Originally posted by Gyrus

But travel time is an important game mechanic.

In MMOs distance has in important function in that it keeps players separated.

I have no problem with travel time which is part of gameplay:

• The 3 mins it takes to travel back to where you died in PVP.
• The 5-15 secs it takes to travel between mobs.  Especially when mob layout/patrols are designed in a way so that you're actively thinking about the best mob to travel to (and engage).
• The 1.5 mins between resource gathering nodes.

My problem is, if you add up those 3 activities (and similar ones I failed to mention) and compare it with your total play time, they come out to be an extremely small percentage.  So it's not sufficient rationalization for long travel times to say that sometimes it adds to gameplay, because most of the time it doesn't.

The Diablo 2 waypoint solution doesn't eliminate the travel-oriented gameplay of those 3 activities, doesn't remove exploration, but does remove unnecessary tedium.

Originally posted by Gyrus

Originally posted by neorandom

 well the world of eve is far more massive then all the other mmos put together, ... it takes hours to cross a system at that speed. ... it takes days to cross said universe from 1 end to the other.  ... but the world they put you in is truely massive.

Have you actually done this yourself?

I ask because in other thread today another poster claimed to have (almost) crossed the entire EvE universe in 4 hours.

you can cross eve easily under 4 hours if tried but the thing is there is over 5000 systems on map and 4000 more in wormhole space. In theory you will never hit all 4000 wormholes because that is a lot of well searching and even the 5000+ systems on the map you will never go to more than 400 in your life unless the people your with always on the move.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Gyrus

But travel time is an important game mechanic.

In MMOs distance has in important function in that it keeps players separated.

....
 

I have no problem with travel time which is part of gameplay:

• The 3 mins it takes to travel back to where you died in PVP.
• The 5-15 secs it takes to travel between mobs.  Especially when mob layout/patrols are designed in a way so that you're actively thinking about the best mob to travel to (and engage).
• The 1.5 mins between resource gathering nodes.

My problem is, if you add up those 3 activities (and similar ones I failed to mention) and compare it with your total play time, they come out to be an extremely small percentage.  So it's not sufficient rationalization for long travel times to say that sometimes it adds to gameplay, because most of the time it doesn't.

The Diablo 2 waypoint solution doesn't eliminate the travel-oriented gameplay of those 3 activities, doesn't remove exploration, but does remove unnecessary tedium.

Okay, you need to re-read my post.

You are talking about local (short) travel times here.  Frankly, if 3 minutes of travel time is too long for a player then maybe they should look at games like Online Pokies rather than MMOs.
 

"So it's not sufficient rationalization for long travel times to say that sometimes it adds to gameplay, because most of the time it doesn't."
Again, you are missing the point.  Travel time may or may not add to game play directly - but it does more than just provide a direct game play element - it allows other elements to work as intended.

Imagine a game where players can spawn wherever they like and travel anywhere instantly.
You may as well just have an instance arena and warp in whatever mob the player requests because it has the same effect.
and any form of RvR is out (except maybe a score board!) because it is impossible to defend anything.  The game would be a zergfest.

At what point does it stop even being a game?  Sounds like what Fury apparently was?

 

Originally posted by Trojanfresh

Originally posted by Gyrus

Originally posted by neorandom

 well the world of eve is far more massive then all the other mmos put together, ... it takes hours to cross a system at that speed. ... it takes days to cross said universe from 1 end to the other.  ... but the world they put you in is truely massive.

Have you actually done this yourself?

I ask because in other thread today another poster claimed to have (almost) crossed the entire EvE universe in 4 hours.

 

you can cross eve easily under 4 hours if tried but the thing is there is over 5000 systems on map and 4000 more in wormhole space. In theory you will never hit all 4000 wormholes because that is a lot of well searching and even the 5000+ systems on the map you will never go to more than 400 in your life unless the people your with always on the move.

Thanks. That's much smaller than many players would lead us to believe then.

The amount of 'stuff' in EvE (or any MMO for that matter) is a separate issue apart from world size.
For example a WoW player could argue that there are thousands of Mob Spawns in WoW but you will never see most of them.
From there you get into arguments about content, what it is and whether it counts?
The content that I care about is very different to the content a Crafter might care about for example.
 

Originally posted by BioNut

 

The title asked the main question but I'll elaborate.

There are a lot of cool games out there and many with really great looking worlds. LoTRO comes to mind as a masterpiece of world building and even AoC has some very pretty, yet small, environments. But no modern games have really "massive" worlds. Some are bigger than others but even LoTRO can be traversed in 30 minutes on horseback.

I was playing fallout 3 the other day when I came to a realization that I would love an MMO that made me feel that thrill of adventure that F3 does.  I want a game that takes place on a single island and takes you at least 3 hours to traverse. Give it some big cities and some small towns. Sprinkle in a lot of hidden "gems" that only a seasoned adventurer would find. Make it big enough that even though 1000s are on the server you rarely run across more than 5 people doing the same thing in the wilderness.

I want randomly generated mobs of randomly generated levels. I want to feel the thrill of adventure when a fellowship of my friends sets out into the unkown to accomplish a goal.

Give me story quests that matter and allow me to take repeatable job quests that don't. With that said everything should be optional.

 

Why does creating a living breathing world scare away investors? Would it not be profitable to be the first to do something so massive? Will we ever see something on this scale?

Because more land equals to many more years of development OR paper thin and poorly implemented content. Also, with computing technology of today, the best that a MMO has been able to pull of for 1 world is 35k plus "EVE" online. You must understand. If you make a world say 100 times bigger than even "Vanguard" for reference. Then you must need just that many more players to keep it populated. GL inventing a server that supports over 500k people with decent latency let alone getting a mmo of that size and unpolish to be successful enough to get enough subs in the first place.

If we could get a truly massive MMO. It would require daily man hours of hundreds and hundreds of extremely skilled developers, deticated to "Quality" content, and expanding on and on and on for years upon years. Screw 5 years for average mmo development. You are asking the devs to spend 40+ years to make something that players can play through in 1-2 years. Basically make azeroth, then make 50 other azeroth sized worlds with completely diverse and origional content again and again. Then you have a massive MMO.

"It is never going to happen and be good at the same time"

Originally posted by denshing

Originally posted by BioNut

 

The title asked the main question but I'll elaborate.

There are a lot of cool games out there and many with really great looking worlds. LoTRO comes to mind as a masterpiece of world building and even AoC has some very pretty, yet small, environments. But no modern games have really "massive" worlds. Some are bigger than others but even LoTRO can be traversed in 30 minutes on horseback.

I was playing fallout 3 the other day when I came to a realization that I would love an MMO that made me feel that thrill of adventure that F3 does.  I want a game that takes place on a single island and takes you at least 3 hours to traverse. Give it some big cities and some small towns. Sprinkle in a lot of hidden "gems" that only a seasoned adventurer would find. Make it big enough that even though 1000s are on the server you rarely run across more than 5 people doing the same thing in the wilderness.

I want randomly generated mobs of randomly generated levels. I want to feel the thrill of adventure when a fellowship of my friends sets out into the unkown to accomplish a goal.

Give me story quests that matter and allow me to take repeatable job quests that don't. With that said everything should be optional.

 

Why does creating a living breathing world scare away investors? Would it not be profitable to be the first to do something so massive? Will we ever see something on this scale?

Because more land equals to many more years of development OR paper thin and poorly implemented content. Also, with computing technology of today, the best that a MMO has been able to pull of for 1 world is 35k plus "EVE" online. You must understand. If you make a world say 100 times bigger than even "Vanguard" for reference. Then you must need just that many more players to keep it populated. GL inventing a server that supports over 500k people with decent latency let alone getting a mmo of that size and unpolish to be successful enough to get enough subs in the first place.

If we could get a truly massive MMO. It would require daily man hours of hundreds and hundreds of extremely skilled developers, deticated to "Quality" content, and expanding on and on and on for years upon years. Screw 5 years for average mmo development. You are asking the devs to spend 40+ years to make something that players can play through in 1-2 years. Basically make azeroth, then make 50 other azeroth sized worlds with completely diverse and origional content again and again. Then you have a massive MMO.

"It is never going to happen and be good at the same time"

Hopefully technology improves within the next decade or so, because I do so wish for another huge and beautiful mmorpg to explore.

Perhaps FF XIV could do that...

Would love to see a large game world, but with big you need to have transportation. I'm sure that since The Secret World (for example) will probably have cars or buses or subways.

The mistake I see with a lot of games today, is that they are beautifully detailed, usually with lon paths thru forests, hills and dales, and other fun things. But all these games have the beginning toon walking or jogging at a slow pace trying to get from point A to point B and that's never fun. Even if it means going thru mobs and discovering new places, its still a time waster.

DAoC actually solved this problem by giving a free horse at lvl 10 (surprisingly easy to get to 10), it did not go as fast as the high level ones, but it did give a sense of reduced travel time across the world.

WoW, aside from the aerial transport (or train), a large game world means a lot of walking and wandering. Same goes for LOTRO and AoC. All limited by a large level range.

Games need to be more friendly towards players in terms of travel. A lot of the free games have huge worlds, but travel is severly limited (see any of the china martial arts type games).

I'd like to see more games give mounts or transport at an earlier level and not such large worlds with meaningless hills and mobs placed at long distances.

Originally posted by BioNut

 

The title asked the main question but I'll elaborate.

There are a lot of cool games out there and many with really great looking worlds. LoTRO comes to mind as a masterpiece of world building and even AoC has some very pretty, yet small, environments. But no modern games have really "massive" worlds. Some are bigger than others but even LoTRO can be traversed in 30 minutes on horseback.

I was playing fallout 3 the other day when I came to a realization that I would love an MMO that made me feel that thrill of adventure that F3 does.  I want a game that takes place on a single island and takes you at least 3 hours to traverse. Give it some big cities and some small towns. Sprinkle in a lot of hidden "gems" that only a seasoned adventurer would find. Make it big enough that even though 1000s are on the server you rarely run across more than 5 people doing the same thing in the wilderness.

I want randomly generated mobs of randomly generated levels. I want to feel the thrill of adventure when a fellowship of my friends sets out into the unkown to accomplish a goal.

Give me story quests that matter and allow me to take repeatable job quests that don't. With that said everything should be optional.

 

Why does creating a living breathing world scare away investors? Would it not be profitable to be the first to do something so massive? Will we ever see something on this scale?

Yeah I've seen a few games with lot's of room to explore but like alot of folks stated you run into the problem of "buyers remorse" sooner than later most are going to tire of having to walk for three hours just to get to certain places and such which then creates the need for a fast travel mechanic which most games have so you are really going to only end up with what you have SWG if you take all the planets into consideration is almost mindboggling but again as stated they are incompitent so don't have a clue what to do with all of it.

I don't have a problem with the overall size of most games now AOC is smallish but in all most of the games I've tried have more than enough room I like to explore but it can't be a forced action for me.

Originally posted by ninjajucer
....

 But all these games have the beginning toon walking or jogging at a slow pace trying to get from point A to point B and that's never fun. Even if it means going thru mobs and discovering new places, its still a time waster.

...

 not such large worlds with meaningless hills and mobs placed at long distances.

But is it meaningless?

For example - supposing there is a game with crafting and resource gathering (There are several like this so I won't pick on one).
Part of the 'thrill' of crafting is making something special / rare / unique?
But if everyone has easy access to all the same ingredients then that is hard to achieve.
They way to do that is to make some items rare and hard to get... how do you make something 'hard to get'?
Make it a rare drop from a mob and / OR put it in a secret place or somewhere a long way away.

Many people won't be bothered going out of their way to get these items - but for those that do there is a reward.

So, we have a choice, an action, a consequence and a potential reward possibly proportional to the risk... hmmm... starting to sound like a game?

Originally posted by jaxsundane
...

I don't have a problem with the overall size of most games now AOC is smallish but in all most of the games I've tried have more than enough room I like to explore but it can't be a forced action for me.

Here I agree.  For the most part players should never be 'forced' to travel long distances.
The option is there - but it shouldn't be a requirement.

"Ahh!  But then a player might not be able to see the entire (game) world!"?

So?  Who says they should?

Originally posted by Gyrus

Okay, you need to re-read my post.

You are talking about local (short) travel times here.  Frankly, if 3 minutes of travel time is too long for a player then maybe they should look at games like Online Pokies rather than MMOs.
 

"So it's not sufficient rationalization for long travel times to say that sometimes it adds to gameplay, because most of the time it doesn't."
Again, you are missing the point.  Travel time may or may not add to game play directly - but it does more than just provide a direct game play element - it allows other elements to work as intended.

Imagine a game where players can spawn wherever they like and travel anywhere instantly.
You may as well just have an instance arena and warp in whatever mob the player requests because it has the same effect.
and any form of RvR is out (except maybe a score board!) because it is impossible to defend anything.  The game would be a zergfest.

At what point does it stop even being a game?  Sounds like what Fury apparently was? 

I'm talking about short travel times because those are the ones which add to gameplay.  The rest don't, hence my desire to see them removed.

Assuming a fast-travel-waypoint system, you can still have a huge world.  The first time you travel to each place is when you'll build up true sense of distances between the locations.  You can call it a small world with a lot of content, but lots of cool places to explore is basically what 'explorer' players want -- I'm not sure they're interested in wasting time retracing their steps over content they've already seen.

What other "elements" are you referring to?   If it's world PVP or transport economics, those are gameplay.  But I would argue that the gain in gameplay from having those two doesn't outweigh the tedium; and so they shouldn't be strongly presented (ie they should exist only as much as they exist in WOW; with rare stores selling things in remote places, and a light form of world PVP.)

Regarding "why not make all travel instant?", I've already described many discrete situations where traveling has concrete benefits.  And as you pointed out, they're very short distances.   Longer distances typically have low payoffs in terms of gameplay (it's a lot of time wasted, and not a lot of gamplay gained.)

Not every type of RVR is out, because in the last thread you said persistent empire stat tracking (like if you awarded Horde 1 point each time they won a Battleground in WOW) is RVR.  But yes, world PVP is already heaped with disadvantages and "now the world needs to be time consuming to travel" is yet another disadvantage.

Again, I'm not against travel time which adds to gameplay.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't DAOC largely separate PVE leveling zones from its primary PVP area(s)?   Seems like a perfectly reasonable solution for having RVR - instant travel to anywhere you've explored, and treat the PVP area just like a Battleground with its own travels appropriate to the gameplay.  It would be one huge RVR Battleground with appropriately captureable respawn nodes.

Originally posted by Axehilt

 

I'm talking about short travel times because those are the ones which add to gameplay.  The rest don't, hence my desire to see them removed.

I think you are still missing the point.  Just because travel time does not directly add to immediate game play every time you log on every second does not mean that it does not make the game play elements you enjoy possible.

Assuming a fast-travel-waypoint system, you can still have a huge world.  The first time you travel to each place is when you'll build up true sense of distances between the locations.  You can call it a small world with a lot of content, but lots of cool places to explore is basically what 'explorer' players want -- I'm not sure they're interested in wasting time retracing their steps over content they've already seen.

The more I read your posts the more I am forming the opinion that you think WoW is pretty much the perfect MMO?
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not knocking you for that.  WoW is a damn good MMO and does a lot of things very right - but it is not for everyone, forever.
So, that being the case, you cannot simply apply the WoW formula to every MMO all the time and expect it to work as well as it does in WoW.

What other "elements" are you referring to?   If it's world PVP or transport economics, those are gameplay.  But I would argue that the gain in gameplay from having those two doesn't outweigh the tedium; and so they shouldn't be strongly presented (ie they should exist only as much as they exist in WOW; with rare stores selling things in remote places, and a light form of world PVP.)

Here is where we start to part ways.  I know what I like in MMOs - but I also know that other people like other things.  Since I would prefer not to play my MMO alone I can accept that maybe things need to be done to keep aother game elements alive and other people playing.
You again suggest the WoW model.  The thing is that WoW's "light form of world PVP" is not enough for everyone.

Regarding "why not make all travel instant?", I've already described many discrete situations where traveling has concrete benefits.  And as you pointed out, they're very short distances.   Longer distances typically have low payoffs in terms of gameplay (it's a lot of time wasted, and not a lot of gamplay gained.)

In games, one of the things players value is their time.  So, making a player invest time (let's call it 'time grind' if you like?) is really not a lot different to making them kill 10 mobs for a drop?  Your argument against travel time is really not much different from an argument against any kind of 'grind' so to a point it's fair.  But, like all grind, it is there for a purpose.

Not every type of RVR is out, because in the last thread you said persistent empire stat tracking (like if you awarded Horde 1 point each time they won a Battleground in WOW) is RVR.

Sorry, but that is not really RvR.  In name only.
No serious conquest oriented gamer would call that real RvR or be satisfied with it.

But yes, world PVP is already heaped with disadvantages and "now the world needs to be time consuming to travel" is yet another disadvantage.

World PvP is only heaped with disadvantages if the game is not designed for world PvP... like for example if the travel times are too short... It's NOT a disadvantage if it is a part of the game and makes the rest of the game work as a result.  QED?

Again, I'm not against travel time which adds to gameplay.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't DAOC largely separate PVE leveling zones from its primary PVP area(s)?   Seems like a perfectly reasonable solution for having RVR - instant travel to anywhere you've explored, and treat the PVP area just like a Battleground with its own travels appropriate to the gameplay.  It would be one huge RVR Battleground with appropriately captureable respawn nodes.

Again, you seem to be drifting back to the WoW model?
Why not just say "I think WoW is perfect.  Everyone should play it and all MMOs should be just like it."?
It's fine if you think that, it's just that not everyone agrees.

My approach to the discussion involves cutting away mechanics which don't efficiently deliver fun to the player, which is rather similar to how Blizzard takes only the best elements from existing games when making their own games.

Does it appeal to everyone? It'd be dumb to think any game appealed to everyone. But it ends up with some of the most far-reaching appeal in gaming, so it's a good method for designing. Just because I want mainstream MMOs to follow solid gameplay formulas doesn't mean I want to "apply the WOW formula to every MMO". Niche games have their place. They don't deliver fun in the most efficient way, but as a result they can veer off in directions that some players find interesting.

"In games, one of the things players value is their time.  So, making a player invest time (let's call it 'time grind' if you like?) is really not a lot different to making them kill 10 mobs for a drop?  Your argument against travel time is really not much different from an argument against any kind of 'grind' so to a point it's fair.  But, like all grind, it is there for a purpose."

"Grind" is a term players use to describe gameplay which is either repetitive or has a very poor time-to-fun ratio. 

Gameplay has value to players.  Grind describes inefficient gameplay.

Grind is there for a purpose, but the purpose isn't in the best interest of players.  It's there to keep them paying, and to make content last longer than it really deserves to.

You can't eliminate all grind, because grind is subjective.  Where one player says a game has interesting gameplay, another might feel the game is a big grind.  This is because different players feel different things are fun (so the time investment-per-fun is different.)  All my "eliminating grind" comments therefore refer to things which the majority of people consider a grind.

But certain things are overtly grindy, and it's not that difficult to remove them.  It's just a matter of the developer figuring out how to add content to their 1000-hour game which is now 250-hours because they eliminated unnecessary timesinks.

"Sorry, but that is not really RvR.  In name only. No serious conquest oriented gamer would call that real RvR or be satisfied with it."

Sure.  I too felt it was odd that you called it RVR in the Zerg thread.

Although with well-constructed instanced PVP (better than what's currently on the market) feeding a well-constructed over-game would appeal to conquest-oriented gamers.  It just wouldn't appeal to world PVP-oriented players.

"World PvP is only heaped with disadvantages if the game is not designed for world PvP... like for example if the travel times are too short... It's NOT a disadvantage if it is a part of the game and makes the rest of the game work as a result.  QED?"

Well it's always going to be heaped with disadvantages to the player who wants a competitive gameplay focus (majority of time spent in combat, and no unnecessary timesinks.)

I understand how travel time ties into world PVP.  I even think your proposed POTBS solutions (like making it take much longer to travel anywhere,) were the correct way to go for a game with a world PVP focus.

"Again, you seem to be drifting back to the WoW model? Why not just say "I think WoW is perfect.  Everyone should play it and all MMOs should be just like it."? It's fine if you think that, it's just that not everyone agrees."

It's a little odd to call this the WOW model, since it's the DAOC model I was referencing.  Whatever you call it, it's about eliminating unnecessary time sinks.

The forum's editors are being particularly brutal to me today. :/

Originally posted by Dameonk

I would like to see a modern day-based MMO game with realistic travel and distance.

You are kidding me. You want to ride in a car for 30 min before you can get to your mission and play the game? You want to sit in a plane staring at clouds for hours before you get to another city? I have enough business travel to hate that with a passion.

Count me out.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Dameonk

I would like to see a modern day-based MMO game with realistic travel and distance.

 

You are kidding me. You want to ride in a car for 30 min before you can get to your mission and play the game? You want to sit in a plane staring at clouds for hours before you get to another city? I have enough business travel to hate that with a passion.

Count me out.

Because, as we all know, business travel in a commercial aircraft is exactly like traveling in MMOs. :rolleyes:

Just so you know, I also travel and from work - and I also play (and fly) in WWIIoL, a game with a huge game world and very long travel times.
There are a a couple of key differences:
When you travel to work, you sit back and (depending on whether you are business or economy class) put on your headphones and spend much of your flight with your sole concern being how to cut your food with the plastic knife, why you headphones don't work and why, when they do, the pilot chooses to tell you all about what a great choice of airline you made (seriously pal, stop pretending to be my friend while you are locked behind an armored door)  thus pausing the movie.
MMO travel on the other hand is usually busy checking maps, looking out for mobs or other players, chatting and planning.
In WWIIoL you are constantly busy just flying and on watch for enemy aircraft - you don't get bored.

It's all a question of game design.  There are ways to make travel interesting in game worlds.  Real Life travel is not the same thing.

Originally posted by Gyrus

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Dameonk

I would like to see a modern day-based MMO game with realistic travel and distance.

 

You are kidding me. You want to ride in a car for 30 min before you can get to your mission and play the game? You want to sit in a plane staring at clouds for hours before you get to another city? I have enough business travel to hate that with a passion.

Count me out.

Because, as we all know, business travel in a commercial aircraft is exactly like traveling in MMOs. :rolleyes:

Just so you know, I also travel and from work - and I also play (and fly) in WWIIoL, a game with a huge game world and very long travel times.
There are a a couple of key differences:
When you travel to work, you sit back and (depending on whether you are business or economy class) put on your headphones and spend much of your flight with your sole concern being how to cut your food with the plastic knife, why you headphones don't work and why, when they do, the pilot chooses to tell you all about what a great choice of airline you made (seriously pal, stop pretending to be my friend while you are locked behind an armored door)  thus pausing the movie.
MMO travel on the other hand is usually busy checking maps, looking out for mobs or other players, chatting and planning.
In WWIIoL you are constantly busy just flying and on watch for enemy aircraft - you don't get bored.

It's all a question of game design.  There are ways to make travel interesting in game worlds.  Real Life travel is not the same thing.

Silkroad Online, in its glory days (before the level 90 cap, before the massive bot infestations, and before the GMS became untrustworthy and lied), is a good example of how you can "spice up" the journey.

Inside the game, there was a job system you could do (and I'm not talking about roles like a wizard). You could a merchant (travels to different towns to sell goods using a traveling caravan), a hunter (protected merchants, killed thieves, were basically the "police" of Silkroad Online), or a thief (killed merchants to steal goods, had to deal with pesky hunters).

I was a thief. It wasn't greed for me though. It was getting revenge against merchants (before I earned a job, I was murdered 7 times by different dickheaded merchants) and hunters (was murdered twice by them, and the short time I was a merchant I couldn't trust the hunters I hired because they simply switched jobs later and became thieves to kill and rob me).

This all led to interesting journeys for everyone. Merchants and hunters continusously watched their backs for any signs of a thief ambush, while me and a different guild I made friends with camped out at our favorite ferry to ambush them or traveled in a mob pack to kill any merchants/hunters on the road. Basically, you were never bored on your journey between towns while in a job outfit, you were more likely anxious for that next possible encounter.

This was a cool concept (before it started dying and you had to be a max level character after the level 90 cap to even do a job successfully). And it shows that a game can make a journey inside a game world quite interesting...

Originally posted by Axehilt
...<snip - fair enough - more debate on that will get us no where>...

"In games, one of the things players value is their time.  So, making a player invest time (let's call it 'time grind' if you like?) is really not a lot different to making them kill 10 mobs for a drop?  Your argument against travel time is really not much different from an argument against any kind of 'grind' so to a point it's fair.  But, like all grind, it is there for a purpose."

"Grind" is a term players use to describe gameplay which is either repetitive or has a very poor time-to-fun ratio. 

Gameplay has value to players.  Grind describes inefficient gameplay.

Grind is there for a purpose, but the purpose isn't in the best interest of players.  It's there to keep them paying, and to make content last longer than it really deserves to.

You can't eliminate all grind, because grind is subjective.  Where one player says a game has interesting gameplay, another might feel the game is a big grind.  This is because different players feel different things are fun (so the time investment-per-fun is different.)  All my "eliminating grind" comments therefore refer to things which the majority of people consider a grind.

But certain things are overtly grindy, and it's not that difficult to remove them.  It's just a matter of the developer figuring out how to add content to their 1000-hour game which is now 250-hours because they eliminated unnecessary timesinks.

Here we disagree again.  The purpose of 'grind' is not just to keep people playing.  Free to play games have grind too.
I guess it depends how you define 'grind' from player to player - but again - 'grind' elements often allow other parts of the game to work as designed.  It's easy to say "Why do I have to rank up?  Can't I just start at level 50?" and in some cases it is a fair point - but a large part of the problem is that many MMOs are all about leveling up and ahve no real end game.  Really, that's a topic for a whole other thread.

"Sorry, but that is not really RvR.  In name only. No serious conquest oriented gamer would call that real RvR or be satisfied with it."

Sure.  I too felt it was odd that you called it RVR in the Zerg thread.

Technically - it is.  If two 'teams' have a score then it is RvR.  Just not very good RvR ;-) 
In the same way I could call flipping a coin PvP.  I look at this from a technical point of view.
However any developer attempting to pass this off on MMO players would be ripped limb from limb - and rightly so.

Although with well-constructed instanced PVP (better than what's currently on the market) feeding a well-constructed over-game would appeal to conquest-oriented gamers.  It just wouldn't appeal to world PVP-oriented players.

If you do a good job of "well-constructed instanced PVP" for an MMO I would question why you couldn't do open PvP just as well?
If people want to play 'shoebox' PvP games there are already tons on the market.  They just don't market themselves as MMOs (nor should they)

"World PvP is only heaped with disadvantages if the game is not designed for world PvP... like for example if the travel times are too short... It's NOT a disadvantage if it is a part of the game and makes the rest of the game work as a result.  QED?"

Well it's always going to be heaped with disadvantages to the player who wants a competitive gameplay focus (majority of time spent in combat, and no unnecessary timesinks.)

If people want to play 'shoebox' PvP games there are already tons on the market. They just don't market themselves as MMOs (nor should they) <= yeah that is a cut'n'paste.

I understand how travel time ties into world PVP.  I even think your proposed POTBS solutions (like making it take much longer to travel anywhere,) were the correct way to go for a game with a world PVP focus.

"Again, you seem to be drifting back to the WoW model? Why not just say "I think WoW is perfect.  Everyone should play it and all MMOs should be just like it."? It's fine if you think that, it's just that not everyone agrees."

It's a little odd to call this the WOW model, since it's the DAOC model I was referencing.  Whatever you call it, it's about eliminating unnecessary time sinks.

Having PvP 'arenas' that really have no impact on the greater game world or parts of the world that are not connected because you PvE here and PvP there is more like having separate servers... or even separate games?
The fact is that with good game design I believe you can have open world PvP and cut down or maybe even completely eleminate the zerging and ganking.

As I say though - if you wanted to PvP without timesinks then maybe Fury was the game for you.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Dameonk

I would like to see a modern day-based MMO game with realistic travel and distance.

 

You are kidding me. You want to ride in a car for 30 min before you can get to your mission and play the game? You want to sit in a plane staring at clouds for hours before you get to another city? I have enough business travel to hate that with a passion.

Count me out.

why not? simply give players the ability to shorten the travltime. For example, give them the ability to build portals or aircraft. Make it very expensive and hard to build, so that a whole guild has to cooperate for a long time to build and maintain a certain line, like gathering resources, reparing, refueling, securing etc. In return, they can charge fees if somene uses their portals/aircraft.

Sounds boring, but there are a lot of people out there, who enjoy this type of playstyle and enjoy logistics.

"I guess it depends how you define 'grind' from player to player - but again - 'grind' elements often allow other parts of the game to work as designed. It's easy to say "Why do I have to rank up? Can't I just start at level 50?" and in some cases it is a fair point - but a large part of the problem is that many MMOs are all about leveling up and ahve no real end game. Really, that's a topic for a whole other thread."

Again, grind is a negative label players use to describe a poor time-to-fun ratio. 

It's perfectly fine for activities in a game to require time.  All do.  The problem comes when the gameplay formula isn't strong enough, or varied frequently enough, to hold players interest for as long as the game asks them to perform it.

A game with a weak formula or little variance will seem like a grind in much fewer hours than a game with a strong fun formula which varies things a lot.

"If you do a good job of "well-constructed instanced PVP" for an MMO I would question why you couldn't do open PvP just as well?
If people want to play 'shoebox' PvP games there are already tons on the market. They just don't market themselves as MMOs (nor should they)"

I have no problem with world PVP games existing.  No game is perfect to everyone.  But for me as a gamer, the drudgery associated with world PVP systems isn't worth it.

People do want to play shoebox PVP games.  They're fun.  Doing one with MMORPG-style progression and combat, but which also has deep and interesting PVP objectives, would also be fun.

"Having PvP 'arenas' that really have no impact on the greater game world or parts of the world that are not connected because you PvE here and PvP there is more like having separate servers... or even separate games?
The fact is that with good game design I believe you can have open world PvP and cut down or maybe even completely eleminate the zerging and ganking."

It's fair to say that it's like having separate games. But they are separate games, to a large degree.

The main problem is a waypoint travel system doesn't work great with world PVP, but if you take waypoint travel away in the PVE zones you're constantly paying a higher "travel time cost" but you're not constantly PVPing (ie reaping the benefits of said cost.)

"As I say though - if you wanted to PvP without timesinks then maybe Fury was the game for you."

Never played it and know nothing about it.  When I want PVP without timesinks I play TF2.

Originally posted by Pherusa

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Dameonk

I would like to see a modern day-based MMO game with realistic travel and distance.

 

You are kidding me. You want to ride in a car for 30 min before you can get to your mission and play the game? You want to sit in a plane staring at clouds for hours before you get to another city? I have enough business travel to hate that with a passion.

Count me out.

 

why not? simply give players the ability to shorten the travltime. For example, give them the ability to build portals or aircraft. Make it very expensive and hard to build, so that a whole guild has to cooperate for a long time to build and maintain a certain line, like gathering resources, reparing, refueling, securing etc. In return, they can charge fees if somene uses their portals/aircraft.

Sounds boring, but there are a lot of people out there, who enjoy this type of playstyle and enjoy logistics.

Because it is freaking BORING. Have you gone on a road trip with kids in a car for more than an hour? The reason we gave them handheld game machines is to get AWAY from that. And you want that in an ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT??

LOL .. have a whole guild grind to avoid bordom of 30 min travels?? Why don't you try to convince developers to build that? ha ha ha ha ha ...