The Elder Scrolls Online

Selix · Feb 9, 2014

Rescorla_sl said:
What other grouping mechanisms do you expect to see in a MMO besides group dungeons (basic and elite level), raids and PVP?

I've found that I really enjoyed well populated and multiple mechanic public quests some of which we saw in Rift beta and Warhammer.

I've had dreams of well done public quests that allow zergs and organized groups to both participate and effect the outcome with better rewards for the smaller organized groups (albeit greater challenge). An example would be you are in a zone and a public quest pops up "Storm the castle". A small 10 man zerg rushes the gates and starts pounding away. More people show up to the zerg and a 5 man side quest pops up (instanced) (sneak in the side gate and destroy the seige weaponry". If you are part of a 5 man squad you can attempt this side mission. In the meantime seige equipment starts lobbing heavy shit into the zerg.

Zerg gets large and champion horse rides ride out and start wiping out sections of the Zerg. New 10 man quest pops up "Distract, separate and take out the horse riders".

You could really make fun and involved public quests that tell a whole story and spread a zerg out to prevent zone destablization while letting elite groups take a chance at going for higher rewards and upping the public quest difficulty to the next level.

rhinohelix · Feb 9, 2014

Tuco_sl said:
While it's true that slow combat speed, long downtime/ relative lack of player UI interaction, and limited and stable server populations contributed to player interaction, are you really arguing that making content hard enough to require players to form groups of 4+ people won't increase player socialization?

It will definitely increase their interaction; I don't know about their socialization. When I grouped in WoW, waaay back in vanilla, very often there was almost nothing said for the entirety of the run.

Kreugen · Feb 9, 2014

Except those quests don't work when there's no one else around to help you do them. Which is what happens when you either out level the zerg, or are late to the party and the masses are all max level. Just like the primary problem forced grouping faces.

rhinohelix · Feb 9, 2014

Selix_sl said:
I've found that I really enjoyed well populated and multiple mechanic public quests some of which we saw in Rift beta and Warhammer.

Some of the best of these I have found were in GW2: the attack on the Centaur Stronghold was always a great experience for me. Without good scaling, though, Kreugen makes an excellent point.

Rescorla_sl · Feb 9, 2014

Rhinohelix_sl said:
It will definitely increase their interaction; I don't know about their socialization. When I grouped in WoW, waaay back in vanilla, very often there was almost nothing said for the entirety of the run.

You also have to factor in the growth of voice chat apps like Ventrilo, Mumble etc. Regardless of which MMO I am playing, I almost always do group content with guildmates who are in the guild's voice chat channel so we discuss everything there versus typing it out.

Kreugen · Feb 9, 2014

Voice chat is pretty much the first thing I turn off. After motion blur, depth of field, and deleting logo.bik

Devnull_sl · Feb 9, 2014

Rescorla_sl said:
Forcing players to group in order to advance thru the PVE content would obviously increase player socialization, but is that how the large majority of paying customers want their MMOs to be designed? A LOT of EQ1 players flocked to WoW because they were fed up with forced grouping, myself being one of them.

MMOs haven't exactly been smash hits following the current model recently. 10 years later most triple A MMOs are still chasing WoW. Why is it so hard to believe that another paradigm shift may be in order? Do you think MMOs should just continue to progress in one direction without the potential for something that was once popular to become popular again? Different styles come in and out of fashion over time. Sometimes people have no idea what they want until it's put in front of them. Look at the popularity of games like DayZ, Minecraft, Dark Souls Flappy Bird, etc. Hell, look at the current Steam best sellers list. Hit games are quite frequently things that do not follow any conventional wisdom of popular design.

Kirun · Feb 9, 2014

Tuco_sl said:
While it's true that slow combat speed, long downtime/ relative lack of player UI interaction, and limited and stable server populations contributed to player interaction, are you really arguing that making content hard enough to require players to form groups of 4+ people won't increase player socialization?

Right, but what sort of "socialization" do you necessarily get out of that? Not much, aside from "Hey, have room for a Rogue?" "Yeah, invite incoming..". Also, in the days of yesteryear, the internet was fairly new and PCs weren't very powerful. Nowadays, even if you increase downtime, that isn't necessarily going to translate to more socialization. Most people are just going to alt-tab during the slow periods of combat.

Kreugen · Feb 9, 2014

I imagine someone putting out a AAA version of DayZ that isn't a buggy pile of shit and everyone collectively realizing that they only liked it because it was a buggy pile of shit.

Selix · Feb 9, 2014

Kreugen_sl said:
Except those quests don't work when there's no one else around to help you do them. Which is what happens when you either out level the zerg, or are late to the party and the masses are all max level. Just like the primary problem forced grouping faces.

You are 100% right. Part of the reason (though not all of it) that Rift's events after launch started to suck so bad was empty worlds. Even GW2's one server model where you had people in every zone still ended up not having enough of a population I think. However I think you could get around this by making each event far more multi-leveled (stepped?) with multiple mechanics based on how many people are there, how many are zerging the front vs. going for the side missions, how fast the side missions are being completed.. etc., etc. You could have an event skip initial phases and jump to a higher difficulty with much higher rewards if say 5 guilds showed up to run over an event and just started plowing through the front gate.

Also you could have events day-locked meaning only these 3 happen on monday, these 3 on tuesday etc. so players will congregate in a decent size. Maybe allow high end groups/guilds to craft special hard-to-earn items to force unlock a single event if they wanted to skip the day locks.

Kirun · Feb 9, 2014

Kreugen_sl said:
Except those quests don't work when there's no one else around to help you do them. Which is what happens when you either out level the zerg, or are late to the party and the masses are all max level. Just like the primary problem forced grouping faces.

I think the scale of the events needs to be larger/longer. AQ style PQs on a weekly basis would be awesome, but I'm just sure how feasible it is.

Cinge · Feb 9, 2014

Forced grouping is for the socially inept who can't make social connections on their own and want the game to force others to talk to them. Otherwise todays mmos are just as easy to socialize in as older ones if you make the effort. I had no problems for example grouping the entire way in SWTOR because I wanted to do it with others and not completely alone and that's considered by the masses as the Most solo MMO was there is. I generally start every MMO launch asking if anyone wants to group up and level, if I don't have any friends playing and I almost always get people who want too.

Also, as we have had this argument before, it was the downtime that caused the social experience in those older games and that was mainly from lack of options to do while that downtime was going on. Nowadays you could have forced grouping and downtime and people will just tab out or talk with their buddies on some VOIP program.

As for this game, Just tried archer to test it out and I am not sure I like the idea that it uses stamina as its resource , when you need to that dodge/sprint.

Rescorla_sl · Feb 9, 2014

Devnull_sl said:
MMOs haven't exactly been smash hits following the current model recently. 10 years later most triple A MMOs are still chasing WoW. Why is it so hard to believe that another paradigm shift may be in order? Do you think MMOs should just continue to progress in one direction without the potential for something that was once popular to become popular again? Different styles come in and out of fashion over time. Sometimes people have no idea what they want until it's put in front of them. Look at the popularity of games like DayZ, Minecraft, Dark Souls Flappy Bird, etc. Hell, look at the current Steam best sellers list. Hit games are quite frequently things that do not follow any conventional wisdom of popular design.

Using whatever criteria you want to use to determine what constitutes "successful", what MMOs since EQ1 that forced grouping have been successful?

Rescorla_sl · Feb 9, 2014

Cinge_sl said:
As for this game, Just tried archer to test it out and I am not sure I like the idea that it uses stamina as its resource , when you need to that dodge/sprint.

General rule of thumb is that all class abilities use magicka while all weapon skills (minus staves) use stamina. It gives you two resource pools to draw from.

Rescorla_sl · Feb 9, 2014

mkopec_sl said:
But that's exactly what Im arguing against. This is just another stale solo quest grind. And a bland one at that. Why? Because most of us here have been through this shit countless times in those games you described. In wow it was fresh, new, exciting. Now? 10 yrs later and 20 games since, its old stale and played out.

For me personally, group dungeons and raids are what I enjoy doing the most in MMOs. As someone with a wife, kids, and a full time job, the amount of time I have available to spend playing MMOs is limited. When I don't have enough time to run group dungeons or raids, the solo quest grind gives me something to do. Post WoW, the challenge for MMOs is to do something innovative so that the solo quest grind isn't mindnumbingly boring. That is how I judge whether I want to play a MMO or not.

Neki · Feb 9, 2014

Tuco · Feb 9, 2014

Rhinohelix_sl said:
It will definitely increase their interaction; I don't know about their socialization. When I grouped in WoW, waaay back in vanilla, very often there was almost nothing said for the entirety of the run.

Kirun · Feb 9, 2014

mkopec_sl said:
How bout putting in mechanisms that get people to play together? I played for roughly 10 hours, up to lv 11 and I did not see a single thing that got people to play together. Even did 2 noob social dungeons where everyone just ran around solo in. I got more interaction out of NPCs than I did from other players and this is just wrong in a MMO, sorry bro.

So, you want the game toforceyou to do something that you're too lazy/unwilling to do yourself? The whole crux of the issue is, you EQ die-hards are antisocial as fuck, so you want the game to try and force people to talk/play with you. There's literallynothingpreventing you from grouping up, being social, and playing with others. Instead, you people come in here and tout it as being thegame'sfault that you're too lazy to engage in those activities.

Cinge · Feb 10, 2014

Hey don't lump as all diehard EQ players together. I did EQ for 7 years and I understand how to be social without the game forcing me or others to.

Devnull_sl · Feb 10, 2014

Kirun_sl said:
The whole crux of the issue is, you EQ die-hards are antisocial as fuck, so you want the game to try and force people to talk/play with you. There's literallynothingpreventing you from grouping up, being social, and playing with others. Instead, you people come in here and tout it as being thegame'sfault that you're too lazy to engage in those activities.

I grouped the entire time I played TESO. I don't know why the hell you guys think people that want a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game to encourage multiplayer are antisocial and are the odd ones. What the fuck? It's not even about being social or forcing anyone to do anything, it's that designing 95% of the leveling content to be soloable makes it boring as FUCK. Even if you're grouped. And the accommodations a game has to make in order to enable that make it bland as fuck. Killing mobs you can solo in 3 seconds with a full party? Fun.

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