I have notice a big change over the course from EQ to today, in my experience when i was in EQ the best time i had was when i was waiting for a boat and some random person came up that was also waiting for the boat. This began a sort of friendship over the course of 15 mins waiting for that boat.  By the time the boat had arrived i changed my plan to help that said person because i wanted to see what his adventure was like.

This in turn allowed him to help me with my quest because we were friends by the time his quest was finished.  After about a week of talking to each other, he invited me to his guild.

Now this isn't the normal circumstance but this was one of my experiences.  If there had been an instant teleport, then good chance i'd never met that person and made a friend and eventually alot of friend in the guild.

So i'm wondering, is all this instant travel and getting to places quicker really a good thing? Is it truely just about the adventure or the people in the adventure.  Personally myself i think the stopping people at points is actually a good thing.  But i'm curious on your thoughts on this matter.

Apologies if this has been brought up before but i haven't seen it recently and i don't want to necro any threads.

There are quite a few people out there that share your views.  It's just that we are a minority compared to the rest of the gaming populace and nobody feels it would be profitable to make a game that caters to our tastes.

I dont' know why people find it hard to find people to play with.

Find the largest guild on the server.  Join them.  You'll find people to play with.

Long travel time dont' bother me very much though. 

To me, there should be a value(reason) for long travel time.  For example, in a open pvp games you'll meet people to gank/get ganked.  Or long travel time add another dimension to economy(for example, certain things only sell or sell cheaper in certaintown).

I can relate to that experience, whilan. 

I play MMOs for the combination of gaming & social interaction in that game world.  Blizzard's changes to World of Warcraft are excellent examples of what not to do, in my personal opinion.  Previously, I would talk to players and form a group, then travel to a destination alone or together, and work as a team toward a common goal.  If someone left the party it impacted the experience to a relatively large degree.  Also, all the players involved were on the same server, which encourages a player to actually care about their reputation in that game world.  If they behave poorly, then they might not be welcome in a number of groups.  People talked about the game and other topics while "running an instance", etc.

Unfortunately, now many people sit in a major city, waiting in a queue, only to be thrown together with random people from other servers, teleporting instantly to the destination with these other players who rarely speak (in my experience), and leave as soon as the last boss mob is killed.  This is a common occurrence and was a major reason I cancelled my account (for the nth time) to that game.

Yikes. I wouldn't even bother playing an mmo if I was just thrown in a random group with strangers. I might as well be playing counter strike at that point. Grouping with cool people is what makes these games fun. 

Time sinks can foster positive side effects such as interacting with others you wouldn't normally do. It is just a side effect though albeit a positive one, to something largely considered a negative thing. Nobody In their right mind, with a job a wife and a couple of kids has time to sit and wait 15 - 30 mins on a boat to go somewhere, just so you can be ready to take your spot on yet another timesink "a list" in order to have a little playtime in before real life screams at you. A lot of us that started with EQ just don't have the same freedom today as we did back then.

I miss those times as well were I would be in a camp somewhere down in lower guk waiting to get my haste belt, ykesha or whatever making ingame friendships with people who would be there for 6 hours or more straight. The truth is most of us don't have that time available anymore. We have real lives now.

Time sinks had it's hayday with EQ and it helped foster community unlike what we see today but as I mentioned before it was a side effect, because the timesinks gave you nothing to do much like a chatroom doesn't give you anything to do other than to chat with others. I wouldn't brand it as a positive feature however.

The OP is 100% correct to me. Having those experiences in-between the lvls, mobs, and loot was what made mmos so great.

The "Right Now" attitude is too much nowdays and we are spoon fed our content. You can't just find your own way much anymore.

Who remembers when you actually would READ quests to see where you needed to go etc?

Sadly, I too  have fallen victim to the "not enough time anymore" mental state sometimes and just glided through.

I always feel cheated and bored at the end.

I want my mmos to be my own story about what I do and who I interact with. I don't want to be just like all the other lvl XXs in that we all did the exact same steps to get to where we are.

Actually there is some truth to what the OP say. But for a casual player that might get an hour or 2 when the kids are sleeping 15 minutes are forever.

Maybe it is time for casual servers with instant travels and lower difficulty and then have a regular game for people with some more time? It would not be that hard, it is not as much work as having PvE and PvP servers.

Originally posted by Odium420

The OP is 100% correct to me. Having those experiences in-between the lvls, mobs, and loot was what made mmos so great.

 

The "Right Now" attitude is too much nowdays and we are spoon fed our content. You can't just find your own way much anymore.

 

Who remembers when you actually would READ quests to see where you needed to go etc?

 

Sadly, I too  have fallen victim to the "not enough time anymore" mental state sometimes and just glided through.

 

I always feel cheated and bored at the end.

 

I want my mmos to be my own story about what I do and who I interact with. I don't want to be just like all the other lvl XXs in that we all did the exact same steps to get to where we are.

 

This post pretty much nails it, imo, and good topic OP.

This quote, however, pretty much explains why such things have disappeared.  In the exact same quote, he nails why it's a negative!  The same folks who enjoyed "waiting for the boat" and other such timesinks have moved on in life, but still "want" an MMORPG, but one that's catered to their new playstyle and schedule (or unscheduled) lives.  I mean Fibsdk and Odium are prime examples; both happy to have moved forward, taking on responsibilities, and no longer having the time they once did, but still trying to take on enjoy MMO's.  Unfortunately it leads to what Odium explained - feeling cheated.  It's pretty much a paradox where both can't really exist; players with little time and still want that feeling.  But we still get MMO's that try, and pretty much fail.  And then there's WoW....

It's a shame really, because so many newer gamers don't even understand such things having never experienced them.  Even more of a shame is that with the way MMO's continue to develop towards the "now now now" mentality, even less will have the opportunity or will to do so.

You had to queue? We can’t have that in modern MMO’s! Its push one button and you are there, or push one button and the guy ahead of you is in the river. :)

Yes, EverQuest was full of time sinks.  A player would group with other players to kill a static spawned mob over and over, for a chance at killing the rare spawn mob, and then hope the rare loot item dropped, and then hope no one ninja'd the item, and then hope he/she won the role.  The player could spend as little as an hour to days or weeks of camping to get one item.

In World of Warcraft, a player will queue to group.  DPS classes might wait 10-30min for a group, while tanks and healers wait shorter periods of time, due to demand.  The players are instantly teleported to the instance (yay for no time sink of travel!), then fight with random strangers from other servers, probably not talking, hoping the boss mob drops the item they want, hope that he/she wins the role (if anyone else rolls against them).  If it doesn't drop, then the player is forced to wait until the next day for another chance to do it all over again.  A player could spend as little as 20-30min to days or weeks of re-running the entire instance in order to get one item.

Time sinks haven't disappeared.  They've simply changed from game to game.

The EQ player could spend 1-2 hours camping, not get the item, and then call it a night and try tomorrow.

The WoW player could spend 10-20min queueing for a group, then 20-30min running the instance, and not be allowed to try again until the next day.

I will keep looking for a game I like with the level of social interaction I desire, and those who are happy without it can keep playing any number of the MMOs already live.

Originally posted by Loke666

Actually there is some truth to what the OP say. But for a casual player that might get an hour or 2 when the kids are sleeping 15 minutes are forever.

Maybe it is time for casual servers with instant travels and lower difficulty and then have a regular game for people with some more time? It would not be that hard, it is not as much work as having PvE and PvP servers.

Or better yet, instead of catering to the casual instant action players, why don't the players themselves just realise that they don't have time for this type of game/genre and go do something else instead?

It's a false problem.

You have the option: wait for a boat or do the fast stuff with random people.

The problem is rather simple too: player populations and their limits in place/time.

The Guild is the mainstay of any succesful immersive playing style these days and if guildies are absent or your social skills suck to join a guild or have RL friends in a game, you can go and hook up with random people.

You cover both markets. The problem is that many people lack the social skills to team up in a structured way with friends (guild play).

In the end : those ... lacking these social skills are also those who make quick PUG's and do fast (travel) play.

It's a false problem. As a publisher you can promote group play for both kind of players, but in the end it is the player that decides how he wants to play.

Guild rewards are a push, but you cant change a player's character. And still a lot of computer players are strong individual personalities.

In the end people who complain about these things are just the ones applying them without the obvious other choice to make (and available)... because that would mean they would utilize social skills and time sinks.

Just these 2 last points - social skills and the use of time sinks - are the core problems why they don't play in structured game play like guilds.

"waiting for the boat" along with "going to the bathroom" is just one of those things that i can assume my chracter had to do without actually watching them do it.   i've always hoped a game would use more creative loading screens, something like a map in indiana jones that shows you moving along the map or something, to symbolize the journey.

of course it depends on the game, if the game world is really detailed and things are actually happening on boats as well as in and around docks, then the waiting can be part of the experience.  if it's just there as a timesink, no thanks.

Originally posted by Shiymmas

This post pretty much nails it, imo, and good topic OP.

 

This quote, however, pretty much explains why such things have disappeared.  In the exact same quote, he nails why it's a negative!  The same folks who enjoyed "waiting for the boat" and other such timesinks have moved on in life, but still "want" an MMORPG, but one that's catered to their new playstyle and schedule (or unscheduled) lives.  I mean Fibsdk and Odium are prime examples; both happy to have moved forward, taking on responsibilities, and no longer having the time they once did, but still trying to take on enjoy MMO's.  Unfortunately it leads to what Odium explained - feeling cheated.  It's pretty much a paradox where both can't really exist; players with little time and still want that feeling.  But we still get MMO's that try, and pretty much fail.  And then there's WoW....

 

It's a shame really, because so many newer gamers don't even understand such things having never experienced them.  Even more of a shame is that with the way MMO's continue to develop towards the "now now now" mentality, even less will have the opportunity or will to do so.

 

 

You are 100% correct Shiymmas and bring up something that I didn't even think about: The New Players.

Using WoW as a prime example I would bet most of the players who started with WoW have never known anything different. Us old timers who have played since EQ and such know how much mmos have changed. There are some things that are good, some bad. I enjoyed WoW until lvl cap. Even though I did feel I was getting spoon fed it was such a polished and solid game that I enjoyed it anyway.

What shocked me the last time I played WoW was how YOUNG some of the population is. I know people at work who have kids that are 6 and 9 playing WoW!!

 

I think all the early games copied each other. My first MMORPG, Lineage 1 also had a boat to take new players from the starter island over the mainland (wasn't cheap either) and I too met a person on my first trip over (10 minute ride btw) and almost 10 years later, we're still friends.

In fact, I still remain in close contact with a number of folks from Lineage 1 and DAOC and the one thing both games had in common with each other was forced downtime and encouraged grouping.

At the time the timesinks/downtime sort of pissed me off, but in retrospect today I see why developers put them into the game, (no, it wasn't just to extend your sub time) but rather to foster a sense of community between strangers.

I've seen the posts on these forums countless times about how much it would suck to be forced to group with strangers.

As if they're all some sort of alien life form that no one could relate to.

Gamers who've only experienced the last 5 years or so of MMORPG's have no idea what they missed..... or are still missing today.

I agree with the original post. I hate to bring up WoW but there are good examples there. Even though the boats didn't take nearly 15 minutes they had been an important way to get from one continent to another. During these times I met cool allies also riding along, or met enemies to have really epic fights with. This is dead now that they added two cycling boats at a time, and there really is no one who uses these boats anymore.
Looking at this through a PvP perspective I really miss this kind of thing. New MMOs (no WoW wasn't my first mmo or anything) are almost making it so players don't have to interact besides raids/dungeons. I think at all levels of the game for any reason player should want and need to interact with one another to accomplish minor or major things. Just my input though because I don't see any old school style games making a come back :/

Whether or not I'm in a game, I tend to react the same way to strangers who try to strike up conversations with me on public transportation - cautious looks and slowly moving away.

Originally posted by maplestone

Whether or not I'm in a game, I tend to react the same way to strangers who try to strike up conversations with me on public transportation - cautious looks and slowly moving away.

Any idea why you do this?  What would be the harm of being social?  What taught you to be so wary and fearful?

NM, off topic I guess.

Originally posted by whilan

I have notice a big change over the course from EQ to today, in my experience when i was in EQ the best time i had was when i was waiting for a boat and some random person came up that was also waiting for the boat. This began a sort of friendship over the course of 15 mins waiting for that boat.  By the time the boat had arrived i changed my plan to help that said person because i wanted to see what his adventure was like.

This in turn allowed him to help me with my quest because we were friends by the time his quest was finished.  After about a week of talking to each other, he invited me to his guild.

Now this isn't the normal circumstance but this was one of my experiences.  If there had been an instant teleport, then good chance i'd never met that person and made a friend and eventually alot of friend in the guild.

So i'm wondering, is all this instant travel and getting to places quicker really a good thing? Is it truely just about the adventure or the people in the adventure.  Personally myself i think the stopping people at points is actually a good thing.  But i'm curious on your thoughts on this matter.

Apologies if this has been brought up before but i haven't seen it recently and i don't want to necro any threads.

Of course it is a good thing. You met ONE person while waiting for the boat. How many hours did you wasted in TOTAL not meeting anyone?

It is not like people are NOT making friends in MMOs with instant travel. I am in 3 separate guilds (2 leveling & social, one progression) in WOW and i don't need to wait 30 min every play session to get that.

And no, i wont be going back to games that waste my time.