Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Gaereth said:

Doesn"t mean I have to play with them.

I have been in the same guild since 2000, play in groups nightly, and always have more offers to play with others than I can accept just from my guild mates. Why should I care about others?? I have dozens of people that I look forward to spending my time with....why should I care about the rest??

Its like real life to me. I have my friends and family that I do things with when I want to....I wave to neighbors when I see them. But if the neighbor goes away I don"t really care....it doesn"t effect me one way or the other. Going to the grocery store isn"t made more special by large crowds. If I was the only one there I would be fine with it.

I choose whom I socialize with. Me, I. I choose.

If I choose to go outside of my guild then I can...I don"t, but I could. Hell, I started WOW in beta and I can count on one hand how many times I have been in a pick up group yet I have always played grouped. I choose to play the game grouped. I can"t name a level on my main that I hit while playing solo...not even the first 20.

But I get a choice on how I play. I choose to play with people I want to play with and love it. I am not forced. Its my choice.

You made the stupid assumption that I play solo.... I don"t. Never have.

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Just to add on to my rediculously long post. This is a good point. I don"t want to have to interact with strangers. That"s not an MMO. Wouldn"t you say the world in massive with lots of people? I don"t interact with anyone outside, friends, family and work. I don"t want to get friendly with them. I don"t care about them. I have a few people I hang out with on vent and play the game with every day. It"s fun.

Oh yeah, again: Good point.

Theres really no argument that WoW systems are well done. But its not going to matter to a new IP if they"re simply transposed onto it. Its just more of the same with a new paint job.

Which is why I strongly believe that its going to take an "abnormal combination" of existing systems, as well as a less tapped region unlike high fantasy to provide any kind of "freshness" to the genre. The trick is going to be bringing them all together in a way that makes sense.

Draegan said:

Just to add on to my rediculously long post. This is a good point. I don"t want to have to interact with strangers. That"s not an MMO. Wouldn"t you say the world in massive with lots of people? I don"t interact with anyone outside, friends, family and work. I don"t want to get friendly with them. I don"t care about them. I have a few people I hang out with on vent and play the game with every day. It"s fun.

Oh yeah, again: Good point.

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do you ever leave the house? go to the mall, the store, school, a bar, a concert, a sports game? if you do then you interact with strangers. sorry, but social interaction is a normal part of being human. doesn"t mean you have to be friends with every single person you meet, but you still need to interact with them in some way. same goes for an online game. like i said before, if you don"t like other people, there are literally hundreds of solo games out there for you. for me, interaction (either good or bad) is part of a MMO. instances kill immersion. if you go to the mall or a bar, those places don"t suddenly become empty so just you and your friends can enjoy them. that"s not how the real world works, and it"s not how an online game should work, either. the way around this is to have it just like it is in real life. you make enough bars or places so that everyone can spread out and no one place is too cramped.

i"m sorry, but WoW has completely ruined online games for me, and the reasons you guys list is why. it"s "I want to play with just me and my few friends and if i can"t have it my way i will take my GI joe"s and go home."

competition is part of life. i like to compete and to win. i"m sorry you were always picked last in dodge ball, i never was. i am also a social person. i like meeting new people and making new friends. playing a game where i only interact with a handful of people is not very appealing.

etchazz said:

you just summed up the entire problem with the WoW community: I, I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me, me. if you cared to look up MMORPG, you would see that it stands for massively MULTIPLAYER online game. if you hate interacting with other people so much, go fucking play oblivion.

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I play games to entertain myself, not others. Sure I may be able to work with others to achieve that end but if I am not having fun then I am not playing it.

etchazz said:

do you ever leave the house? go to the mall, the store, school, a bar, a concert, a sports game? if you do then you interact with strangers. sorry, but social interaction is a normal part of being human. doesn"t mean you have to be friends with every single person you meet, but you still need to interact with them in some way. same goes for an online game. like i said before, if you don"t like other people, there are literally hundreds of solo games out there for you. for me, interaction (either good or bad) is part of a MMO. instances kill immersion. if you go to the mall or a bar, those places don"t suddenly become empty so just you and your friends can enjoy them. that"s not how the real world works, and it"s not how an online game should work, either. the way around this is to have it just like it is in real life. you make enough bars or places so that everyone can spread out and no one place is too cramped.

i"m sorry, but WoW has completely ruined online games for me, and the reasons you guys list is why. it"s "I want to play with just me and my few friends and if i can"t have it my way i will take my GI joe"s and go home."

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Are you saying that you never see other players in WoW? You never buy an enchant or a gem cut from someone? You never see a crowd at the bank, you never have someone fighting mobs in your area? Or are you just talking out of your ass? Anyway, that"s enough WoW derail from me in this thread.

Alright, time for insulting each other I guess.

Look asshole, I"m not saying I"m a fucking hermit. I go to work, I go to the gym, I go to the bar, I go out to stores etc. I do it every day. Now during all this time I"m not interacting with these people on a "meaningful" level. I interact with just as much as any WOW event. I"m going about my business just like everyone else. I"m not some jovial douchebag that has to say hello to everyone and figure out who they are on the inside. Isn"t that what you"re doing on a daily basis leveling in WOW. See the people pass you by, maybe say hello, maybe help out for a minute or two here or there. I don"t know what kind of social interaction you"re engaging in on an everyday basis that"s any different unless you"re trying to find a bunch of random folks to go slay that mighty sewer beast that"s hording in your septec tank.

WOW isn"t empty. There are people all over the place. Instances don"t kill immersion at all, for me anyway, I thought I was being fucking clear before in a very polite way saying that each person has their own opinion and it could work both ways. I happen to have mine and you have yours. I personally don"t like dungeon crawling where you have to wait on line when you get to a boss because someone else is camping it, no fucking thank you.

I play with the people I know and the people I enjoy spending company with. I don"t know what you fucking mean by "take my gijoes home". I"m not forced to share a dungeon with Joe Fucking Dumbass like you seem to want.

Maybe you"re just an angry individual, but my previous post was pointing out my opinions and I also validated many of yours. Perhaps you should just shut the fuck up and stop logging on the internet so you can relax more. Go get some social interaction.

Social exposure doesn"t imply, infer or mandate relationships beyond a certain degree. Society is different in the fact that communities are rarely any longer little villages where everyone knows everybody and are forced by social etiquette to have some sort of relationship with them.

Interaction is mandatory to the extent that discussion/grouping/trading is an option, but doesn"t require some deep, meaningful relationship.

The best time I"ve had in an MMO is now, when I play with a RL friend. Sure, I"ve interacted with some friendly people online, but it"s in the context of a game (WoW). We interact, but the circumstances are limited and are mandatory only when groups are required for a dungeon instance. Even then, it"s based typically on an objective. That is a basis for social interaction as well, but I don"t need to building anything more with these people than a casual gaming relationship with them. That"s all.

In a well-designed game world, most "social interaction" is integrated so well that it is mostly an option, again with the obvious exceptions. So it blows the forced grouping/heavy socializing arguments out the window.

What pisses those off who miss the nostalgia of the older MMOs is that the audience has broadened and is simply focused on a game, not on socializing.

Socializing != interaction with other players

I see a lot of valid argument both for and against instancing. But essentially, you have to consider it for what it is:

a tool of division and accessibility.

At its very core, it separates players on the same premise that zones do. Even though they do essentially the same thing, zoning "separates", whereas instancing "separates AND segregates AND duplicates content" for ease of accessibility. There are a lot of places I can"t go in reality, so I don"t see it as a huge problem in a game. I could "theoretically" go anywhere. But realistically, its not feasible. Especially in an mmo where you"re confined to the size of the world anyway. You can"t base an mmo on theory, unless you design a dynamically created world thats ever-expanding. Such as whatInfinityis trying to achieve.

If successful, it"ll change the way mmos are designed completely. I think it"ll largely depend upon vastly enormous art assets. It"ll certainly make instanced content pretty much obsolete.

Draegan said:

Alright, time for insulting each other I guess.

Look asshole, I"m not saying I"m a fucking hermit. I go to work, I go to the gym, I go to the bar, I go out to stores etc. I do it every day. Now during all this time I"m not interacting with these people on a "meaningful" level. I interact with just as much as any WOW event. I"m going about my business just like everyone else. I"m not some jovial douchebag that has to say hello to everyone and figure out who they are on the inside. Isn"t that what you"re doing on a daily basis leveling in WOW. See the people pass you by, maybe say hello, maybe help out for a minute or two here or there. I don"t know what kind of social interaction you"re engaging in on an everyday basis that"s any different unless you"re trying to find a bunch of random folks to go slay that mighty sewer beast that"s hording in your septec tank.

WOW isn"t empty. There are people all over the place. Instances don"t kill immersion at all, for me anyway, I thought I was being fucking clear before in a very polite way saying that each person has their own opinion and it could work both ways. I happen to have mine and you have yours. I personally don"t like dungeon crawling where you have to wait on line when you get to a boss because someone else is camping it, no fucking thank you.

I play with the people I know and the people I enjoy spending company with. I don"t know what you fucking mean by "take my gijoes home". I"m not forced to share a dungeon with Joe Fucking Dumbass like you seem to want.

Maybe you"re just an angry individual, but my previous post was pointing out my opinions and I also validated many of yours. Perhaps you should just shut the fuck up and stop logging on the internet so you can relax more. Go get some social interaction.

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i am not mad or upset at all. i don"t know what makes you think that. i do however blame WoW"ers for the current state of the MMO market, and that i am open about. it"s not personal, it"s just this whole entitlement thing that kids nowadays have where they feel they are owed everything and have to work hard for nothing.
as far as social interaction, well i joined this site in 2002 and have a total of 163 posts. you however joined in 2006 (sept of "06 no less) and have over 3,000...

etchazz said:

have to work hard

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Repeat after me: It"s a video game.

etchazz said:

do you ever leave the house? go to the mall, the store, school, a bar, a concert, a sports game? if you do then you interact with strangers. sorry, but social interaction is a normal part of being human. doesn"t mean you have to be friends with every single person you meet, but you still need to interact with them in some way. same goes for an online game. like i said before, if you don"t like other people, there are literally hundreds of solo games out there for you. for me, interaction (either good or bad) is part of a MMO. instances kill immersion. if you go to the mall or a bar, those places don"t suddenly become empty so just you and your friends can enjoy them. that"s not how the real world works, and it"s not how an online game should work, either. the way around this is to have it just like it is in real life. you make enough bars or places so that everyone can spread out and no one place is too cramped.

i"m sorry, but WoW has completely ruined online games for me, and the reasons you guys list is why. it"s "I want to play with just me and my few friends and if i can"t have it my way i will take my GI joe"s and go home."

competition is part of life. i like to compete and to win. i"m sorry you were always picked last in dodge ball, i never was. i am also a social person. i like meeting new people and making new friends. playing a game where i only interact with a handful of people is not very appealing.

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Damn...you really are goofy as hell.

I go out to those places all the time. I walk past all those people to get to what I want to do or to get to my friends. Same as online. If I need to interact I do, but only so far as it is relates to what I am doing. Thats just life and it is reflected just fine in WOW.

Instances are inherently more immersive. I am playing a hero in an roleplaying game and I want to go slay the dragon. What keeps me in the game more....going to the dragons cave and fighting my way in with a select group of individuals and struggling to kill the dragon?? Or going to the dragons cave and finding out that I am hero#3069 and I have to wait for 3 hours to kill the dragon?

I can stay in the game, in that reality, and play my character when I don"t have to deal with slapdicks like you seem to love to do. I want to compete against the dragon, not against slapdick#4012 that loves screwing with people. I don"t care about competing against other players. I don"t care about racing. Thats all bullshit drama that the little whores find fun. I want to beat the game with my team....I love the team play and I don"t need 30 other teams trying to screw mine in the ass just to feel like I am having fun.

That doesn"t mean I don"t like competition...I just don"t care about competing against people in WOW. I like competing against the game, the monsters, the encounters, etc, etc, and don"t feel any need to prove anything to other players. I don"t need that to feel validated or special.

-shrug- It really sounds like you were the one that had issues being picked for the dodgeball team and want to force everyone to be picked just so you won"t be left out. Kinda like tieing a pork chop around your neck so the dog will show an interest in you.

If you need that kind of hand holding from a games systems to enable you to have fun...thats cool. But don"t force that on the rest of us that find the community and the socialization aspect to be absolutely normal and exactly what we expect both in game and out.

etchazz said:

i am not mad or upset at all. i don"t know what makes you think that. i do however blame WoW"ers for the current state of the MMO market, and that i am open about. it"s not personal, it"s just this whole entitlement thing that kids nowadays have where they feel they are owed everything and have to work hard for nothing.

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That"s a generational and demographical difference. Kids are like that outside of MMOs.

It"s not the WoW"ers, but WoW might be showing some societal issues that we"d prefer to ignore, and we have to deal with them in our gaming /recreational environment.

What I think is funny is that so many older-school players act like someone pissed in their Cheerios because the MMO market became huge, commercial, and doesn"t cater to niche preferences as much. It happens in every other facet of life/business when something can be financially viable and successful. Deal. "Maybe WoW isn"t the game for you, Brad", etc.

Not that I"m thrilled about it either, but it will offer a chance for niche games to re-emerge, most likely.

Gaereth said:

That doesn"t mean I don"t like competition...I just don"t care about competing against people in WOW. I like competing against the game, the monsters, the encounters, etc, etc, and don"t feel any need to prove anything to other players. I don"t need that to feel validated or special.

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I get my validation from the supermodels I date, just like every other guy on the internet does.

Seriously though, I like casual cooperative stuff in games. Maybe we"re just less "hardcore" than some of you folks, but while I like some achievement in games, I don"t do it for validation, but for fun.

etchazz said:

it"s just this whole entitlement thing that kids nowadays have where they feel they are owed everything and have to work hard for nothing.

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I find this part rather funny.

I would hazard a guess that the average age of my guild is probably 10 years older than you are etch. Your probably what...30?? Maybe a touch more??

The outlook that you have is what I generally associate with kids...but then I am a whole decade or so older than you. You want the game to hold your hand and make people be friends with you. You want to wrestle with other players in said game so that you can feel special when you beat them.

Thats a kids outlook.

I just want to play the damn game.

etchazz said:

as far as social interaction, well i joined this site in 2002 and have a total of 163 posts. you however joined in 2006 (sept of "06 no less) and have over 3,000...

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I"m sorry my job avails me with a computer, free time and access to the internet. But continue with the passive aggressive insults. Nice job.

I don"t waste too much of my time on forums when I"m out of work.

The argument against instancing is not good, you obviously played EQ, so you remember how much a pain in the ass Sebilis was. Or the god forsaken cock blocking that required you to log on at some ungodly hour just so your guild could advance to the next dungeon tier. That isn?t fun, nor is it a test of your guilds team play, it?s just a masochistic ball ache.

Anyway, has anything new, fresh, or different been put out yet? All I?ve read is the usual suspects for settings, Jedi ninjas in space with a little bit of EVE thrown in, oh and the rallying cry to the bad old days of EQ.

etchazz said:

you just summed up the entire problem with the WoW community: I, I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me, me. if you cared to look up MMORPG, you would see that it stands for massively MULTIPLAYER online game. if you hate interacting with other people so much, go fucking play oblivion.

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Nah, I disagree. I think it is more of a function of time commitment to the game. I am sure you have your nuts who play 24/7, but I would think the vast majority are not your "hardcore." Brad thought there was this large "hardcore" market out there too. There just isn"t. And that actually is a good thing.

Draegan said:

*tiny print*

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There a reason why you made me use a magnifying glass to read your post? ;p

Rayne said:

I see a lot of valid argument both for and against instancing. But essentially, you have to consider it for what it is:

a tool of division and accessibility. . .

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I submit lag has a lot to do with the rise of instancing too by keeping the numbers on screen down to a manageable level.

Maxxius said:

There a reason why you made me use a magnifying glass to read your post? ;p

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Shits and giggles? Honestly, don"t know.

There seems to be a difference between multiplayer and multiplayer co-op. I don"t know why we don"t see more of the co-op variety. I get the most enjoyment out of games with co-op, instead of playing with a bunch of dudes who happen to have the same game.