Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Well, to be fair, WOW introduced choice into the system rather than removing anything. They gave the player a choice and most went for the faster, easier, or the perceived better method. If anything WOW laid bare the fact that most people are selfish bastards and will do whatever benefits them the most.

A certain method of game play should never be incentivized more than any other except through actual game play reasons. You should be grouping to access areas you cannot solo, to attain skills and gear, or because you enjoy grouping, rather than grouping because there is a built in system that rewards one type of game play more than another and gives you more bang for the buck.

Lets set up a scenario where you might group so that you will learn your group related skills. For instance, you can learn single target spells from your trainer, but in order to access your group buffs you have to...wait for it...group!! Make the motivation to group something related to actual game play rather than vested in an optimum pattern that the min/maxers have determined is the best reward for time spent. Build in options that allow people to play how they want to play rather than limiting them.

People spend way to much time developing arcane methods of socializing people that has nothing to do with actual in game play. If you develop the game play and content that people enjoy then you don"t need to hang a proverbial pork chop around people?s necks to get them to play with each other. People are always, ALWAYS, going to be selfish bastards and do whatever benefits them the most so if you start putting in incentives to group then the only reason they group is so they receive said incentives.

WOW actually did well in this regard by creating fun and interesting group situations in the form of instances but they also failed by not taking into account the selfish bastard and race to endgame syndrome. They created these fantastic places for people to go and group and get good gear, but if you?re moving through levels so fast why should you care about those instances??? In WOW?s case the incentive to group was there it was just overpowered by the carrot of levels.

However, if they had added group only skills to these instances then people would have had a selfish reason to group and go experience the content. In order to receive certain skills you have to group through the instances and learn the skills you need. Doing it like this makes it a game play reason rather than a social experiment reason.

Everything that a player does in game should be based around an actual game play reason and never about artificially creating the situation you want to have happen. You are still going to be directing people in the ways that you want, you are just doing it through their decisions rather than yours.

People who like non-instancing can usually be categorized into a few categories:

1) They want to dominate (aka spawn racing, controlling spawns, etc)
2) They want to use the game as a chatroom (aka camping...you only have to do stuff every 10-30 minutes, otherwise you are chatting/surfing porn/playing your game system/etc
3) They want to see other people running around (aka they want to show off their leet items)

One just doesn"t work if you plan on making your MMO mass market. If people are constantly denied things, the vast majority will stop caring about said things. Another thing to remember is the 3rd party reseller market is much bigger now then it was in 99 or so. Any of you ever play FFXI? IGE had their farm-droids perma-camping virtually every rare mob in the game that dropped items of value, knowing the loot would command top dollar. Making a system where a few can screw the many will benefit those with the time (or timezone).

Two basically comes down to people not wanting to have to actually play the game. Ya it was fun to chat, but then again nothing is stopping you from doing that in WoW...there IS a general channel in the dungeon...there are global chat channels. Why people want a game designed so they can play ANOTHER game while they play it eludes me, which is what many people in EQ1 did. Boring ass camp? Whip out that new Final Fantasy game on your PS1...you can probably get some progress in the game while you wait for the mind-numbingly slow respawns to catch up in the MMO.

As for three, sure you lose that inside the instance. I guess there is the fundamental human want to "see" others. You can"t just walk down to Camp X and shoot the shit with them "in person". You can"t flaunt your phat l00ts...or train people. So I suppose you do lose that...but honestly, considering the alternative...

Plus all this talk about "staleness". Dur, anything will become stale if you do it enough. If doing the same old dungeon crawl got tiring, would it be so hard to factor in random elements that mix up the experience w/o detracting from your reward?

Draegan said:

There is no lack of community. I know plenty of folks in the game from previous guilds and other things. You won"t step into a zone knowing people because you don"t spend 6 hours grinding to gain 20% of your level.

The community is there if you want it, you just have to create it yourself instead of having it forced on you. We"ve had this discussion on this board plenty of times though.

In any large population I won"t know everyone, just my immediate surroundings, i.e. your guild.

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In EQ you did know or were at least familiar with people, guilds had rivalries, the first player to 50 or 65 or 70 was a neat thing, the first guy with the Sword of ZOMG was something to talk about. You KNEW what players were fun to group with and which ones sucked. People had a virtual reputation on their characters that mattered more than they do these days. In the newer "fast food mmo" games tis all tossed aside in favor of making everything in the game open to everyone with a subscription.

Maybe I"m just jaded but there has to be someone who can generate a good mix of instanced and static content that coexists on the same servers. Blizzard tosses in a few meaningless mobs like Kazzak and Doomwalker just to say they"ve added those types of encounters. Where are the Lower Guks, Sebilis, or Karnor"s Castles of WoW? Those places just had enviroments that were part game design and part environment created by the players that were there. Sure there were retards there as well, but it just added more to the game. There really is no social aspect of many of the newer games outside of your guild/close friends, you just don"t need other people for anything.

Frax said:

In EQ you did know or were at least familiar with people, guilds had rivalries, the first player to 50 or 65 or 70 was a neat thing, the first guy with the Sword of ZOMG was something to talk about. You KNEW what players were fun to group with and which ones sucked. People had a virtual reputation on their characters that mattered more than they do these days. In the newer "fast food mmo" games tis all tossed aside in favor of making everything in the game open to everyone with a subscription.

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Same shit happened in WoW.

Early on you knew when people got a Quel"Serrar or Ashkandi or Thunderfury etc. Guilds had rivals, who they "raced" to see who could down what first. But why am I bothering, you already played the McDonalds trump card.

You all have your rose glasses on. When I was grinding rep in dungeons in WOW I knew atleast a dozen or two shitty players constantly in LFG. I knew a lot of good people to group with in the same circuit.

It"s there. You know the world firsts now of who gets the Sword of ZOMG. YOu follow them on various news sites. This game is GLOBAL. It is no longer your cozy little farm country like MMO where everyone knows each other.

Here is something you need to get. In EQ you had less people. The less people there are the more likely you are going to remember and recognize the people you see. In WOW you have millions of people playing. Servers are larger. You will not recognize people and remember others. It has nothing to do with instances.

Frax said:

In the newer "fast food mmo" games tis all tossed aside in favor of making everything in the game open to everyone with a subscription.

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The fast food tastes better than the home made shit. Sorry.

Well if you want a "Cheers" MMO you can, it just won"t have mass appeal. EQ was fine for it"s time. Can be nostalgic all you want, but guess what you aren"t going to play it again. Or if you did, the charm would wear off fast.

To me the end game is the toughest part more than anything. Keeping that interest without ultimately having people doing the same old same old grinds is the real test, whether instanced or not.

You"re not supposed to call it the end game anymore, the new buzz word is "elder game".

And how did I miss the classic McDonalds reference without making fun of it!?

I"m honestly trying to figure out why some of you play MMOs. It sounds like single player games are so much more your fancy. I"m not trolling, I truely don"t understand it.

I raid and play with my guild, how is that single player? I don"t enjoy jerking off with 15 other random people for something I want with my group.

OneofOne said:

I"m honestly trying to figure out why some of you play MMOs. It sounds like single player games are so much more your fancy. I"m not trolling, I truely don"t understand it.

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Of course you are, since your post added pretty much nothing to the thread.

I don"t post much in this thread because pie-in-the-sky "what if" MMO theorycraft wankery is not really my thing (no offense Ngurk, you"re actuallymakinga game), but I will say this to the pandora"s box you"ve opened:

People who dislike instancing are the vocal minority.DO. NOT. LISTEN. TO. THEM.The Ghost of Christmast Bradmcquaidscareer is trying to tell you something. The overwhelming majority of people like instancing and aren"t going to bother to let you know because theirs is the status quo and theyexpectyou to do the right thing.

If anything, make the non-instanced world compelling and interesting and rewarding, but keep important content instanced. If you can make your non-instanced world better than WoW"s while keeping the stuff instanced that should be (most of what WoW has instanced), you win.

The felwood non-instanced cavedungeon is a great example. It"s not terribly important for you to go there. It"s cool to discover. There"s a quest worth doing. Most of the time it will be lightly inhabited if inhabited at all. It"s not a place to grind. But it is rewarding to visit. Once. That one visit is not likely to be fucked up because it"s being camped. Nor is the "zomg so immersive" factor of diving into this organization"s lair going to be destroyed by having five groups already there keeping it clear. There are more examples of this in WoW, the visit is quest-driven, the experience is a nice break from having to go into an instance to do a group quest, finding and exploring the place is fun...anway, you get my point. The vast majority of what is instanced in WoW should be. Millions of people will agree.

I love how everyone is using Vanguard as an example in the whole pro-instance argument. As if the game failed because of the lack of instancing, and not because it was shit-boring, only half complete and riddled with bugs.

I think people should stop acting like this is an all or nothing thing. Like either we completely instance anything even vaguely meaningful WoW-style, or we have EQ-esque camping and competing over bosses.

Is there honestly not a single person out there who can conceive of a system that allows you to avoid the worst of a non-instanced system (camping and competition), while still avoiding instancing?

Personally, I hate instancing. For me, it completely destroys any sense of a consistant world, which is what I love about MMO"s. If I wanted to lock myself away in my own private version of the content, I"d play an online RPG like Diablo or Guildwars. I play MMO"s because I enjoy being in a shared gameworld with other players, yet when you look at WoW, you basically do everything even slightly important within an instance. The open world is there for levelling, for farming, and for flying (untouchable on your own personal flying mount) from the city (where you can queue for arenas and BG"s) to dungeons. Hell, they might as well instance it as well, all of the content there is soloable, there"s no form of meaningful player interaction apart from the occasional empty PvP encounter.

I just miss logging into a gameworld and knowing there would be thousands of players in that gameworld with me. These days, the game might as well be completely devoid of anyone outside your own guild.

Azrayne said:

Is there honestly not a single person out there who can conceive of a system that allows you to avoid the worst of a non-instanced system (camping and competition), while still avoiding instancing?

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How do you get rid of camping/competition in a non instanced dungeon?
When I played EQ2, and went into the shared dungeons all that happened was groups moving from named spawn to named spawn.
There was no backing out and letting the newer groups have a slice of the pie.

The AES mentioned for Vanguard sounded fun, but seriously how annoying would it be for the group that just zoned in to get a ton of AES mobs, while you and your scrub group who have been there hours searching have had none?

Reality is most paying customers these days expect to have the same options and mob availabilty as everyone else - given the expectation that these mobs will drop items, and not be used solely for quests.

I thought WoW nailed instancing, and I thought the server community was good. Caveat - I played from release for a year and a half on a high-population, alliance/horde balanced PvP server.

I think the great deal of soloable content pre-70 illustrates that 90% of people prefer to solo 90% of the time, not that WoW is a fast food MMO which wants to kill all community.

I don"t really have any place else to ask this, so I"m asking here: can horde and alliance talk to each other yet, or is blizzard still retarded?

Still tarded.

Fog said:

I think the great deal of soloable content pre-70 illustrates that 90% of people prefer to solo 90% of the time, not that WoW is a fast food MMO which wants to kill all community.

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I am unsure if I agree or disagree. I guess I would ask this, if WoW didn"t have that much solo content pre-70, would it have had as many players? The answer is no, but how much of a no?

If WoW content was spun around to be group content rather than solo content in the same quantity, how different would the audience size be? Would it be 10% less? 90% less?

Understand this, I am a HUGE social gamer, I love grouping, raiding with friends, solo play was NEVER my gig (which is why I think I loved EQ so much) but if WoW was not soloable up to 60ish I"d have quit LOOOOOONG ago.

You give me WoW as a group game and WoW as a solo game, and the group game has server crowds that make finding groups not a 40 minute exercise, and I go with the group game 7 days a week and twice on Sunday.

So is it that 90% prefer it? Or that 90% adjusted to it? Or both?

Ngruk said:

You give me WoW as a group game and WoW as a solo game, and the group game has server crowds that make finding groups not a 40 minute exercise, and I go with the group game 7 days a week and twice on Sunday.

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Couldn"t agree more, and unlike most I actually like pickup groups. I play the game to meet people and have fun, not be billy badass. Even when i group in wow instances, it feels like we race from one spot to the next like I am playing follow the leader. Not sure how to slow that down since everyone is just focused on EXP per hour, it is not totally the games fault.

I am not dogging wow, I am playing it and it is the best game currently around, but that does not make it perfect.