One of the minds behind what many consider one of the most innovative and best mmos of all time.  The Dev cycle is starting to show a lot of hybrid and sandbox games in development, would be nice to see him work with one in the near future.

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Do Auction Houses Suck?

His conclusion:

"Every inconvenience is a challenge, and games are made of challenges. This means that every inconvenience in your design is potentially someone’s game."

http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/#more-4080

Why isn't this guy making MMORPGs anymore?

 Because he hasn't had a new idea in years. He's also wrong, again. Difficult things that make you want to do them are challenges. Inconvieniences are annoying. Killing a difficult mob with teamwork and precision for great rewad is a challenge. Being forced to kill 5,000 slow spawning widely separated trash mobs solo just so you can advance is an inconvienience. Do you see the difference? He doesn't and never has.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Do Auction Houses Suck?

His conclusion:

"Every inconvenience is a challenge, and games are made of challenges. This means that every inconvenience in your design is potentially someone’s game."

http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/#more-4080

Why isn't this guy making MMORPGs anymore?

 Because he hasn't had a new idea in years. He's also wrong, again. Difficult things that make you want to do them are challenges. Inconvieniences are annoying. Killing a difficult mob with teamwork and precision for great rewad is a challenge. Being forced to kill 5,000 slow spawning widely separated trash mobs solo just so you can advance is an inconvienience. Do you see the difference? He doesn't and never has.

Originally posted by Moaky07

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by DannyGlover

Props to Koster for starting in UO and SWG. Maybe one day he'll actually see a game through. That'll be a treat.

Koster is more of an idea man than a dev.

Like Brad McQuaid, without the coke habit and lunacy.

Yeah Brad went off the deep end, but his ideas were more conforming to take MMOs out of the niche realm.

 

Koster gave a roleplay stage. Great if you were a PnP enthusiest in your youth, but something that doesnt catch on that well otherwise.  Brad went for the PVE angle, and it proved to be popular.

 

A sober Brad trumps Koster everyday of the week IMO. Hopefully he cleans his act up.

You must be joking McGrind was a hack, he never understood the difference between 'hardcore' and boring, monotonous, repetative. Camping for more than a day straight for a must have item (Jboots), grinding endlessly to advance, huge enforced downtimes (meditating between fights). Some of the things in EQ where truly egricious and a real dumbing down from the MUDs that inspired it. I think he (through EQ) set the genre back years. Just my opinion, such a shame that AO or DAoC (which where a bit later) could not really wrestle the commercial crown away from EQ.

Originally posted by Moaky07

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by fenistil

Whatever to think about R. Koster himself - I just agree with his article.

 

"Every inconvenience is someone else's game" - damn that just brilliant statement. Kinda exactly describe what I was trying to explain sometimes to some people I was arguing about certain features / design of mmorpg's.

Indeed. Koster can certainly turn a phrase.

Yeah he can talk.....what he cant do is make an MMO that appeals to many folks.

 

You guys are welcome to buy his apps though on Facebook.

I don't play Facebook games. The only I was ever serious about was Mousehunt. But it got old. And people paid to win. I barely use facebook at all. Even my status is more like a twitter account.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 Because he hasn't had a new idea in years. He's also wrong, again. Difficult things that make you want to do them are challenges. Inconvieniences are annoying. Killing a difficult mob with teamwork and precision for great rewad is a challenge. Being forced to kill 5,000 slow spawning widely separated trash mobs solo just so you can advance is an inconvienience. Do you see the difference? He doesn't and never has.

Lol, you obviously did not actually read the blog, or did not understand it. Sometimes, silence is golden...

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Do Auction Houses Suck?

His conclusion:

"Every inconvenience is a challenge, and games are made of challenges. This means that every inconvenience in your design is potentially someone’s game."

http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/#more-4080

Why isn't this guy making MMORPGs anymore?

 Because he hasn't had a new idea in years. He's also wrong, again. Difficult things that make you want to do them are challenges. Inconvieniences are annoying. Killing a difficult mob with teamwork and precision for great rewad is a challenge. Being forced to kill 5,000 slow spawning widely separated trash mobs solo just so you can advance is an inconvienience. Do you see the difference? He doesn't and never has.

I suggest reading your own signature.

People like you don't play games to experience them, you play them in an effort to be as good at them as possible. The difference is that in the latter you're inclined to ignore anything that doesn't contribute to gear/leveling and in the former you care about everything that makes the MMORPG genre unique. Unfortunately that 'everything' has been reduced to 'almost nothing' in most games these days.

The true strength that is specific to MMORPG's is that you can make a virtual world where thousands of people meaningfully interact in a multitude of different ways. But most MMO's these days severely limit the number of ways you can interact with the world at large. In other words, MMO's are less MMO than they used to be and much more like shallow single-player games. Basically they're the worst of both worlds. However, There are good prospects on the horizon but there always are....

Originally posted by Indol

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Do Auction Houses Suck?

His conclusion:

"Every inconvenience is a challenge, and games are made of challenges. This means that every inconvenience in your design is potentially someone’s game."

http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/#more-4080

Why isn't this guy making MMORPGs anymore?

 Because he hasn't had a new idea in years. He's also wrong, again. Difficult things that make you want to do them are challenges. Inconvieniences are annoying. Killing a difficult mob with teamwork and precision for great rewad is a challenge. Being forced to kill 5,000 slow spawning widely separated trash mobs solo just so you can advance is an inconvienience. Do you see the difference? He doesn't and never has.

I suggest reading your own signature.

 

People like you don't play games to experience them, you play them in an effort to be as good at them as possible. The difference is that in the latter you're inclined to ignore anything that doesn't contribute to gear/leveling and in the former you care about everything that makes the MMORPG genre unique. Unfortunately that 'everything' has been reduced to 'almost nothing' in most games these days.

 

The true strength that is specific to MMORPG's is that you can make a virtual world where thousands of people meaningfully interact in a multitude of different ways. But most MMO's these days severely limit the number of ways you can interact with the world at large. In other words, MMO's are less MMO than they used to be and much more like shallow single-player games. Basically they're the worst of both worlds. However, There are good prospects on the horizon but there always are....

/love

Raph would be a great game design instructor imo.

I was surprised he didnt talk much more on societies impact on the virtual economy when it comes to player motivations and needs more than he did, more reasoning on the use of auction houses and why people tend to go these days for the quick buy. This lends to (at least in theory) why people tend to hit hubs as opposed to the lemonaid stand.

If you look at your city, you have major hubs (shopping centers) and if youre lucky you'll see something locally owned. Meaning small and privately owned shops are scarce once wally world moves into town. Thats because these sort of "corporate shops" well, they can offer a larger variety, cheaper, in one place. Where as the lemon aid stands simply offer lemonade. The little bookstore is trumped by waldens :) Those who are able to do well, locate on the otherside of town, far away from the coporate boogeymans shop.

The indirect effect of that is the conditioning of society and it has spilled over into the game space imo. The net as Raph koster speaks about is the latest piece of the merchants gameplay. If you dont have an auction house, people dont know what to do anymore and they dont like to run across the planet to find multiple lemonaide stands so they voice against them, and its understandable when they can just go strait to wallyworld. :)

Developers have done everything to this day to feed this conditioning so do not be surprised if at some point an mmo launches with hand helds (remote interfaces) that allows for you to buy and recieve items directly from your characters hand, which might just kill any sort of AH in the process.

Sorry if I seem unclear, havent had the coffee yet. :( Ill let you fill in the gaps.

Originally posted by wizyy

This part is particularly lovely written:

"The small shopkeepers; the socializers who need the extra five minutes you have to spend waiting for a boat at the Everquest docks; the players who live to help, and can’t once every item is soul bound and every fight is group locked and they can’t even step in to save your life; the role player who cannot be who they wish to be because their dialogue is prewritten; the person proud of his knowledge of the dangerous mountains who is bypassed by a teleporter; the person who wants to be lost in the woods and cannot because there is a mini-map."

Dammit, SWG nostalgia got me again. 

Damn... this almost makes my cry lol

It described me as a player from head to toes.. i'm sure many of you too.

What hope is left for us?

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by wizyy

This part is particularly lovely written:

"The small shopkeepers; the socializers who need the extra five minutes you have to spend waiting for a boat at the Everquest docks; the players who live to help, and can’t once every item is soul bound and every fight is group locked and they can’t even step in to save your life; the role player who cannot be who they wish to be because their dialogue is prewritten; the person proud of his knowledge of the dangerous mountains who is bypassed by a teleporter; the person who wants to be lost in the woods and cannot because there is a mini-map."

Dammit, SWG nostalgia got me again. 

Damn... this almost makes my cry lol

It described me as a player from head to toes.. i'm sure many of you too.

What hope is left for us?

New and upcoming designers bro. :) new ideas, more improvements on the old to make them feasible and usable in titles. Its been long said if you want to play the game you like, you have to go and make it yourself. In your case, study old designs, refine them, update them and make them new again.

Originally posted by XNephalimX

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by wizyy

This part is particularly lovely written:

"The small shopkeepers; the socializers who need the extra five minutes you have to spend waiting for a boat at the Everquest docks; the players who live to help, and can’t once every item is soul bound and every fight is group locked and they can’t even step in to save your life; the role player who cannot be who they wish to be because their dialogue is prewritten; the person proud of his knowledge of the dangerous mountains who is bypassed by a teleporter; the person who wants to be lost in the woods and cannot because there is a mini-map."

Dammit, SWG nostalgia got me again. 

Damn... this almost makes my cry lol

It described me as a player from head to toes.. i'm sure many of you too.

What hope is left for us?

New and upcoming designers bro. :) new ideas, more improvements on the old to make them feasible and usable in titles. Its been long said if you want to play the game you like, you have to go and make it yourself. In your case, study old designs, refine them, update them and make them new again.

doesnt ryzom or xyson lack a mini map? can't remember which. i am making my own game but it is slow going.

fuck you network programming.

I highly agree with this:

The small shopkeepers; the socializers who need the extra five minutes you have to spend waiting for a boat at the Everquest docks; the players who live to help, and can’t once every item is soul bound and every fight is group locked and they can’t even step in to save your life; the role player who cannot be who they wish to be because their dialogue is prewritten; the person proud of his knowledge of the dangerous mountains who is bypassed by a teleporter; the person who wants to be lost in the woods and cannot because there is a mini-map.

Every inconvenience is a challenge, and games are made of challenges. This means that every inconvenience in your design is potentially someone’s game.

The people here that is bashing him, needs to step out from behind the WOW mentality and other games of the same mold and open their minds to something much deeper than the water in TOR.  MMORPG's are about player interdepenency and having the tools to build a strong community in a virtual world. In laymen's term: stuff to do outside of combat.

While there is nothing wrong with developer content, the problem comes in when they take away all the different choices on how to do that said content and rails the players down one specific path to complete the task at hand. Players want the freedom to make the decisions on when where and what they do in that virtual game world, and neglecting them to do so goes against everything that a mmorpg really stands for.

I posted this once before and i really thinks it applies to this genre more today that ever before. The phrase or meaning of MMORPG really doesn't mean the same thing as it was when the term first was used. Somehow, in the last atleast 7 yrs. that term has changed in meaning a little bit each yr. and now resembles something more in line with SPRPG. Instead of virtual worlds we now have game worlds that devlopers lead players through instanced corridors to get to a quest hub, that leads to nothing but combat for gear that becomes useless because once at max level the ride changes to a merry go gear grind. 

The only hope i see in the future is Archeage. If there is any game that needs to bring it and bring it well, it's that game. By doing so, i can only hope it would have such a positive reaction, it will change the face of the genre and once again bring back virtual worlds with the depth and freedom that the players of this genre deserve.

Originally posted by Sovrath

I highly agree with this:

 

The small shopkeepers; the socializers who need the extra five minutes you have to spend waiting for a boat at the Everquest docks; the players who live to help, and can’t once every item is soul bound and every fight is group locked and they can’t even step in to save your life; the role player who cannot be who they wish to be because their dialogue is prewritten; the person proud of his knowledge of the dangerous mountains who is bypassed by a teleporter; the person who wants to be lost in the woods and cannot because there is a mini-map.

Every inconvenience is a challenge, and games are made of challenges. This means that every inconvenience in your design is potentially someone’s game.

agree

Playing  Darkfall without chats was quite nice experience,no magical messages that theres orcs here and there and everywhere,just wandering at somewhere and getting in fights without any kind of warnings and then i took cheaters arrow in the knee.

Raph needs to put a project on Kickstarter.

If a dude who makes a webcomic (Order of The Stick) gets a MILLION dollars for his project of re-printing old comics (and he only asked for $56.000) on Kickstarter, I would expect that Raph gets a LOT more for his MMORPG project.

Raph should create game more and write blogs less. He has not done anything successful (or even less successful) lately, has he?

Talking is cheap. Designing and implementing a good game, on the other hand, is hard and much more valuable.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Raph should create game more and write blogs less. He has not done anything successful (or even less successful) lately, has he?

Talking is cheap. Designing and implementing a good game, on the other hand, is hard and much more valuable.

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Raph should create game more and write blogs less. He has not done anything successful (or even less successful) lately, has he?

Talking is cheap. Designing and implementing a good game, on the other hand, is hard and much more valuable.

 

I am guessing from your insightful contribution that you did not read the article.

I did .. he did some rambling about playing a merchant in SWG, and that AH is not good for that class.

Opinions like that means very little.

Lots of people, including you, spouts lots about your OPINIONS about good game designs here. Number of successful game developers here .. exactly zero. In fact, only Cuathon is even trying. Sure, discussing game design is fun .. so we do it for entertainment.

Raph, OTOH, is supposed to be a game developers, not like us. I don't see he is being much successful lately. Most likely beacuse he is holding onto the past, holding onto OLD ideas, and fail to innovate. Look at him .. he is talking about old old games. I suppose it is just human nature when he fails, he has to hold onto past glory to get a ego boost.

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by XNephalimX

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by wizyy

This part is particularly lovely written:

"The small shopkeepers; the socializers who need the extra five minutes you have to spend waiting for a boat at the Everquest docks; the players who live to help, and can’t once every item is soul bound and every fight is group locked and they can’t even step in to save your life; the role player who cannot be who they wish to be because their dialogue is prewritten; the person proud of his knowledge of the dangerous mountains who is bypassed by a teleporter; the person who wants to be lost in the woods and cannot because there is a mini-map."

Dammit, SWG nostalgia got me again. 

Damn... this almost makes my cry lol

It described me as a player from head to toes.. i'm sure many of you too.

What hope is left for us?

New and upcoming designers bro. :) new ideas, more improvements on the old to make them feasible and usable in titles. Its been long said if you want to play the game you like, you have to go and make it yourself. In your case, study old designs, refine them, update them and make them new again.

doesnt ryzom or xyson lack a mini map? can't remember which. i am making my own game but it is slow going.

fuck you network programming.

lol dammit I dont recall exactly. Ryzom did have a minimap but as to the uhh information it provided (If I recall correctly) was mostly just a sort of compass and dots for mob reps. The last time I played Ryzom was before they went open source and Im getting where memory is running in opposite directions. I damn sure remember crafting my own ammo though. :)

Keep at it.