Seriously, Wakygreek, I'd stop now.

WoW only has raiding because it was a popular activity in other games.  WoW is not responsible for inventing it, popularizing it, perfecting it, or anything else.  WoW is responsible for popularizing the MMOG genre, but not any specific aspect of the genre.

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Hexxeity

 

You may not be talking about PUGs, but my comments were about the overall lack of group-friendliness in WoW, and PUGs are definitely a big factor in the group-friendliness of a game, for casual players.

It's a matter of point of view.

You are frustrated that PUG's for instances require the classic healer/tank approach.  I maintain that's only because often times the people in them are not familiar enough with the mechanics of the game.  They are using it as a crutch.  The game does not dictate that approach, it's the player's unwillingness to go beyond the classic healer/tank approach that is causing this problem. 

And lets not lose sight of the fact that you are only talking about instances.  PUG's for general questing purposes is much less rigid.  2 player or 3 player PUG's happen ALL the time that don't employ a classic healer/tank approach.

So I think it's unfair to classify the entire game as non-group friendly when you are talking about only a portion of the game.  To you it may seem like a large portion of the game, but for many it is not.

 

You have a lot of theories about how group-friendly WoW could be if only people understood it better.

What I'm saying is that there are other games that address these psychological and pedagogical issues and are far more group-friendly because of it.

Originally posted by TdogSkal

 

Originally posted by Hexxeity

 

Originally posted by TdogSkal

CoS is just as much a MMO as AoC is a MMO.  It is not even close to Guild Wars. 

 

In CoS, ALL the action takes place in the Reflected World, which is nothing more than a gigantic instance.  You will never see another player who is not part of your team while you are in the Reflected World.

 

They call it "massive" because you can socialize and team up with other players in the city areas, just like in GW.

 

Well your wrong because you will see others in the Reflected World.  Not just your group memebers.... The Reflected world is basicly everything outside of the Citadel.  

Go post and ask on the CoS forums on MMORPG.com.  

http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2049532#2049532"

"...while out questing you and your group will be in a massive instance of the entire world, which means you will not be seeing the occasonal other player wandering by."

Originally posted by Pappy13  

In PUG's, yes, but who said anything about PUG's?  I'm not under the impression that you HAVE to run instances with PUG's.  I almost NEVER do that because it's very frustrating because at least 1/2 the group has no clue what they are doing and the other half that do end up having to save their skin by healing them and pulling aggro off them (the role of the healers and the tank).

If you get in a guild and play with some folks who know what they are doing, it totally blows the theory out of the water.  It's not hard to find a decent guild, all you have to do is look for players that seem to know what they are doing and find out what guild they are in and ask to join.  Now if you have no clue what you are doing, then yes that does make it a bit tough since you don't know what to look for.  But I'm sorry, ignorance is no excuse.  Play a little bit solo and do without a healer or tank, rely only on yourself.  Is it impossible?  No, it simply requires that you do things like learn how to mitigate damage, learn how to stun or trap or somehow disable the mob long enough for you to bandage.  Keep a supply of pots with you and drink them in those few occasions where nothing else will work.

The facts are that there are a lot of people that NEED to be in a group with a healer/tank because they simply aren't good enough to do without them.  But even those people can be taught to play without relying on a healer/tank.  And of course you don't ALWAYS have to go without one or the other or both, but it's nice to not HAVE to rely on them.

And yes I understand that as you get close to the cap, things change a bit and you do pretty much have to have a healer and a tank, but 80% of the way to cap can be done without them and then once you reach cap, it's actually quite easy to find healers and tanks for the most part because they ARE in demand then.

You may not be talking about PUGs, but my comments were about the overall lack of group-friendliness in WoW, and PUGs are definitely a big factor in the group-friendliness of a game, for casual players.

So yes, ignorance IS an excuse.  If the majority of the player base thinks a thing is true, then it is absolutely true when I'm trying to find a group.

It's all well and good to try to educate people otherwise, but if you never see those people again, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

I do see where you are coming from -- it's a place where you have a group of friends you know and trust and can rely on for groups where everyone understands everything about the game.

A lot of us don't have those luxuries, but like to group anyway.  A lot of us have to rely on PUGs, and hope that the game provides enough incentives to entice other CASUAL players to team up.  If the game is group-friendly, PUGs are fun.  If it is not, all the casuals learn to hate grouping, and the problem gets worse.

Originally posted by TdogSkal

CoS is just as much a MMO as AoC is a MMO.  It is not even close to Guild Wars. 

 

They call it "massive" because you can socialize and team up with other players in the city areas, just like in GW.

Originally posted by RedwoodSap

 

Sadly too many of you have bought into the lazy solution of instancing as a a fix it all and it's completely unnecessary.

We'll see about that.

Any developer that assigns a specific desirable loot item to a single boss mob is a retard! This is obviously a recipe for player conflict, squabbling and mob camping. Boss mobs should drop non tradeable quest items only, no coin, no loot items, and they should give zero experience for the kill. Make the questgiver the person who hands out the tradeable loot reward item. Code the quest to only be available once per character with specific level/skill/faction minimum requirements, and the quest item only drop for those who meet those minimums.

You can code it all you want.  Some players will kill anything with a name, just because it has a name.  Other players will do it for grief.

Now you have a situation where players still want to accomplish the content, but are not motivated to kill the boss mob more than once, except to help others complete the quest. This way you not only eliminate the camping and squabbling, but you have created a situation where players help each other to accomplish a goal and interact in a positive way.

Not true by a long shot.  If a quest is popular, you are going to have SEVERAL groups of people doing the same quest at the same time, at any given time.  So they will still have to compete for the mob or wait in line or some other equally stupid, non-immersive solution.

You still can have dropped quality loot, but make most of those items a rare drop, from a multitude of mobs of the same difficulty level, spread out geographically, so there is no cock blocking other players.

This has the extra-fun side effect of having the loot make less sense from a world-building perspective, and it gives the environment a lovely slapped-together, no-continuity feel.

Of course any quality MMOG should utilize the anti-killstealing mechanism of coding whichever group strikes the mob first, gets the loot regardless of attempts from others to do more damage. Again, using this system, there is not motivation or possibility to killsteal, only to help others achieve a goal. No instancing is required to solve this problem.

First-strike coding does not eliminate competition; it merely changes its nature.  Instead of trying to outdamage the other team, you are trying to hit first.  All the problems you claim to solve with this solution still exist.

Add a dash of unique loot items which drop from specific rare outdoor spawns, like the ones in classic EQ1 which you might only encounter once during a whole year of playing, because their spawn timers were so long and variable and they could randomly spawn anywhere in the zone, that even if you spent every day in that  zone, your chances would only increase slightly. Now you have also created a reason for players to continue visiting zones they may have already outleveled and made it more desirable to utilize realistic travel to increase their chances of a random rare spawn encounter, rather than instaporting all over the place. This results in more encounters with other players and more team work hunting down rare spawns.

Right.  Because NO ONE worked out the spawn timers for rare mobs in EQ1 and created waiting lists for the people who wanted those rare drops.

Throw in a healthy, difficult to master crafting system, which produces quality tradeable items and you now have the makings of a real MMOG without stupid, immersion killing, isolationist instancing.

There is no such thing as a difficult-to-master crafting system.  There are crafting systems that are tedious and reuire more time than the results are worth.  Is that what you're after?  I don't want to play your game.

Seems a lot of these ideas have been tried, and have not worked out so well.

Originally posted by TdogSkal

 

Originally posted by TheGreyMan

Originally posted by Pappy13

 

Originally posted by declaredemer

A quest should be "meaningful" because it impacts your character, lore, and the world in some way.

I just don't understand how you are going to make a quest that everyone can do that impacts the lore or the world in some way.  You have to remember you're not living in a seperate little instance of the world anymore.  You are living in the same world that thousands of other players are living in.  If the world is changed for you, it's changed for those thousand other folks at the same time. 

 

What happens when someone completes a quest and the lore or the world is impacted?  Now what?  No one can do that quest again?  Or are you gonna "reset" the lore or the world so that someone else can complete the quest again?  If you do that, was the world really impacted in the first place?  I don't understand how you can do this.  You can't make a million quests that can each be done by 1 person and then never again and if you make a quest that can be completed over and over, is anything really changing?

Please explain how this can be done, because I don't see how it can be done in an MMO.

why would anyone want an mmo very story based. where is the freedom

 

http://www.citadelofsorcery.com/ - This game is trying the Story based MMO with alot of Freedom.

Citadel of Sorcery is an MMO in the same way that Guild Wars is -- that is to say, not at all.

I'm a real gamer, and I couldn't care less about seamlessness.  I'm also perfectly fine with a certain amount of instancing.

I will agree, however, that raids suck.

EQ1 is all about the raid.

Originally posted by kitsunegirl

Apparently no one has bothered reading the disclaimer (except for the first few), so I changed the font and text size... geez. If you guys thought this was a serious suggestions you either take gaming way to seriously, or... I dunno. Im kinda at a loss for words there. xD

Changed the colour too. lol

Pappy, the one big thing you are ignoring in your arguments is that the perceptions of players are a lot more important than the reality.

I'm sure everything you say is true about running 4-man instances with no healers.  I can totally see that working.  But the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of players would not be able to pull that off, especially not in a PUG.

So the reality is, for all practical purposes, in WoW, you pretty much have to have a healer and a tank and 3 other people for PUGs.

You also have to have people close to the same level if you want decent XP.

You also have to have similar quest backgrounds if you want to everyone to get credit for the current quests if a quest chain is involved (and it usually is).

You also have to get lucky in a random roll if you hope to take advantage of the main reason for grouping (the loot).

Making things work with a bunch of strangers can be hard enough, but please face facts ... grouping in WoW can be a challenge for people who know each other, insurmountable for people who don't.

Why does this always turn into "OMG you like to group why do you hate solo players?!?!"

I have never, and will never, advocate a game design that makes solo play impossible, or even overly difficult.

All I ask is that there be sufficient incentives for players to want to team up.  For them to see some value in it.  And yes, I want there to be value in grouping on a day-to-day, casual basis, not just for the occasional instance run.

Where in that do you see the words "forced grouping"?  You don't, because those words are not in there.

I certainly see the value in having viable solo play any freakin' time you want it.

So calm down and quit twisting my words.

Of course it's Starcraft.  Nothing else makes any sense.

The problem is that you have completely mis-stated the argument.

It is not "YOU should play console games if YOU want to solo."

The actual argument (when I use it, anyway) is "If I wanted to solo, I would play a single-player console game."

See the difference?  I guess it's an easy mistake to make when you have the self-centered mindset of a soloer.

I fully recognize that there are millions of players in the world who have no desire to interact with other players, only observe.  Fine.  Whatever.

The argument stands, however, that if a game does not provide an adequate team experience, a player like me is going to lose interest fast.

Originally posted by Pappy13

 

Originally posted by gestalt11

 

One of the problems in a game like WoW is that not only must you have EXACTLY 5 people but you must get a tank and you must get healer.  Making the failure pointsfor creating a viable group much more likely to come into being.

You're assuming an awful lot.  First off your statement that you must have EXACTLY 5 people and that you must get a tank and a healer assumes that all the members of your group must be level appropriate.  I can't tell you how many times I have done instances with 4 or fewer members because 1 or more members we were on the high side of the level requirements rather than the low side.  The same argument goes for tanks and healers.  You don't have to have a healer or a tank if the group has 5 very strong DPS, you simply mow everything down in your path and bandage and eat after.  Not every instance can be done this way, but the vast majority of them can be.  Even if you want to go the standard route of tank/healer/DPS, there's lots of different ways to find tanks and healers.  I've seen Rogues tank, I've seen Hunters Pets tank, I've seen Pally's tank, I've seen Warriors Tank, I've seen Druid's tank...I think you get the picture.  And healing?  Yes, there's a great lack of Paladins, Priests, Shaman and Druids in the game. LOL

 

No, the problem is not finding healers and tanks, the problem is finding members that are good enough to do an instance without needing a true dedicated healer or tank.  Far too often an undergeared group goes into an instance thinking that the healer/tank is going to save their butt for them and are shocked when they can't.  I've been in several instances when we didn't have a true healer/tank but we managed the instance just fine because we were not undergeared and we actually knew what they heck we were doing.

In the above argument you counter gestalt's assumptions by adding your own, the biggest being that people are going to have the gear they need to make up for deficiencies in class diversity.

In reality, if you are trying to scrounge together a pick-up group, you are probably not the sort of player who has been able to score the best gear.  When you are a veteran with a lot of friends, it's really hard to imagine what life must be like for newer or more casual players.

I have often argued myself that WoW is an extremely robust game, capable of being a lot of things to a lot of different types of players.  However, group-friendliness is NOT one of those strengths.  The difficulties and restrictions on grouping are just slightly too harsh to make it worth a player's time to look for one every time he logs in.

Yes, I said every time.  There are games (CoH) where it is that easy.  And yet, in those same games, you can solo to max level if you choose.  But grouping is faster and more fun in a lot of ways, not just because of the XP bonus.  In WoW, the opposite is true -- grouping is difficult, inefficient, and usually slower XP.  The only reward for grouping is the loot ... if you're lucky enough to win a decent drop.

The initial reviews for Vanguard were also ridiculously high, and those for Tabula Rasa as well.  True, TR may not be as terrible as VG, but it's not nearly as great as the first round of reviews made it out to be.

Also, calling most game reviewers "journalists" is a bit of a stretch.  Some do have a bit of integrity, but sites such as Gamespot (for example) make their money by promoting games, not by giving honest reviews.

Leveling up IS the game.  If you don't like doing what you have to do to level up, you don't like the game.

The people who like the game are not "grinding."  They are "playing."

"Levels" and "the grind" are really two separate issues, and no solution to the problem will ever be found as long as people continue to conflate them.

"The grind" is about repetitive, un-fun tasks that are required of the player in order to progress the game.  (The confusion here is because "progressing the gameplay" is often the same as leveling up, but this does not have to be the case.)

Another point of confusion is that everyone has a different definition of "fun."  To a lot of people, quests are fun, so there is nothing grindy about leveling up in WoW.  To others, random mob-hunting in a group is fun, so FFXI doesn't seem like a grind to them ... assuming they can get a group.

Anyway, none of this is directly caused by the level-based design of a game.  If a game feels like a "grind," it's because the desires of the player do not match the design of the game -- the player doesn't want to be playing the game in front of him, he wants to be playing the game as he perceives it to be at the end of the leveling journey.

This is all just one big reason why it's a bad idea to have endgame features that are dramatically different from the rest of the game.  If those features are seen as "more fun" than the rest of the game, it makes the level-up phase seem like drudgery.

LOL at people who still don't believe WoW has 10 million.

As for Champs, I very much hope that Mr. Emmert understands the difference between "solo-friendly" and "group-unfriendly."  WoW definitely leans toward the latter, and I will be very sad if Champions follows that model too closely.

The more group-unfriendly MMOs become, the less interest I have in them.  If I want solo play, I will play my single-player console games.  In fact, I've been on my console games a lot lately because the MMOG genre is no longer able to fulfill my desire for team-oriented play.

CoH gave me a lot of great, UNFORCED, team-oriented gameplay for several years.  If Jack is looking back on that as a mistake, then I have grave misgivings about the direction of Champions Online.

I have to ask, OP, did you buy the game?  Are you a part of the problem?