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Do the genre suck now or is it the players?

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
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Pathfinder: Wrath
Norfleet seems to really get it. He very well articulated what I've been thinking for years. You really need a game that attracts all kinds of players. As a killer I need prey.

Killers are a waste of everyone time and should be banned.

Look that the other 3 archtypes doesn't need killer to exist.

This here is what we call a carebear folks. The best kind of prey. Their butthurt is delicious when you kill them

Meh. When someone PvP gang me I just stand there and respawn. No need to run and fightback. I don't really care about playing PK-ers game anyhow.
 

Norfleet

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This here is what we call a carebear folks. The best kind of prey. Their butthurt is delicious when you kill them
While briefly amusing, their petulant whining tends to grow tiresome. In a a competitive environment, attacking one also leaves you open to attack yourself by someone who is waiting for the opportunity jump you the moment you blow your load on the sheeple.

Meh. When someone PvP gang me I just stand there and respawn. No need to run and fightback. I don't really care about playing PK-ers game anyhow.
This is a typical response from people who have become accustomed to consequence-free PvP. Not equipped to participate in it, nor at any real loss for not trying, they just take the free ride back to the respawn point.

This is also generally a sign that the PvP in the game is shallow and purposeless, and most of the serious Killer types have either left the game or become Auction House Guys.
 

Gerrard

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11,925
The best MMORPG I've ever played is Ragnarok Online which is insanely grindy Korean MMO.

What makes the game fun wasn't just the content (monsters design are cool, there are some lore if you want to dig for them, Guild vs Guild was fun), but what makes the game fun was the fact I was playing it with people I know in real life, that would talk together about the game.
Would it still be fun if you were playing alone or with strangers? If the answer is "No" then the game is actually shit.
 
Joined
Jul 4, 2014
Messages
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Socializers "are just there" or are casuals and ERPists, because the game has made all the people outside your immediate group completely irrelevant, so itdoesn't offer their "high level play".
Bit like how killers are domesticated and pushed into pvp arena playpens. Best still available activity fitting their archetype found in flipping the auction house.
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
Dark Eden was the best god damn mmorpg I've ever played. It was like a mix between Ultima Online, Arcanum and Diablo with 2 distinct factions of magical vampires and technologically advanced human with completely differen character development systems it was Very Cool.
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
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Pathfinder: Wrath
The best MMORPG I've ever played is Ragnarok Online which is insanely grindy Korean MMO.

What makes the game fun wasn't just the content (monsters design are cool, there are some lore if you want to dig for them, Guild vs Guild was fun), but what makes the game fun was the fact I was playing it with people I know in real life, that would talk together about the game.
Would it still be fun if you were playing alone or with strangers? If the answer is "No" then the game is actually shit.

My point is that, when playing MMO, it doesn't matter whether the game is good or not. What makes MMO a fun MMO is communities and social play. That's the appeal. Now a truly mechanically bad MMO will not have time to form that community in the first place, so it needs to be decent enough as a "hook."

The old games "lacks" a lot of QoL "single player" feature new MMOs have and thus force people to socialize and form communities. That's why its fun like playing with your friend is fun.

WoW Vannila/TBC get a lot of undue praise for WoW in general because of it. Its fun because it has good communities. With more and more people playing MMO for that sweet sweet number race, the communities aspect is reduced by the dev, and thus game becomes less fun.

That's why I also posted that if you play WoW Vanilla/TBC like you would play later expansions by replacing RDF with spamming LFG/or looking for group on chat then playing Vanilla/TBC would still feel like banal shits. On the other hand people who play BfA with communities are still having fun because of it.

Edit: and as far as I am concerned, I find Ragnarok to be more fun than WoW by wide margin based on mechanic alone. The game is unbalanced as all hell tho but classes are fun and play differently to each other. Builds exist not because devs shoehorned you through skill trees but instead through building stats and picking the right skills.
 

Metro

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Root cause is the evolution of players which led to the games sucking. Case-in-point why WoW Classic was a pale comparison of the original experience.
 

GhostCow

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This is a typical response from people who have become accustomed to consequence-free PvP. Not equipped to participate in it, nor at any real loss for not trying, they just take the free ride back to the respawn point.

This is also generally a sign that the PvP in the game is shallow and purposeless, and most of the serious Killer types have either left the game or become Auction House Guys.

Very true. Shadowbane was the last game to get this right. There needs to be consequences for dying in PvP. Preferably losing all of your loot if not your equipment too. The most fun I ever had in an MMORPG was stalking gold farmers, waiting for them to sit down, then backstabbing them for 4x damage and often getting an instant kill and a bunch of gold. Bonus fun if I had to start dodging their friends while they tried to dispell my invisibility. Picking people's pockets at the bank while trying not to get caught by player town guards was a ton of fun too.
 

Drakron

Arcane
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May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
There's an easy solution to this. Just have multiple servers.

...
You know ... I am not sure of your level of understanding so I am going to go over this.
MMOs run on sever FARMS! Capacity depends on their plan were no modern game runs on a single machine.

So now we got that out of the way, what we are calling "instances" is also known by other names, such as shards but people also call instances what are dungeons, those are capped and are a different subject.

If a server gets too populated then do a server split.
So as long we call instances servers its all fine and dandy, gotcha.

There are issues with that too but those issues are less shitty than the ones that come with instances.
Oh yes ... latency issues certainly are less "shitty" that being around 2k floating letters and numbers.


You might as well be playing a single player game or a 6 player coop game if you want instanced dungeons and shit.
And now we come to the crux of your problem, that is you have NO FUCKING IDEA what a instance is.
Yes, Dungeons are instanced because they are balanced usually towards two things ... one being classes so you dont end up with something retarded like 6 healers were there is a matchmaking system so it doesnt launch until there is a "balanced" party composition and levels because running a dungeon with mobs that cannot deal damage to you is of course broken. So why limit the number of players? because 20 people running a dungeon meant for 6 players will just completely curbstomp any challenge by virtue of numbers just like 2 people running would have serious issues doing so unless overleveled but then the mobs would be unable to actually damage then.

And I can talk from experience, Neverwinter used to allow people to single run dungeons and you could clear then solo if they were meant for lower levels and you were 20 levels above then without much risk and for the 20 people running the dungeon, back in the old days of WoW there was at least a "open dungeon" of sorts and the place was either overrun with players so you could do shit or nobody or nobody was there and it was just a field really ... I think there is a better example in Lineage II that had a open dungeon that good fucking luck without significant number of people being there as well since that was a proper one, I only know because I played L2 on a private server and I poked my head in and just nope, left.

Its a game and thus have to be balanced as otherwise you run into all sorts of problems, if you allow players to zerg a dungeon then the economy is going to be fucked up the ass simply by drops as well not offering any kind of challenge, likewise if its something that requires a lot of players to run and if nobody is around ... nobody is going to run it and it became known something that nobody runs because nobody is ever there.


MMORPGs to me should be about a living breathing world that everyone is in at the same time. If your computer is too shitty to handle a bunch of people on screen there are plenty of MMOs that cater to that. I don't see why there can't be at least one for us oldschool guys with good PCs.

Play BDO on max settings and do a world boss like Kzarka with 30 other players around ... then talk, and BDO instances can barely be called that, the only thing that is really instanced in the game is housing (since they are customizable) and even that I am not even sure as I seen people in their houses despite being in their "house".
 

Norfleet

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With more and more people playing MMO for that sweet sweet number race, the communities aspect is reduced by the dev, and thus game becomes less fun.
This is what happens when your game overcaters to and is overrun by the "Achiever" archetype.
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
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Pathfinder: Wrath
With more and more people playing MMO for that sweet sweet number race, the communities aspect is reduced by the dev, and thus game becomes less fun.
This is what happens when your game overcaters to and is overrun by the "Achiever" archetype.

Meh, I would argue that you can combine Achiever and Socializer and design a game around that. Vanilla and TBC was fine like that. You still gear up and get to see clear progression but you still need to socialize and have community to play the game. PvE only server is fine and more enjoyable even in Vanilla or TBC.
 

GhostCow

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MMOs run on sever FARMS! Capacity depends on their plan were no modern game runs on a single machine.

Yes I know that servers are run by multiple machines you fucktard. You aren't as smart as you think you are with this retard level comment. There's still a difference between having a bunch of instances of the same zone that people switch between and having separate servers. If I have to go into detail on that you truly are a dumbfuck but I'm going to assume you aren't that stupid and not get into a retarded game of semantics with you.

So as long we call instances servers its all fine and dandy, gotcha.

And now we come to the crux of your problem, that is you have NO FUCKING IDEA what a instance is.

Oops, shot myself in the foot with my above comment. I guess you are a dumbfuck that needs this explained to them. If players are separated into servers I don't have to check what instance of a zone I'm in and try to figure out how to get into the same one as my friends. That shit is gay and immersion breaking. That's the difference. Servers should only have one instance of each zone. Servers and instances are not the same thing. Maybe they are on a technical level but bringing that up just sounds like an arrogant attempt at sounding smart and only succeeds in making you sound like a retard who can't tell the difference in how it effects the players. Let's not get into a retarded semantics argument now that I've explained what I mean, ok? You should have been able to understand this without me explaining it to you but maybe you got into the genre too late to get what I meant. That or you just really wanted to try to sound smart and talk down to someone.

matchmaking system

Bro do you even EQ? How about UO? You sound like someone who's only played modern themepark MMOs. Matchingmaking systems shouldn't even fucking exist. That shit does not build communities. People just que up to do a dungeon, run through it, then never talk to those people again unless they happen to get thrown together by matchmaking again.

So why limit the number of players? because 20 people running a dungeon meant for 6 players will just completely curbstomp any challenge by virtue of numbers just like 2 people running would have serious issues doing so unless overleveled but then the mobs would be unable to actually damage then.

Only themepark MMOs make tiny 6 man dungeons with scripted events and shit. Those are brainlet tier games that have ruined the genre. This may be hard for you to understand if you didn't play any of the MMOs from the glory days before instancing and themepark bullshit. Non-themepark MMOs are supposed to be a simulation of a "real" world. Instanced dungeons are too "gamey". Back in the day there were no zones that would be crowded with just 20 people and if a zone did get overcrowded people would go somewhere else because they weren't getting any loot or xp.

And I can talk from experience, Neverwinter used to allow people to single run dungeons and you could clear then solo if they were meant for lower levels and you were 20 levels above then without much risk and for the 20 people running the dungeon.

What the fuck is wrong with that game that would encourage people to do that? Sounds like there was something else wrong with the design. No one did this in Everquest because you wouldn't get any xp if you were killing way lower level shit than yourself and low level dungeons didn't have any drops that a high level player would want. Not even for an alt. In some rare cases they might be camping a single mob but there were no hoards of high level players wiping out low level dungeons and leaving the noobs with nothing to kill.

back in the old days of WoW there was at least a "open dungeon" of sorts and the place was either overrun with players so you could do shit or nobody or nobody was there and it was just a field really

Yes, sometimes zones get full. Go somewhere else. There should be plenty of other places to go in a well designed world. A dungeon that doesn't have a lot of players in it shouldn't be "just a field". It should be full of mobs and terrifying. Anything else is bad dungeon design.


Its a game and thus have to be balanced as otherwise you run into all sorts of problems, if you allow players to zerg a dungeon then the economy is going to be fucked up the ass simply by drops as well not offering any kind of challenge, likewise if its something that requires a lot of players to run and if nobody is around ... nobody is going to run it and it became known something that nobody runs because nobody is ever there.

Loot inflation is not a problem if loot can't be dropped. This was basically solved decades ago. Or are you the type that gets butthurt if too many other people are able to get the same pixels as you? I'm not really sure what your complaint is here. Inflation of the actual currency should be taken care of by having plenty of things people want or need to buy from NPCs which will take the currency out of the economy. Sadly as far I as know no MMO has quite gotten this right but maybe if we get far enough into the future we'll have gained enough experience through trial and error to figure out how to tune this well. Alternatively you can go the Shadowbane route where loot isn't that important and there are no +10 swords of masturbation. You're thinking with a themepark PvE mindset here. You need to think outside the box.

Play BDO on max settings and do a world boss like Kzarka with 30 other players around ... then talk, and BDO instances can barely be called that, the only thing that is really instanced in the game is housing (since they are customizable) and even that I am not even sure as I seen people in their houses despite being in their "house".

I did EQ raids back in the day with upwards of 100 people and yes it can be a slideshow at times. I remember having to turn spell effects off and sometimes having to look at the ground to get through a zone. It was still way more fun than the small team scripted bullshit we get now and if you're trying to do huge raids with the graphics turned up past what your system can handle you're a retard. There's still a market for the old style of MMO. Look at how popular Project 1999 has been. The guys behind it would never admit it but they've probably made a ton of money from donations.
 
Last edited:

Drakron

Arcane
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Messages
6,326
Yes I know that servers are run by multiple machines you fucktard.

Then say stupid crap as "get more servers".

There's still a difference between having a bunch of instances of the same zone that people switch between and having separate servers.

BDO have instances but you dont move across then unless for some reason capacity is reached and you get booted out even if I think that only happened to me 1 or 2 due to heavy load as the server tried to move people across to prevent the entire thing to crash down.

And this is the problem, you are taking Cryptic Engine model were each zone have a cap limited and its entirely separated from the others and then you have TERA (not to use BDO again) that uses EU3 that connects areas without loading, I suspect there were some "loading" but you could move across maps without having to use the fast travel way.
Granted it been years now but I dont even recall TERA having instances outside dungeons.


If players are separated into servers I don't have to check what instance of a zone I'm in and try to figure out how to get into the same one as my friends.
Again, you are using Cryptic Engine model that is fairly limited and by servers you basically segregating players by server ... BDO used to have 3 "main servers" but merged due to the population being too spread out and this is a common occurrence with MMOs were after release and the tourists leave, they suddenly end up with "servers" that have a very diminished population to the point its a problem and thus they get merged, SEA usually gets fuck as they are thrown into the NA server if they had a regional one.
Even if I get what you are saying, the fact is instances seem to handle things better that separate servers as otherwise they would not merge servers.

That or you just really wanted to try to sound smart and talk down to someone.

Point being, instance exists for reasons and you trying to say the only MMO that should exist is one with no dungeons and just fields ... you completely willing ignore all the issues that come because even with a field if you create it with the idea there will be 1000 people there it will have too many mobs when there are only 100 people there and the opposite applies, too many people leads to not enough mobs and I am sure you going to go about PvP and fight for resources, I heard that in BDO as a excuse for the shitty XP-kill balance that existence in zones leading to everyone fucking go to the exact same zone with the others that were of the same levels being deserted due to shitty payout.

In the end you want a very specific type of MMO for you and your fellow minded friends but you are also saying that is the only type of MMO that should be made, one that ignores co-op and its just a "free for all PvP Grindfest" as anything else is "single player".

Also I want to point this out, if ... if they could do 100k concurrent players in the same instance I bet they would do that and advertise the crap out of it because thats impressive, they dont because simply they cannot handle so many connections, you said something about "shitty computers" but all your computer does is rendering, modern MMO dont made calculations on the client because thats open to abuse by cheats but server side so thats not the problem despite you trying to blame people from not having a i10 with a RTXS900Pi as if that matters, perhaps it matters more you live in a place with a shitty internet infrastructure like New York, instances are ways to handle the problems of having so many connections as well having to make every single calculation that matters because it cannot be done client side. Even so there would still be reasons to run instances for cases like Dungeons or Housing unless you think what happened with ArchAge housing (as that one wasnt instanced) is the right way to handle things.
 

GhostCow

Balanced Gamer
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Then say stupid crap as "get more servers".

If you can't figure out that the word sever in this context means a collection of computers shown to the player as a single instance of the world you are a fucking idiot. That's your problem and not a problem with the word I used. No else else would be retarded enough to get confused by this other than you. I'm guessing English isn't your first language? If so that's somewhat understandable but you should be less of an arrogant dick when you don't understand something if that's the case.

BDO have instances but you dont move across then unless for some reason capacity is reached and you get booted out even if I think that only happened to me 1 or 2 due to heavy load as the server tried to move people across to prevent the entire thing to crash down.

I haven't played BDO but that still sounds like shit. It sounds like it was an attempt to have every single player in the same "world" at once with automated splitting when needed. That just needlessly complicates things when it does have to split. Are you saying you got booted out of the area or into a different instance of the same area? Either way you don't have to deal with that when there are separate servers. I don't see any advantage to this way of doing things

And this is the problem, you are taking Cryptic Engine model were each zone have a cap limited and its entirely separated from the others and then you have TERA (not to use BDO again) that uses EU3 that connects areas without loading, I suspect there were some "loading" but you could move across maps without having to use the fast travel way.
Granted it been years now but I dont even recall TERA having instances outside dungeons.

I was more thinking of The Old Republic. In that game it just seems like you get randomly assigned an instance. I don't think there was any kind of cap. I also had the same issue with Age of Conan which I think is the first game where I ran into this shit. Aside from that I hate instancing because people should have to fight over hunting grounds instead of getting their own personal little instance. Dungeon or field. Especially in pvp games but the same goes for pve games too. You can't kill each other in a pve game but you can still bicker or move to a different area


Even if I get what you are saying, the fact is instances seem to handle things better that separate servers as otherwise they would not merge servers.

I don't see an issue with merging servers? What's the problem with that? I do agree that regional servers definitely should not be merged but I don't see a problem outside of that

Point being, instance exists for reasons and you trying to say the only MMO that should exist is one with no dungeons and just fields
Uh, no, I didn't say that at all. I just said dungeons shouldn't be instanced. I think you are thinking the word dungeon only applies to the scripted WoW type shit. There are many different types of dungeons. Go look at what dungeons were like in EQ or DaoC. They had room for plenty of people and were not instanced.

... you completely willing ignore all the issues that come because even with a field if you create it with the idea there will be 1000 people there it will have too many mobs when there are only 100 people there
There is no such thing as too many mobs if you have a crowd control class with you. Dungeons that don't have many players and are fully popped should be too dangerous for a single person or a group with a bad comp. This rarely happens anyway.

and the oposite applies, too many people leads to not enough mobs and I am sure you going to go about PvP and fight for resources, I heard that in BDO as a excuse for the shitty XP-kill balance that existence in zones leading to everyone fucking go to the exact same zone with the others that were of the same levels being deserted due to shitty payout.

I already addressed this but I'll say it again. If there are too many people go somewhere else! You aren't entitled to go anywhere you want to go at any time in an MMORPG! It's part of the player interaction! If the game doesn't have enough places to go it's a shit game. EverQuest had this problem too for people in their 30s. Everyone wanted to go to Castle Mistmoore because it had the best xp so it was always crowded. That wasn't a problem caused by not having instances. It was a problem caused by not having enough good places to go. They fucked up there. It could have easily been solved by having more areas with good xp for that level range.

In the end you want a very specific type of MMO for you and your fellow minded friends but you are also saying that is the only type of MMO that should be made, one that ignores co-op and its just a "free for all PvP Grindfest" as anything else is "single player".

Nowhere did I ever say that's the only type of mmo that should be made. It is however the only type of mmo that isn't being made as far as I can tell. We should have at least one. The shit we have now discourages co-op. Or it encourages co-op between a small group of people separated from the world at large.

Also I want to point this out, if ... if they could do 100k concurrent players in the same instance I bet they would do that and advertise the crap out of it because thats impressive, they dont because simply they cannot handle so many connections, you said something about "shitty computers" but all your computer does is rendering, modern MMO dont made calculations on the client because thats open to abuse by cheats but server side so thats not the problem despite you trying to blame people from not having a i10 with a RTXS900Pi as if that matters, perhaps it matters more you live in a place with a shitty internet infrastructure like New York, instances are ways to handle the problems of having so many connections as well having to make every single calculation that matters because it cannot be done client side. Even so there would still be reasons to run instances for cases like Dungeons or Housing unless you think what happened with ArchAge housing (as that one wasnt instanced) is the right way to handle things.

No one needs 100k people in a world. EverQuest servers generally had about 3k people on them at once and that was plenty. Zones could handle up to around 300 people before they could crash and that was also plenty. I'm fine with multiple servers of this size. The resources needed to make a world big enough for 100k people would be insane. No one expects that even if it was possible from a technical perspective. I mentioned shitty computers because the guy I was responding to was alluding to not having enough computing power to render a ton of players and mobs on his end. We weren't talking about server lag or anything like that there
 

Norfleet

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Meh, I would argue that you can combine Achiever and Socializer and design a game around that. Vanilla and TBC was fine like that. You still gear up and get to see clear progression but you still need to socialize and have community to play the game. PvE only server is fine and more enjoyable even in Vanilla or TBC.
You don't really design a game AROUND socializers, for the most part. Socializers treat the game as little more than a glorified chat room, and are essentially a bubble population that feeds almost entirely on itself, where the only things that really have a strong impact on socializers is the a superdominance of achievers which makes the game seem too game-fixated, or being murdered by killers. A game that overly caters to socializers will end up being seen as CASUALFILTH and become unappealing to more serious players of any variety.

Don't assume that "the presence of cooperative play" attracts socializers to any real degree. Cooperative play isn't a mark of socializers. Socializers don't PLAY the game much at all, they prefer to dress up their dolls and ERP. What they like are a large collection of emotes and costumes. You could attract socializers with nothing BUT these things. As far as the Socializers are concerned, MMORPG = "Many Men Online Role Playing Girls". Cooperative play does NOT attract socializers, and will often repel them, because Socializers don't really like to associate with anyone other than other Socializers, and none of these people are actually any good at playing the game, and frankly don't actually want to. They just want to dress up their dolls and ERP. Cooperative play and raiding is more for the more social subcliques of the Achiever and Killer stripes. Putting Socializers in cooperative content gets them screamed at for being terrible and incompetent players, and they don't like this.
 

whydoibother

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WoW+Subscriber+numbers+001+jim+younkin_b.png
All I'm seeing here is that WoW was at its biggest (12 millions subscribers) when it was declining the sharpest, with welfare epics, flying mounts to avoid world PvP, queues that teleport you straight into dungeons to empty the world, already dungeons were so braindead that you could go through them with randoms without saying anything but "hello" at the start and "thanks for the run" at the end (yes, heroics too). The items already were waaaaay higher level than the characters, and for a long time now your pants were more intelligent than your hero and your boots were stronger than the average naked orc. Every class had disable, and heal, and was self sufficient. Group quests were non-existent. Heirlooms trivialized leveling. There was a cash shop. The main city of each continent was the only place people hang out, and it was laggy near it.
Basically peak WoW was peak decline. Population doesn't mean shit.

As for the general direction of the genre, since WoW revealed that most people just want a 10-20 person multiplayer game, but they want the server menu to be a city where they can show off their gear (peak WoW was that), thats where games went. Destiny is that. Thats where MMORPGs are.
DOTA2, and Destiny, and World of Tanks, these are the games that steal players from WoW, not other MMORPGs. Thats where all the filler audience went. The actual core MMORPG audience, which is maybe 5 million people worldwide, is distributed among a few games, and they don't play WoW. Why would they play that?
 

Van-d-all

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Meh, I would argue that you can combine Achiever and Socializer and design a game around that. Vanilla and TBC was fine like that. You still gear up and get to see clear progression but you still need to socialize and have community to play the game. PvE only server is fine and more enjoyable even in Vanilla or TBC.
You don't really design a game AROUND socializers, for the most part. Socializers treat the game as little more than a glorified chat room, and are essentially a bubble population that feeds almost entirely on itself, where the only things that really have a strong impact on socializers is the a superdominance of achievers which makes the game seem too game-fixated, or being murdered by killers. A game that overly caters to socializers will end up being seen as CASUALFILTH and become unappealing to more serious players of any variety.

Don't assume that "the presence of cooperative play" attracts socializers to any real degree. Cooperative play isn't a mark of socializers. Socializers don't PLAY the game much at all, they prefer to dress up their dolls and ERP. What they like are a large collection of emotes and costumes. You could attract socializers with nothing BUT these things. As far as the Socializers are concerned, MMORPG = "Many Men Online Role Playing Girls". Cooperative play does NOT attract socializers, and will often repel them, because Socializers don't really like to associate with anyone other than other Socializers, and none of these people are actually any good at playing the game, and frankly don't actually want to. They just want to dress up their dolls and ERP. Cooperative play and raiding is more for the more social subcliques of the Achiever and Killer stripes. Putting Socializers in cooperative content gets them screamed at for being terrible and incompetent players, and they don't like this.
But as you noticed yourself, socializers are easy to attract. Virtually any game with good graphics can just add a huge range of customization, and get some sales just off that. While those players are mostly unobtrusive plankton, personally I think even they serve a purpose of livening up main game hubs. They are easily satisfied with simple graphic content, which from developer perspective is also preferable, because it can be sold to them on regular basis, and their server presence essentially serves as free advertisement to said content, as they will do everything to show it off.
 
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Norfleet

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But as you noticed yourself, socializers are easy to attract. Virtually any game with good graphics can just add a huge range of customization, and get some sales just off that.
True, but customization can be surprisingly labor-intensive to produce compared to gameplay content. To make Achiever-content, you just need to copy-paste stuff with bigger numbers. Killers more or less generate their own content, because they don't really give a damn about your gameworld or new stuff, they just want to murder people. Explorers can be both hard and easy to generate content for, since the average modern's game's shitty development practices generates plenty of content for us on their own! Few games today, however, can hold explorers on intentional content. But Socializers are going to require the full labor of 3D modellers and animators to produce for, and a world that they initially are drawn to live in before you achieve critical mass.

Of course, once you have them, they become self-sustaining, whereas every other group tends to require feeding. But Socializers have some of the largest initial hump to overcome. You can pull Achievers in without any preexisting players at all, they will happily play a single player game if your game's points-farming is interesting enough, and Killers and Explorers are generally possessed of pioneer spirit and often MORE attracted to an early game where there is initial advantage and uncharted territory. Socializers, though? Aren't interested unless there are already other socializers. Designing your game specifically for them is a recipe for ending up dead on the runway if you don't hit the ground running fast.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
making MMORPGs too easy makes them boring for casuals because they have nothing to work towards when everything is handed to them
casualization killed MMOs for casuals, well deserved
 

Norfleet

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Picking people's pockets at the bank while trying not to get caught by player town guards was a ton of fun too.
I remember in a game I had a hilarious counter to this particular thing. I would fill my inventory with explosive devices, that I would repeatedly disarm and then arm (in the process grinding my Splodes skill). Because these objects were the lightest and most dominant majority of my inventory, someone stealing from me would be most likely to get one of these.

If they realized that what they had obtained was live, they would be unable to disarm them because I had a much higher Splodes skill. Hilarity ensued.

I got some pretty sweet loot that way.
 

GhostCow

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Killers more or less generate their own content, because they don't really give a damn about your gameworld or new stuff, they just want to murder people.

Maybe I'm weird but I feel like this doesn't apply to me even though I'm definitely in the killer camp. I really need a fleshed out world and good pve to feel satisfied. Darkfall Online is a great example. It seems like they got almost everything right as far as pvp goes but the world felt incredibly dead and I was so bored I never could progress far enough to do pvp. Shadowbane did a lot better but even it was shit on the pve side and I only made it about 6 months into the game

I remember in a game I had a hilarious counter to this particular thing. I would fill my inventory with explosive devices, that I would repeatedly disarm and then arm (in the process grinding my Splodes skill). Because these objects were the lightest and most dominant majority of my inventory, someone stealing from me would be most likely to get one of these.

If they realized that what they had obtained was live, they would be unable to disarm them because I had a much higher Splodes skill. Hilarity ensued.

I got some pretty sweet loot that way.

This is one of the most devious things I've ever read and I love it!
 

KeighnMcDeath

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As tech gets crazier and more immersive, I wonder if MMOs will adapt. Just about all NPCs are lifeless husks in any genre; they are only as complicated as their text strings and actions provide (eventually you'll get bored of said npc and they'll blather the same text string like a robot). Maybe some day true learning ai will remedy this (and not just for mmos). If games become like fantasy toons (say sword art online like) i bet you'll still end up with games that have nearly no players. Market is flooded with so much entertainment. Seems like it wants to make casuals and die off in the mmo graveyard.

I enjoy exploring for the most part and some games that allowed it i would wander into some dangerous instant death by mobs just to see what was out there. PWI around 2006 or 08'sh was one of those crappy games i just preferred to wander and stay just out of reach or outrun/swim mobs. Sat at the bottom of that whirlpool and sunbathed on the lava. Seems you couldnt drown nor burn to death. Humans and their air sword sky boards doing tricks yeesh.

and fuckin pandas...
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
Just about all NPCs are lifeless husks in any genre; they are only as complicated as their text strings and actions provide.
There's already MMOs like SWTOR that have companions on the same tier as any singleplayer RPG with notable companions.
So, I don't see why not.
 

KeighnMcDeath

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Maybe i need to play more modern games. I can't stick to early 2k forever. (To be fair my dialup and cpu were shit).
 

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