I just hope "fast paced combat" isn't going to turn into running circles non-stop while mostly spamming same skills over and over like it tends to.

And I also agree that combat pace and grind are entirely different matters.

Other than that i don't care if it's slow or fast as long as it's fun.

Well, I mostly hear good things about  GW1, and that's what keeps me optimistic more than any pre-release articles about GW2.

While I share the general disappointment over simplification and can probably write something as long as OP did, I still find such discussion useless.

The topic itself got old already. All that could be said have been said, and the industry definitely isn't going to change based on existence or absence of numerous instances of this discussion.

Face it, later generations are contented with games as they are now. Whether these are worse/better/same/different doesn't matter. Busyness is busyness, commerce is commerce, and capitalism is capitalism... production levels are being shaped by demand and demand is being apprised based on sales. While selling something pays off well enough, that something will be sold.

Keep the discussion if you wish or make your conclusions if you care.

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

... WHY did people consider that stuff fun, not just that it supposedly was. I'm genuinely curious. I don't understand how that tedium is fun...

The "why" would take approximately an article per point to adequately explain. Aside from several factors commonly seen in "hardcore" games that integrate well together and make specific gameplay parts fun (an example later), I'd say it's challenge, not an accomplishment.

When stuff is easy it's not fun it's time killing. You may make it long, you may force a player to retry x times before he succeeds, but if this only means x short walks from respawn point and maybe a symbolic monetary sacrifice, then it's merely a tedious work.

Hard is when you have to put in a lot off effort. (don't mix time and effort please) "The old way" really has a grasp on have from that statement.

Aside from that, many old elements work well together and create a specific gameplay.

The example I named is about sieges:

Old elements - complicated travel, harsh death penalty.

New elements - easy travel, non-existent death penalty.

Old system made it a war of soldiers. Losses were important on both sides. Tactic was an important element.

New system made it a war of meat. The numbers are about the only thing that matters. Anything that dies is back on the field in 3-5 minutes. The only thing important is which side gets bored of respawning faster.

Some say it's not fun to virtually have "one life" during a massive event. I'd say it's not fun when something that's killed is back within minutes. Makes it unimportant how your opposition fights, only how hard it presses forward.

Another stuff is solo content. When it's easy to solo who the heck needs tight-knit group or dungeon? When just about anyone can solo himself to max level what kind of activities can you expect at high level? I dunno about others but when I played WHO:AoR I was tired of people who's first multi-player interaction in a game happened on T4 sieges. I suppose I don't have to name my grudges for people to understand what can go wrong when a person  your gameplay intertwines with doesn't have even the most basic knowledge.

Harsh solo plays a vital part in player's "education". Beats me why someone would decide to play solo in an MMO game when there are single player games which are geared towards it. Yet here we are...

Like I said, there's too much explanation to be done for one comment to have it all. Just pointing out - there's a big "BECAUSE" in all of this, it's just that casual audience doesn't want it in their game or even doesn't know about it (and keeps wondering why siege in [insert a name] isn't fun, or why the party cleric refuses to heal anyone), and the industry follows the money.

Keep in mind, I'm relatively (for the scope of this discussion) new to MMO. My 1st mmo contact was LA2, and the titles named in this article are history to me. Still, I do understand what they had in them (or at least i think I do) and I find the modern simplified gameplay lacking.

"I wouldn’t expect any other genre developer to make their game easier and less in-depth all in the sake of including everyone."

Errr... have you been following anything other than MMO games in the last several years?

This is something I want to point out from the start - This "trend" happens with just about everything. I'll get back to this in a moment.

Now, would you be so kind as to name things more accurately? "Battle of old and new..." isn't the same as "A contest on scoring points given by one man in one split article on one site..."

Closer to the point, these differences have one common explanation - gameplay element for one is frustration for another. Every man has his own preferences, this particular article shows those of it's author. And while mine mostly coincide with them, I's still like to point out that those are merely personal preferences.

Anyone noticed how old game companies die-out? That's a display of one funny (and really irritating) trend - there are generally more "frustration" entries then "gameplay element" entries across the customer base. As such simplifying a part of a game leads to better business opportunities, and this world is bound by money.

On every damn point there's more of those who would like to see it simple rather then complicated.

Death penalties, open pvp, instanced dungeons, newbie zones, crafting... you name it. For every aspect there are people who'd want to see it their way. From where the busyness is headed I'd conclude that there's not enough customers to sell the old way anymore. A pity, but we (the players) are the ones responsible. Just go one by one over those questionable elements of an mmo and ask yourself how you'd want to see them. The ones you want to see simple and accessible are your contribution to simplification. The ones you don't are the work of the next guy.

You don't want your games to be simple - don't buy simple games. Maybe that'll lead somewhere. Discussing the good old times only ever leads to peaks of nostalgia and creates an impression of old farts among newer gamers.

For all I know they "plan" to add persistent element and "massive interaction" (read - trading) later.

As it is now it's less of an mmo then diablo 2:

-you grind

-you evolve your combat strength

-you cant play with more than 31(if memory serves) other players at a given time

-With exception of direct effect on your combat strength (and that of your opponent) nothing that you do in a battle matters beyond the scope of that battle.

In WoT... what you did affects up to 31 player for around 10-20 minutes + slightly impacts their finances and research (which is call exp. in there).

Even D2 had more than that.

If we complicate battlefield to try and make money out of it by making people grind for and/or spend cash on their loadouts we'd land about as close to an MMO as WoT currently is.

I'm not forcing my opinion on anyone, but my verdict is - that's called MMO so that people would ask less questions as to why they are supposed to pay for grinding in an simple MP game.

I dunno about international testing but from what I've seen and heard in Russia the game isn't even close to being ripe and they are taking money for it already... Heck, they were pre-selling premium accounts before the testing was finished.

Also take a look at their trailers - those guys repeatedly made fun of other genres (realistic simulators, fantasy RPGs, even EVE) those trailers are somewhat funny but they are also plainly rude. And this is from someone who haven't even made something worth mentioning yet. IMHO they need to stuff their ambitions where no one can see them and do some good old-fashioned decent work for a change.

OH NOES! they said "we" in the article... "We" just have to include me! They lied!!!!!!

Chill out people...

[tags mister obvious]

You see people, there's a whole globe of men somewhere out there, and they all have opinions. Even more than that, most of the time those opinions differ.

And then theres miscommunication, trolls, turds...

[quickly cuts the microphone]

Thank you mister obvious, now with this crucial information you have related we can all hopefully settle down have a deep breath, stop the venting event and start doing something pleasant and/or productive.

This acronym has been dissected so much over the years that I'm starting to wonder who the shmuck keeps shrewing it back together...

Honestly, it's been used so much that the time to accept it's multiple meanings is long overdue.

Face it people, when someone uses the term "role playing game" he can mean just about every interpretation of it you ever heard and then some you haven't. If you want to understand that someone, you just have to know his definition.

However, if understanding people you are conversing with isn't high on your priority list, then I beg my pardon - feel free to get back to whatever you were doing...

An article says "don't rant, act!" and gets followed by ranting... ironic...

Is it that important for you people to lash at each others opinions?

Is it hard to accept the fact that there are other viewpoints on the globe?

Do you even think that stating opinions here has a ounce of importance?

And yet people are so riled up.

Humanity is a strange bunch...

Hmmm... sounds like something to dig...

WOriginally posted by x3r0h

Originally posted by gestalt11

Premise of thread been disproven for years.

What are you talking about? One line answers are breeding grounds for trolls. Back up what you say.

What are you talking about? You mean trolls are fu.. err... coupling in his post? O_o

Never mind that, just kidding and separating intended meanings from resulted meanings... a hobby of a sort...

Closer to topic. I can't see how AoC combat system is a plus. Don't get me wrong I like active combat about as much as I like thoughtful combat, but AoC is the perfect example off a failed active combat from my point of view.

The trick of AoC combat is not timing positioning or situational use of abilities, although they were present at minimal extent.

The trick of AoC combat was overcoming inconveniences.

Positioning was a factor and combos needed to be wound-up, but no rules were implemented regarding movement and wounding-up combos, as such combat turned into running around like crazy swinging weapon in the air before landing the one hit that counted while trying to beat your opponent's "skill" at this "breathtaking" activity.

Key sequences had to be pressed and timed and were macroed (I'm talking clever macros here not just button sequences).

The most dangerous obstacle of AoC wasn't a skilled opponent. It was lame design. Exploit that, and you are the predator. Ignore that and you're the prey.

Compared to AoC combat auto-attacking combat is a boon since it doesn't force players to compete in struggling with the interface and lets them compete in other things.

That said, a well made active combat system would be welcome like a breath of fresh air.

My first experience with LA2 (also my 1st mmo experience) ended at lv14 with a thought "No way I'm doing that any longer!" (this wasn't my last experience with LA2 though...)

While LA2 isn't known for it's generosity in shiny rewards, what made me left is the process itself.

I've always been hard on the whole "cool high level content after several months of grind" concept. After the process stops being fun there's only so little grind i can endure.

I dunno why would I want an ogre slaying great sword of awesomeness if slaying ogres with it is the same as slaying badgers with my badger slaying dagger of harmlessness.

And you know what? It's damn hard to find an mmorpg with a vision like mine.

Concusions:

- The switch is the only known way to keep sufficient number of cage occupied at one time to keep the Massive machine operational. {Research indicates that smaller machines can be maintained by other methods since they don't require so many rats at the same time.}

- The switch itself provides so much rats that any other cage enhancements are not required.

- The rats are happy, since the switch appeals to them more then the unlocked exit.

That's more like 4.5 reasons to forget about SW:ToR from my point of view. Maybe even 5.

.5 is because it's SW.

4 is because no amount of pink glasses is going to persuade me that this will work out.

And another .5 is because bioware seems to be oblivious to the basics of MMO-fu and think that they can just ride in and take the market with the same stuff they stuff in their single player games.

I hope it doesn't turn a complete disaster and that they can still keep producing SP games after this thing hits their budget. After all, these days no one else does as much CRPGs as they do.

On the other hand there seem to be a lot of SW fans with expert level pink glasses around, so who knows, maybe they can sell enough of this to even make a profit...

F2P isn't going anywhere, that's for sure, but the only reason for that is that there'll always be people willing to pay for advantage and people willing not to pay at all.

In my honest opinion the rest of "reasons" are simply made-up.

Lower requirements are results of lower budget spent on graphics. It's sad really that a generic p2p making company spends so much on "shiny" fog effects, grass, shadows and other gimmicks, losing so much in both accessibility (which suffers from lost PC resources) and other spheres (which suffer from lost money). Still that's not an achievement of f2p. A person doesn't automatically go for what one's pc can handle. As a matter of fact most gamers buy hardware to match the games they want not the other way around, the whole hardware industry lives on that.

And even then, at any given moment there's always enough p2p games to cover a pc as weak as one can by at that moment, which pretty much leaves no significant part of customer base uncovered.

"Learning curves" being smaller is yet another tale. For one - an average mmorpg has a learning curve the size of a school uniform, if you get the meaning. As much as you try you can't get significantly lower than that, unless you manage to turn tetris into income binging MMO, and even then who'd do that just for the learning curve?. And for another - it has nothing to do with subscription model, nothing more to say about it, really.

As for "moving-up" this is simple. You either are an MMO player of you are not. People do move on eventually. The moment a game comes out that can hold an average human dedicated to it alone for around a year will be the moment "WoW killer" turns obsolete, unless it turns obsolete before that of cause. There are die hard fans and there is eve which sells years of "off-line advancement", but those are exceptions. Most humans grow bored in one to six months. After that they either stay in the market as a customer of another game or don't stay as a customer of any. Add here the "i pay when i play" which f2p boasts and you get the picture of their income from such temporary customers. P2P can at least sell "watered-down" months (the previously mentioned eve is an good example of this "business" element).

As for improving quality, I don't know what's been going on in RoM lately, but if you count AO as an improved quality then you are insulting those few good f2p games that i know. But let's try to avoid personal opinions on this matter. Truly there are certain f2p games that stand out from the rest of f2p games but that's not a new thing and not a sign of progress. Some games are just better than others, same thing exists among p2p games.

F2P model has it's advantages and disadvantages, but the main factor of it's existence is the model itself. A lot of humans want free stuff. And then there are those who want to feel superior to them (doesn't really matter if that's visual advantage or combat advantage or some other advantage) and are willing to pay for that. While f2p companies sing sweet songs of "choosing options" and "paying for the content you want" we're yet to see even one company which ask money for diversity among one level of quality and not for different level of quality. Can't blame them for that, really, but that's still not what's being advertised by various f2p model hype-ups.

In short - f2p is where money are gained by giving paying customers advantage over free crowd and other customers who pay less. P2P is where this advantage officially doesn't exist.

As long as there are enough people with preferences in their delusions that match a specific model, that given model isn't going anywhere.

yeah, right... and next we hear people complaining about not being able to customize the actual sets of organs... and being able to ad some that humans don't even have, because clearly all kind of perverts have their rights...

[several decades later]

...And since the dogs are allowed to bite humans we should allow humans to bite dogs - that would only be fair, you know, protecting our rights is very important...

Humanity in general is acting like a kid these days... focus it's attention on not being allowed to lick a door hinge during winter and next thing you know it does exactly that... even though it could have lived a whole life without ever thinking about it...

Warning ... rant probability hight... invoking countermeasures... this comment will be shut down.

Naah, players do know what they want. And they'll want it until they get their share of fun with it and/or realize that it isn't as flawless as they imagined. Painful truth - there's just to many kind of player tastes for them all to be satisfied with the same thing.

And yes, players don't know a process of development in details. You know, It would be perfectly fine to get a reply "we planed that feature, but it didn't make it into the release" if the feature wasn't announced. Since you know how it works better than we do and that not every feature will make it why the heck do you announce them? This is what pisses off most players, and not the lack of features all in itself.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, may I point out that it's the job of a specialist to understand the client, and not the other way around. This is why client isn't called worker. Of cause it never hurts to try and understand the service you are being given especially when every second service provider has no second thoughts about exploiting your lack of knowledge, but it's not really and obligation of a client.

What really needs to be done if gamers and development teams are to get along?

It isn't really hard to understand, but it is hard to implement.

-Moderated forums. Really. Feedback is meant to be productive. Being aggressive is counterproductive. As such anyone blowing-off steam gets a temporary restriction to enter the "polite" section of the forums. Result - no need to "expose" developers to "hostile environment", and anyone who really cares about one's concerns noted gets a good incentive to be polite, since development team isn't likely to be fishing for ideas in the "swampy" parts of the forums.

-Being honest. Really. You aren't sure you can make it? don't promise it. Advertisement and/or hype aren't really honest ways to make money and while they do give advantage, the amount of businessmen has grown to a point where there's too little competition for honest work.  Several companies get persistent customers just for that - some customers still want to get quality not a shiny cover, and they tend to float towards the people who they trust.

-Being open. Really. Sure there are people prone to making decisions faster than they can think. Well, off to the swampy parts with them... Others will appreciate being informed upfront, by which i mean "we're working on this system", and not "there will be this system". Remember, gamers don't know the process of development.

-And last but not least - respect each other. REALLY! How often do we see players with long posts who try to hide the flaws of their points with fancy speeches? Many of us can't openly admit being wrong even when we realize that we are. How often do we see developers singing praises to their innovative changes and how they will improve the gameplay while they themselves know that those are only meant to drag in more players from different field at expense of current fans? In both cases fancy speeches fool nobody, they only insult the reader because he's/she's being taken for a fool. Respect the reader, have the decency to tell him/her the truth or let someone else do it if you can't.

Originally posted by severius

Some problems with the article: 

Sure there are different ways of watching movies, however there are some movies that their theater experiences cannot be replicated outside of the theater.  If so theaters would be closing down and movies wouldn't be breaking weekend attendance records.

These user interface hardwares, that are being wrongly attributed to a Third Age, have been around since the very beginning of gaming and continue through their fads today.  There have been racing wheels forever, fully featured flight sticks, and lets not forget that one Mech game that had a huge freaking console controller.  Nintendo's powerglove, the light guns, etc etc etc.  These "new" input devices have died off more times than any other fad in gaming so to proclaim them the "mammals" while traditional input methods are labeled "dinosaurs" is a whole lot of nothing and shows a distinct, imo, lack of knowledge of that which has gone on before.

As to the whole social networking nonsense, not everyone uses facebook.  Not everyone is a self-aggrandizing, narcissistic asshat that actually believes that their own little narrow view of the world means jack squat.  Sure these developers may try and rope you in with iphone apps, or ways of interacting with the game in some limited fashion from your watch (people do still wear those right?) but that will lead, quite simply, to more and more people running into problems with the real world.  Things like work and family.  If someone truly needs to keep track of the virtual toon that they rent from blizzard 24 hours a day 7 days a week they probably should pick up a less destructive habit like crack or heroin.

 

Quoted one more time, just for the heck of it :).

Now, taking it a bit more seriously - If that was progress I'd be happy to proclaim myself outdated.

First of all. Trends do change but not every change is an improvement. As such calling an evolution something that haven't even seen life yet, and as such cannot be even subjectively compared, is as far-fetched as it gets.

If we take a look ah how video games were played way back when Sonic and Mario were new we can see games that didn't even use mouse, used around 10 buttons and were perfectly fitted for both Keyboard and dandy-like gamepad. The "middle age" (if we have to define periods in gaming by interface) brought something more complex to the table, and many do call Mario and Sonic dinosaurs of gaming (myself included) but that's simply due to them being "ancient" and huge. As we can see "platformers" are still here and aren't planning on going anywhere in future. That's basically because they give a different experience than games that require a keyboard +mouse combo or a lua-based interface modification or a gun or wheal or a guitar or whatever else... Not objectively better or worse, just different.

The invention of cars allowed racing competitions but we still have running competitions as well. Just because something has more functions it isn't going to dominate the world.

In fact many games are utilizing limitations of functionality as gameplay elements. Sure you can have computer calculate the shot for you in a game but we're still aiming ourselves for some reason.

Games are based on their rules. How restrictive or unrestrictive those rules are is what makes or brakes the game. There are games where the trick is to hit precisely and there are games where the trick is to make preparations that allow your toon to hit precisely. None of those two is an evolution of another they are just different types of games.

If there's ever an mmo where the fun is gained by controlling it with mobile or a touch-pen or some funky motion device it's just a new type of game, and THAT'S IT. If there's a game that requires a social site interaction it's again a new type of game, maybe not even a video game. Text-based persistent roleplaying anyone?

Merging them isn't a proverbial one-way-hop-to-the-better either. A lot of existing games have Actually driven away their fans by mixing the genres. "They put shooter in my RPG!" / "They put RPG in my shooter!" rings a bell to anyone? Can't say that they failed either, they have their audience.

Making different types of gameplay help to further one cause isn't an evolutionary step either. Anyone heard of savage? Having actual players as your units didn't cause an RTS revolution. Savage too has it's audience, but that's just another different kind of game.

I don't see a reason why would people sitting by a keyboard want to cooperate with people waving motion controller around or playing on PSP in one mmo so badly that it'd kill an existing genre.

To be honest even the current outcry of old-timers about dumbed-down "consolised" games exists solely because of the diverted attention. If our type of games wasn't harder to make than "the new breed" and by that less profitable (most profit comes from hype/advertisement, as such costly development is just an extra burden in the eyes of investor) most of us could peacefully coexist with next generation (aside from those willing to start a holly war just because there are different ways then theirs, but those people are never at peace).

Oh, and a bit off the topic, since the word passed by it, the assembly line is the 3rd worst invention that ever happened to mankind. Would have been second, but the would-be leader of that chain isn't being as harmful as it could due to international treaties.

Originally posted by lethys

Get this guy off this website, he is noticeably the worst contributor.  I wouldn't want anything of his on my website, even if he paid me to put it up.  This guy sucks almost as bad as the F2P games that he thinks are so amazingly good.  Have you played Mass Effect 2 recently, Richard?  How about Heavy Rain?

 

THOSE are good games.  It will be very long before an MMO can reach anywhere near that level.

Heh, and I was going to post about how I found author's F2P related concerns unrealistic... Now I won't. Turns out it's just me missing out the latest trends among "Cooler than thou" audience... Never would have expected such dynamics...
 

On the original topic, yes, overestimated statements are a trademark of MMO-addled community. What else is new?

Holy war on the topic of money investment vs time investment could probably be traced back to the holy crusades themselves if we had any data on relationship between knights. "He's only so strong because of his shiny armour! I'm 10 times better swordsman than he is!"

Personally I don't care if a person spent his month grinding to get to where he is, or spent that extra time working and used his extra funds to get where he is. Problems begin when the effort doesn't equal the result but that's a problem of entire human society and MMO case is just one of many. Humans always seek to cut corners. Whether its player scram, bot usage, and playing on an auction, or advertisement, cheap labour, and stock manipulation, it bears little difference. It's always about someone cutting a corner where someone else finds it inappropriate. Last time I checked no one defined a universal list of corners appropriate for cutting (aside from several religions defining it as none), so screw anyone with his personal list, humanity got what it deserved...