Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

No, I don't agree with you. Simple as that lol. They are themeparks, this is what a themepark does. This is why many prefer sandbox games over themeparks.. Sandbox games utilize the world a great deal more and don't tend to do much if any of the themepark type of dungeons and raids. 

 

So... no I don't agree with you. 

Wait .. how can you state that with a straight face?

The biggest sandbox is waht .. EVE .. with 500k players .. a drop in the bucket compared to themepark games.

WOW, GW1, GW2, .. even TOR ..are much bigger than the bigger sandbox games.

Where did I say All, Most, everyone, or anything of that nature? I said many, which is an accurate statement. 500k alone is enough to qualify as many and EvE is not even home to all sandbox players. 

 

So, yes I can say that with a straight face. 

In that case, you would agree that many .. and many more than those would prefer sandbox, prefer themepark games.

Originally posted by Swiftrevoir
When and if this ever happens to MMOs I will be back on a full diet of UnmassivelySingleplayerOfflineRPGs.  I have quit several MMOs already that just had the feel of being in a lobby waiting for action.  When this happens with a game I go back to prancing and gallivanting in games like Skyrim......and have a BLAST!

wait .. why? If you like SKYRIM, why discriminate against MMOs that play like SKYRIM? Shouldn't you like that instead?

Personally i would play MMOs like a SP game if it plays as a fun SP game.

Originally posted by sunshadow21

It's an interesting question, and one that is not going to get much of a clear answer on any forum simply because those who tend to read forums are only a small portion of everyone who plays such games. Myself, after reading all the responses, I kinda have to agree with the OP that  the trend is definitely toward lobby style games in practice, even with the games that have a "world" that people spend time in while waiting for the "main" events done in instances. Granted, not everyone plays the games that way, but increasingly that is how they are designed, and those who play differently are playing in a way not fully supported by most devs. It's one reason that aside from EVE, and briefly TSW, I haven't seen any MMO recently that made me look past the title and the initial description.

As for how much an "open world" would be missed, it's hard to say precisely. It would certainly be noticed, but how much it would actually be missed is another question entirely and would depend largely on how well implemented the instances were.

I suppose that is the better way of asking the question. Does the world matter at all, if the gameplay is mostly not in it.

And finaly someone gets the point. It is really about playstyle. Whatever the game is classifed as .. is not that important.

can only see alot of people in this thread to be too pigheaded, to understand the question, but then I very much agree with the OP, not that  it is what I want from a MMO.

would I notice if there were no virtual world in a game? ofc...but that is just answering to the title, which I guess aint the best chosen..

in themepark MMOs - the by mass popular MMOs, and by that what most big companies will try cater to, the PERSISTENT virtual world really should just be removed, the sole reason they are there is for developers to charge 15$/month+,  you go through them once, and rarely return, that is such a waste of ressources to create a persistent virtual world for that.

the persistent world serves too small a purpose in themepark MMOs, the game that made me change my mind to this stance is borderlands....to me the diffrence between that game and a themepark MMO is too small to wait about 5 years to get me hands on the actual game.

this would be an extention of the thread about lack of massive gameplay in MMOs...

 So lets see if i got the OP's question correctly. In a nutshell the OP is asking if most players are idiots?

 Well the big name developers that keep dumbing down games and putting out more and more simplistic casual freindly games seem to think so.

Originally posted by winter

 So lets see if i got the OP's question correctly. In a nutshell the OP is asking if most players are idiots?

 Well the big name developers that keep dumbing down games and putting out more and more simplistic casual freindly games seem to think so.

hmm .. how is recent game simplistic?

WOW has much more complex combat mechanics than EQ and UO. When i played EQ from the beginning, there was no CD, no proc, no diminsihing return in CC ... WOW .. heck even Diablo (the first one) is much more complex in combat mechanics than EQ.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by sunshadow21

It's an interesting question, and one that is not going to get much of a clear answer on any forum simply because those who tend to read forums are only a small portion of everyone who plays such games. Myself, after reading all the responses, I kinda have to agree with the OP that  the trend is definitely toward lobby style games in practice, even with the games that have a "world" that people spend time in while waiting for the "main" events done in instances. Granted, not everyone plays the games that way, but increasingly that is how they are designed, and those who play differently are playing in a way not fully supported by most devs. It's one reason that aside from EVE, and briefly TSW, I haven't seen any MMO recently that made me look past the title and the initial description.

As for how much an "open world" would be missed, it's hard to say precisely. It would certainly be noticed, but how much it would actually be missed is another question entirely and would depend largely on how well implemented the instances were.

I suppose that is the better way of asking the question. Does the world matter at all, if the gameplay is mostly not in it.

And finaly someone gets the point. It is really about playstyle. Whatever the game is classifed as .. is not that important.

Then you should really rename the thread rather then asking if players "will notice" which IMO anyone with much intelligence WILL notice.

Originally posted by Hedeon

can only see alot of people in this thread to be too pigheaded, to understand the question, but then I very much agree with the OP, not that  it is what I want from a MMO.

would I notice if there were no virtual world in a game? ofc...but that is just answering to the title, which I guess aint the best chosen..

in themepark MMOs - the by mass popular MMOs, and by that what most big companies will try cater to, the PERSISTENT virtual world really should just be removed, the sole reason they are there is for developers to charge 15$/month+,  you go through them once, and rarely return, that is such a waste of ressources to create a persistent virtual world for that.

the persistent world serves too small a purpose in themepark MMOs, the game that made me change my mind to this stance is borderlands....to me the diffrence between that game and a themepark MMO is too small to wait about 5 years to get me hands on the actual game.

this would be an extention of the thread about lack of massive gameplay in MMOs...

I would use TOR as the best example. It would be a much BETTER game if the persistent world is removed, and resources used to juice up combat.

haha .. i love borderlands too. Great game. And it certainly does not need to be a MMO to have the themepark kind of gameplay (and mix in with FPS). I would say teh same about D3, and Torchlight.

Originally posted by winter

 

Then you should really rename the thread rather then asking if players "will notice" which IMO anyone with much intelligence WILL notice.

Nah .. the better question is if anyone, intelligence or not, will "care".

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by winter

 So lets see if i got the OP's question correctly. In a nutshell the OP is asking if most players are idiots?

 Well the big name developers that keep dumbing down games and putting out more and more simplistic casual freindly games seem to think so.

hmm .. how is recent game simplistic?

WOW has much more complex combat mechanics than EQ and UO. When i played EQ from the beginning, there was no CD, no proc, no diminsihing return in CC ... WOW .. heck even Diablo (the first one) is much more complex in combat mechanics than EQ.

 How old are WoW, and Diablo? Do you consider that recent? Ok lets take WoW now as compared to WoW then at least, wouldn't you say they have simplified the skill trees by taking away choices, that yes many players stated were note used in the power builds? Instead of changing skills to make them more usefull which would have opened a bunch of problems to balance they simply removed them and said ok here you can have 1 A, B, or C choice every 10 levels.

Edit: Come to think of it I'd say Diablo3 is more simplistic then Diablo, or Diablo2 now that you mention it. My opinion of course

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by winter

 

Then you should really rename the thread rather then asking if players "will notice" which IMO anyone with much intelligence WILL notice.

Nah .. the better question is if anyone, intelligence or not, will "care".

 Then don't complain if people answer your question of "Will they notice" over your real question of "Does it matter" Yeah I'm probably nitpicky.

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by winter

 

Then you should really rename the thread rather then asking if players "will notice" which IMO anyone with much intelligence WILL notice.

Nah .. the better question is if anyone, intelligence or not, will "care".

 Then don't complain if people answer your question of "Will they notice" over your real question of "Does it matter" Yeah I'm probably nitpicky.

Yeah you are. But there is nothing preventing me to extend the discussion to "if they care" in this topic. I doubt i need to open another thread for that discussion.

And i am not complaining. Just discussing the ins and outs.

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by winter

 So lets see if i got the OP's question correctly. In a nutshell the OP is asking if most players are idiots?

 Well the big name developers that keep dumbing down games and putting out more and more simplistic casual freindly games seem to think so.

hmm .. how is recent game simplistic?

WOW has much more complex combat mechanics than EQ and UO. When i played EQ from the beginning, there was no CD, no proc, no diminsihing return in CC ... WOW .. heck even Diablo (the first one) is much more complex in combat mechanics than EQ.

 How old are WoW, and Diablo? Do you consider that recent? Ok lets take WoW now as compared to WoW then at least, wouldn't you say they have simplified the skill trees by taking away choices, that yes many players stated were note used in the power builds? Instead of changing skills to make them more usefull which would have opened a bunch of problems to balance they simply removed them and said ok here you can have 1 A, B, or C choice every 10 levels.

Not really, because those were the only meaningful choices you had at that point anyway. You really did not lose anything from the skill trees, they just gave them to you anyway.

I do get where you are coming from to an extent, but especially from a designers perspective the game is much more complicated now than it was at release. The player base through osmosis is much less ignorant now than it was then for starters. Itemization has many more choices to it, and rotation has changed dramatically. I know my first 4 years of WoW all I had as a raiding warlock was spam shadowbolt, which kinda sucked balls honestly.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by bunnyhopper Yes they will. Next!

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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.

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Narius, not everyone hangs out in cities waiting on the next dungeon run or skraid. All those folks would notice.

The gold farmers would definitely notice... 

"Damn, where are all the nodes?" 

Originally posted by Goatgod76

Originally posted by GrayGhost79 

First I highlighted a key word for you that should help. 

 

No, I don't agree with you. Simple as that lol. They are themeparks, this is what a themepark does. This is why many prefer sandbox games over themeparks.. Sandbox games utilize the world a great deal more and don't tend to do much if any of the themepark type of dungeons and raids. 

 

So... no I don't agree with you. 

GrayGhost79...you are going to get carpel tunnel and still never get anything through to him. Don't bother.

In some thread last week, I kid you not, this member was actually trying to tell another member who wanted a virtual world because he lived in a part of the world where there was little to no nature that he should just go camping to satisfy his needs instead. He was literally arguing with the OP about why he doesn't really need a virtual world.

Mind-blowingly ridiculous.

Originally posted by Yakkin

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Sure there are other games for that too in other genre (ARPG), but that does not mean that some MMOs are not like that. And if my idea is not popular, why is many doing that in orgrimmar, stormwind, and so on ....

"Insert something about there not being any games that allow for a different approach/incentivize the open world as an alternate solution to being stuck in a lobby."

It is not mutally exclusive. Lots of players do lobby style gameplay is just that. There are also lots playing ps2, a virtually world game.