Originally posted by Shadanwolf

OP I agree with your pov. Now that type of travel (and dare I say immersion)is not for everyone. But for me...having distance actually meaning something....is great. I like the idea and feeling of "being way out there".Being truely alone.Fits my playstyle .Then I read there are 50 levels in SWTOR by December 20...and just bite my tongue.

I've actually enjoyed "the journey" in SWTOR a lot more than any other game I've played for years (and much more than I expected). I was in Early Access. My highest level character hit 11 today. I liked wandering into all the nooks and corners of every place I can.

It's not as expansive as SWG, and I think GW2's approach is going to be even better, but I don't find it nearly as bad as that early rant... er... poster felt.

I think the best designs (and the future of the genre) can be found in games with "multiple paths" to appeal to different types of players. CoH and GW1 (and it looks like even moreso in GW2) are the best I've played at that so far. Tie in character power level to the region or content and not some arbitrary "character level" so characters can can experience a challenge no matter how many times they've been there, can go at their own pace but still viably group up with others at anytime - the games that do this will have loyal players for a long, long time.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Interesting.  So when (if) you read a book, do you just skip to the last chapter?  How about movies?  Do you cheat in all games?

Absolutely.  I prefer to get my lore from wikis rather than novels.  I'm honestly not a fan of reading prose for the sake of prose no matter how artfully it's written - I read to get the information contained in the prose.

On the subject of cheating, it depends how you define "cheat".  I have a very low tolerance to wandering around searching for something/someone or deciphering what random sequence of levers to pull, so in old RPGs, I'd just download a walkthrough and play through it.   Well, this isn't entirely true - I happily completed many games without walkthroughs, but I found that walkthroughs didn't damage my enjoyment of a game, while getting hopelessly lost trying to remember names or directions sometimes did.

Don't get me wrong - I love exploring the unknown.  I love just generating minecraft worlds.  I still play roguelike ascii games with their random dungeons.  I loved brainstorming the Inu arc of completely off-the-wall puzzle events in UO.   Aimless wandering is fun.  But once a goal is identified, I have a low tolerance for frustration and am quick to jump to the spoiler sites.  I research Eve missions online.  I'll search for the location of a drop in WoW rather than aimlessly stumbling around.

Let me put it this way: I love searching haystacks when I don't know what's in them, but I hate searching for a needle in a haystack once the game tells me that's what I need to find.

Stripped down is a good way to put it... SWTOR is a perfect example of stripped down rpg and all your left with is killing mobs or instanced PvP.

There is hope in the future and games like Archeage look promising. But for now it look's like the console games are the new mmorpg's.

I agree 100%.

I am an "explorer" type of player.  I enjoy the journey, not the destination.  There are plenty of times I am grateful for the auto-"ZIP!  I'm there" type of travel, but I usually travel to explore the world I am in.

As for those saying this is a time-sink, all I can say is...  If you enjoy doing the activity, whatever it may be, who cares?  I think gear grinding is a time sink because I don't enjoy the activity.  I DO enjoy walking/running in the world to see what is "over there", so it is not a timne sink for me.

Basically, I see 2 different play styles here.  One is focused on the journey and the other is focused on the destination.  Both types are viable and should be available.

Good write-up Bill.

As an old veteran from Ultima Online, I can say some of the most fun I've ever had in a game was running from Britain, looking desperately for trees I could chop in order to make bows to sell for money. I'd often run half-way to Vesper (easily 20 minute run), just searching for these trees. All the while, you never knew what you'd encounter. A wolf I can fight and skin for my tailor friend? An evil player intent on murdering me to get my stuff. Or an air elemental I had to RUN from!

I remember in the EQ days where seeing low-level Erudites in Felwithe was every bit as alluring as having a fancy title. That was a journey worthy of an achivement. I spent hours on my character exploring every inch of Velious and Kunark. I found mob spawns that *no one* seemed to know about on my server and would often take a few friends with me to them. Every few minutes, they would ask me nervously: "Are you sure about this?" as leaving the beaten track in EQ back in the day could result in days, if not weeks, of character work being undone.

As much as I liked WoW, Rift and love SWTOR, these experiences in UO and EQ were what hooked me on the MMO genre. While the above stories could be seen as annoyances to some, It was immersive. You often forgot you weren't living in this world. I think all players want their games to be immersive, something that's become harder and harder as people get hooked on the easier ways of doing things.

My problems with long journeys usually come from questdesign and not how large the world is.

- When a quest in point A sends me to some spot in point B to kill mobs and then requires me to immediately go back again to point A for the reward AND then often sends me back AGAIN along the same road to the same area in point B, I feel the need to kick the developer that came up with that quest.

- When I have to slaughter mobs to reach a npc with a quest and then that same npc asks me to slaughter those same mobs that I just killed and acts as if I never did that before even though I was doing that in his view, I want to kill the npc instead,

- Fed Ex quests to other cities and then in some cases even having to travel back.

These are just some typical examples that really can make travelling boooooooooring. It has nothing to do with exploring or the size of the world. Its about being forced to travel along the same road again and again which makes it so annoying.

There are more reasons that add to the boredom of traveling. Making your inventory tiny and let it fill with useless crap from killing so you have to travel back too often for selling is another one.

I like to explore new places and in some games I use(d) to do that (Vanguard, Fallen Earth, SWG, Anarchy Online), but I hate it if I'm forced to travel too often along the same downtrodden path.

MMO's have lost far more than their sense of journey. In the beginning they were meant to be multiplayer fantasy world simulators, kind of like a social experiment. Alot of the features that today are seen as money milking time sinks were key features of the RPG genre and alot of us who played these games came to the genre for one purpose only, to expand their RPG experience beyond the weekly pen and paper session with half a dozen pals and to meet and socialise in these environments with people from around the world.

Today they have degenerated to no more than shallow lobby games, as the "open world" gives the impression of being no more than a shallow lobby where you login in to team up with your guildmates to run some form of private instance, be it PvE or PvP. Their is hardly anymore incentive to to socialize outside of your guild and even then, need something crafted? log in to one of your crafting alts that you've leveled to max crafting in the span of 3 days. The only interaction outside of /g nowadays revolves mostly around trolling general chat and being a dick to everybody that's not part of ones guild.

So after the rant, back on topic. EQ Imho did it rigth, you had fast travel options Druid/Wizard ports, then later the Nexus pillars and further down the line PoK but you could not reach every zone using fast travel and often you had to cross 2-3 more zones on foot until you got where you needed to be and most often these were crawling with mobs that would tear the unwary group to shreds. There was a real sense of exploration and danger, where is the danger in todays outdoor zones? Yes I thought so there is none.

The things that once made the genre so great for me a lost forever in the bulk of AAA titles releasing mostly on a monthly basis nowadays and after jumpin' throu the loophole of playing alot of the major releases since 2003 and always getting more and more disappointed with where the genre is going. I'm more than happy to have finally taken up EVE in 2007, although I'd prefer to play in a fantasy setting, that still craves to the niche and in which I have a blast, where the journey and all the dangers that come with it are still present and where social interaction is the key to success.

Don't mind me, I'm just an old Vet who wishes he had more options in his gaming library than 2 titles that are over a decade old and are fairly outdated (EQ & UO) and the only Fantasy MMO that came out in the past coupe of years that would've suited my needs havin been torn apart by macroers and eploiters (DF).

Rant over, I've become bitter enough, time to go gather some space tears!

Great Post Bill.  Could not have stated it better.

I would also say there has been a huge lessening of the journey to end game too.  Only takes about two weeks for a moderately dedicated SWTOR player to reach it.  Then what are they going to do beside raid or create alts?

The problem as I see it, these big companies are building these games for the "I want it now" group.  That is who they see as the focus for their games.  So they build these games where there is zero mystery, just someone holding your hand all the way.  Where is the fun in that?  No adventure for sure.

Anyone trying to tell us there is a journey in SWTOR, just does not understand the meaning of the word.

MMMMMK.  In my mind, MMO's are not a world at all.  They are imiganary playgrounds that spring from the minds of the game developers.  The goal of those developers is for ME to have fun.  The more fun, the more likely I am to pay the cost .. thusly leading to the profit of the company who made the thimng in the first place.  If they can make running for an hour fun, wih eastereggs and explorable landscape with some sort of reward .. then cool.  If you have to run for an hour just because they did not have time or immagination enough to create some sort of faster travel mechanism ... and you are just running and it is not fun ... then ... well I am not gonna stay as long (unless of course the things I am running between are enough fun to offset the boredom).  I do not think there is any MMO "feature" that is put there as a time sink.  Hell, the whole game is a time sink.

I really enjoy seeing all the ideas that the devs come up with to make fun things for me to see and do.  I am the type who wants to make a char of each kind and play it through (as long as it is fun) to see the different ideas used.  I do not care if the game is not a "real" MMO (according to the everquest lovers ... or nostalgists ... hmmm I wonder why they are not all playing everquest anymore), all I care about is that the game is fun, intriguiging, surprising, moving, and deep enough to be interesting (to ME).  If there are a few thousand other players to play with, watch, and occasionally group up with ... so much the better.

I (a die hard WoW fanboy) have to say that SWTOR has a lot of stuff that has these qualities that make it fun for me (at least for now).  Heh, I had my Sith Warrior dancing wih a "groupie" in a canteena last night, and it looked like they were really dancing .. together .. cool .. in the mean time I was sending my companions on Missions and making a little money.  And sort of resting from questing (hey a rhyme).

FUN is the final weight that makes an MMO or breaks it.  Not whether it is a sandbox, or you can get lost or you have to walk 10 miles uphill in the snow (unless of course those things are fun for you).  I do not think MMO's can be Lumped together or that there is one MMO that will be the be all end all, or that just because MMO "A" does not have some (or all) ot the things of MMO "B". that it is "bad for the genre".   If its fun ... Bring it on!!!!

Just my Opinion  :)

I took a chance on Minecraft recently, and was pleasantly surprised that the sense of journey was rekindled in me. Endless exploration really, and building nearly anything you might imagine.

This and Skyrim, but I still find myself gravitating toward Minecraft more.

Personally, I would love to see a game that incoporates more aspects of old style pen and paper games. To be sure, it would have to be a radically different design. There were tons of skills in PnP games that cannot be used in current MMOs. One of those was map making. I would love to see a game where exploration could be rewarded both by the experience and by giving new knowledge a value in game. How cool would it be to explore a previously unknown area and then sell maps to other players?

Bill Murphy about SWTOR: "...and a whole “planet” is easily navigated in minutes...".

I haven't noticed that. Likely Bill played through the first couple of planets only as when you get to Tatooine and further the landscapes are very large and it takes time to travel from one objective to the other even on your hoverbike. The true thing is: I DON'T WANT TO SPEND LOTS OF TIME TRAVELING ON MY HOVERBIKE! I DON'T WANT TO SEARCH FOR OBJECTIVES! I though everybody know that and hated WoW back when it was less user-friendly and required people to spend their precious time searching for objectives and running ruther than actually playing and enjoying the game. I love all the fast-travel and convenience features and I believe that the best approach to the travek is the one from the DC Universe online: you are given a very fast travel speed nearly from the start of the game so you can actually explore the world, not constantly plan, how to save time effectivly moving between objectives. So - no, we haven't lost our sense of journey: we want it to be quick and fast and we hate developers who try to cover the lack of content by long bring journeys.

I think there are a number of reasons games are going this way.

1. Combat is crap

This is the main reason I think. Basically fighting mobs is boring and formulaic and offers no satisfaction whatsoever. As a result players do not want to actively fight mobs unless they're gonna get something out of it since the fight itself requires no skill or tactics at all.

2. Quests are crap

Little or no planning and thought is required in many games to complete quests. The player just wanders into the zone, auto-targets the mobs and mashes a few macro buttons FTW. As a result, players just want to complete quests as quickly as possible because there's no sense of satisfaction from completing a quest.

3. Loot & levels are all-important

I think many players play MMOs now to earn status-related achievements more than any other factor. By this I mean things like having certain kit and achieving a certain level. Even if no-one else cares, players are self-congratulatory on achieving level X not because it took skill or it was fun but simply because they had the staying power to repeatedly do something really boring to get there. The journey to get there - and this is crucial - is now just an irritating obstacle, a test of determination. Sure it's all set in a pretty little game world but even that's cosmetically shallow in many cases.

And why are games being built as skill-free lumps of junk? Egalitarian game design: the art of creating a game where a hopeless gamer can stand toe-to-toe with a skilled gamer because only time = success in the game.

Aryas

I loved having to ride the boat.  Not because riding the boat was fun but because not dieing to whatever creature was made all the more thrilling by avoiding the huge time it would take to get back to my corpse.  I like picking fights with mobs that there is the real liklihood its going to be a nail biter.  Assuming I didnt bind close by and I didnt always play a caster.  It also meant that when I chose to go to a place, I was investing in that choice.  Yes it was artificial and maybe there could be something to do during that time besides sit. I played EQ and it isnt because it was new that I enjoyed it.  I hate when games put in a teleport function, I want to earn my right to be in a place by having travelled there.  Yes, put in the teleport and Ill use it because everyone else is.  I still dont like it.  I dont like the quest icons on my map and in some cases I could turn them off.  I loved getting lost in the forest runnign to Kelethin and the danger of possibly running in to something along the way and not having the location of my corpse should I happen to die.  Its not that I liked having to get my corpse or the long run or boat ride, its that sense of thrill of having just 1 HP left fighting some mob and knowing just what it is that I avoided.  In WoW, so what, if I die I just float right back to my corpse in a matter of a minute and Im back at it.  There is no real challenge to it.  The same was true recently with Rift.  It was just too easy, even soloing was easy.  I loved Vanguard but for some lack of content early on and some screwed up dungeon levels and glitches.  They do have teleports but mostly as hubs that you have to branch out from.  There is still ots of exploring.   Its a huge world that if you want to run from one place to another right out of the gate you could.  Well, before they did the newbie zone silliness.  I love taking an XP hit too when I die for the same reason.  There should be a cost and it shouldnt simply be cured by some coin at a temple.  PoK took the heart out of EQ for me.



My first trip to Qeynos took a half elf bard friend of mine to guide me there and once I was there because it was such a journey from Freeport I was bound to stay and explore a bit.  If all I had to do was port from one city to the next I would never see all of the world.  I would miss out on experiencing places at the proper level.  I wouldnt run through the gorge and risk getting charmed by an eye and beat my friends to death.

Originally posted by elocke

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by elocke

Completely agree with this.  Old Forest back at LOTRO's launch is the epitome of how this type of content should be done.  So sad they changed it, even if it does make progressing my levels and storylines faster.

Actually, Old Forest in closed beta. There were several iterations. Steiffel told me that the guy who created the old forest was an old school gamer. He was then told that most people don't enjoy getting lost, the danger, etc. so he made different versions until  the current one came to be. Honestly I don't even see how the current version can be considered a forest.

 

I wonder if people know that there used to be trolls on the road on the way to Rivendell. The game used to be more dangerous. I really miss it.

Yep.  And it wasn't overtop the dangerous like some people call for these days when talking about making things hard, it was realistic and doable and didn't completely make the game impossible just had to find alternative ways to do things if one wanted to still solo.

 

Great post, Bill! I also really agree with you and the quoted guys above about the early days of LOTRO. That is a perfect example of what exploration and danger meant. It was, just the right amount of not knowing where anything is and danger to create tension, not frustration.

Now, LOTRO has become a slideshow, or a museum tour. :(

I usually prefer fast travel simply because most games don't reward you for exploring.  There might be a big chunk of empty map, but slogging through usually yields little of interest.  You'll get the standard pollution of mob spawns to fill the empty space, but not much more.

I'm an explorer type.  I live off the beaten path.  Most of the time though, there's just nothing cool and interesting to find out there.  So then I fast travel.  What's the point of hoofing it across the landscape when you won't see anything even mildly extraordinary?  There's just nothing out there but more mob spawns -- essentially time sinks masquerading as content.

Skyrim was great in that there was almost always something weird and wonderful to stumble across.  But that game is rare indeed, in how well it catered to players like myself.  Most other games just aren't worth the bother.