Blizzard dies and Bobby rides

Captain Suave said:

If I wanted to spend all night trying to wrangle 40 neckbeards into getting something done, I'd stay at work.

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Yep. I think people have forgotten why group required content stopped being popular.

Fucker said:

Yep. I think people have forgotten why group required content stopped being popular.

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Is it not popular? Or is it not popular to MOST people? That's the thing. Further, how many people thought they wouldn't like something until they were "forced"/coerced into trying it?

I used to think there was no reason to exceed the speed limit until somebody told me to fuck around in their AMG Mercedes while egging me on from the passenger seat.

Again, I'm not saying a game with those tools is going to be some 5 million subscriber monolith, no. But, a team that is small enough could easily survive on 50-100k subscribers. Shit, that's probably what EQ is down to nowadays anyway. I think devs/companies have gotten into the mindset of, "if it doesn't pull WoW-like numbers, it isn't worth making..". And the playerbase, for whatever reason, has adopted that as some sort of universal truth.

Kirun said:

Is it no popular? Or is it not popular to MOST people?

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You can find people willing to pay to get kicked in the balls. IMO that's not an argument that receiving ball kicks is inherently fun.

More seriously, I think there's an important difference between small-scale and large-scale group content. Managing large groups just requires too much overhead to be enjoyable long-term.

xmod2 said:

LFD was added during WotLK.

Forced 'group required' content is still present in every single MMO as the top end content available, and it's all popular.

The problem is the same problem every MMO has. They are one game for 1-59 and a completely different game at 60.

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I was referring to grouping for XP, not raids.

Grouping for xp to progress mostly died out because we all grew up and got jobs and don’t want to spend half our free time trying to get a group together that may or may not be worth the time we put in

Late 90s/early 2000s were the worst because they didn’t have good xp scaling. My friends playing FFXI out leveled me by like 5 levels because they played more, so we couldn’t group for xp anymore. Trying to get PUGS always turned out bad so I just flat out quit the game

Cybsled said:

Grouping for xp to progress mostly died out because we all grew up and got jobs and don’t want to spend half our free time trying to get a group together that may or may not be worth the time we put in

Late 90s/early 2000s were the worst because they didn’t have good xp scaling. My friends playing FFXI out leveled me by like 5 levels because they played more, so we couldn’t group for xp anymore. Trying to get PUGS always turned out bad so I just flat out quit the game

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Well, a large part of the problem "back in the day" is that it was an all or nothing style approach. Unless you were one of the few classes that could solo, if you didn't find a group(or have the time), you just flat out couldn't make progress.

Nowadays, they've gone the complete opposite direction and grouping doesn't mean shit. In some cases(early WoW), grouping was actually WORSE, because you didn't get quest drops for all group members. There's a happy medium there and while I think you should be able to make progress solo, designers have done a horrible job at incentivizing group play.

Do people actually enjoy large scale grouping?

40 man raids and PvP in WoW involved a lot of dead weight. 24 man raids and PvP in FF14 are very zergy.

I think that the key social elements that make MMOs popular is showing off your hard earned loot and having susprise player generated content, not cooperative gameplay specifically.

It's nice doing a FATE in FF14 and someone passing by helps you or you help them, happens a lot. It was also nice having a random world PvP enounter in WoW as long as it wasn't a stunlock.

FF14 has a lot of space to show off seemingly fashion designer made loot in player hubs and of course player housing/brothels. WoW really fell behind on that, I still use a T3 transmog as a Priest (I admit it's the Nothrend version though!)

You have to think of it like a social network, not like github.

Difficulty is the only worthwhile thing they could add to MMOs to entice me these days. I don't care about character customization, it just attracts little kids with ADD anyway. I don't care about achievements or badges or guild halls or housing.

I'd like to see a Tarkov-like MMO, but with swords and basic bows, basically no gunpowder, where your character can die in the blink of an eye and the zones/levels require multiple teams to cooperate together to beat. You have to haul loot out of the zone for it to count/bind to your corpse but if you die with it in the zone you got it, it might be lost forever unless you have a buddy nearby to grab it.

Itemization should let you find nice stuff, but dying in said nice stuff would cause damage and require it to go to the smithy for awhile, forcing you to use banked inferior gear until your main gear is repaired.

Also mounts cannot be simply summoned / unsummoned. You learn to take care of your mule or you don't have one. If you leave town on a zepplin and forget your horse, you better have brought some paste along to tame another one. stuff like that. No more hand holding little Johnny A.D.D.!

That sounds like shit that no one would play. “You can’t keep good gear if you die, also btw if yo get good gear it breaks and you have to use shit gear until your good gear fixes itself”.

Break said:

Difficulty is the only worthwhile thing they could add to MMOs to entice me these days. I don't care about character customization, it just attracts little kids with ADD anyway. I don't care about achievements or badges or guild halls or housing.

I'd like to see a Tarkov-like MMO, but with swords and basic bows, basically no gunpowder, where your character can die in the blink of an eye and the zones/levels require multiple teams to cooperate together to beat. You have to haul loot out of the zone for it to count/bind to your corpse but if you die with it in the zone you got it, it might be lost forever unless you have a buddy nearby to grab it.

Itemization should let you find nice stuff, but dying in said nice stuff would cause damage and require it to go to the smithy for awhile, forcing you to use banked inferior gear until your main gear is repaired.

Also mounts cannot be simply summoned / unsummoned. You learn to take care of your mule or you don't have one. If you leave town on a zepplin and forget your horse, you better have brought some paste along to tame another one. stuff like that. No more hand holding little Johnny A.D.D.!

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The game has to be fun, that has to go before everything else. Making loot/levels feel more valuble because it's hard to get does have a limit.

You are also essentially describing a different genre of game.

Cybsled said:

That sounds like shit that no one would play. “You can’t keep good gear if you die, also btw if yo get good gear it breaks and you have to use shit gear until your good gear fixes itself”.

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You aren't worthy anyway. Enjoy your Hello Kitty Fishing Adventure!

The budget you could get for your proposed game idea from investors would probably be less than the Hello Kitty game lol

Cybsled said:

There is absolutely nothing that prevents you from socializing and making friends right now in a MMO.

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Human nature.

Humans need socialization. But that doesn't mean they like to do it. That contradiction fucks most MMOs up, because game designers tend to want to do things people like, and don't realize what they need and like aren't always the same thing.

Without incentives to socialize, people won't.

Cybsled said:

The game already has you play with other humans. Unless you're just in a zombie guild, you presumably already are playing with guildmates.

You're trying to solve for a non-existent problem under the impression that "the good old days" have been lost, while proposing a solution that ignores why server groupings are even a thing (to let people play with other people, regardless as to how shitty their individual server's population is). Especially in WoW, since you also have faction based concerns and if you are alliance on a horde dominated server, good luck getting into anything w/o cross realm.

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The problem they are pointing to is the core of everything. People keep people playing MMOs--you even admit it in your next post, when you couldn't group with your friends, you left.

The issue though, has nuance. Faceless, unneeded people don't keep you playing--friends do. Simply being in a guild isn't enough to be a friend. To form friends you need to overcome some adversity, you need to have a genuine need for something they can give you. Modern MMOs don't really have that, you just need bodies there to check the box and experience your portion of fun. There isn't a real need for social interaction beyond what the game automates, because there is never real risk--and that's the problem.

You need frustration. You need risk. You need what people don't like. The problem is there is a balance there, too much of that stuff and you'll ruin the game...But not enough and your game will be flat and boring and people won't feel the need to interact with others to see more of it. (And thus form the friendships that keep people coming back).

Its a difficult problem, with multiple variables...But that kind of social interaction is absolutely at the core of it.

The budget you could get for your proposed game idea from investors would probably be less than the Hello Kitty game lo

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True. But that's the issue...Investors think simplistically and want to maximize what people say they like and get rid of everything else. If most investors had their way, we'd only have loot box Gachas to maximize those dopamine hits and reduce spending on 'non-essentials'.

Mist said:

I mean, it perfectly describes tons of Battle Royale type games and various survival games, including hardcore Minecraft. All of these things are popular. Even Zelda BOTW requires you constantly crafting new gear.

MMOs have gone in the complete opposite direction as the rest of the video game industry. They went from hardcore fantasy worlds ala UO and EQ to super safe amusement park experiences where nothing bad ever happens to you.

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This is exactly it. The worst thing that can happen to me in most modern MMOs is I don't get what I want as quickly...That's the "risk", that it might take you 10 units of time vs 7 if you don't do things correctly. There is no risk, there is no tension. Its boring.

I was one of those wierdo's who liked really long camps for items I needed/wanted. I knew most people didn't have the endurance or the where-with-all to put on Monty Python videos in another window or monitor instead of just complaining how rare the rare things were.

Anyway I'm just spitballing, I agree with you lot, it does have to be fun but I think there is an untapped market out there where the games return to the basics like real hardship and cooperation while eschewing bullshit like cosmetics and pay 2 win schemes.

Also, does anyone else 'member when strats for every single boss weren't plastered on every forum by the first schmuck who couldn't wait to tell the world ? I'm going to suggest too that the best MMO will somehow, someway be resistant to having how-to guides published online. A unicorn? Maybe, but just imagine if players had to think for themselves again in raids. Dayum.

Cybsled said:

I already mentioned why: To allow for "individual servers" where players can be and have a server-specific community and/or economy

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Sounds like bullshit to me. Nobody except some neckbeards wearing rose tinted glasses for old school EQ give a shit about that or even think it exists.

Break said:

I was one of those wierdo's who liked really long camps for items I needed/wanted. I knew most people didn't have the endurance or the where-with-all to put on Monty Python videos in another window or monitor instead of just complaining how rare the rare things were.

Anyway I'm just spitballing, I agree with you lot, it does have to be fun but I think there is an untapped market out there where the games return to the basics like real hardship and cooperation while eschewing bullshit like cosmetics and pay 2 win schemes.

Also, does anyone else 'member when strats for every single boss weren't plastered on every forum by the first schmuck who couldn't wait to tell the world ? I'm going to suggest too that the best MMO will somehow, someway be resistant to having how-to guides published online. A unicorn? Maybe, but just imagine if players had to think for themselves again in raids. Dayum.

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I think your final thought is basically impossible. Unless you somehow had every boss have a possible list of abilities/mechanics at least 10-20 long and what you got was pure roll of the dice. But even then every ability/mechanic will be recorded and written about to understand every single one. Strats for video games have been around since they introduced. Its just the medium in which those strats got around has changed.