Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by marinrider

Oh goodness me.  So if they added this to rift then the issue becomes this:

Oh no! People are no longer sitting around in the boring, unrealistic cities and queing for everything, but now they are sitting in slightly less boring guild / player housing and queuing for everything!

Honestly, player interaction in rift stays about the same since everything is a random queue and the only people I actually see in the main city are AFKers.

Edit: Main city... who am I kidding... only city.

Yeah, but that just say that Rift already have other problems.

The thing is that MMOs used to be a lot more social than they are today. There isn't much you actually do in the cities besides crafting and going to the AH.

They need to add more social stuff, why can't we play a game of dice or cards at the local tavern, go and physically (and none instanced) enter the arena to watch some players PvP while betting on one or the other and similar minigames?

MMOs needs to invent new fun reasons to socialize with other players, or the whole games will continue to turn into qued up dungeons and battlegrounds together with soloplay. It have gotten pretty bad the last few years and seems to keep getting worse...

Thats why I believe that instanced housing in rift wont really make things worse because its already pretty bad.  Now, in other games I would say it shouldnt be instanced, but in rift it doesnt matter.

I'm on the same page as you, I remember when AOC was supposed to have drunken brawling in taverns.  Now that was going to be awesome. 

Your dice example reminded me of the little games you can play in Fable with npcs in the tavern.  What if there were some tables just sitting around and you sat at them and someoen came up and sat with you and you played a game.  No queueing up for it and no instancing.  You actually walk up to the table, you see who is sitting at the table, you choose to join them.  Simple. 

Hopefully GW2's minigames will add a bit of what we want, but even then I dont feel like it will be enough.  I still have high hopes for GW2's social interaction aspect none the less.

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by nerovipus32

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Originally posted by MMOExposed

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Originally posted by Robokapp
build...buy...you get the idea. the house is just a house. a pair of walls with an interior. not something behind a loading screen.
 
not something where people go into an vanish from the outside (virtual) world.
 
it's simple. they have to complicate it with instancing. it can be so simple...does every building have a loading screen when you get through the door? no. why would a player house need to?
 
 
edit: adding onto this idea. I looks at various "npc cities" like stormwind or the few towns I visited in lineage 2. big huge buildings...with one big room and 2 guys sitting in a corner. looking at stormwind for example, how many buildings and stores actually serve a prupose?
 
they're struggling to create cities of "city-like" sizes because they have nothing to fill the builings up with. This is where we can come in. We can make cities, make them grow, by expanding on outskirts, and they only need to give us a handful of key administrative structures like bank, action house, maybe a general goods store etc. We can settle the fields around and form the city. save them the task of figuring out what pointless npc to put in nameless building #23321. should he sell roasted rats or shoe strings?

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Problem: how would a city like in the WoW example you listed, support persistent player housing for the entire server population?

yeah even with instances inside the persistent player house, wouldn't that still lead to the same issues of Instanced player housing, in that players would go there rather than hang out in the cities?

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it's not like there are 10 million players on a wow server, so we are talking about a number in the thousands. capital cities should be in an empty space with areas availabe for future expansion i.e player housing.

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No. You don't implement something like that in WoW. There isn't enough space for 1,600 houses. It would be the single largest feature in the entire game. You have to design the game around the idea of having something like that, not just toss it in and expect it to work.

 

to be honest i don't care about wow it was the previous person who quoted me who brought up wow. the game needs to be either a sandbox or have a massive seamless world for non instanced housing to work.

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Originally posted by Robokapp
solution is to give space in or near cities to build non-instanced houses.
 
 

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Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by marinrider

Oh goodness me.  So if they added this to rift then the issue becomes this:

Oh no! People are no longer sitting around in the boring, unrealistic cities and queing for everything, but now they are sitting in slightly less boring guild / player housing and queuing for everything!

Honestly, player interaction in rift stays about the same since everything is a random queue and the only people I actually see in the main city are AFKers.

Edit: Main city... who am I kidding... only city.

Yeah, but that just say that Rift already have other problems.

The thing is that MMOs used to be a lot more social than they are today. There isn't much you actually do in the cities besides crafting and going to the AH.

They need to add more social stuff, why can't we play a game of dice or cards at the local tavern, go and physically (and none instanced) enter the arena to watch some players PvP while betting on one or the other and similar minigames?

MMOs needs to invent new fun reasons to socialize with other players, or the whole games will continue to turn into qued up dungeons and battlegrounds together with soloplay. It have gotten pretty bad the last few years and seems to keep getting worse...

This.

Thats the problem with themepark mmo's they are designed for players to be competitive against each other and not to socialize.

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Originally posted by nerovipus32

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Originally posted by lizardbones
 

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Originally posted by nerovipus32

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Originally posted by MMOExposed

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Originally posted by Robokapp
build...buy...you get the idea. the house is just a house. a pair of walls with an interior. not something behind a loading screen.
 
not something where people go into an vanish from the outside (virtual) world.
 
it's simple. they have to complicate it with instancing. it can be so simple...does every building have a loading screen when you get through the door? no. why would a player house need to?
 
 
edit: adding onto this idea. I looks at various "npc cities" like stormwind or the few towns I visited in lineage 2. big huge buildings...with one big room and 2 guys sitting in a corner. looking at stormwind for example, how many buildings and stores actually serve a prupose?
 
they're struggling to create cities of "city-like" sizes because they have nothing to fill the builings up with. This is where we can come in. We can make cities, make them grow, by expanding on outskirts, and they only need to give us a handful of key administrative structures like bank, action house, maybe a general goods store etc. We can settle the fields around and form the city. save them the task of figuring out what pointless npc to put in nameless building #23321. should he sell roasted rats or shoe strings?

---

 
Problem: how would a city like in the WoW example you listed, support persistent player housing for the entire server population?

yeah even with instances inside the persistent player house, wouldn't that still lead to the same issues of Instanced player housing, in that players would go there rather than hang out in the cities?

---

it's not like there are 10 million players on a wow server, so we are talking about a number in the thousands. capital cities should be in an empty space with areas availabe for future expansion i.e player housing.

---

No. You don't implement something like that in WoW. There isn't enough space for 1,600 houses. It would be the single largest feature in the entire game. You have to design the game around the idea of having something like that, not just toss it in and expect it to work.

 

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to be honest i don't care about wow it was the previous person who quoted me who brought up wow. the game needs to be either a sandbox or have a massive seamless world for non instanced housing to work.

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Originally posted by marinrider

Thats why I believe that instanced housing in rift wont really make things worse because its already pretty bad.  Now, in other games I would say it shouldnt be instanced, but in rift it doesnt matter.

I'm on the same page as you, I remember when AOC was supposed to have drunken brawling in taverns.  Now that was going to be awesome. 

Your dice example reminded me of the little games you can play in Fable with npcs in the tavern.  What if there were some tables just sitting around and you sat at them and someoen came up and sat with you and you played a game.  No queueing up for it and no instancing.  You actually walk up to the table, you see who is sitting at the table, you choose to join them.  Simple. 

Hopefully GW2's minigames will add a bit of what we want, but even then I dont feel like it will be enough.  I still have high hopes for GW2's social interaction aspect none the less.

Yeah, player houses wont make the problem larger, or at least not much larger. Few players sit in their empty house all day anyways, it is just a small sandbox feature that some people like.

And yeah, that is what I was thinking about. MMOs always have taverns but no one is there. Conan spends a lot of time in taverns and they do have a huge potential for fun that is very easy for the devs to add without destroying the game balance.

There are potentially a lot more you can add, just look on any outpost in GW with a holiday minigame in, it is really crowded and more socializing happens there during the few days those are on than during the rest of the year. But minigames don't have to be complicated, a simple game of nucklebone is fun as well, or throwing knives at a barrel or something.

A boardgame that is a bit similar to chess but simpler and faster would be fun as well.

swg cantinas were a hive of social activity, why? because players were dependant on eachother, in this case entertainer buffs. waiting for a shuttle always ended up in random social encounters. the medical center in swg was another social hub, people would queue to get doctor buffs. the image designer tents where you had to interact with another player to change your characters appearance,  all examples of why swg was a great experience. other players make mmo's great not neccessarily the content or end game.

Originally posted by dreamscaper

This. Non-instanced housing kills this problem dead.

Provided abandoned home removal is handled properly.  City of Slums is the result otherwise.  (We've seen that one).

Originally posted by nerovipus32

swg cantinas were a hive of social activity, why? because players were dependant on eachother, in this case entertainer buffs. waiting for a shuttle always ended up in random social encounters. the medical center in swg was another social hub, people would queue to get doctor buffs. the image designer tents where you had to interact with another player to change your characters appearance,  all examples of why swg was a great experience. other players make mmo's great not neccessarily the content or end game.

Exactly.

SWG had non-instanced player housing, but most players still visited cities because there was social interdependency in the game.

Unfortunately, most players these days kick and scream if you design a game that "forces" them to interact with other players... what a sad time in MMOs we live in.

Originally posted by Ceridith

Originally posted by nerovipus32

swg cantinas were a hive of social activity, why? because players were dependant on eachother, in this case entertainer buffs. waiting for a shuttle always ended up in random social encounters. the medical center in swg was another social hub, people would queue to get doctor buffs. the image designer tents where you had to interact with another player to change your characters appearance,  all examples of why swg was a great experience. other players make mmo's great not neccessarily the content or end game.

Exactly.

SWG had non-instanced player housing, but most players still visited cities because there was social interdependency in the game.

Unfortunately, most players these days kick and scream if you design a game that "forces" them to interact with other players... what a sad time in MMOs we live in.

Well, it seems that for 15.00 a month players bitterly resent any game mechanic that forces them to do anything not to their liking, and they expect it to be changed to cater to them.

Strange days indeed.

But as you and the others have stated, unless Developers provide some content unique to social hubs that at least is so interesting that players willingly flock to participate (if they are not to be forced) then the issue of dead social areas will continue.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Ceridith

Originally posted by nerovipus32

swg cantinas were a hive of social activity, why? because players were dependant on eachother, in this case entertainer buffs. waiting for a shuttle always ended up in random social encounters. the medical center in swg was another social hub, people would queue to get doctor buffs. the image designer tents where you had to interact with another player to change your characters appearance,  all examples of why swg was a great experience. other players make mmo's great not neccessarily the content or end game.

Exactly.

SWG had non-instanced player housing, but most players still visited cities because there was social interdependency in the game.

Unfortunately, most players these days kick and scream if you design a game that "forces" them to interact with other players... what a sad time in MMOs we live in.

Well, it seems that for 15.00 a month players bitterly resent any game mechanic that forces them to do anything not to their liking, and they expect it to be changed to cater to them.

Strange days indeed.

But as you and the others have stated, unless Developers provide some content unique to social hubs that at least is so interesting that players willingly flock to participate (if they are not to be forced) then the issue of dead social areas will continue.

 

 

i bet if you gave them epics they would.

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Amaranthar

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Originally posted by Mendel

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Originally posted by Cactus-Man

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Originally posted by dreamscaper

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Originally posted by Robokapp

solution is to give space in or near cities to build non-instanced houses.
 
 

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This. Non-instanced housing kills this problem dead.

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That doesn't solve the problem at all though,
The issue being brought up is redundancy, having two things that perform the same function means players will find the one that is the most fun or efficient and largely ignore the other.
It doesn't matter if it is instanced or not, if you can do the same things in your house and cities then there is little reason for players to use both.
The only way to solve redundancy is remove one of the options or give the options totally different functionalities.

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I'm with Cactus-Man here.  Having dedicated space for housing doesn't really eliminate the problem, it changes it.  Non-instanced housing, even rented, means that there is a draw to pull players from the 'city centers'.
And non-instancing brings other issues, as well.  Games don't currently have mechanisms for 'ownership' of real estate within the continuous world.  The developers have to keep other people out of the space you've rented, and that's pretty easy to do with a loading screen.  Additionally, there's a whole security issue.  How many people are willing to put down their ultravaluable Sword_Of_Uberness_081623 when just anyone can pick it up?  So, it's your room/house/palace, if the developers don't keep interlopers away, your sword will be looted almost before you can blink.  Normal social rules, conventions and taboos are too easily ignored in a computer game, and implementing such moral behavior into a game would probably be nightmarish.  Most all of the fantasy-based games have some sort of burgler or thief class, even.  I can already hear the 'we wanna break and enter' cry now.
For the forseeable future, instanced housing is easier for the developers to implement.  But I think the issues associated with instanced housing are far easier to live with than a non-instanced alternative.

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First off, as Cactus-Man said the issue here is the usage between cities and private housing. It's the activity of use that's the issue. If you can do the same things at your house as you can in the cities, one or the other isn't going to be used. The real problem is that there isn't enough activity to spread around between the two.

 

You need to have activities that players both want and need that are separate for each.

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Or eliminate the NPC City as the main social hub of the game. Have players build up cities, and the if you have main NPC factions, they are just somewhere else that players don't go. Maybe players go there for training or something and that's it.

 

Same thing though. Whether it's a NPC or Player built city, cities need to have functionality that's part of game play. And that functionality has to be something players want to participate in and enjoy playing.

Originally posted by Robokapp

solution is to give space in or near cities to build non-instanced houses.

 

 

VG was onto this pretty hard before the updates stopped...

If they ever get that game straight and turn it F2P, many of you guys will see how a world is done..

You actually had to buy your land in a housing area in the main world, then you had to really build it with supplies from crafting.. Just like boats.. It takes work, but you could have a house right there...