Originally posted by Aerowyn
One of the things I dislike about MMO questing is how it generally tries to make you the hero inside the main game world, with everyone else doing the exact same save the world quests right along side you. GW2 I feel solves this by taking that aspect and making it optional and completely instanced and leaving the world quests to actually make sense in a way that everyone can do them and not have" you" as the center of it all.. Sure not everyone cares or notices this type of thing but to me its immensely helpful with overall immersion. I personally don't enjoy when" you are the one" is the center focus of a MMO in general...whats everyone else's feelings on this?

In short: The MMO trinity is a typical MMO thing but there were primitive systems (and in some cases rather advanced but very different) before it in P&P. P&P combat have always been a lot more focused on strategy than MMOs though and things like positioning and timing are more important there.

There was no taunt mechanism, either.

 

Originally posted by maccarthur2004 Reading opinions and various texts in the internet, i saw that this population "pvp-hater" can be subdivided in 2 categories: people that likes or is indiferent to pvp itself, but hates the "free pvp" ("open world FFA pvp") and people that are truly scared of any type of pvp, even the structured.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by graggok

Originally posted by username509

Dungeons and Dragons the board game.

*Facepalm* as an avid D&D'r ......I groaned at you calling it a board game

 

Dungeons and Dragons....by mattel

 

Not by mattel...by Wizards of the Coast.

Originaly, it was by TSR [Tactical Studies Rules] which was bought by Wizards of the COST in 1997.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 Because he hasn't had a new idea in years. He's also wrong, again. Difficult things that make you want to do them are challenges. Inconvieniences are annoying. Killing a difficult mob with teamwork and precision for great rewad is a challenge. Being forced to kill 5,000 slow spawning widely separated trash mobs solo just so you can advance is an inconvienience. Do you see the difference? He doesn't and never has.

Lol, you obviously did not actually read the blog, or did not understand it. Sometimes, silence is golden...

oh, another that will be deleted soon.

Originally posted by nomatics856

I am sorry you are whats bad with mmorpgs today, you are the reason this soloist plague exist. MMORPGS are about grouping, and grouping 70-90% of the time. The soloing agenda has been done to death and guess what? Its failed, its failed on many many levels, you cant have a soloist type of mmorpg, you do that you will end up a watered down boring snore fest, just like mmorpgs are today that cater for the soloing crowd.

Wrong. Nobody is holding a gun and forcing developers to try to cater to soloists. Developers do it of their own free will in order to get as large an audience and thus revenue, as possible. They have yet to find the best way to do this and please both soloists and groupers most of the time, that's for sure. But maybe you should stop being a crybaby just because games are not totally developed around your personal desires, please.

The Pros and Cons of the article are largely irrelevant, as this soldier on landscape feature will be used very sparringly. You see, to use this in the wild world, you will have to use a  special token, which will permit the use of the soldier for 1 hour.

Cost of token:

100 turbine points

 or

min 20/max 45 175 marks and 10 medallions

min 46/max 50 500 marks and 25 medallions

min 71/max 95! 1,500 marks and 75 medallions

If you want more info, you can check the LOTRO forums, look for the Bullroarer (public test server) section.

Another implication:

With Trinity: you often got to wait for a healer or tank to show up, before you can go.

Without Trinity: no longer need to wait, just fill the group and go.

here is a key I grabbed yesterday, not going to use it, so have fun!

6R3AP3L3DYAJ9MTCRCXK4CK55XF6D6L3

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Metentso

I didn't quite understand his point. Maybe someone can clarify?

So I'm not really sure here, but if I had to summarize this crazy speech I would say:

Game development used to be a largely creative process (artform) that just happened to be profitable, but nowadays it has become a largely profitable process that just happens to be slightly creative due to the fact that developers are now controlled by the interests of outside parties such as players and businesspeople. 

Where games used to be designed to be just "fun" they are now pushed into a direction of trying to quantify everything with some kind of point system, to the point of even real life being reduced to 8 simple gauges (The Sims).  Worse still, because of the popularity of social network sites like Facebook, even real life is becoming quantified in such a matter.  People try to maximize their "score" of friends in reality just like they would their score in a game.

We (developers) should not let this simplification and pointsification of everything influence the way that we design our games.  We used to design games to just be fun, points and other game concepts were just a means to an end (fun), but now it seems like the points are the actual end goal.  We need to get back to developing games to be fun and not be controlled by the pointsification of our culture.

what do you guys think?  Was that what you got from the speech?

Your summary is more worth reading than the presentation itself, if you ask me.

I realized that what was posted was just a coverage of his talk, and maybe that was why it seemed so incoherent. So I went to his website and found the entry for this talk:

http://www.raphkoster.com/2011/10/13/gdco2011-its-all-games-now/

I downloaded the .pdf of the presentation, checked it, and ... while some things are now clearer, overall it still feels like disjointed ramblings. I guess one had to be at the presentation to get the "message"

Hu? Can I have back the few minutes of my life lost reading that incoherent gibberish?

gorgeous trailer, I have been out of Guildwars for 2 years now, but what I just saw pretty much guarantee Ill buy GW2.

>Why? What draws you in?

Lets see:

1) want a game I can play with friends

2) me and my friends do like RPG type games, so MMORPGs are interesting for us.

3) me and my friends are not always logged at same time, but I would still be able to play the very same game because  I like it, but:

4) when my friends not there, I dont necessarily want to pug, or to wait for a complete group to form, or dont have a lot of time, thus it is nice to have the option to solo.

Its all about flexibility of playing the way I want, when I want, when I can, etc. Solo play provides this flexibility. And when my friends are online and we have the time, I can play with them, OMG!  I like to group too!  What's wrong with me!

Originally posted by zaxxon23

I don't think I'll ever really miss raiding.  There were definitely fun aspects, but the fun aspects just didn't make up for the hassles of bad internet connections, parents leaving in the middle for family reasons, wipes and retarded runs back, lag wipes, late nights well beyond the working man's bedtime, trash mobs that took 40 people to kill, etc etc etc.  Such a waste for loot that was gonna be replaced in nine months anyways.  Bleh...

 

I'd raid again, but I'd never play another game where raiding is *the* end game.  Alternative advancement is necessary.  That's really all there is to say about it.

pretty much my thoughts too. Raiding = too much hassles. And when raiding is pretty much the only option you got to advance your toon, well...

I guess that enough people, when they left MMO's and filled surveys on why they were leaving, mentionned they did not like raiding all that much, and stated various reasons why. The powers that be listened and decided that maybe they should try to retain those mass of players, instead of the hardcore uber elite no life players minority that like so much to call everything else carebear, etc.

To the OP,

quite franky, just reading the exchange between you and the other dude, he looks like a mature player, and you look like a jerk.

Originally posted by OnyxSunrise

I hear all the time about how my sub money goes to paying for servers and paying workers and the such.  But how much of my $15/Month goes to paying for servers and devs.  Everyone talks like they know where that money is going, but it seems to me its hard to find out exactly where its all going.  I played World of warcraft for a while and I'm thinking about switching to Aion.  but its been bothering me where my money is going.  So how much of my $15/Month goes to devs and how much goes to server maintainence?

Well, each company has got revenue and expenses. Your sub money goes in their revenue. That is all you need to know, only them and their accountants need to know the little details.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

 

All you've done is state what you find fun in a game.

I don't want developers to stop making games you find fun.

I'm glad you enjoyed DDO.

I played DDO, and I did not like the scaling dungeons, I thought they made the game less fun.

I also do not like the RMT, such as buying bags. I think that makes the game less fun.

It's ok for different people to like differeent games. Why would you tell me I"m wrong for not likeing the same kind of game you do?

Nope, what I havedone  is state that it is good that a game offers enough variety of challenges, tools, etc to appeal to a wide range of gamers.  If you are too weak to not use XP potions because then you would suffer an additionnal grind that others would not, the problem is in your head, buddy. You know what, games designers dont go:"geez, we got to make a game to appeal to ihmotepp, we really do, he is the only type of player that matters to us". No, the more and more they will try offer a choice, a flexibility in the games, to appeal to more players. If you will not take the opportunity to play the game at the highest difficulty, since this is what you say you thrive on, and use the easy button instead, the fault is yours and yours alone. Go ahead, stop playing each game that offers those possibilities, it means that eventually you will stop playing those games altogether, and we will hopefully stop seeing nonsensical posts like yours. Anyway, have fun, Im out of this and pretty much all your whining threads.

Geez, people, please stop the convoluted analogies with cookies and what not, this serves no purpose.

There is a bunch of crybabies that suffer from a sickness of the mind I think.

Scalability and RMT will not detract from creating a fun gameplay if used properly. As in a lot of things on this earth, it is not the existence of tools that is the main problem, but how those tools are used.

Here, people like to dramatize by exagerating and putting forth examples of bad uses of some tools in games, while such bad uses have yet to come. You know what, I prefer to trust game designers to actually show they know their trade and are able to mix and match all gameplay elements to make for a fun playing experience.

Exemple of scaling I have seen in DDO: now on normal and hard, the quest scales according to party size. This is good news, since it adds flexibility to players that dont want the hassle of creating a party, or waiting forever for others to join, etc. On the other hand, yes it makes it real easy to solo said quests, especially for a full tweaked toon that has received loads of hand my downs from previous toons. BUT, if you want real challenge, you can do the quest on elite. No scaling on elite. You will have all the challenge you want. And raids do not scale according to party size for your info. While not perfect, this is great because it permits for a vast majority of players to play the game the way they like to play it. The game is fun for more people, more people will play it and recommand it, this will attract more people, bring more revenue, and ensure the game continue to thrive. What is wrong with that? And all this time, the uber players can still have their challenge by doing stuff on elite difficulty.

Exemple of RMT I have seen in DDO: You can buy hair dye! You can buy bags! You can buy crappy equipment! Yea! You can also buy +1 and +2 tomes, this is serious tweaking, but it just speeds up things, any serious player can eventually get +2 tomes for his toons by playing normally.You can buy XP and loot bonus potions. Well, what can I say, it is up to everybody to decide if they want to shorten the time it takes to cap. I have never bought such potions and scoffed when I saw guildies use some. Why? I play to pass time, to have fun. Whats the hurry to cap a toon when I already have 6 other capped toons and cannot keep up doing the raids on all of them every 3 days? Whats the hurry to get to cap as fast as possible? This is all in the mind of the player. If you dont have fun playing your toon and its a torture every minute your toon is not capped, might I suggest you change game? There is no challenge in leveling, its just a long grind. If some people want to shorten it with real money, its their decision. It does not remove you any of your accomplishments if others use shortcuts. And if you think its the easy button and should be avoided, guess what? Dont use them. It is really all simple.

People, please stop crying over hypothetical bad use of tools! Of course, some games will make a bad use out of them, just dont buy them....