General Discussion

Great post.

I feel bad because I started out in SWG and really enjoyed exploring with friends.

I switched to WoW and picked up that mentality. WoW kind of breeds it. The areas are relatively small and to get into the highest level instances you need to have specs and gear. Although some of the most fun I had was doing PUG when I had great gear and we were doing an instance that me and a friend of mine could 2 person. being able to get in a group and just chill was nice.

Like I said though WoW, especially after BC , made min maxing almost a must. The heroic instances were completely gear dependent and skill in the game was not nearly as important as gear.

I am not playing anything now, for that exact reason. I really wish I could find a game where I can play for fun and group for fun. I ahve been looking but it seems all of the MMOs out there now do not encourage grouping and playing for enjoyment.

Originally posted by vesavius

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by vesavius

Originally posted by Elikal

Today kinda marks a breaking point for me. For all those many years I play MMORPGs I defended grouping, even enforced grouping, as a feature to enrich gameplay. Personally, I prefer to play in a group over soloing, and that hasnt changed and will not change. I loved the dynamics going with a group and I greatly valued the idea going to an old fashioned adventure with people. I come from a pen and paper background, a German game called "Das Schwarze Auge" (The Dark Eye, the same for which now the game "Drakensang" is made.) I came to MMOs to undertake adventures with people whose companies I enjoy. But saying so these days feels like reporting something of the Stone Age.

Facing the last two years of MMO experience and looking forward to SWTOR... I lost my faith in grouping. The reasons are many and personal, but some may be familiar to you.

It's not so much what some might expect, that too many play their class bad. To be honest, I never cared a lot.

What changed is, that these days, too many people play a MMORGP like it were some kind of professional competition. They play their MMO character with a quests printout and a pocket calculator for their skills. They count what trait gives how many points of X, what food to eat, what skills from the tree to select, what armor with what buff numbers to have for what boss mob. Its the entire way of thinking which dominates their playstyle which I loath, deeply and fundamentally hate.

When did games become like work? When did it stop to be a dream, something to be done for adventure and mystery? When did it all become the fastest way to have the most HP, Mana or the best gear? Its that attitude which so saddens me! Sickens me, even!

The final nail in the coffin for me was tonight, when I played LOTRO again. I returned, basically out of boredom and at least in LOTRO there is always something to do. I had a discussion with people there, and they seriously said stuff like "I dont take along tanks with compassion-trait instead of courage". What followed was a detailled - and certainly correct - mathematical analysis of the various virtues (traits) and what each trait and trait-level counted for, and which boss mobs he would take you along with and which not. You know, any MMO has an entire list of numbers, and thats fine with me. Food, traits, skill tress, gear, jewelry... the usual. But it was this line of thinking... it made me sick beyond the words I can describe it. I understand some people make a MMO as a kind of ego-performance. They need the best gear the highest numbers, and I respect others want to achieve that. But from the way most people responded, it became clear to me, that *I* was the dinosaur, the left over fossile, being just a guy who sought adventure. Sure, I add my traits when I can, I eat sometimes, but heck, I just wanted some nice human company on a simple adventure story!

It's not that I am totally opaque to any kind of numbers. Seriously. But this... I heard horror stories about all this from friends playing WOW in the last years, and its all this inspecting devilry. It just makes people greedy and envious, and people start to compare and measure each other. It was as if the genre had lost its innocence to me, when I didnt look at other players for their stats, but for the human character who played it. If THAT really would be the bottom line of MMO gaming, heck, then MMOs don't DESERVE group playing. If that would be where the train is headed, are we not much better with NPC groups? And in the long run, cant we let the entire MMO gerne just die? For what good is it for, if all we care about is NUMBERS and stats?

Do you chose your partner with such parameters? Your friends? Maybe such people should chose perfect matched robots instead of partners and loved ones? It really saddened and sickened me to see so many people think like that - and worse demand that from others to be viable to group with them! If that is how the average MMO player now functions I rather take my distance and say, bravo to SWTOR for companions and all soloablitiy. I always fought this trend as anti-social but I feel I lost this fight. Bravo to all those who work on the ruin of the wonders to experience an adventure with HUMANS, with friends! If all you seek is numbers, then thats all you are supposed to get.

To you who never had this dream, I can only say I feel sorry for you. For me, its kind of another lost dream, the dream people could come together just enjoying each other's company, but maybe such things are too much to ask in these times.

 

Well, sorry to see you leave the good fight Elikal.

I must say though, even in the earliest days of EQ, for instance, gear has always mattered, and the /inspect ability was always in full use, so I am a little confused as to why this has suddenly become an issue for you? Why does people lookin at gear and builds worry you so?

I think you are confusing two very different things, and then throwing the baby out with the bathwater...

Stats, gear, and builds have no impact on grouping, or the enjoyment of grouping imo. What appears to be upsetting you is the fact that people place value on these things, and this confuses me tbh... MMORPGs have always had this going on, at least the ones I have played, and now to declare grouping dead for you because of them seems a little strange to me.

In the earliest groups, I remember seeing tanks that wernt allowed to MT simply cause their gear wasnt up to it... Other tanks were chosen instead. Of course, in those days we didnt all have different builds in EQ, just different gear, but I guess this is the same thing. And I certainly remember players using print out maps and quest guides, probably even more so then now in this era of GPS led mini map quests, if we are honest.

Despite all this, we made friends, shared adventures, and explored worlds. Together. As a group. With humans. And I still, 9 or so years later, still talk to some of them on Yahoo.

The idea of a NPC group is horrible to me in a mmorpg, and is really the nail in the coffin of the genre. If they stick the idea into a single player RPG (ie Balders Gate) then great, but to remove the only thing, co-op play and community, by replacing them with computer players? Take away the very thing that makes these games special or worthwhile? Very sad.

I am sorry that this side of the genre has driven you to what I consider the dark side of mmorpg gaming, beloved only by solo ez mode quest grinders.

 

 

Take heart, I am not lost to the good fight, but what I surely gave up, is expecting everyone else is going into a game with the same child-like sense of adventure like me, and I will surely be way more careful and selective now whom I take into my circle of friends as I used to be. Some are just deformed, they are like mentally "crippled" people, and certainly some MMOs have caused this attitude. I prefer to seek my save island of like-minded these days rather, and I understand by and large this is a fight we can not win. We can only prolong it until eventually the tide of times change as they always do.

 

ok, good :)

I think where we differ on this though is that I honestly don't belive the fight is lost.

I believe that the current backlash against the superficial solo ez mode mmorpgs that we haver seen over the past couple of years has opened the door to a more social community based game, and a lot of people out there want something deeper and more engaging.

All it takes is for one indie company to realise this and secure itself the niche of 300,000 subs that a co-op community fantasy game could easily grab in today's climate. Hell, if they bought one of the older engines of the many failed games, which I sure a few companies out there wanna off load right now in order to recoup some of their loss,  they could be ready to go in 1-2 years with a fraction of the dev costs.

All it takes is companies to stop using the freakish blip that is WoW's sub numbers as a target, and realise you can make a very healthy profit with a fraction of those numbers.

At the very least, in the meantime I am willing to keep an eye open and pop into the forums every so often to see whats what.

 

That's what I have been saying to some friends lately our salvation will come from an indie company.I want to believe that CCP + White Wolf can give us a meaningful and engaging world based on WoD.

Seeing games like Mortal Online or Darkfall Online struggling to be competitive is enough to uphold the flame for me.After the solofest in WAR,I don`t trust any big publisher anymore.

I don't play DDO anymore but this game has been the only one where I have really enjoyed grouping and socialising.I remember once I joined a pug and tell the guy  if it was a problem for them to have a lower level cleric as healer and he answered that it was not a problem and that we will do our best as a group.we got stuck at some point in the dungeon due to bug,the leader contacted a GM.We spent about 30 mins waiting but it was not a problem we just talked while making fun of the situation.The GM fixed the problem and we continued our dungeon run.

But in todays MMOs people would have bitched,make a whining thread + insults.People are in such a rush that they forget that they are playing for fun.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

If I wanted to seriously play together with a group of friends online as a team, there are so many better choices out there than in MMORPGs.  Sports games, peer-to-peer RTS and FPS, racing games, adventure games like Grand Theft Auto, the list goes on and on.  These formats actually do the multiplayer team thing better than the "massive" format.

The only place I can do situational improvisational roleplay is in this genre: the MMORPG.  Unlike teamwork games, I and Elikal it seems view these games as an individual journey, played collectively.  Part of that experience is encountering others, but not the entire experience.  That's a lot different than the type of things we do in sports games, racing games, and peer-to-peer RTS and FPS.

So to all those who keep on  telling us individualists to go play single player games, I'm just going to throw that one right back and suggest that all these people who like to group and stat mash should go play peer-to-peer FPS, RTS, sports games, and racing games and leave MMORPGs alone.  I mean, you all really don't respect the spirit of what we do in MMOs: play characters, developing personal backgrounds, and maintaining the suspension of disbelief to create a fine environment for personal expression.  Given that there's much better options to get the type of gameplay you want, why force the genre to look like a poor excuse for peer-to-peer?

/Agreed

D&D always supported solo play.  It also supported and encouraged some solo-missions/adventures.  It usually wasn't as much fun as playing with a group but that was just the social factor of "the more the merrier".  There were classes and limitations, but there were also tons of options; playing multi-classed, dual-classed, hiring henchmen, certain magic items, having NPCs along, playing smart, etc..  I truly believe that the classes were there for variety's sake and to allow players to pursue their own roleplaying ideas, not because of some grande gotta have a tank/nuker/healer-dynamic.  With a few exceptions, the healing I remember in D&D was of the reducing downtime variety, not actual combat; priests could and did melee and they had devastating offensive spells as well.  And mages were crappy at first but they were invulnerable death machines after level 6 or so.  And warriors didn't taunt...  MUDs were built after D&D invented RPGs, and they had classes for variety's sake as well.  Several games, even D&D, had rules to allow people/players/GMs to invent their own classes as well or they skipped the whole class thing altogether.  I remember no co-op mandate; it was just more fun with more friends and that's the angle that the advertising and most commercial modules targetted.

The point of ALL of these games was/is for people to play with each other.  However, you can play with/against each other without being in a group/team.  And just because someone isn't joined at the hip with someone else every single minute they are active doesn't mean that person might as well be playing a solo game.  Just like you can play team sports/games that aren't in any way massively multiplayer...

EQ was successful not because of its class dynamic, or its grouping design/mandate - it was successful because it had great graphics, it was relatively simple to learn and get started with, and because it was the first major commercial offering of its kind.  It had no competition.  AC1 came along afterwards and it was good but it was far more complicated (things like figuring out spell component combos, even at low levels, were very annoying) and it had inferior graphics so people saw no reason to switch.  Other than UO which was one step above a text game (but people played it a lot anyways), that was it.  So EQ set the standard...

Originally posted by Fennris

D&D always supported solo play.

As should a good MMORPG. :)

Just not to the exclusion of the group, and certainly not to the point of forced soloing, as we have seen in games recently.

The important word here is that D&D supported and allowed solo play, but it is blatantly obvious, even explicitly stated in the PHB, that D&D is principlally a co-op game.

I don't want to get to far into the D&D thing though, as a game it has no more relevance to MMORPGs then MUDs do in terms of it's play philosophies. MMORPGs are obviously inspired and beholden to both previous types of game, but each one is massively different from the other.

I remember no co-op mandate

I never said it had one...

But to claim that the classes wernt made to support and complement each other as a group is a little bizarre to me tbh.

Plus, you know what? How many group modules vs solo modules were actually written? That shouls say something to you about that nature of the game. D&D isnt Fighting Fantasy.

EQ was successful not because of its class dynamic, or its grouping design/mandate

Actually, I agree with you pretty much.

People didnt start EQ because of it's community, or indeed grouping philosophy. No arguments here.

Most of us didnt know what we were really getting into tbh. It was a brand new game type for us, and to be honest a lot of folks simply didnt know this game would still be with them in 5 years time.... most of the players hadnt experienced anything like EQ, and to be honest, it blew a lot of peoples minds.

The reason it was a success though? The reason why people stayed, for years, once the once pretty grahics started to look sad and worn? The reason they kept coming back, even when they thought they had burned out and quit? The reason people still play it, in all of it's flawed glory?

Community.

They made friends and extended social networks of allies and enemies and invested heavily in the virtual world around them.

A forced solo game will never hold a player base like a group focused game does. It's that simple tbh, because it will ever have a community worth, as I say, spit.

 

Originally posted by vesavius

Originally posted by klapdoor

...something that isn't an opinion, but fact: The current genre called MMORPGs evolved from its predecessor called MUD's. For those of you who weren't even born at the height of its popularity: MUDs were text based online adventure RPG's. The world was build up out of small sections/chambers, each with its own description, possible occupants/enemies and directions/exits. The whole goal of the game was to be able to have a fun adventure in an environment that would constantly be updated and expanded. It was a hobby and a passion, designed by and for people who craved the style of those early dungeon crawling games (like Zork for example), but would like to play in an (nearly) endless world and meet other like minded adventurers on your path. A few facts on MUDs related to this 'discussion':

- Grouping essentially did not exist. Most MUDs were not designed with grouping in mind and the technology at the time did not encourage it. You could 'band' together, but that was meant as a sociable and mostly roleplaying option. It was not a requirement.

- Adventure and story line were the key words. The most successful MUDs were those who had the best designed environment and quests (remember, still text only).

- Min/max-ing was something essentially unheard of. In most MUDs you could allocate your basic stat points, and you could sure 'gimp' yourself if you allocated wrongly, but in almost all cases you could still adventure through the world without any issues. In fact, a lot of people 'gimped' their characters on purpouse as it was a lot of fun to do (oh damn, again that word 'fun'), in true pen and paper D&D style.

- Unfortunately most of this changed in the latest generations of MUDs onward.

Eh? What are you banging on about? When were we talking about MUDs? Why the unasked for history lesson in what we all know?

May as well talk about D&D... or Chainmail even...

One builds on the other, sure, but you are ludicrous to talk about the MUD model when we are discussing MMORPGs.

They are a very different animal, so everything you bothered to type here is irrellevant in the discussion.

Gotta love psuedo intellectuals eh?

I'm truly sorry that my 'unasked-for history lesson' so thoroughly confused you, but I cannot be bothered to put it all in simpeler terms. Yet if you realy want to make the argument of it being a different animal, then you should start considering that games like WoW are the next step in the evolution of the MMO genre...

 

And I do blame this on the current crop of MMO players. But essentially they cannot help it though. They grew up with the games that are all about competition and missed those earlier games that were still about the adventure of the game (it is no coincidence that the whole genre of old style adventure games like Zork, Monkey island, Sam & Max, etc. has completely died out).

Erm... friend, they havent.

Point'n'Click adventures are still made, and Sam and Max are still selling...

Just because you have stopped looking, it dosent mean they stopped existing.

Who are you blaming now?

Ah yes, I conc