Quote:
Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka
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actually WoW has plenty of raiding instances containing arcade elements.
And this is EXACTLY what majority of P99 player dislike the most in WoW - the need to move around and click things/jump through hoops etc - the majority here prefer casual and slow paced pull-tank-heal game [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] |
I know that's why I mentioned WoW in a couple posts in this thread. I'm aware that they have used the envrionment in some of their instances. But it's not at the level I'm talking about here. Most MMORPGs focus almost solely on killing monsters. What I'm saying is the RPG culture is a broad one and MMOs should branch out more so that gameplay is more diverse. We all know most anything can be turned into a game. That idea should be applied to this so that MMORPGs aren't just about killing monsters and getting better armor/weapons.
Combat is a traditional DnD kind of thing. It hails back to the roots of RPGs. No RPG can come out without combat and claim itself to be traditional in anyway. I just want to see more branching out.
A post in this thread linked this:
http://www.eldergame.com/2010/09/bei...e-conventions/
... That link refers to "abstraction."
I address it somewhat here:
http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...93&postcount=5
Traditionally, most everything is abstracted while combat is not (as much). If a game is going to be more diverse it will have to probably abstract combat a bit more than is commonly the case. This allows the developers to add more detail to other things so that they can keep us interested. So what comes out of this is a gameplay that has you doing different things with just the right amount of abstractness to them.
You can see this in all sorts of games. Ship games add more detail to ship combat, while taking away from other things. Melee/magic games will have lots of detail in close combat, generally, while they'll abstract ship-based combat a great deal by comparison. Games cannot do everything.
You can't give everything detail because it requires time and money to develop the mechanics and the risk/reward and to debug and so on. You have to pick and choose. Can't have it all. Additionally, players can't do everything either. They have to pick something to focus on. Most players like combat (at the moment).
Something similar can be seen in different types of RPGs. They have to juggle detail. For example, in text-based RPGs, you saw a lot of detail in skills and mechanics. I think tbe real reason this is the case is not because they're hardcore or old-fashioned. Rather it's because they don't have to worry about 3d models or 3d environments or even graphics (for that matter). You'd be surprised how expensive and time consuming it's to create 3d worlds, as opposed to text-based worlds.
Not to say that creating text-based worlds is easy.
Changing technology can also change how things are weighted in games. For instance, eventually we will have non-players that we can speak to through voice or typing. Not because players will change and think that's fun, but because improving software will allow it to happen. On the other hand, attitudes towards this kind of gameplay might change once the technology is able to produce smooth and seamless communication. No more will non-players act like scripts and disappoint us. What do I mean by all of this? Well look at exhibit A: text-based MUDs. Gamers played them a lot in hte 1980's. Does this mean they didn't prefer 3d MMORPGs? Of course not. 3d MMORPGs didn't even exist yet because the processing and software demands were not being met. It just means that the technology couldn't produce acceptable 3d worlds, so players weren't interested. Similarly, being able to produce acceptable natural language in player to non-player voice/text communications might open some new doors that were previously closed tight due (in part) to deficiencies.
One day, players will EXPECT non-players to act smart. A non-player that acts as it does today, maybe 20 years from now, would be seen in the same way that we see text-based worlds; disapprovingly.
Although I have to say that some of the "natural" language parsing in text-based muds is markedly better than in modern MMORPGs. This is mostly because the interface is text-based and functional communication is necessary. But it's still far, far from being smooth and seamless. And even if I could talk to a non-player in a natural sort of way, if it has nothing to say or add or has no opinions or memories then it's boring.
I'm straying off topic here. I started with abstraction and ended with (the physics of) how you pick what to abstract. What to abstract is limited by time and money and influenced by technology and the type of game. Whether something is fun or not is too subjective since I think ti's fun to look at numbers. There's a lot of things that I think are fun and that most others don't. So I'm trying to objectively figure out what abstraction is.