook), somehow that makes me unwilling to adapt. I "can" use it just fine, but I prefer face-to-face communication rather talking to a screen (nor do I feel the necessity to tell the enitre world what I am doing every five seconds), it's more meaningful to me when I can see the reactions on other people's faces.

 Maybe I worded it a little wrong. The reason why I made the reference to the mother walking her daughter while chatting away on the cell phone is because of just the opposite of what you prefer has already become the norm. Most people already use their cell phones as a means of escape from menial tasks - such as driving and shopping. I would assume this is more prominent in largely populated and thickly settled areas.

I'm a programmer and I have this very same argument all the time with one of my coworkers. He thinks that most forms of social networking are stupid. Simply because he would rather go out and see them. However, I am seeing more and more that people are using it as a means to socialize when they really shouldn't be (such as driving and work).

Like I was saying before there are good bits of technology and bad bits depending on how you look it. Just like you, I don't need to know everything that everyone does, but there are plenty of other features that are useful to me. For example, it would be nice to read ingame emails outside of the game or see a calandar of events for my guild/clan/corp updated in realtime over my phone. Wait .. I just got a tweet. My guild is wondering if I want to go storm castle AAaaaarggghhhh! tonight. Hrm, I got nothing planned - sure .. I'll jump in game. This to me is a useful form of social networking. Cross gaming is useful as well. Tired of a long night of eve and want to play Bad Company 2? Send a facebook message to your corp mates and see if anyone wants to squad up.

I'm sure you can think of useful examples as well. But, what may be useful to me may be useless to you and vice versa. That doesn't mean social networking should be discredited or avoided. The fact that it may be integrated with all future games and some of the existing games shouldn't be a deterant. However, it will change things. For example, how the dungeon finder changes people's mindsets in WoW.

Besides, since we are talking about games (MMOs mainly in particular) - I don't wan't to see people face to face.

Originally posted by Kaelaan21

Like I was saying before there are good bits of technology and bad bits depending on how you look it. Just like you, I don't need to know everything that everyone does, but there are plenty of other features that are useful to me. For example, it would be nice to read ingame emails outside of the game or see a calandar of events for my guild/clan/corp updated in realtime over my phone. Wait .. I just got a tweet. My guild is wondering if I want to go storm castle AAaaaarggghhhh! tonight. Hrm, I got nothing planned - sure .. I'll jump in game. This to me is a useful form of social networking. Cross gaming is useful as well. Tired of a long night of eve and want to play Bad Company 2? Send a facebook message to your corp mates and see if anyone wants to squad up.

I think we have similar opinions, just that they are worded in different ways. A miscommunication if you will.

As far as receiving in-game information outside of the game that doesn't bother me at all, and I agree with you that it is a "useful" form of social networking. Eve is actually attempting to do this with their EveGate project (although poorly I think). However, I do agree that more and more people are using social media, that was never in dispute. However, as I've said, I worry about what it will eventually do to us as a species and our "humanity". That's all.

I don't necessarily think that social networking is useless, rather it's a very useful tool for communicating "quick" messages between yourself and your guildmates as you put it. As a CEO in Eve it would help me quite a bit to get information out to my membership. So it is very useful.

I think I may have misintrepreted this entire article, and if so I apologize to the previous posters and to you Mr. Webb. I understood the article to mean that MMOs and other games would have to be dumbed down to the level of Farmville to be more accessible to those "casual" gamers using Facebook and other venues. Quite honestly, that concept makes me quite angry. I like my games complex and involving, it's escapism. I can't really escape in Farmville, although that is my opinion.

Rather though, if the article was referring to what Kaelaan21 was saying then I am fine with that. But I still protest though people who have entire conversation via twitter, facebook, or texting. Just call them, some people have very nice voices, listen to them.

:)

Interesting article, whatever you define the next age of MMOs as I do not really care but you have your term so ets go for it.

I believe that MMOs as initially defined are dying and with the advent as described with respect to social media. This is the final nail in the cofin.

Let me explain, I am someone who if impressed in some way I am inclined  to invest a lot of time in a project.... MMOs are one those areas if gameplay community and fun exist that catches my attention. Being of sound mind I also have a life outside of Gaming again a very busy one. The current MMOs baring the odd one are all but killing real community and fun, and for whatever reason (I guess small minded people who do not have real lives) have become win at all cost endgame Arena game specials which substitue real life acheivment which is sad..

Not in my opinion fun , too automated , too easy , no challenge. Lets call in the possy from Facebook/Twiter or whatever the flavor of the day is . I have lots of friends but they are not pixelated fabrications on social websites.

The Third age is dawning but I really hope someone would take a few steps backs and freeze out all the  Whack a mole features that seem to be part of the Lazy approach to game design we see these days, and give us a real game to play that cannot be completed in Days but years.

I think i will load up Nethack , that will make me smile. Damn single player not here.

Originally posted by Kaelaan21

Originally posted by TheNitewolf

Two things:

1. Severius' comment was pretty much saying it all, the only thing I disagree with is the cinema part as the reason a lot of ppl still go there is also because they don't have the patience to wait until the movie becomes available for another medium.

2. To the guy promoting a revolution by PC/console playing together: it has been done before, FF XI had that years ago already.

 Hi there. <-- That guy here.

 

I actually played FF XI when it first came out for the PC for the first few months. Didn't care for it much. When I found out that it hit console, I asked around and people told me that it was a seporate server. Never looked into that much because it hasn't been polished much. If that is the case then FF XIV is probably going to follow the same suit. If so, that's great.

 

I wish more MMOs would do this. I remember AoC claiming to have an Xbox 360 port in development, but it never happened (yet). All of the consoles have wireless keyboards now. The 360 even has a mini keyboard that can plug into your existing joystick for cheap. Not sure, but I bet the PS3 has something simular. I'm sure there are wireless mice out there too for the consoles, but I would prefer the joystick plus mini-keyboard myself.

 

It anoys me seeing that regular games that go cross platform don't allow their online services to be connected (i.e. Call of Duty).

 

Final Fantasy online had console and PC players playing together, as did Phantasy star online.  Its doable, but you have to remove the "reflex" element from the game and make the interface a standard one with contextual menus.

Any balance issues around hardware would be for the end user to solve, you dont see MMO developers doing much more than giving graphics options to players with lower end machines.

Most MMO's have bad grpahics and shonky mechanics due to poor programming and yet PC's still have trouble running them most of the time.

The average wireless device compared to PC has about as much power and grunt as a windup doll does over a nuclear power plant. Consoles being about 3 times more power than a battery operated doll phone. If MMO market goes multiuplatform we will continue to see overly advertised water down easy MMO's that set the standards so low in terms of technical brilliance so that dev have to put absolutely no effort whatsoever into making a quality game. Cross platform = bad games. Look at World of Warcraft filled 90% with kids who accept that game as being good? Good and popular are two different terms.

Lets hope consumers wake up and smell the bacon. Here is my future snap.

PC players all over the world get sick on linear run down the tunnel collect or shoot 10 of these and say hey, give us the power back with classy LAN + DIRECT capable IP to IP games designed to run on the $3000 pc system we paid to see good graphics.

Nvidia and AMD must be getting quite concerned about the lack of class games being produced to really show off thier cards capabilities. So stop buying crap folks and buy games that are produced for PC utlising the power we paid for!

Originally posted by Regnevanz

Most MMO's have bad grpahics and shonky mechanics due to poor programming and yet PC's still have trouble running them most of the time.

While I agree with you that there's room and need for improvement, I think you've underestimated the difficulty of:

1) Rendering a large open environment with potentially over a hundred player avatars onscreen at once... all with unique appearances.

2) Designing mechanics that function adequately when you're playing on a server that may be a continent away from your PC, and can handle the aforementioned hundred players all trying to do something different at the same time.

3) Crafting an experience that a player is inclined to pay a monthly subscription for, for years at a stretch.

I agree with this completely, bcause its not that easy, your point actually backs up the fact you really do need a PC for this very reason, else we get a watered down game that can run on anything.

Casio FX-52 Boxing MMO anyone? ;-)

The third age of mmos?  More of the same. The lines between an engaging social based game and a boring grinder will become more and more of a wash. You will continue to play, even if you log out of one game, and fire up another. The status quot and investors will have more say regarding revenue subscription, and will grow in strength of last word, even though most have never touched the "W" key unless they are in word or excel.

Here is the problem facing the industry and players as a whole.

Van Gogh did not paint for financial gain.

Richard Garriot (though he is a twit now) did not start the ultima series which later became UO to gain enough revenue to fly into space, though that was the end result.

Mcquaid filled a void, is an extremely creative individual, but when EQ was being developed, it was for the love of MUDs, with a potential payoff to be able to sit on his ass and play videogames and not worry about money.

SWG's creation and development by its two heads had nothing to do with a revenue stream in their eyes.

Wow was initially concieved and developed for the same reasons EQ was. Its turned into its own monster, and completely killed the genre. It won't be dethroned by anything "better" and every development house knows it. They just want a small percentage of revenue that wow generates. Thats it.

Most readers here won't  get it. Games now are created PURELY for revenue. It is the tit and the tat. Good graphics and creativity is ONLY present to generate more sales, not for the sake of artistic vision, gameplay or creativity.

[Mod Edit]

I am glad some people are saying they don't buy into all this interactivity crap that the media are peddling.  How much interactivity do we need?  What the hell do you need Facebook involved in an MMO for?  How does it add value to the game experience by being able to access the game from your iPhone?  At best it is a less impressive experience than being at home at your pimped out desktop.  Not saying it won't happen, because in certain circumstance it might come in handy, but really... this not revolutionizing anything.  Get off the band-wagon!