Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 

You don't need a MMO to have indirect interations. Many non-MMOs have chat channels, so you can "hear" lots of people. You can "inspect" others from the menu in D3, no difference than the inspection you do in orgrimmar in WOW. The *only* difference, in a game like D3, or playing a MP game on steam, is that you don't *see* the 3D toons in the lobby. To me, that is not a huge difference.

Secondly, yes, i am talking about direction interactions. The indirect ones, like you see toons running around, don't add much to gameplay experiences, particularly when it consist of only a very small percentage of play time.

If you spend 10 min in city with this "indirect interaction", and then 2 hours in LFR raid, the 10 min of waiting is not that important. So i am disputing if this *SMALL* part of the game, which btw, many will ignore by watching a youtube video, is desirable.

It certainly does not matter to me. A menu lobby makes zero difference to me. And btw, you can't claim that the raid/dungeon experience is not more important, when most people are playing the game for exactly that.

Quite right, that is why we qq that the game is not massive, 100 people idling in ogrimmar is not different from 100 people idling in a chat channel.

The illusion of a living world comes from meeting people that do something in the world  (and the illusion that the game is massive if there are dozens of people doing things everywhere), it can be benign, like a fisher fishing at a fishing spot or more action packed, like combatting clans sweeping trough the dungeon you are grinding in, occasionally roflstomping you :)

Apart from the launch zones are barren, noone talks in global but bots and all there is left are jokes about Barrens chat as a distant memory and lobby gameplay.

Flame on!

:)

I certainly understand what you want, and this lobby thing is not. 

However, this thread is not about lack of a virtual world. This thread is about this very popular style of lobby based playstyle in mmos.

As pointed out before, there are more event driven instances like sto, and boss fight centric ones like wow. I think it is fun to discuss the pros & cons of how story instances are designed.

Wrong thread, we talk about story driven solo instances in the other one (and i dont disagree with you there, as long as it does not become the sole focus of the game, you know :) ), here you started with "lobby gameplay good, drop the world" :)

Flame on!

:)

MMO’s are on a design path to make them increasingly solo friendly. Being Massive, Mutliplayer and Roleplaying does not suit solo gameplay. So it is hardly surprising that MMO’s are becoming less massive, less multiplayer and less suitable for roleplaying.

I have sat and racked my brain trying to decide why certain games feel lonely. I mean it can have an impressive population but it still feels like you are playing alone. This is the aspect that lobby games cannot deliver. So you have a lot of players but you do not see them just running past you or stealing your objective or trying to kill you. They are just a number in the chat channel that tells you 69 people are in that channel. What is the point in that ? Do you see them they are just a random number ?

However if I come across a place and I see people duelling or standing about trying to fish or farm or just running past I actually see them. That makes them part of the world. Granted a chat channel does allow communication (although some of the recent Russian chat spam on Empire Fleet has me wondering) but they are not really part of the world to me physically. I know that sounds dumb but if I do not see people running around just doing their own thing I am lonely. When I am lonely I do not like to play a game. There you have it it is not as tangible I guess but I hope you understand what I'm getting at.

GW 2 initially had all these people doing dynamic events even if people would not talk or hardly did any other thing but move from one DE to another I enjoyed that because it allowed me to be part of something. I know that it was a game that was actually instances because when you moved fom one area to another there is a portal but it still felt alive until the population in certain places dropped then it was very noticeably empty. However those early days were super nice.

I am playing SWTOR now and I am happy to group  but people are right that I cannot call it massively but the stories make it up for me since I am just interacting to finish quests on the road to my own story so I do not really mind it and I do not  hate the game for its non massive feel because I forgive it for the story.

However I played Everquest and even with 'the loading please wait' that game was definitely massively multiplayer. I think I never felt lonely there alone yes especially when I was in Kithicor at night trying not to catch the attention of anything but lonely ? No way.

Originally posted by moosecatlol

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Sort of disagree.

Planetside 2 and gw2 are modern mmos that certainly cover the massive part of mmo.

But yeah I'm sick of mmos that turn into glorified lobby games once you hit endgame too.

Too bad the current live client of GW2 does not maintain it's difficulty for large group content. Try doing The Assault on Arah with 10 players, afterwards do it with 50 players. Which is more fun?

I was going to say the same thing, GW2 doesn't cover the massive parts of MMO's and is a glorified lobby game at end game.

When i think of massive MMOs i think of games like EQ & Vanguard not GW2 lol.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

small group dungeons (like in DDO, WOW, LOTRO, DCUO, .....)

arena/battleground pvp (some smaller than BF3)

raids (biggest in WOW is 25 man ... even at 40 man .. it is smaller than BF3 battles)

and not to mention SINGLE PLAYER quests and daily quests.

In fact, the only massive part is the city where people wait for their dungeons/pvp to pop .. and that is just a massive lobby with a massive AH.

So much of the gameplay experience that many players spend most of their time on are not "massive" (like a PS2 hundreds on hundreds battle) in *many* MMOs, may be it is time for MMOs to abandon its roots, and embrace a broader definition. In fact, the texas holden online game i just played is as massive as a MMO. YOu can gamble with 8 people, which has more players than heroic dungeons ... and the lobby is as massive as orgrimmar in WOW.

 

let's take out all the meaning out of ALL words.  people can understand each other way too well currently.  we need more freedom to be able to assign opposite meanings to words at the drop of a hat, so that we don't pigeonhole a particular role onto a particular word.  also, there should be words that can represent ANY other word.... so we don't have to think too much about what we say.

afterall, according to narius, logic and reason should have NOTHING to do with language or the words we  choose (yes he said that in another samey thread he started recently (something like "the meaning of MMO is expanding").  its much better that we just string different words randomly together like we're performing improv art, and not be shackled and bound by trying to communicate any idea.

everyone benefits when nobody can understand each other!  language is pure self expression!  it has NOTHING to do with getting anyone to understand anything you're saying!  

/sarcasm (since many posters here won't detect it)

well thanks narius, for making it even MORE clear in your latest threads, what kind of special person you are, and how the act of engaging you in any kind of conversation,  is futile and a big waste of time.  taking logic and reason out of the use of words, takes away all reason and logic for USING words IN THE FIRST place.

MMOs don't need to really have all those players playing together to be good. A lot of what you mention there is limited for challenge. Having an endless swarm of players forces the content to be trivialized to being a joke to do, demeaning the activity and making skill near useless in providing a good outcome. 

Its not to say large scale stuff isn't good or shouldn't be there, but a lot of what you listed exists because it allows for challenge to exist, one that you don't have to rely upon others to be swarming around to do, and likely become a joke to accomplish with those numbers.

Originally posted by Purutzil

MMOs don't need to really have all those players playing together to be good. A lot of what you mention there is limited for challenge. Having an endless swarm of players forces the content to be trivialized to being a joke to do, demeaning the activity and making skill near useless in providing a good outcome. 

 

Its not to say large scale stuff isn't good or shouldn't be there, but a lot of what you listed exists because it allows for challenge to exist, one that you don't have to rely upon others to be swarming around to do, and likely become a joke to accomplish with those numbers.

He is not talking about whether they are good or not, he is saying that they are not massive.

Games like GW2 and TSW should be called expanded CO-OP RPGs

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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I haven't claimed that any particular thing is more or less important than anything else. I'm saying I agree that the virtual world bit isn't necessary for games to be fun. It's entirely possible to have just as much fun in a lobby game (like D3) as a virtual world game (like WoW), just not for everyone. Given a choice between hanging around in a game lobby and hanging around in a virtual world, there are people who prefer to hang around in a virtual world, even if the entire rest of the game is exactly the same.

 

That is fair. I suppose some will want a different lobby .. since that is, no matter how small, still a part of the experience. But i guess we are in agreement that much of the gameplay in MMOs are not massive (and i am not going to repeat which parts) and they resemble the experience of online SP games.

Originally posted by Scot

MMO’s are on a design path to make them increasingly solo friendly. Being Massive, Mutliplayer and Roleplaying does not suit solo gameplay. So it is hardly surprising that MMO’s are becoming less massive, less multiplayer and less suitable for roleplaying.

"less massive" .. certainly that is the point of this thread.

"less multiplayer" .. i don't see that. Much of the gameplay, despite in small groups, is still multiplayer. I haven't seen anyone or know anyone who only do solo quests. The most popular gameplay seems to be small group dungeons, and raids for pve, and BG for pvp. All  of those are mulitplayer.

"less suitable for roleplaying" .. that has nothing to do with massive. The most conducive way for role-playing is PnP. Most vidoe games, online or not, MMO or not are not that suitable anyway.

Originally posted by madazz

 

Why are you on an MMO forum if you don't want to play an MMO? Sure you try out STO and PS2...but otherwise you seem to have a disdain for a true MMO experience (ie; in game with a massive amount of people). Yet here you argue all you want to do is play a game with literally 4 to 5 people. You are grasping at straws for some exceptionally strange reason when you try to call a 5 man game an MMO. Also, a lobby is not a massive multiplayer GAME. It is a massive LOBBY. So while a game may have a massive component, it doesn't make it a massive multiplayer GAME. If you want to join MMO's and do horrible horrible quests (horrible compared to single player games for the most part, few exceptions), then you just have bad taste. You basically want boring MMO style quests in a 4-5 player game it sounds like. LAME.

Because unlike you, i am not beholden to some mythical "true MMO experience". There is no such things. I am here to discuss games like STO, PS2, DDO, WOW, .... all are classified .. even by you .. as MMOs. And you can't deny these games, which are MMOs, have a non-massive lobby aspect of teh gameplay.

Tell me .. is WOW a MMO? Tell me .. is 5-man dungeon a very popular gameplay style in WOW?

I recommend Kingdoms of Amular to you. It is abundant with stories and MMO quests in an MMO style instanced world with no people! Try it out! I think you'll love it. And you can rest assured it has a massive component because there are forums for the game too!

I already did. I don't like the setting (too generic), and the combat is not special. STO is much more enjoyable. Don't you think i would be trying out all the actiony RPG on the market already?

With that said, I'd also suggest you head on over to pcgamer.com, gamespy.com , neogaf, or even gamespot.com to discuss the non mmo games you enjoy. Furthermore, we have a gaming section here too that may help you find like minded folks. See, you can stay on this site, enjoy the articles, but you really need to stop arguing for games to be limited to 4-5 players... its getting old buddy.

Why do you think i only frequent this site? Of course i am over at other gaming site, and also sci-fi sites, and what-not.

And if you think talking about lobby style MMO is getting old, it is not as tiresome as the rant of a lack of sandbox, or all the bitter complaints about how MMO is no longer "massive", or the rant about lack of open world pvp. I don't see i am doing anything different from you (and other people here) .. except from a different point of view.

I will admit, I am VERY tired of your anti-mmo stance. However, I'd still buy you a beer while we argue over it. HHAahhAahha

Arguing is fun .. that is why you keep responding to me, right?

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 The most popular gameplay seems to be small group dungeons, and raids for pve, and BG for pvp. All  of those are mulitplayer.

Based on what? Mobas and other single purpose games that offer nothing else? Wow that has these as the only way of aquiring certain items?

Until people can buy the latest tier on the ah for gold gained in a broad spectrum of activities, there is no overall reference.

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 The most popular gameplay seems to be small group dungeons, and raids for pve, and BG for pvp. All  of those are mulitplayer.

Based on what? Mobas and other single purpose games that offer nothing else? Wow that has these as the only way of aquiring certain items?

Until people can buy the latest tier on the ah for gold gained in a broad spectrum of activities, there is no overall reference.

Flame on!

:)

Oh .. based on observations in games like WOW? I am talking about games like WOW, and other pve MMOs like STO, and DDO (may be i should be clear about that). Obviously MOBA does not apply because it is 100% pvp.

What i mean is NOT that small group dungeon is most popular amongst all online games (the most popular game, by xfire number is LOL), but that in WOW, or DDO, or LOTRO, most players spend most time in either dungeons, or raids, but not the open world.

But the point is that these are all multiplayer activities. So there isn't "less multiplayer" in these MMOs.

Originally posted by Aelious
From a PvE aspect other than world bosses there never really has been a specific combat related activity that is "massive". This has always been the case though, nothing has changed except that the easy button. Groups and raids are not the "massive" aspect. That is for the potential that a persistent world provides.

Luckily there are still games like Vanguard and EQ that have open area group places that keep you in the world. Don't get me wrong, I've used dungeon finder and it's very convenient. 9/10 however it's also lonely as people hardly ever say anything since in 30 mins you could be with another set of people. Someone invests a lot more into making their own groups, especially if it means going through a public dungeon where there could be other groups.

That is my point. Most of the PvE content in MMO is never massive. I think it is a response to player desire. Obviously you do not share that desire. However, it does not change the fact that much of the game play options (again dungeons, raids ...) in many MMOs are not massive.

And as i have discussed before, the persistent world matter very little in many MMOs. It serves as nothing but a 3D lobby. Surely some may like a 3D lobby better than a menu ... but i highly doubt that would be the focal point of their attention if they spend 90% of the time in small group instanced content.

Originally posted by greenreen

This is why, I think, part of why some people like large population games.

It's not because they play with the people concurrently, it's because they need a lot of people to go through because their personality is atrocious.

They can't make jokes that aren't rehashes of internet jokes that everyone has heard 1k times. They get jealous when someone has better gear. They can't be happy for another person getting a drop they "deserved". They exaggerate their personal accomplishments in life or money. They have more people on ignore than friends (ok, I've been guilty of that one myself).

 

Basically, they need to continually use people like toilet paper for their own wants. They don't want a community where they get to know people and couldn't name the people they have grouped with in the last month. Probably don't want to remember them either, plenty are of like-hive-mind. Me, mine, got it. Either you are doing something for me or are my enemy. Get away from my harvest, I saw it first. Train! run, oops guess I didn't tell anyone, haha that guy is dying.

 

If you think about it, they want massive just to get infinite chances for a do-over. In smaller communities you don't get all those second chances. When your game houses hundreds of people and you tick 15 of them off spamming chat and get put on ignore then do 5 groups over a month where you are as worthless as a paper towel in a bathtub, you earn a reputation and you will run out of people soon enough that will open their hand to you.

I'd say this is more of a negative product of how theses games and the social aspects work.  You are right though, there are a lot of people that play mmorpgs with that mind set and I know quite a few of them personally.  It's kind of shitty that that is how some people choose to play, but I am guessing they aren't much different in their real life either.

Honestly, the only reason I have ever played an mmorpg over the first month or so after the excitement of something new wears off is if I have met a decent group of people that I do get the chance of knowing and hanging out with.  Doesn't happen much these days though because the majority of people just seem to want to log in and get their daily reward and pat on the back to fulfill their never ending bottomless pit where their soul should be.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by lizardbones  

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I haven't claimed that any particular thing is more or less important than anything else. I'm saying I agree that the virtual world bit isn't necessary for games to be fun. It's entirely possible to have just as much fun in a lobby game (like D3) as a virtual world game (like WoW), just not for everyone. Given a choice between hanging around in a game lobby and hanging around in a virtual world, there are people who prefer to hang around in a virtual world, even if the entire rest of the game is exactly the same.  

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That is fair. I suppose some will want a different lobby .. since that is, no matter how small, still a part of the experience. But i guess we are in agreement that much of the gameplay in MMOs are not massive (and i am not going to repeat which parts) and they resemble the experience of online SP games.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Aelious
From a PvE aspect other than world bosses there never really has been a specific combat related activity that is "massive". This has always been the case though, nothing has changed except that the easy button. Groups and raids are not the "massive" aspect. That is for the potential that a persistent world provides.

Luckily there are still games like Vanguard and EQ that have open area group places that keep you in the world. Don't get me wrong, I've used dungeon finder and it's very convenient. 9/10 however it's also lonely as people hardly ever say anything since in 30 mins you could be with another set of people. Someone invests a lot more into making their own groups, especially if it means going through a public dungeon where there could be other groups.

That is my point. Most of the PvE content in MMO is never massive. I think it is a response to player desire. Obviously you do not share that desire. However, it does not change the fact that much of the game play options (again dungeons, raids ...) in many MMOs are not massive.

And as i have discussed before, the persistent world matter very little in many MMOs. It serves as nothing but a 3D lobby. Surely some may like a 3D lobby better than a menu ... but i highly doubt that would be the focal point of their attention if they spend 90% of the time in small group instanced content.

It's not the activities that were or are being refered to as massive so that's a moot point.  It's the potential for open interaction between virtual avatars (world) that makes an MMO massive and since you don't care about there being a world it makes sense you would draw these conclusions.  To YOU a world is just a 3D lobby and the fact you see max level characters in WoW loitering around Stormwind waiting for DF to pop doesn't mean x amount of people agree with you.  It means they are advancing in the mannor Blizzard put in front of them.

If Blizzard had group content out in the world then there could be some form of comparison but they don't... but they actually did.  They were smart enough to do one or the other: either place groups in instances or out in the world.  Why did all the world hard content get taken out? It wouldn't be because it was splitting the playerbase was it? This is just assumption on my part but no different than you assuming that because you see people in cities that none of them care about having a world outside the city.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 The most popular gameplay seems to be small group dungeons, and raids for pve, and BG for pvp. All  of those are mulitplayer.

Based on what? Mobas and other single purpose games that offer nothing else? Wow that has these as the only way of aquiring certain items?

Until people can buy the latest tier on the ah for gold gained in a broad spectrum of activities, there is no overall reference.

Flame on!

:)

Oh .. based on observations in games like WOW? I am talking about games like WOW, and other pve MMOs like STO, and DDO (may be i should be clear about that). Obviously MOBA does not apply because it is 100% pvp.

What i mean is NOT that small group dungeon is most popular amongst all online games (the most popular game, by xfire number is LOL), but that in WOW, or DDO, or LOTRO, most players spend most time in either dungeons, or raids, but not the open world.

But the point is that these are all multiplayer activities. So there isn't "less multiplayer" in these MMOs.

My point was, that if suddenly a singleplayer activity would give you last tier or tokens, people would do these.

So you cannot just say "it is popular because people do it" if they have no other choice.

The results are mixed, since wow sidetracked all other activities (quests, reps, crafting, other forms of pve and pvp), the population did not go up as we would expect if dungeons, raids and bgs were the preferred choice, and i had 130k hks, wery much liked bgs.

And i was just arguing about this statement, not lack or not of multiplayer, but what you have to keep in mind is that many people see multiplayer and player interaction as connected, whether that is wrong or not (which i think it is, i play tf2 but rarely speak to anyone there), and this is the angle they are arguing from, they are actually arguing against less player interaction. (Apart of the swtor singleplayer experience :) )

Flame on!

:)

Whether WoW is a real MMO or not is irrelevant, likewise with any MMO you care to name and question. What is undeniable is the direction the genre is being taken in. So WoW at launch is not the same as WoW today. A MMO launched six years ago, even two years ago will not be designed the same as a MMO today.

So the real question is what sort of MMO genre do you want. One where every “MMO” is a dumbed down, streamlined, solo lobby of a game? Or an open world sandbox with no pathway, no story to follow? Or like me, if you are hoping for something in-between. I am not that big a sand box fan, but I look at how awful themepark MMO’s have become and the way they are still heading. Would sandbox MMO’s have gone of the rails if they had been the dominant MMO type these last ten years? Quite possibly.

So for me this is about better quality MMO’s, moving away from the trashy place we find ourselves in now. Bring back some of those old themepark values and sandbox design, rather than continue on this downward spiral where MMO’s all seem to want the Idiot of the Year award.

Originally posted by Banaghran

 

My point was, that if suddenly a singleplayer activity would give you last tier or tokens, people would do these.

You forget about the fact that people do not have to stay with the game. If SP activity is not what they like, and they want last-tier of tokens, they will go choose a game that will give out the tokens in other ways.

In fact, only 2% of the players raided Sunwell. That is what gives the last tier of token when it was the newest raid. So no ... people won't do the activity just because it gives the last tier of tokens.

So you cannot just say "it is popular because people do it" if they have no other choice.

They do have choices. They can do hardmode raid, normal or LFR. They can choose to do dailies. And lastly, they can choose to play another game.

The results are mixed, since wow sidetracked all other activities (quests, reps, crafting, other forms of pve and pvp), the population did not go up as we would expect if dungeons, raids and bgs were the preferred choice, and i had 130k hks, wery much liked bgs.

If you look at player base growth, LOL & WOT are the latest success. Even D3 can be count as one, if you look at its sales + xfire ranking. All involve non-massive, but multi-player gameplay. Minecraft is another success, and it is not massive at all. The only massive ones ar Day Z and PS2 (PS2 ranking is not that high, only #27 .. but i will count that just to be lenient). Note that both Day Z & PS2 are pvp. So once again, most pve content is not massive.

And i was just arguing about this statement, not lack or not of multiplayer, but what you have to keep in mind is that many people see multiplayer and player interaction as connected, whether that is wrong or not (which i think it is, i play tf2 but rarely speak to anyone there), and this is the angle they are arguing from, they are actually arguing against less player interaction. (Apart of the swtor singleplayer experience :) )

Oh i know .. but that is not what multiplayer is defined, right? MP is defined way before MMO, and even DOOM is a MP game.

Lastly, think about it, aside from world boss, there is no massive pve gameplay, unless you count a 3D lobby where people can stare at each other. And you certainly can't argue world boss is as popular as 5-man dungeon or raid.