Originally posted by RedJorge

Events with hundreds of players fighting off huge NPC attacks or PvPing each other are some of the most interesting and truly community boosters events a MMORPG can have. Nothing unites more a community than large scale events affecting the game world.

Unfortunately, there are 3 obstacles to it:

1. Game engines;

2. Servers side processing;

3. Personal computer processing/graphic power.

Until a few years ago internet bandwidth was also an obstacle but not anymore in most of countries.

I believe that if a brave and well funded company invests the time and resources to overcome 1. and 2. then players will invest in good enough computers to overcome 3.

Im my opinion, these 3 points are responsible for the lack of MMORPG innovation over the last 5 years at least. Every company bets in safe instanced environments, using and improving previous games ideas, but not leaping into hundreds of players environments. The ones that tried it before failed because of all the 3 points and got no good results.

Until then, WoW will continue to rule the world with its bad graphics capable of running in all PC´s.

 

Eve has had houndreds of players fight each other and Lineage 2 has come pretty close. So it is not the technical obstacle that is the issue but rather the commercial one. To create an engine and server infrastructure which manages that coupled together with the relatively few who can run it requires a lot of money and the return on investment may not cover that or not as much as your standard ThemePark clone which uses the very cheap technique to take the exact identical zone and create multiple clones of it.

Yes, MMOs have become big bussiness so what is being invested in, or not, is not what would be the best MMORPG but rather what would give the highest return of investment. Sad but that is what happens one something goes mainstream.

Originally posted by danwest58

The Point of an MMO is to play on a server with thousands of other people not to have massive groups.  You can complain about 25 or 40 mans being small.  The problem is not that the raids are hards, its near impossible to get 40 people to a raid.  Back when I ran 40 man raids we had to have 70+ people on everynight we raided just so we had enough of certain classes.  

Sorry this is a pointless post talking about how MMOs are not Massive.

Yet that is exactly what a lot of pro-groupers demand, that it isn't the thousands of people around you that make a game massive or multiplayer, it's the fact that you're forced to do things with them.  Personally, I look at MMOs like living in a big city.  There are millions of people around that you can interact with if you wish, but you're not required to.

Originally posted by Rasputin

Any degree of instancing takes away from the world. If you want to be locked away in your own private game, then that has been a possibility since Doom. There is nothing special to what it is you want, and also not to those "MMO's", that are what you want and put the MMO label on themselves.

What makes MMO special, is the possibility of a world, without which the definition becomes irrelevant.

Absolutely I want to have the opportunity to be locked away in my own private game, especially considering the number of assholes who run around in these games.  I want the rewards for my labor, I don't want someone showing up and killstealing the boss, ninjaing the loot or purposely training mobs into my group.  All of this happens regularly in non-instanced games.  If people weren't such asshats, I wouldn't say, but when people act specifically to piss others off and take their stuff, I draw the line and want a way to get away from them so I can actually have fun.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Rasputin

Any degree of instancing takes away from the world. If you want to be locked away in your own private game, then that has been a possibility since Doom. There is nothing special to what it is you want, and also not to those "MMO's", that are what you want and put the MMO label on themselves.

What makes MMO special, is the possibility of a world, without which the definition becomes irrelevant.

Absolutely I want to have the opportunity to be locked away in my own private game, especially considering the number of assholes who run around in these games.  I want the rewards for my labor, I don't want someone showing up and killstealing the boss, ninjaing the loot or purposely training mobs into my group.  All of this happens regularly in non-instanced games.  If people weren't such asshats, I wouldn't say, but when people act specifically to piss others off and take their stuff, I draw the line and want a way to get away from them so I can actually have fun.

Yup, and this is why mmos went from being nearly completely open to small private instances, because people can't act right. Too many anonymous pricks will do what they do best, ruin someone else's time. People get pissed off and quit, and that's that.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Rasputin

Any degree of instancing takes away from the world. If you want to be locked away in your own private game, then that has been a possibility since Doom. There is nothing special to what it is you want, and also not to those "MMO's", that are what you want and put the MMO label on themselves.

What makes MMO special, is the possibility of a world, without which the definition becomes irrelevant.

Absolutely I want to have the opportunity to be locked away in my own private game, especially considering the number of assholes who run around in these games.  I want the rewards for my labor, I don't want someone showing up and killstealing the boss, ninjaing the loot or purposely training mobs into my group.  All of this happens regularly in non-instanced games.  If people weren't such asshats, I wouldn't say, but when people act specifically to piss others off and take their stuff, I draw the line and want a way to get away from them so I can actually have fun.

You do realize that someone will ask "Then why dont you play singleplayer games then?"

Which does not mean that i am saying that safety cannot be achieved, eve has friendly sectors, runescape  is predominantly non-pvp and single target combat.

And for the record, it does not happen as often as paranoid people think, it only happens if the game already caters to those paranoid people, having, say, penaltyless pvp, fixed factions or stuff like that.

..and training is always fun :)

Flame on!

:)

The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing.

Instancing is for people who want a small game.

Originally posted by Magiknight

The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing.

Instancing is for people who want a small game.

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Magiknight

The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing.

Instancing is for people who want a small game.

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

Developers should understand they can never meet the expectations of every player.  It's impossible.  If you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one.  At best, you can implement mechanisms to deter it but ksing and ninjaing will be around just like there's stealing in real life.

The best that developers can do is to create a game that caters to the type of player they are trying to attract.  For instance, I don't like FFA PvP and wouldn't play a game that has it.  But I wouldn't discourage companies to make them if there's a player base for it.  I most certainly wouldn't demand the company to change it for me.

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Originally posted by SpectralHunter

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Originally posted by Cephus404

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Originally posted by Magiknight The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing. Instancing is for people who want a small game.

---

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

---

Developers should understand they can never meet the expectations of every player.  It's impossible.  If you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one.  At best, you can implement mechanisms to deter it but ksing and ninjaing will be around just like there's stealing in real life.

The best that developers can do is to create a game that caters to the type of player they are trying to attract.  For instance, I don't like FFA PvP and wouldn't play a game that has it.  But I wouldn't discourage companies to make them if there's a player base for it.  I most certainly wouldn't demand the company to change it for me.

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Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by danwest58

Originally posted by nariusseldon

small group dungeons (like in DDO, WOW, LOTRO, DCUO, .....)

arena/battleground pvp (some smaller than BF3)

raids (biggest in WOW is 25 man ... even at 40 man .. it is smaller than BF3 battles)

and not to mention SINGLE PLAYER quests and daily quests.

In fact, the only massive part is the city where people wait for their dungeons/pvp to pop .. and that is just a massive lobby with a massive AH.

So much of the gameplay experience that many players spend most of their time on are not "massive" (like a PS2 hundreds on hundreds battle) in *many* MMOs, may be it is time for MMOs to abandon its roots, and embrace a broader definition. In fact, the texas holden online game i just played is as massive as a MMO. YOu can gamble with 8 people, which has more players than heroic dungeons ... and the lobby is as massive as orgrimmar in WOW.

 

The Point of an MMO is to play on a server with thousands of other people not to have massive groups.  You can complain about 25 or 40 mans being small.  The problem is not that the raids are hards, its near impossible to get 40 people to a raid.  Back when I ran 40 man raids we had to have 70+ people on everynight we raided just so we had enough of certain classes.  

 

Sorry this is a pointless post talking about how MMOs are not Massive.

 

I agree with the sentiment of the OP.

Most games do not have systems that actually take advantage of massive populations in a persistent world.

The worlds themselves are just lobbies for small group instances, and little more.  Large scale social, economic, or political systems are generally absent, which renders the virtual society meaningless.

What he said.  Only we left out nothing going to change until lag is gone.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Magiknight

The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing.

Instancing is for people who want a small game.

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

By making MMOs that offer something else to do other than run around murdering every creature in site to take their belongings. 

But since that won't happen any time soon, Lizardbones' reply offers some decent solutions.

Originally posted by Kaneth

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Rasputin

Any degree of instancing takes away from the world. If you want to be locked away in your own private game, then that has been a possibility since Doom. There is nothing special to what it is you want, and also not to those "MMO's", that are what you want and put the MMO label on themselves.

What makes MMO special, is the possibility of a world, without which the definition becomes irrelevant.

Absolutely I want to have the opportunity to be locked away in my own private game, especially considering the number of assholes who run around in these games.  I want the rewards for my labor, I don't want someone showing up and killstealing the boss, ninjaing the loot or purposely training mobs into my group.  All of this happens regularly in non-instanced games.  If people weren't such asshats, I wouldn't say, but when people act specifically to piss others off and take their stuff, I draw the line and want a way to get away from them so I can actually have fun.

Yup, and this is why mmos went from being nearly completely open to small private instances, because people can't act right. Too many anonymous pricks will do what they do best, ruin someone else's time. People get pissed off and quit, and that's that.

 

The problem is not the people, it is the systems. In this case a proper justice system. If there is no consequences, then of course you will see what you saw in the early games. You would see it in our world too, if you took away the law and the enforcement.

The solution would have been to make consequences for bad behaviour, not to turn the games into single-/smallscale-coop-multiplayer.

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by SpectralHunter

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Originally posted by Cephus404

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Originally posted by Magiknight The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing. Instancing is for people who want a small game.

---

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

---

Developers should understand they can never meet the expectations of every player.  It's impossible.  If you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one.  At best, you can implement mechanisms to deter it but ksing and ninjaing will be around just like there's stealing in real life.

 

The best that developers can do is to create a game that caters to the type of player they are trying to attract.  For instance, I don't like FFA PvP and wouldn't play a game that has it.  But I wouldn't discourage companies to make them if there's a player base for it.  I most certainly wouldn't demand the company to change it for me.

---

Kill stealing can be dealt with by giving any player who hits a mob credit for the kill and making sure that mobs scale with the power of the player so that no player can one shot mobs.

Loot stealing can be dealt with by giving each player a separate pile of loot. A player cannot steal another player's loot because they cannot touch or see the other player's loot.

 

Making arbitrarities like that will fragment the world and reality almost as bad as instancing. What is what? What you see is NOT what you get. Reality will be twisted and warped, making a common frame of reference impossible.

It is a terrible solution. Instead take inspiration from the real world and make consequences for bad actions. Make it possible for bad players to be punished, either by the other players or by the system. Or both. Stuffing new fragmentations of reality on top is a poor solution.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Magiknight

The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing.

Instancing is for people who want a small game.

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

By making MMOs that offer something else to do other than run around murdering every creature in site to take their belongings. 

 

But since that won't happen any time soon, Lizardbones' reply offers some decent solutions.

 

I agree, it would be a great solution to make other gameplay beyond combat.

I don't agree that Lizardbone has anything looking like a decent solution. Quite the contrary.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Magiknight

The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing.

Instancing is for people who want a small game.

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

You can make it so that only the people in the party who claimed the monster can get its loot.

You can make it so that each member of the party who would like to fight the monster has to have an item that is very hard to get.

You can add critera for being able to obtain loot, ie having a specific job and / or level.

You can make zones where the monsters are located very difficult to get into in the first place. That way few people are there anyways.

There are a bazillion ways.

Originally posted by Rasputin

Originally posted by Kaneth

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Rasputin

Any degree of instancing takes away from the world. If you want to be locked away in your own private game, then that has been a possibility since Doom. There is nothing special to what it is you want, and also not to those "MMO's", that are what you want and put the MMO label on themselves.

What makes MMO special, is the possibility of a world, without which the definition becomes irrelevant.

Absolutely I want to have the opportunity to be locked away in my own private game, especially considering the number of assholes who run around in these games.  I want the rewards for my labor, I don't want someone showing up and killstealing the boss, ninjaing the loot or purposely training mobs into my group.  All of this happens regularly in non-instanced games.  If people weren't such asshats, I wouldn't say, but when people act specifically to piss others off and take their stuff, I draw the line and want a way to get away from them so I can actually have fun.

Yup, and this is why mmos went from being nearly completely open to small private instances, because people can't act right. Too many anonymous pricks will do what they do best, ruin someone else's time. People get pissed off and quit, and that's that.

 

The problem is not the people, it is the systems. In this case a proper justice system. If there is no consequences, then of course you will see what you saw in the early games. You would see it in our world too, if you took away the law and the enforcement.

The solution would have been to make consequences for bad behaviour, not to turn the games into single-/smallscale-coop-multiplayer.

The problem is that what you consider to be 'bad behaviour' is really just a breech of etiquete.  If I walk into a dungeon, see a boss mob and attack it who are you to tell me that I have broken some rule about kill stealing?  If you are camping a grind spot, why should I not be allowed to come in and compete with you for kills?  What players consider 'bad behaviour' often differs significantly from what the game considers 'bad behaviour' and can be significantly different from what other players see as behaviour that needs to be punished. 

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Rasputin

Originally posted by Kaneth

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Rasputin

Any degree of instancing takes away from the world. If you want to be locked away in your own private game, then that has been a possibility since Doom. There is nothing special to what it is you want, and also not to those "MMO's", that are what you want and put the MMO label on themselves.

What makes MMO special, is the possibility of a world, without which the definition becomes irrelevant.

Absolutely I want to have the opportunity to be locked away in my own private game, especially considering the number of assholes who run around in these games.  I want the rewards for my labor, I don't want someone showing up and killstealing the boss, ninjaing the loot or purposely training mobs into my group.  All of this happens regularly in non-instanced games.  If people weren't such asshats, I wouldn't say, but when people act specifically to piss others off and take their stuff, I draw the line and want a way to get away from them so I can actually have fun.

Yup, and this is why mmos went from being nearly completely open to small private instances, because people can't act right. Too many anonymous pricks will do what they do best, ruin someone else's time. People get pissed off and quit, and that's that.

 

The problem is not the people, it is the systems. In this case a proper justice system. If there is no consequences, then of course you will see what you saw in the early games. You would see it in our world too, if you took away the law and the enforcement.

The solution would have been to make consequences for bad behaviour, not to turn the games into single-/smallscale-coop-multiplayer.

The problem is that what you consider to be 'bad behaviour' is really just a breech of etiquete.  If I walk into a dungeon, see a boss mob and attack it who are you to tell me that I have broken some rule about kill stealing?  If you are camping a grind spot, why should I not be allowed to come in and compete with you for kills?  What players consider 'bad behaviour' often differs significantly from what the game considers 'bad behaviour' and can be significantly different from what other players see as behaviour that needs to be punished. 

I miss active GMs and jailing for disruptive behavior :)

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Magiknight

The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing.

Instancing is for people who want a small game.

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

By making MMOs that offer something else to do other than run around murdering every creature in site to take their belongings. 

 

But since that won't happen any time soon, Lizardbones' reply offers some decent solutions.

 

There are other things to do already, but this is what these players *WANT* to do, it is their preferred means of gameplay.  For a lot of these people, it's the whole reason they are playing the game.  No matter what else you offer, they're not going to be interested, it's not what they're there to do.

Originally posted by Magiknight

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Magiknight

The problems with an open world, ie kill stealing and ninjaing loot, can we dealt with other ways besides instancing.

Instancing is for people who want a small game.

How do you propose to stop it entirely then?  How can it be dealt with so that those who don't want to be around it are never bothered by it again?

 

You can make it so that only the people in the party who claimed the monster can get its loot.

You can make it so that each member of the party who would like to fight the monster has to have an item that is very hard to get.

You can add critera for being able to obtain loot, ie having a specific job and / or level.

You can make zones where the monsters are located very difficult to get into in the first place. That way few people are there anyways.

There are a bazillion ways.

All of which essentially turns it into an instance.  People who want no instances want no obstacles to people running in and doing things at any time.  It will turn into another case of what happens every day on Anarchy Online at the Temple of the Three Winds, where you have a room-full of people camping all of the bosses, waiting for them to respawn.  When it does, everyone opens up, kills it in about 3 second without the slightest amount of risk, the fastest group grabs the loot.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

I don't want to play a game like that.

Originally posted by Banaghran

I miss active GMs and jailing for disruptive behavior :)

Flame on!

:)

Honestly, how can you do that?  Here's another AO example.  There are places in Shadowlands where groups camp for hours and hours on end, once all of those spots are taken, what are other groups that come along to do?  Groups there will scream if you even walk near their camped spots and they don't leave until they have wrung every bit of XP out of it they can.

So now what?