Originally posted by kaiser3282

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.

You don't see it because you are looking at only one - the least desirable - alternative. Player shops, bulk orders, player contracts, and other options help give players more direct interaction.

Originally posted by Azaron_Nightblade

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).

Yeah it is hard and categorizing is never perfect.   There are preety valid reasons why categorizing anything can be bad,  BUT it is just how human mind works and categorizing has it's consequences good and bad ones.   Humans even most intelligent and with greatest memories cannot consciously process and evaluate each new thing thing without categories and labels.  That's too much information.  Imagine that there would be no genres in games and a pain to find one you want to play and having to browse, research and evaluate thousands of games  you have no interest in playing.

Sometimes it is just simply needed even if it is not ideal.    I am not trying to force anything or trying to come up with my propositions in this topic, just signalling a "problem". 

Some devs also saw that - two examples that immedietaly pop into mind are A.net with GW1 labelling it as CORPG to avoid flak from not fullfilling expectations that many players experct from 'mmorpg' label ( even though you can find similar asian instanced games that are labelled as mmorpg's. )

Similarly TESO dev said few months ago that TESO is/ will be online-rpg and that mmorpg label is outdated.  They are backpedalling on that a bit, but that does not change that dev from big company said what he said.

There were more examples like this - I just cannot recall now and not in a mood to try to remember and google to make sure.

The OP nails it but not with the subject. Read the OP post carefully again, he doesn't NEED friends. The problem with the English language is that words can have so many meanings. So lets change NEED by USE. He as no use for friends in modern games.

He doesn't want to socialize for fun, he wants the game to force him to use/need other people.

All the interactions he talks about, they are still going on. I give friends some materials and get the items I need, and they give me materials for my crafting prof of choice (chef), tell me what stat matters and I make the right food for them. No AH involved. Plenty of talking.

But I don't NEED friends, I don't USE them. I WANT them. Our interaction also doesn't hinge on crafting, we would interact regardless of crafting and trading.

What recent games have done, is that a lot of people have taken ease of use to far. The games are now so smooth, you don't need to rely on people, so they don't. Not that they don't want social interaction but that will come after the tutorial level, after the starter areas, after the mid game, later, tomorrow, next week...

I have played MMO's for a long time and I have noticed that people are more and more in a rush, a rush to get to some point were the game is fun and they can experience all those epic stories tell about ancient times when gaming was for real men and real women!

Well, those games are still there, experienced by those who don't rush everywhere.  GW2 has just as much richness to experience epic SWG tales of yore but you need to stop and smell the roses. If you don't, you only will feel the torns.

But if you don't make a detour, to see what is behind that corner just for the sake of seeing it. If you ignore chat messages because you have no need right now, then you won't be part of that epic user made event.

The best in life happens while you were to busy preparing for it. 

Only you can step of the threadmill.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by kaiser3282

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.

You don't see it because you are looking at only one - the least desirable - alternative. Player shops, bulk orders, player contracts, and other options help give players more direct interaction.

Different names / mechanics, same thing. Youre using eachother for a purpose, to buy and sell stuff. Thats the point. Do you only befriend people IRL that you can make money off of? Associating being social with gaining a reward for interacting with people is ridiculous. Youre not doing it to be social, youre doing it to gain something.

Whats stopping you from simply starting up conversations with people you see around in the game? Why does there have to be a pricetag or something attached to it?

This doesnt just apply to the AH stuff, but all aspects of MMOs. People equating features / mechanics with being social or not just makes no sense. If people want to socialize and be friendly, theyll do it naturally. Forcing them to intereact with you in some way doesnt make them anymore social. Theyre doing it because its the only way to get something done (such as buying a weapon, killing a boss, etc), not because they genuinely enjoy your wit and hearing about your day.

I think nixing the idea of the AH goes hand in hand with nixing global chat.

A realistic approach to player interaction is more conducive to immersing people in a world than one that people can associate with forums or IM'ing which will cause people to act differently than if communcation and interaction were all done in the context of the actual game.

Originally posted by fenistil

@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.

I don't disagree. Although i am looking at it as a grey sliding scale rather than 1 or 0. The merging of style/features work for some players on the margins. And it depends on the context.

For example, it think putting pokemon into MOP works pretty well. It is a new thing .. it cater to pokemon fans (and those who like some turn base combat). It does not diminishes the other parts of the game.

Obviously nothing can be done to WOW to cater to sandbox fans, given the core gameplay is unchanged. But there are a lot of other needs and wants that can be addressed (like the pokemon example).

Originally posted by Indol

I think nixing the idea of the AH goes hand in hand with nixing global chat.

 

A realistic approach to player interaction is more conducive to immersing people in a world than one that people can associate with forums or IM'ing which will cause people to act differently than if communcation and interaction were all done in the context of the actual game.

Which is exactly what i do NOT want. "realistic" is not necessarily fun to me. I want cross realm grouping. I want IM chat. I am not livnig a second life, i am playing a multiplayer game. Anything that makes playing with people easier (like NOT restricting me to people on a server) is a GOOD thing in my book.

Originally posted by fenistil

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).

It is the play style. Many gravitate towards co-op small group content. Hit a button and go on an adventure with a small group.

Note that i see this as the core gameplay of D3, and WOW. The only difference is that WOW tries to enable many other types of gameplay (like collecting pets). So WOW is like a superset of D3 ... and the D3 play style, while a subset, is pretty dominant in how WOW players play.

Originally posted by kostoslav
Auction House: Death of Spamming :-)

THIS ^^ omg, play Runescape for 5 seconds. 

Originally posted by sfc1971

The OP nails it but not with the subject. Read the OP post carefully again, he doesn't NEED friends. The problem with the English language is that words can have so many meanings. So lets change NEED by USE. He as no use for friends in modern games.

He doesn't want to socialize for fun, he wants the game to force him to use/need other people.

All the interactions he talks about, they are still going on. I give friends some materials and get the items I need, and they give me materials for my crafting prof of choice (chef), tell me what stat matters and I make the right food for them. No AH involved. Plenty of talking.

But I don't NEED friends, I don't USE them. I WANT them. Our interaction also doesn't hinge on crafting, we would interact regardless of crafting and trading.

What recent games have done, is that a lot of people have taken ease of use to far. The games are now so smooth, you don't need to rely on people, so they don't. Not that they don't want social interaction but that will come after the tutorial level, after the starter areas, after the mid game, later, tomorrow, next week...

I have played MMO's for a long time and I have noticed that people are more and more in a rush, a rush to get to some point were the game is fun and they can experience all those epic stories tell about ancient times when gaming was for real men and real women!

Well, those games are still there, experienced by those who don't rush everywhere.  GW2 has just as much richness to experience epic SWG tales of yore but you need to stop and smell the roses. If you don't, you only will feel the torns.

But if you don't make a detour, to see what is behind that corner just for the sake of seeing it. If you ignore chat messages because you have no need right now, then you won't be part of that epic user made event.

The best in life happens while you were to busy preparing for it. 

Only you can step of the threadmill.

good effort, not quite.  In the past I met friends who were crafters, friends who I grouped with and hunted, friends who were just hanging around Arwic, and I said hey whats up.  Games now, there is like 50 people in an area, and even if you start a discussion, you only get 3 people maybe chatting.  And most the time at least in GW2 if you send someone a tell, they just ignore you.  Something simple, like hey where is that zone event at that you are broadcasting about getting more people to. Or what level do you need?

also in the times pre-WOW (I know alot of you dont believe it existed) Trading did not include spamming WTS xxxx item, trading included things like this

Hey friend, I need to get a breastplate made, you know anyone who can make me X quality item.  No but I have a friend who might know a guy, ok cool let me know what you find out.  A day or 2 later sometimes, you get a tell from player C, a friend of mine told me you were looking for X Breastplate of Giantslaying, I can make that for you but the mats are really hard to get.  Maybe we can form a hunting party and go out searching for some mats.  Sure that sounds cool, Ill get a couple of my friends and we can get a group.  Along the way you get acquainted and actually add that person to your friends list, and maybe the following week, start another group together.  Now you also made a friend with a crafter, who you entire tell your other friends about, that builds a community.

During the early days of WoW people used Trade chat as much if not more(esp for rare and exclusive items) than the AH.

The problem is that no one hangs out in major cities any more, there is not need to manually LFG, and since you can pretty much teleport instantly to any dungeon there is not need for a cental hub like IF(AKA Lag Forge) was in the good old days.

Many changes to WoW made the captial cities and central hubs redudant, the AH is not one of them, and every game out there that does not feature an auto-group tool it getting slammed for it.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by fenistil

@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.

I don't disagree. Although i am looking at it as a grey sliding scale rather than 1 or 0. The merging of style/features work for some players on the margins. And it depends on the context.

For example, it think putting pokemon into MOP works pretty well. It is a new thing .. it cater to pokemon fans (and those who like some turn base combat). It does not diminishes the other parts of the game.

Obviously nothing can be done to WOW to cater to sandbox fans, given the core gameplay is unchanged. But there are a lot of other needs and wants that can be addressed (like the pokemon example).

 

Nothing will stop merging difftent genres together and it is not my intention.  Again good example are rts / strategy games.

Even though they splitted (and rts even spawned another sub-genre - DOTA's clones)  and those games are made to diffrent audiences, but they are still games that merge / blur strategy and rts.    In example Total War series.  It is usually listed under strategy genre, but battles are actually real time ones.

I am not saying that games should not never use ideas from other genres, just saying that mmorpg's just got too broad and many mmorpg's are trying to merge very difftent ideas in one game - in the end hurting the experience.  

Originally posted by kaiser3282

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by kaiser3282

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.

You don't see it because you are looking at only one - the least desirable - alternative. Player shops, bulk orders, player contracts, and other options help give players more direct interaction.

Different names / mechanics, same thing. Youre using eachother for a purpose, to buy and sell stuff. Thats the point. Do you only befriend people IRL that you can make money off of? Associating being social with gaining a reward for interacting with people is ridiculous. Youre not doing it to be social, youre doing it to gain something.

Whats stopping you from simply starting up conversations with people you see around in the game? Why does there have to be a pricetag or something attached to it?

This doesnt just apply to the AH stuff, but all aspects of MMOs. People equating features / mechanics with being social or not just makes no sense. If people want to socialize and be friendly, theyll do it naturally. Forcing them to intereact with you in some way doesnt make them anymore social. Theyre doing it because its the only way to get something done (such as buying a weapon, killing a boss, etc), not because they genuinely enjoy your wit and hearing about your day.

Actually, they are very different mechanics. AH requires no interaction with other players, however trade systems that allow for haggling and setting condistions for a contract introduce a level of negotion that player can directly do. More importantly, it allows merchants and artisans and even the buyers to build reputations in circles outside of their immediate guild unit.

Certain features definitely do remove the human element, and the AH is one of them. It replaces it with a fast, convenient, centralized system, so it's hard to argue against its presence, as the benefit greatly outweighs the diminished personal experience for the majority of players.

Originally posted by fenistil

I am not saying that games should not never use ideas from other genres, just saying that mmorpg's just got too broad and many mmorpg's are trying to merge very difftent ideas in one game - in the end hurting the experience.  

I would argue each case is different. WOW merges a lot of stuff, and it is a very successful game by any objective measure. It is really about implementation.

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?

I have a guild to be social with I don't need to be social with others unless I chose to do so. If I wanted to find where sed item was found or made I have wowhead for that. AH is a piece of the game that is a outstanding way to unload goods and get paid for doing so. I mean come on its a game within a game depending on how you want to play it. Sorry OP but your way off base here. Your theories may apply in some games but not all. In all honesty I can't see how a AH wouldn't benefit every MMO on the market.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by fenistil

I am not saying that games should not never use ideas from other genres, just saying that mmorpg's just got too broad and many mmorpg's are trying to merge very difftent ideas in one game - in the end hurting the experience.  

I would argue each case is different. WOW merges a lot of stuff, and it is a very successful game by any objective measure. It is really about implementation.

 

 

I think it also matter what are you trying to merge.  Some things / concepts merged work and some does not.  Actually I don't see much things in WoW merged that is conceptually difftent from each other.  Even pokemon fights imho is not that difftent fundamentally from rest of the game.  You train pets with skills, level them and battle other pets.  
It's not really something wildly diffrent from rest of the game.  With your main character you also get levels, get skills and fight - just fight system for pets is much simplier and slower paced without that much control.

You know WoW merged alot of things that tore concept of virtual fantasy world, but WoW never was game like that.

Well initially WoW appeared as a game that is about fantasy virtual world, but either that was never intented or was quickly scrapped by Blizzard (scrapping started when it still was vanilla).   

Between BC and now what was done - was introducing of new kind of instanced gameplay (arenas, BG, new kind of PvE instances), making this gameplay more conveniant and faster (LFG, LFR, battlegroups).  Also virtual world thing was being reduced (much faster levelling, cross-server zones, faction & race & server transfers and more). 

So decision was being apparent very early and everything that was done since then is just expanding.  Only new genre that was maybe merged in WoW - was e-sport MOBA gameplay with arena, rating, elo, etc   but one could argue that it was only expanding on matchmaking-instanced gameplay by providing PvP part of that gameplay next to PvE one.

It's not that WoW brought gameplay from FPS shooters or RTS games or simulation of helicopters or submarines games.

Actually whole mmorpg genre originated as cross-genre experience with part of gameplay taken from singe player rpg's, part of gameplay from economic games, part from social games / chat room and so on. 

What WoW did it was strenghtening of combat feature and simplifying or excluding most of other features.  Most players seems wanted that so that's why it is succesful.  
I don't see much cross-genre features in WoW added through the years. 

It is graphical framework for matchmaking PvE and PvP MOBA instanced gameplay with easy conveniant single player element (like questing)  and very simple centralized economy mini-game.  + guilds  

It is nothing bad - actually it is propably great for people that want this type of gameplay and it seems that ~10 million of people around the globe want it.

I would argue that the AH by itself did not kill the community.  It's the combination of many many factors that turn awesome BobJohnson into faceless player X.  As others have probably stated, there are plenty of games with AH's (or even mass market tools) where the community is still strong.  And finding the crafter that makes the ubersword is still community building.

Building a community takes time anyway.  You can't expect bran new games like TSW and GW2 to have a cohesive, strong community right in the first few months.  Everyone is still faceles player X.

I bet TERA has a decent community by now tho...

Hmm, I disagree OP.

My first game was DAoC and it didn't have an auction house. At a later date after its launch, it added player housing, and if you could find a plot for a house and could afford it and it's upkeep, you could buy a merchant who would sell your goods, but since plots were very limited and expensive, the majority of people didn't have them. So trading happened over chat or forums, mostly forums, but not as much as you'd think. You'd have certain level brackets that people had to have the best armor and have it spellcrafted, so people would find these crafters and get it done. At max level, the same was done. Other than that, there wasn't any need. People just seldomly traded and made do with drops and NPC gear, but gear really didn't have stats on them, so it wasn't that important except for min/maxers.

SWG on the other hand, is a different story. Trade enhancement the community, and it was done right. I did make new acquaintences I'd of never met. I remember wanting a certain look and color for my clothing, so I followed a crafter to his factory and he made me some up. It took quite a while, as I wanted everything right, but I became one of his many loyal customers afterwards. I also remember an instance where we just bought a large mansion, and needed it decorated. So we hired a couple interior decorators to give us their opinions, and then decorate it for us.

Aside from SWG, I haven't played another game with a good player ran economy. Any game where mobs drop gear that is comparable or better than crafted armor or any game that doesn't rely on gear heavily will not foster a good trade chat network. 

AH's are a simple necessity now, because the communities in these games are much larger, the pace of the game is much faster, and loot is easily obtainable through less time consuming means. AH's aren't the problem, mobs dropping loot is the problem.

AH's provide adventurers and crafters alike ways to sell their goods to a wider market, and it helps them figure out the market value for their goods.