Who is the audience for casual dumbed down MMOs? Most of the AAA MMO developers seem to think that this is the biggest part of the consumers. And what happens when a game like that comes out? It is hyped up, lots of people buy it at launch, and then it is struggling within 6 months. One thing is playing a game casually, something completely different is building a game from the ground up for people that you consider casuals. I don't think even casual players like some of the design choices that are made.

What I consider casual/streamlined design:

- auction house

- drop-in-drop-out pvp with no risk, no long term implications/goals. Respawning during a match.

- no chance to lose progress in a pve environment (aka lose gear). Why do you win items when you complete something, but don't lose anything if you fail? The balance is off here.

- waypoints

- dividing the gameworld into zones, and other related gizmos, like completion percentage. Telling a player how much % of the game they have completed, is like telling a person in real life the year and date that they are going to die on.

- all content is available for everyone. 

- too many tutorials. Most people have a brain, and using it can be fun sometimes.

- minimap/zone map, and related gizmos such as quest markers. Do devs think people are crippled and can't progress if you don't give them a map?

- nothing occurs in the game world that is out of the player's control. All the way through, the games make you feel like a superhero. Who has played Stalker, I mean something along the line of emissions.

The 3 big hopes for me this year are TESO, Repopulation, and DayZ. To be brutally honest, I absolutely expect TESO to take the casual approach. And this time around, I'll wait for people to post videos on youtube, before blindly buying into the hype (made that mistake with TSW and GW2). Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play oldschool runescape.

Originally posted by crasset15

Who is the audience for casual dumbed down MMOs? Most of the AAA MMO developers seem to think that this is the biggest part of the consumers. And what happens when a game like that comes out? It is hyped up, lots of people buy it at launch, and then it is struggling within 6 months. One thing is playing a game casually, something completely different is building a game from the ground up for people that you consider casuals. I don't think even casual players like some of the design choices that are made.

 

What I consider casual/streamlined design:

- auction house  AH's are a great themepark invention, makes bartering, trading and finding things easier.

- drop-in-drop-out pvp with no risk, no long term implications/goals. Respawning during a match.

There's no Battle-ground PVP in ESO, it is pure open world RvR PvP.

- no chance to lose progress in a pve environment (aka lose gear). Why do you win items when you complete something, but don't lose anything if you fail? The balance is off here.

This isn't 1999 and as much as I love Asheron' Call, losing gear on death is stupid

- waypoints  Very few from what we've been told, theres also mounts to help with travel

- dividing the gameworld into zones, and other related gizmos, like completion percentage. Telling a player how much % of the game they have completed, is like telling a person in real life the year and date that they are going to die on.  This is necessary in modern games with high polygons and realistic scenery.  You have to split zones

- all content is available for everyone.  It is and why shouldnt it be?

- too many tutorials. Most people have a brain, and using it can be fun sometimes.  Most MMO tutorials are finished in udner 2 mins or you have the option to toggle off hints.  SO this is a non issue

- minimap/zone map, and related gizmos such as quest markers. Do devs think people are crippled and can't progress if you don't give them a map?  Having a map is a quality of life issue, this isn't EQ and this isn't 1999 again

- nothing occurs in the game world that is out of the player's control. All the way through, the games make you feel like a superhero. Who has played Stalker, I mean something along the line of emissions.  Contrary to popular belief people want to be the hero and this is a good thing because hardly anyone wants to be a moisture farmer.

The 3 big hopes for me this year are TESO, Repopulation, and DayZ. To be brutally honest, I absolutely expect TESO to take the casual approach. And this time around, I'll wait for people to post videos on youtube, before blindly buying into the hype (made that mistake with TSW and GW2). Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play oldschool runescape.

DayZ is a different type of game, Couldnt care less about repopulation so I don't know what it has.  As for ESO, it is a themepark but a different style from which you're accustomed to i.e. not a WoW clone.  There are some elements of sandbox gameplay, notably exploration centric gameplay with limited hand holding and linearity.

Shrug.....Sounds liek you want to play a game from 1999, might I suggest you try EQ or Vanguard.

[mod edit]

- auction house

Will be there.

- drop-in-drop-out pvp with no risk, no long term implications/goals. Respawning during a match.

Not in Cyrodiil pvp, but who knows what will be io battlegrounds

- no chance to lose progress in a pve environment (aka lose gear). Why do you win items when you complete something, but don't lose anything if you fail? The balance is off here.

I don't think you will be able to loose your gear .... sadly. Most people don't want it.

- waypoints

Wayshrines

- dividing the gameworld into zones, and other related gizmos, like completion percentage. Telling a player how much % of the game they have completed, is like telling a person in real life the year and date that they are going to die on.

I dont think that you can make modern MMO with zones loading in background. So there will be zones with loading, don't know about %.

- all content is available for everyone. 

Well there will be faction lock on parts of maps. And i hope there will be some things only done in group. If they make everything soloable i will be greatly disapointed

- too many tutorials. Most people have a brain, and using it can be fun sometimes.

I think you don'!t know people. Most are mindless idiots. There will be tutorial at the start of the game in coldharbour. (first mission)

- minimap/zone map, and related gizmos such as quest markers. Do devs think people are crippled and can't progress if you don't give them a map?

They don't think that ... remenmber mindles idiots ... They will get lost and then cry on forums. You cant make mainstream MMO without these features.

- nothing occurs in the game world that is out of the player's control. All the way through, the games make you feel like a superhero. Who has played Stalker, I mean something along the line of emissions.

I dont think there will be something like that. People wan't to feel like superheroes ... sadly.

Originally posted by crasset15
If these features are a must-have in a mainstream game and supposedly sought after and requested by the majority, then why do they flop, one after another? I think the game makers themselves are a bit misinformed in their understanding of what the players want.

I think that isn't because these features, but because most MMOs are unfinished at lauch and can't supply new content. But i would love to see new hardcore MMO ... even tho it would flop even before launch. Mainstream players wuldn't buy it and there is not enought hardcore players to support AAA MMO.

Originally posted by azzamasin

- too many tutorials. Most people have a brain, and using it can be fun sometimes.  Most MMO tutorials are finished in udner 2 mins or you have the option to toggle off hints.  SO this is a non issue

 

Just to clarify, I don't mean tutorials in the traditional sense, but instead the way that the game is presented to the player in text-based interfaces.

Quest markers are technically a tutorial, a cheat that has become popular. Going to a crafting table, and seeing a list of every possible item you can craft, is a tutorial. Getting a warning popup upon entering a dangerous area, is a tutorial. Opening your skills tab, and seeing every possible skill neatly in there, with descriptions, is a tutorial. Every item that you acquire in the game, can be hovered over in the inventory to get a detailed description of it, that is a tutorial. Being able to judge an opponent's combat strength just by targetting them (and seeing titles such as champion, amount of health, or list of abilities), is a tutorial.

There is so much handholding going on that it's hard to even register that it is happening.

then play mortal online or darkfall, problem solved. Teso will not be the right game for you according to your wishlist, and i am glad it doesn't include useless 1999 annoyances.

Originally posted by KaiserPhoenix

then play mortal online or darkfall, problem solved. Teso will not be the right game for you according to your wishlist, and i am glad it doesn't include useless 1999 annoyances.

The question here is, how much more streamlining can people take, before they realise that their list of activities in said game consist only of being a mindless slave for the xp bar and gear treadmill.

It is pretty safe to say that all those items you listed will be in the game.

EDIT:  I am curious, just how many "traps" exist for a developer to fall into?

1. No end game / not enough content trap. 
2. Too much pvp trap.
3. the casualisation trap
4. the "didnt listen to fan traps"
5. the "they actually listened to their fans" trap
6. the "doesn't cup my balls" trap.

Originally posted by azzamasin

Originally posted by crasset15

Who is the audience for casual dumbed down MMOs? Most of the AAA MMO developers seem to think that this is the biggest part of the consumers. And what happens when a game like that comes out? It is hyped up, lots of people buy it at launch, and then it is struggling within 6 months. One thing is playing a game casually, something completely different is building a game from the ground up for people that you consider casuals. I don't think even casual players like some of the design choices that are made.

 

What I consider casual/streamlined design:

- auction house  AH's are a great themepark invention, makes bartering, trading and finding things easier.

- drop-in-drop-out pvp with no risk, no long term implications/goals. Respawning during a match.

There's no Battle-ground PVP in ESO, it is pure open world RvR PvP.

- no chance to lose progress in a pve environment (aka lose gear). Why do you win items when you complete something, but don't lose anything if you fail? The balance is off here.

This isn't 1999 and as much as I love Asheron' Call, losing gear on death is stupid

- waypoints  Very few from what we've been told, theres also mounts to help with travel

- dividing the gameworld into zones, and other related gizmos, like completion percentage. Telling a player how much % of the game they have completed, is like telling a person in real life the year and date that they are going to die on.  This is necessary in modern games with high polygons and realistic scenery.  You have to split zones

- all content is available for everyone.  It is and why shouldnt it be?

- too many tutorials. Most people have a brain, and using it can be fun sometimes.  Most MMO tutorials are finished in udner 2 mins or you have the option to toggle off hints.  SO this is a non issue

- minimap/zone map, and related gizmos such as quest markers. Do devs think people are crippled and can't progress if you don't give them a map?  Having a map is a quality of life issue, this isn't EQ and this isn't 1999 again

- nothing occurs in the game world that is out of the player's control. All the way through, the games make you feel like a superhero. Who has played Stalker, I mean something along the line of emissions.  Contrary to popular belief people want to be the hero and this is a good thing because hardly anyone wants to be a moisture farmer.

The 3 big hopes for me this year are TESO, Repopulation, and DayZ. To be brutally honest, I absolutely expect TESO to take the casual approach. And this time around, I'll wait for people to post videos on youtube, before blindly buying into the hype (made that mistake with TSW and GW2). Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play oldschool runescape.

DayZ is a different type of game, Couldnt care less about repopulation so I don't know what it has.  As for ESO, it is a themepark but a different style from which you're accustomed to i.e. not a WoW clone.  There are some elements of sandbox gameplay, notably exploration centric gameplay with limited hand holding and linearity.

Shrug.....Sounds liek you want to play a game from 1999, might I suggest you try EQ or Vanguard.

[mod edit]

Content should be restricted for certain players? Are you one of those "hardcore" gamers that thinks people should be held back unless they can devote 40+ hours a week to a game?

As for the second red high light, that made me laugh.

Originally posted by Slampig

Content should be restricted for certain players? Are you one of those "hardcore" gamers that thinks people should be held back unless they can devote 40+ hours a week to a game?

 

As for the second red high light, that made me laugh.

I wonder if he meant that All content should not be equally easy. Because if you are good player then you get bored by easy game ... there should be something for you. Something you can acomplish and feel proud about it. What is wrong about it? It is bonus for good players. Also i think that there should be content that shouldn't be soloable ... let people go anywhere but in some places average solo person would get destroyed. It is MMO .. it should promote grouping.

Sure a lot of people want to be the hero and basically end up being the same person in MMOs. But there are a lot of us who just want to be a person that exists in the world. If we become somthing more on our own with the game  just magically saying we are then it's even better.

People who want to be the hero can have something to try to do rather than pick some dialog option and some crappy heavily scripted boss fight. TESO will likely be too watered down to be a good TES game and it'll be way too bubbily and casual to be a decent MMO. They're coming in way too late on this casual trend which is still in the process of slowly dying off.

GW2 should have been the final nail in the coffin, but there's just so many people who have yet to play an MMO that isn't just a linear money sink with a mediocre single player story line or an MMO that's so casual and dumbed down, you'd swear it was made for goofy kids. So sinces games like GW2 and WoW are the standard for them, and theres so much more of these people than the rest of us, MMO devs will continue to make mediocre games instead of putting effort towards something new or making something pre-WoW MMO-gamers would like.

Originally posted by walltar

Originally posted by Slampig

Content should be restricted for certain players? Are you one of those "hardcore" gamers that thinks people should be held back unless they can devote 40+ hours a week to a game?

 

As for the second red high light, that made me laugh.

I wonder if he meant that All content should not be equally easy. Because if you are good player then you get bored by easy game ... there should be something for you. Something you can acomplish and feel proud about it. What is wrong about it? It is bonus for good players. Also i think that there should be content that shouldn't be soloable ... let people go anywhere but in some places average solo person would get destroyed. It is MMO .. it should promote grouping.

What would happen in real life if everyone had access to everything? You know, a world where you could put on a ski mask on friday and rob a bank, and then on monday run for president, and maybe on thursday become a professional chef.

That kind of a world lacks any kind of structure, and people aren't being valued as a part of the big picture e.g. a mere worker among many workers, working towards a common goal for the whole group.

What are modern MMOs about? Always your individual progress, getting YOUR legendary weapon, getting YOUR acheivement for finishing a dungeon, increasing YOUR pvp rank, finishing YOUR storyline, increasing YOUR level.

My point is that they would have to make the gameworld complex enough, that it is impossible for 1 person to fill every role in the supply chain toward acheiving a goal. (supply chain being just one example of many). Other similar systems could include a spell/skill only becoming available to the general public, when someone has discovered, invented, or solved a riddle to uncover it, provided he/she wishes to share the knowledge. Why should every ranger be born with flurry of ice arrows in their skill list? Because some developer said that flurry of ice arrows would be a cool skill for the ranger class?

What if there were goals built into the game world that are bigger than the individual player? What if the devs released a whole region into the game, and tell the players: "you, as a community, have to earn the right to enter this area."  and it would be up to the players to organise everything.

First you would need to build a battering ram to get through the huge gate that sits between 2 mountains and blocks access to the area. But all the wood in the usual region is very thin and weak, so you would have to find someone proficient in magic, to enchant a seed so that it grows into a massive tree within a matter of days.

Then you would have to find another person who actually has knowledge of how to chop a 50 meter long tree, and carve it into a cylindrical shape.

Then you would have to find a bird tamer, who can go to the border of the new area, to collect intelligence about the landscape in the area (lets assume a tamed bird is capable of giving information), and possible enemy opposition.

You would have to assess the risk. What if the attack is repelled, and most of the players participating in it are killed. How vulnerable will that leave our own region, if the enemy will plunder all our gear that we brought along. If the enemy attacks us as retaliation, will we be forced to retreat into the forest, and start rebuilding our own society from the ground up?

Would an attack even be needed, perhaps the people behind the gate are friendly, but they just don't know that you are friendly, so it is sort of a precaution.

You would have to find people with medical training, to come along, which would give wounded soldiers 50% better chance of recovering.

Then you would have to find a team of blacksmiths, who are supplied by a team of miners, to make equipment for your force, because not every player is a warrior and thus doesn't have the required gear. You would have to send some of them to basic combat training.

You would have to consider how you will provide food and drink for your force. Perhaps you have to order a farmer to slay his whole cattle, just to have enough meat.

Since your society isn't regularly involved in large scale combat, you would be used to living in houses. But soldiers would need tents, so you have to find someone who can actually make cloth, and rope, because any random joe off the streets wouldn't have the slightest clue about the process of making cloth.

Of course this kind of big picture feel can be acheived with more simple systems, but the basic idea is more or less the same. Don't let everyone be an omnipotent multitalent. Believe it or not, having a character with limitations can actually be good (who could have guessed). Having areas of the game be limited can actually be good.

LOL did he really just say that an Auction House is a casual feature? Really?

Man. I tell yeah. The "I want my game to be the leetist most bragging rights extreme hardcore edition sub only lobby dungeon/raid experience" crowd just get better and better with time. I'd hang up DayZ if I were you, not really going to be all that fantastic from what I've seen. 

If you like that sortof game fine but keep in mine when you are that extreme in your wants those games won't be popular or have anything larger then a small niche community at best.

Originally posted by crasset15

Who is the audience for casual dumbed down MMOs? 

If the box says Pegi 12 or rated T for teen, you know what to expect...

Originally posted by itgrowls

LOL did he really just say that an Auction House is a casual feature? Really?

Indeed I did. What is an auction house? It is a tool that removes the need of manual trading and player interaction, making it possible for your sold item to just magically appear in the buyer's bag.

It's a convenience.

What is a preset list of skills? a convenience, so that players get the big picture of what the game has.

What are waypoints? a convenience.

If you can't be bothered to overcome challenges in a game manually, then why do you play a game? Just automate everything and enjoy the show, as a spectator. Soon someone will whine that levelling up is a chore, so maybe some dev releases a game with questing autopilot. Which would be no more absurd than the aforementioned things.

Making a build from a list of skills, is a chore, lets make a build generator which makes sure that the build it generates does at least 1500 dps.

Buying arrows for my bow is a chore. Lets remove them completely! What a wonderful idea.

So what do you eventually end up doing in a game, if challenges annoy you?