Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Psychow

Originally posted by Lazzaro

One of the many thing I loved in SWG was driving around with my speeder from vendor to vendor and finding awesome stuff.

 

Maybe it's because I didn't play SWG but...that sounds like the most boring activity ever. (note: I also hate shopping IRL...)

Actually it was fun.  You did not have to do this, since sooner or later you would know few best crafters in your area,(or your friends / guild would )  but it still was fun to check stores once in a while.  

Obviously many people will not like it.   Every game type, every genre, etc have people that like it and that don't.

 

Many newest mmorpg's are totally diffrent game type that old ones.  Technically they are still in same genre, but they went so far in differentiating and total concept change that it could be said that they are in diffrent genres.

May be fun for you, not for me.

The FUN of shopping is to discover a good item at a good price. It is MOOT to know the actual crafter. It is MUCH more efficient to search the item on its stat and properties. If the item is powerful, and that it has a good price, why would i care who make it? It is very boring to run around just to check inventory of vendors. A central AH does that for you.

I would agree the characteristics of the genre change. But genre changes all the time. MMO would not be the first, nor the last.

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Originally posted by fenistil

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Originally posted by Psychow

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Originally posted by Lazzaro One of the many thing I loved in SWG was driving around with my speeder from vendor to vendor and finding awesome stuff.

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  Maybe it's because I didn't play SWG but...that sounds like the most boring activity ever. (note: I also hate shopping IRL...)

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Actually it was fun.  You did not have to do this, since sooner or later you would know few best crafters in your area,(or your friends / guild would )  but it still was fun to check stores once in a while.  

Obviously many people will not like it.   Every game type, every genre, etc have people that like it and that don't.

 

Many newest mmorpg's are totally diffrent game type that old ones.  Technically they are still in same genre, but they went so far in differentiating and total concept change that it could be said that they are in diffrent genres.

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Yea, after a couple of times you knew the best vendors, you had everything way pointed. But there were sometimes that I just loved roaming the planets in search of some good stuff.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Psychow

Originally posted by Lazzaro

One of the many thing I loved in SWG was driving around with my speeder from vendor to vendor and finding awesome stuff.

 

Maybe it's because I didn't play SWG but...that sounds like the most boring activity ever. (note: I also hate shopping IRL...)

Actually it was fun.  You did not have to do this, since sooner or later you would know few best crafters in your area,(or your friends / guild would )  but it still was fun to check stores once in a while.  

Obviously many people will not like it.   Every game type, every genre, etc have people that like it and that don't.

 

Many newest mmorpg's are totally diffrent game type that old ones.  Technically they are still in same genre, but they went so far in differentiating and total concept change that it could be said that they are in diffrent genres.

May be fun for you, not for me.

The FUN of shopping is to discover a good item at a good price. It is MOOT to know the actual crafter. It is MUCH more efficient to search the item on its stat and properties. If the item is powerful, and that it has a good price, why would i care who make it? It is very boring to run around just to check inventory of vendors. A central AH does that for you.

I would agree the characteristics of the genre change. But genre changes all the time. MMO would not be the first, nor the last.

In SWG it is not "moot" to know the actual crafter, because crafting in SWG, unlike other games, has something called experimentation - good crafters really knows how to manipulate this to get the best results.

I used to be a slicer so I used to work with good crafters a lot, because if I bought a case of their good crafted items, and I got good slice on on them, I can sell them for very high price.

this turned into quite a nice little discussion, even one without flames, which is shocking to say the least here.

my history of games does not include SWG, I only have second hand knowledge of that game.  

I started really into MMO's in 

Asheron's Call- No AH, no crafting, heavy trade services like dyeing, cooking, fletching, tinkering.  We used AC Vault as a trade broker and it was superb.

Horizons- They had an AH, but the AH only sold mats, and recipes, you still had to find a crafter to make you everything which was a great community game, as well as community projects, wish the game didnt flop, cause they were really onto something

WOW- Dont know how I played thru WOTLK, maybe it was new and fun, really it was my first themepark, and Vanilla and BC had great communities on my server, then LK everything went south for some reason (Burnout?)

RIFT, SWTOR, TSW, TERA, GW2, just havent been able to get into them at all.  Played all of them about 2 months, zero community, zero need for community.  Hoping one of the upcoming sandboxes bring the community back to the genre, cause it really is fun just getting a group and going on an adventure.  Holding out hope for Origins of Malu, Archeage, Repopulation and The Black Desert

Maybe this topic will catch Murphy's eye

Originally posted by Myrdynn

I have long been thinking of posting this, finally getting a little time to do so.  While playing some games recently, TSW, GW2, SWtor, TERA, etc over the last year, it has dawned on me that the biggest community killer is the Auction House.  Recently games (TSW and GW2) launched without a proper AH, and until they were put in place, people actually talked in the channels, making deals, helping people, selling mats etc.  I actually made a couple acquaintances that were heavy crafters, who just were after all the supplies they could get their hands on, and I was willing to help em out.  It was a good relationship.  Then the AH was fixed, and since then I havent even talked to a single person in game.  Before you say, well I should try making friends, there really is nothing in either TSW or GW2 that having friends makes beneficial.  I dont need them to do anything in game, I dont need them to craft anything for me, etc.

Now long ago, the games we played didnt have Auction Houses, and they were very strong communities.  Everyone on a server knew that if you wanted a Ubersword of Giant Slaying, that BobJohnson was the one that could craft it the best, or you could at least ask around and see if someone could hook you up.  This built community, numerous times, a conversation would go something like.  Hey I hear you can make me "item X', sure I can, but the mats are really tough to come by.  But why dont we get a group together and go out on a hunting party to find them.  You get your mats, you help me skill up one of my crafting skills, its a win/win.  Friendships were formed, alliances were forged, etc.

Unfortunately with the have it all now crowd that play MMO's Auction Houses are an evil necessity.  You collect your mats, sell them on the AH for X currency, then search for the item you want and bam, you got it, very short time, very EZ.  But during this time, you have no interaction with another player whatsoever, hell you dont even know who made you your item.  Items used to be imprinted with crafters as well, so that when someone says hey where did you get that sword you could inspect it and it would say made by "player X".

Anyways, I know I am going to likely be in the minority, but its something I have been thinking of for some time.  I think a happy medium might be a game where an Auction House isnt really an AH, but a Job listing, for example you want "Sword X" you search the AH database of "who" can craft it, and it will give you a list with (online/offline) status's, where you then actually need to interact with a player, It might not be all that much different but at least its a step back in the right direction

Thoughts?

While I dont begrudge your opinion I still think its wrong.  Standing around hawking your wares IMO takes away from things that are fun and the AH is jsut one of the long line of convenience "quality of life" improvements that the modern MMO has innovated on, and for the better.  The other misnomer players make regarding the death of the community is dungeon finders, which I too think is false.

Their are only 3 issues which can be attributed to the percieved loss of community and those are:

1. Games have gotten simpler and more soloable
2. the advent of strong quild systems
3. MMO's are massive in scope, instead of 100k players, there are now potentially millions
4. Older MMO's were born in the early days of the internet and as such it was more common to be more sociable  Unlike now when almsot the entire civilized world is connected.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by fenistil

 

May be fun for you, not for me.

The FUN of shopping is to discover a good item at a good price. It is MOOT to know the actual crafter. It is MUCH more efficient to search the item on its stat and properties. If the item is powerful, and that it has a good price, why would i care who make it? It is very boring to run around just to check inventory of vendors. A central AH does that for you.

I would agree the characteristics of the genre change. But genre changes all the time. MMO would not be the first, nor the last.

 

 

Of course certain things won't be fun for you while they will be for me and also there are alot of things that are fun to you and are not fun for me.  Thing is there is small chance that we'll want to even play same games judging from our discussions in past.   I am not trying take anything from you - you should have wide range of games made for you - but I don't care much about their features as much as you seem to care about features of a games you would not even want to play in first place.

Fortunetally video games market is so huge nowadays that you will get endless stream of instanced purely combat oriented games to your liking.

========

Point of trading and crafting in mmoprg I am saying was not moot, since by knowing your crafters you could make better deals with them than random consumer would.  You could coopeate with him / her getting custom made gear.  

It is very boring to spend time browisng through list of items. It is much more interesing game to try to get competetive advantage by travelling to vendors / crafters in diffrent parts of game world or by cooperating with them.  It is much better mini-game by crafting something that need coopeartion of few people.  

You're only interested in conveniant way to get items since you care from what you were saying almost exclusively in combat and at same time you don't have much interest in community, non-combat cooperation, more complex trading or crafting and playing rpg's games that offer wide-array of non-combat features.

We're both interested in games that are technically called mmorpg's but in reality we are interested in totally diffrent TYPE of games.

Do you complain that Civilization or 4x games are not providing you with gameplay similar to Starcraft?

RTS games once were once labbeled as strategies.  In time rts went more and more in action and e-sport twich gameplay and there was bigger and bigger diffrences between them and more classic strategies so  naturally strategy games have split into two separate genres.

Now mmorpg's are still labelled as one genre but it is already so big and diffrent that it will inevitably divide into separate genres.    Absolutely hugest part will be conveniant instanced dungeon / arena runners with matchmaking made for you.

So you should be happy because in future you might have mmorpg's suited more for your taste and diffrent kinds of mmorpgs will be labelled with diffrent genre name and will be made for diffrent audience thus you won't even have to have play games with features made for people like me that make your experience worse by putting some features you don't like. 

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Psychow

Originally posted by Lazzaro

One of the many thing I loved in SWG was driving around with my speeder from vendor to vendor and finding awesome stuff.

 

Maybe it's because I didn't play SWG but...that sounds like the most boring activity ever. (note: I also hate shopping IRL...)

Actually it was fun.  You did not have to do this, since sooner or later you would know few best crafters in your area,(or your friends / guild would )  but it still was fun to check stores once in a while.  

Obviously many people will not like it.   Every game type, every genre, etc have people that like it and that don't.

 

Many newest mmorpg's are totally diffrent game type that old ones.  Technically they are still in same genre, but they went so far in differentiating and total concept change that it could be said that they are in diffrent genres.

May be fun for you, not for me.

The FUN of shopping is to discover a good item at a good price. It is MOOT to know the actual crafter. It is MUCH more efficient to search the item on its stat and properties. If the item is powerful, and that it has a good price, why would i care who make it? It is very boring to run around just to check inventory of vendors. A central AH does that for you.

I would agree the characteristics of the genre change. But genre changes all the time. MMO would not be the first, nor the last.

the FUN was seeing so many different and unique decorations in players' houses in SWG. Never stop traveling in all 6 years i played the game. Also i kept many videos with my most loved decorations. Some people made a tidirium shuttle with materials from the game. Some made a complete droid factory. Some Pod Speeders. Some made a family house with vases, fish tank, fireplace, chairs e.t.c. and such

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 

May be fun for you, not for me.

The FUN of shopping is to discover a good item at a good price. It is MOOT to know the actual crafter. It is MUCH more efficient to search the item on its stat and properties. If the item is powerful, and that it has a good price, why would i care who make it? It is very boring to run around just to check inventory of vendors. A central AH does that for you.

I would agree the characteristics of the genre change. But genre changes all the time. MMO would not be the first, nor the last.

In SWG it is not "moot" to know the actual crafter, because crafting in SWG, unlike other games, has something called experimentation - good crafters really knows how to manipulate this to get the best results.

 

I used to be a slicer so I used to work with good crafters a lot, because if I bought a case of their good crafted items, and I got good slice on on them, I can sell them for very high price.

That is only because there is no AH.

If there is an AH, the attribute of the item will be displayed. So while a good crafter and make better items and charge higher prices, the buyers don't have to care who he is.

If only you can make a +5 sword, and all swords are +4. On the AH, i can see your +5 sword. But i don't care about you or who you are .. i only care the "+5". The identify of the crafter is MOOT on a AH.

I hear what you are saying but I see it more complex than that.  Things never remain the same and the only constant is change.

Years ago before AH were created we didnt have as many games and I'd say our community wasn't as large.  The entire fun of playing online back then was connecting with friends.  As it was the only way to do it long distance.  Fast forward a decade of so and communication is built into almost everything we do.  I look at my nephew and niece and they are never without some form of communication cell phone, instant messaging, twitter, facebook, you name it.  Can we say if all of this existing back when we played that we play exactly the same?  I think not.

I also believe this infusion of instant communication as almost forced our brains to work more efficiently to filter out the information overload. I can find out way more about a game and or movie than I can seeing or playing it.  I see AH being a result of that efficiency.  I also see gaming age as a factor.  Im pushing 40.  At 17, 18 I had nothing else better to do than play games. Now I have a mortgage, private school, events, etc.  When I sit down to play a game and I want to sell soemthing, sometimes I just dont have the time to go back and forth and haggle.  Its *easier* for me to post something on an AH and just collect my money.  Hell I even get upset when the AH cant be run offline.

I dont believe games are becoming solo as much as the main aspect that these 'social' games gave us have been superceded by other inventions to the point where its not seen as a necessity in the game.  If I want to talk to my friends I can actually do it now WHILE I play a game.  I dont think it will ever be removed, as some like to Role Play in the game and some truly enjoy speaking with the people there.  But we shouldn't rule out the fact around why it is declining.

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by fenistil

 

May be fun for you, not for me.

The FUN of shopping is to discover a good item at a good price. It is MOOT to know the actual crafter. It is MUCH more efficient to search the item on its stat and properties. If the item is powerful, and that it has a good price, why would i care who make it? It is very boring to run around just to check inventory of vendors. A central AH does that for you.

I would agree the characteristics of the genre change. But genre changes all the time. MMO would not be the first, nor the last.

 

 

Of course certain things won't be fun for you while they will be for me and also there are alot of things that are fun to you and are not fun for me.  Thing is there is small chance that we'll want to even play same games judging from our discussions in past.   I am not trying take anything from you - you should have wide range of games made for you - but I don't care much about their features as much as you seem to care about features of a games you would not even want to play in first place.

Fortunetally video games market is so huge nowadays that you will get endless stream of instanced purely combat oriented games to your liking.

Definitely. I don't have enough time. Now playing: D3 (still), Borderlands, Torchlight 2, and MOP (last priority cause combat is less fun). And that is just now.

========

Point of trading and crafting in mmoprg I am saying was not moot, since by knowing your crafters you could make better deals with them than random consumer would.  You could coopeate with him / her getting custom made gear.  

The time you spent is 100x more efficient on an AH. If the market is deep, getting custom made gear is moot. You will find what you need anyway. And better deals? You get better deals by having MORE sellers competing for your business. Dealing with a small number of vendors is the sure way to get WORSE deals. That is just basic economics.

It is very boring to spend time browisng through list of items. It is much more interesing game to try to get competetive advantage by travelling to vendors / crafters in diffrent parts of game world or by cooperating with them.  It is much better mini-game by crafting something that need coopeartion of few people.  

That is obviously subjective. You see fewer items, have to travel the same route multiple times .. all sound very boring to me. In fact, a AH cut out all the travel ... that is a BIG PLUS for me.

 You're only interested in conveniant way to get items since you care from what you were saying almost exclusively in combat and at same time you don't have much interest in community, non-combat cooperation, more complex trading or crafting and playing rpg's games that offer wide-array of non-combat features.

 Yes. True. The point of AH is to get items (or sell them). The point of trading is to progress in combat power. I am not interested in socializing.

We're both interested in games that are technically called mmorpg's but in reality we are interested in totally diffrent TYPE of games.

You are 100% right. MMORPGs should have sub-genres, just like RPGs.

Do you complain that Civilization or 4x games are not providing you with gameplay similar to Starcraft?

I never complain. I just state what i like. And if i care enough about RTS, i probably will state i like SC gameplay, and what elements i like in a RTS forum.

RTS games once were once labbeled as strategies.  In time rts went more and more in action and e-sport twich gameplay and there was bigger and bigger diffrences between them and more classic strategies so  naturally strategy games have split into two separate genres.

 True. I use to play some of those turned based war games with hex grids. RTS is a big progression from turn based games. But of course, i still like turn-based games like Advance Wars.

Now mmorpg's are still labelled as one genre but it is already so big and diffrent that it will inevitably divide into separate genres.    Absolutely hugest part will be conveniant instanced dungeon / arena runners with matchmaking made for you.

MMORPG will (or is already) split .. just like many other genre. That is the nature of the world .. change is constant.

So you should be happy because in future you might have mmorpg's suited more for your taste and diffrent kinds of mmorpgs will be labelled with diffrent genre name and will be made for diffrent audience thus you won't even have to have play games with features made for people like me that make your experience worse by putting some features you don't like. 

I am. Have i ever said i am not? In fact, it is a great time for entertainment. Lots of games i like (including some MMORPG), lots of novels, lots of good super hero movies, good tv shows ....

In fact, i am VERY selective now. Just last night, i have to choose between games (D3, Borderland 2, Darksider 2, TL2, MOP, .... and thank god Dead Space 3 is not out yet), tv shows, and movies. I ended up spending most of the evening catching up on Homeland and Dexter, and only a little time on D3.

 

So you mean a bunch of people spamming "WTS XXXXX" like 10 times a minute builds a community heh?

No AH doesn't destroy the community. In fact it helps. At least people would bother reading the channels.......

I miss old school MMORPGs but AH is a nice feature. If the game content is group/social oriented, AH won't "kill" the community. People that don't bother socializing do.

@nariusseldon

Forgive me that I will not quote whole post. 

Anyway - we're getting somewhere.  

I think that devs trying to create one game for in. example me and you - are actually huting game itself. 

Sure - most mmorpg's went to cater to people with your expectations, but at same time they still try to 'sneak' some features to lure gamers like me (or similar) and some diffrent groups and because of that they may spoil your experience and stall splitting mmorpg into sub-genres.

Fortunatelly merging very difftent philosophies slowly stop to work.

Originally posted by Myrdynn

I have long been thinking of posting this, finally getting a little time to do so.  While playing some games recently, TSW, GW2, SWtor, TERA, etc over the last year, it has dawned on me that the biggest community killer is the Auction House.  Recently games (TSW and GW2) launched without a proper AH, and until they were put in place, people actually talked in the channels, making deals, helping people, selling mats etc.  I actually made a couple acquaintances that were heavy crafters, who just were after all the supplies they could get their hands on, and I was willing to help em out.  It was a good relationship.  Then the AH was fixed, and since then I havent even talked to a single person in game.  Before you say, well I should try making friends, there really is nothing in either TSW or GW2 that having friends makes beneficial.  I dont need them to do anything in game, I dont need them to craft anything for me, etc.

 

GW2 didn't have their AH up because of the exploiting issue. Do you really need rewards for having friends? really? really tho? just wow.......

Originally posted by fenistil

Now mmorpg's are still labelled as one genre but it is already so big and diffrent that it will inevitably divide into separate genres.    Absolutely hugest part will be conveniant instanced dungeon / arena runners with matchmaking made for you.

So you should be happy because in future you might have mmorpg's suited more for your taste and diffrent kinds of mmorpgs will be labelled with diffrent genre name and will be made for diffrent audience thus you won't even have to have play games with features made for people like me that make your experience worse by putting some features you don't like. 

 

This is already happening, just look at the upcoming End of Nations, which calls itself an MMORTS, just as Planetside is an MMOFPS (as was Neocron, more or less).

Originally posted by Azaron_Nightblade

Originally posted by fenistil

Now mmorpg's are still labelled as one genre but it is already so big and diffrent that it will inevitably divide into separate genres.    Absolutely hugest part will be conveniant instanced dungeon / arena runners with matchmaking made for you.

So you should be happy because in future you might have mmorpg's suited more for your taste and diffrent kinds of mmorpgs will be labelled with diffrent genre name and will be made for diffrent audience thus you won't even have to have play games with features made for people like me that make your experience worse by putting some features you don't like. 

 

This is already happening, just look at the upcoming End of Nations, which calls itself an MMORTS, just as Planetside is an MMOFPS (as was Neocron, more or less).

That's not what I am talking about.   Those games are rts and fps adaptions in mmo genre.  Don't mix mmo with mmorpg's - mmorpg's are subgenre of mmo's and games like planetside were never considered as mmorpg's in first place. 

I am talking specifically about mmoRPG's.

Take EVE Online and WoW.   They are both labelled as same genre (mmorpg) but they don't have almost anythign in common.

Take Star Wars Galaxies and TERA Online still both labelled as same genre but very little in common.

Take Ultima Online ans Swtor.  Not so much in common as well. 

Ok they all have one thing in common - having a character and developing it (amonst other things).

Similarly:

Diablo

Skyrim

Heavenly Sword

also have same thing in common, but they are in diffrent genres.  Diablo is hack&slash,  Skyrim is crpg and Heavenly Sword is action-adventure shasher.

Mmorpg's genre grown alot in size since 1997 and everything in thrown into same label, even games that have totaly diffrtent concept, totally difftent gameplay and just almost everything difftent and are not more similar to each other than Starcraft is similar to Civilization.

nariusseldon is right in one thing :   Diablo 3 is more similar to current WoW than current WoW is to EvE or SWG. (of course I am not saying D3 and WoW are one and same since they still have preety fundamental diffrences and are difftent).

Ah, I see what you mean now.

Yeah, the only thing we have are broad, general categories like "Fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc..."

Hard to really put them into specific categories like action MMORPG (TERA for example).

Im still not seeing how AHs have anything to do with lack of community.

Game without an AH:

Someone starts spamming "WTS Epic Sword of Uberness 100G"

Someone replies "Ill buy it"

They meet up, trade, go back to their business.

Do you actually consider that "socializing" and "community". Its not as if people selling items are doing it for another purpose, such as initiating the trade just to sit around and share eachother's life stories.

If you want socializing and community, then just do it. Talk to people, start up conversations, find a niche of people with common interests, etc. You dont need buying/selling to do it. Its not like you go to the local grocery store to find a new best friend. You got here to shop.