Originally posted by Sovrath

I think the point is being missed regarding "seing thousands of players".

Of course people aren't going to want to log in only to find 5000 players standing around him and his framerate dropping to 0.

The idea is that one can have access to any of the numerous thousands of players and have some sort of encounter or adventure because of it.

This happened to me all the time in Lineage 2. not very much in most other games... perhaps Aion it did.

Have you ever crested a hill to take a boss only to find your enemy with a larger army around that very same boss?

Have you ever been besieged by several mobs only to find a higher level, helpful stranger lend aid?

Have you ever been leveling in a group, only to be attacked by a rival of one of your party members?

or on your way through a dungeon only to see a group of people who desperately need help with the mobs? You help them then finish your business there and then someone suggests "hey let's go to that island in the north" and you then start a whole new experience there.

Or meet some new player who had no idea what the game is about so you take him/her under your wing, get him equipment, money and then give them a tour of the world.

All that an more can happen when one has a world to wander around in.

In GW1 (a great game) that didn't really happen to me. I would enter a hub and people would be grouping up for that hub. That's about it. DDO? never got that game as it seemed to be people grouping so they can blaze through a dungeon as fast as they could only to do the same again, or with another dungeon.

I'll take my virtual world.

I miss all those things.. :( None of these things will return until players have a proper reason to group in the open world though. As long as everyone is soloing there will never be any experiences like that, virtual world or not.

Originally posted by kadepsyson

Originally posted by Istavaan
Yet all people seem to care about is instanced raiding and getting loot from raiding.

Tell me more about instanced raiding in EVE online :)

He should have say "most people" ... Eve only has 500k players .. a drop in the bucket in the MMO market.

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

 

Just look at the replies you have in this thread, seems most that actually took notice of this topic would notice the absense.  Again what you are looking for is already available in ARPG's. No need for them to be in MMO's because people looking for MMO's tend to want that world. 

Games like Global Agenda actually had to add a quasi world to appease its players because the biggest criticism of that game was that it was a lobby based MMO. 

 

I mean your idea isn't bad, but it is no longer an MMO without the world as an option, it becomes an ARPG. Players looking for an MMO will be dissapointed like they were with Global Agenda. 

 

 

Isn't MMO moving towards ARPG anyway? And "MMO" is just a label. WOT is counted as a MMO .. but it has no world. DDO is counted as a MMO but the world matter little since most of the gameplay is in instanced dungeon.

And don't forget ARPG is becoming more like MMOs too. D3 has a persistent AH. Toons are now persistent. ARPG MP is like a dungeon run in WOW. Many MMOs are touting "action combat".

But the point is this .. think about what is the role of the world in gameplay terms. There is not much. Most of PvE gameplay is not massive: solo quests, instanced 5-man, raid ... and even gameplay .. most is not  most massive than a game like BF4.

In fact, the only massive gameplay i have encounted recently is PS2 .. with large battles. Beyond that, there is little need for the world. What is the selling point of each WOW content update ... most is about raids, new dungeons, or even new type of instanced quests (scenarios).

Originally posted by Alberel

 

I miss all those things.. :( None of these things will return until players have a proper reason to group in the open world though. As long as everyone is soloing there will never be any experiences like that, virtual world or not.

That is the point. Look at all the pve gameplay options .. .solo, dungeons, raid ... none is massive.

Secondly, even if there is a reason to group, it does not have to happen in persistent world. What if you can group with 5 but in a instanced large open terrine zone, instead of a linear dungeon?

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by kadepsyson

Originally posted by Istavaan
Yet all people seem to care about is instanced raiding and getting loot from raiding.

Tell me more about instanced raiding in EVE online :)

He should have say "most people" ... Eve only has 500k players .. a drop in the bucket in the MMO market.

Ya but only reason for those kind of game to work is because of FFA pvp.  Everything else is lame.

Open world pvp(good idea), Open world pve(dont' seem to work).

I can't speak for "most players", only myself.

It's possible for one game to take one approach and another game take another approach.

If a subset of the playerbase is using the open world as a lobby between instances, that doesn't automatically make the open world a waste of resources - it just means you have two games in one with a well-decorated lobby for free.

You do realize that a dungeon, raid, lobby game, map, instance, and other things you write about are in a virtual game world? I think you are trying to imply virtual game "world" as being a large mass of land, which its not. Its a place where characters, units, and other types of avatars that the gamer controls interacts with other players.

Because a virtual game world is a simulated environment which is a map, dungeon, etc. 

You can not have a mmorpg without a virtual game world. And the fact newer mmorpgs lack in this is the same reason 90% of them fail. You rush to max level, eat up your story in 3 weeks, and have nothing left to do. So yes i have noticed it already.

You can of course use your imagination and create your own via pen and paper rpg's.

And why is the op so hell bent on trying to kill mmorpgs and get everything turned into f2p lobby games? Almost all games you mention arent even mmo's and are not mmorpg's.  LOL, D3? what?

Nariusseldon, our lobby lobyist is at it again!

I suppose I should not be surprised. Go and play Vindictus, nice graphics, decent charecters, but you stand in a lobby. It feels awful.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Sovrath

I think the point is being missed regarding "seing thousands of players".

Of course people aren't going to want to log in only to find 5000 players standing around him and his framerate dropping to 0.

The idea is that one can have access to any of the numerous thousands of players and have some sort of encounter or adventure because of it.

This happened to me all the time in Lineage 2. not very much in most other games... perhaps Aion it did.

Have you ever crested a hill to take a boss only to find your enemy with a larger army around that very same boss?

Have you ever been besieged by several mobs only to find a higher level, helpful stranger lend aid?

Have you ever been leveling in a group, only to be attacked by a rival of one of your party members?

or on your way through a dungeon only to see a group of people who desperately need help with the mobs? You help them then finish your business there and then someone suggests "hey let's go to that island in the north" and you then start a whole new experience there.

Or meet some new player who had no idea what the game is about so you take him/her under your wing, get him equipment, money and then give them a tour of the world.

All that an more can happen when one has a world to wander around in.

In GW1 (a great game) that didn't really happen to me. I would enter a hub and people would be grouping up for that hub. That's about it. DDO? never got that game as it seemed to be people grouping so they can blaze through a dungeon as fast as they could only to do the same again, or with another dungeon.

I'll take my virtual world.

These never happen in WOW, DDO, GW1, and many other instanced centric PvE MMOs.

The point of this thread is not what should be the MMO design, but in these specific MMOs, why do we need a world if the experience is the same?

The stuff you talk about .. .like meeting another group in a dungeon .. is just not the gameplay in these MMO i am discussing. So irrelevant.

Your problem seems to be that you are not able to see that what Sovrath said is in fact how some people play these games.

Take me for example I played WoW off and on from release till BC yet I can count on one hand how many raids I have done. Yet I grouped allot in wow's more open world. I didn't feel the need to jump into instances as that's not why I play MMORPG's. I play other genre that are already filled with instances and do enjoy them. Just for me MMORPG experiance I like to wander the virtual world.

So to answer your OP: Yes there are people who definitly notice these games leaving out the virtual world as there is proof enough of that already on this forum alone.

But like many OP explains his playstyle more so then he talks about specific games, of course nothing wrong with that, but it seems to blind them from other possibility's how a person might play a MMORPG.

It is not so much about the virtual world.  It is more about what you do in those virtual world.

And quite honestly, beside pvp focus game.  I havn't seen much open world pve beening properly implemented.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by bunnyhopper
Yes they will. Next!

How? When? Certainly not when they are in a city waiting for a dungeon to pop, or in that dungeon doing a 5-man run.

Because I generally don't do that? I tend to be questing or gathering, or crafting - okay, granted - the last one generally means I will be in town. >.>

Yes they will.

I personally don't believe that most people play MMO's as lobby games.  Despite what people on this website think I do not believe most people are just sitting in the city or on the side of a hill waiting for a dungeon or instance to pop.  I think most people are actually out in the world doint things.

So yes most people will notice.

A lobby game has a very different feel to an MMO. . That added restriction is very noticeable.

How often do you visit Wow's forum or all those Wow clone's forum and hear people say "oh, this isn't a vitual world".

Quite honestly I never heard it.  The only forum I heard people complaining about the topic is this forum.

So I think those people playing those massive online lobby game never notice or even care that they are not playing in a vitual world.  Else they wont' be playing them.

WoW i got to hand it to ya

i havent seen someone troll this well in ages

Originally posted by Squeak69

WoW i got to hand it to ya

i havent seen someone troll this well in ages

No in order to be a troll you have to have some knowledge what you are trolling about. So that you can be sarcastic and turn things around on people th bait them. This guy is just uneducated in terms of mmorpgs and the industry itself. All his posts are like that, and no matter how many times you try to educate him or give him links to inform him, he still posts garbage. So not a troll, just in la la land.

Originally posted by Onomas

Originally posted by Squeak69

WoW i got to hand it to ya

i havent seen someone troll this well in ages

No in order to be a troll you have to have some knowledge what you are trolling about. So that you can be sarcastic and turn things around on people th bait them. This guy is just uneducated in terms of mmorpgs and the industry itself. All his posts are like that, and no matter how many times you try to educate him or give him links to inform him, he still posts garbage. So not a troll, just in la la land.

that may be true but he is haveing the same result regardless people banging their head aginst the wall for no reason

Depend on the term "most".  Most people people that are playing those game right now probably never notice it.  But most people on this forum(or at least all the complainer) do notice it.

And most people dont' even play mmorpg.  They thought mmorpg is for nerd.  So it is hard to say.