Rift: The Planes of Telara

[girth]

Originally Posted by Cyrius [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Everything gets handed to you

Originally Posted by Nakara [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you say this like it's a bad thing.

Explains a lot. Why are you playing EQ?

[Nakara]

i dont recall referencing myself in that whole 1 line of my post. i know its hard to read that much.

[Crone]

Originally Posted by Nakara [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

i dont recall referencing myself in that whole 1 line of my post. i know its hard to read that much.

So are you just playing devil's advocate, or do you actually support it? A certain level of poopsock is just fine.

The funny thing is, back in Classic, I was never part of a raiding guild. Though I played the entire time, I didn't raid until PoP. So I'd say, there was plenty to do in the game besides poopsocking raids.

Maybe the caliber of gamer is just higher these days, and can burn through content faster than they ever could before?

[Cyrius]

Originally Posted by Nakara [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you say this like it's a bad thing. the majority of people don't want to poopsock, they want to log in for a few minutes and actually be able to play.

LOL Camping a mob for hours is not a challange, even thou some people on this server may consider it that way. And yes, it is a bad thing that there is no challange.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Cyrius [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The real issue is, that games like WoW made MMOs juvenile. Everything gets handed to you more or less. So people got used to log in, click click click oh i am a half god yay!

So if you try something new where people would actualy have to think, and not follow glowing dots on your minimaps it gets too much for them. Californication! The red hot was right, its happening all over the world right now.

So I take it you're hardcore. In my book, hardcore players like hardcore features. No in-game map. Dangerous travel. No quest indicators. You have to manually talk to the non-players to get information and start quests. Death-penalty. Instant travel isn't free (something like ultima online). Etc. All of these features require more time from the player. And not all hardcore players will raid. Many of them prefer soloing/grouping. By and large, I consider myself hardcore because I like hardcore features. The difference between me and you is that I recognize I'm niche. I'm a minority. You don't. You think that this is some kind of conspiracy to dumb games down when in reality all this shows is that you're a minority. If you can stop pretending everyone else is like you, you might find some peace. That's how I got over it. I just accepted that I'm a minority.

Half of the battle is just accepting who you're. The rest of the battle is setting your expectations in a reasonable way. Over time I've become a little more mainstream, though. I have come to appreciate convenience features a heck of a lot more than I did 5 years ago. The difference is that now I understand that people have real lives and they can't be hooked to a computer when RL calls. MMORPGs need a pause button.

There's also a historical point that I should make. It has to do with preferences in RPGs. Something I think is important to see is how some people prefer questing over killing things. I refer to Black Isle Studios. They were involved a series of games. When they created these games that approached it from a quest versus combat perspective. For example, when they made Baldur's Gate I/II they did so with the expectation that it would be 50 quest and 50 combat. Contrastingly, when they made Icewind Dale I/II it was 75 combat 25 quest. Planescape: Torment was created with the goal that it would be 75 quest 25 combat. This idea of making a game based on quests or combat is easily seen elsewhere. In Diablo I/II, for instance, you see a game dominated by combat. In many of the latest MMORPGs, you see a game dominated by quest-lines and intermittent combat. In the first version of everquest, you see a game dominated by combat.

Whether the combat or the quests are interesting is another story (boring = grind). Doing quests one after the other can become a grind for me when I do it in groups because in groups I don't get immersed and don't enjoy the atmosphere and feel rushed. Grinding happens when we become bored and when what we do tends to be repetitive. When I start feeling like a grunt then everything is blurred and it necessarily becomes a grind. So it depends on interest levels. If you're doing something you don't find fun it will become a grind. Getting rid of grind is a matter of exploring yourself and playing the right game.

The idea that you must find out what game is best for you leads to a truth much more enlightening. That's that, historically, rpgs can be seen as quest heavy or combat heavy or a combination. And that a player needs to understand what they want out of a game. We should never assume that there's one game for all people. And that's the whole point behind my post(s) in this thread. There's a mainstream where you have an overall average that everyone agrees to, but there's a niche market for people who deviate. If you understand that people are different then you will understand that your disagreements do not have to be an end.

My point for you is that your disagreement with the mainstream does not have to be the end. It can be a moment where you realize a world of possibility. There're niche markets. There're numerous single player rpgs that you can mod and customize for yourself. There're small scale mmorpgs with many different flavors. You can use your disagreements to argue and complain and cause trouble or you can accept that you're different and find your cup of tea. It's inevitable that you will find your cup of tea, but you must learn who you're first.

As for me... lots of people have claimed Planescape: Torment is the best rpg ever made. They worship it. So I tried it and was disappointed because I didn't enjoy the quest heavy gameplay. I felt held back. I just wanted to grab an axe and chop everyones head off and take over the entire place and do everything my way and butcher everyone who feels differently. The game felt like a prison to me. I quit. Moral of the story is I don't think I like quest-heavy gameplay. I love killing sh**. I love to go out there without a compass and just raise hell. The other lesson is I don't think there's an rpg that can be the single best rpg for everyone.

[Cyrius]

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So I take it you're hardcore. In my book, hardcore players like hardcore features. No in-game map. Dangerous travel. No quest indicators. You have to manually talk to the non-players to get information and start quests. Death-penalty. Instant travel isn't free (something like ultima online). Etc. All of these features require more time from the player. And not all hardcore players will raid. Many of them prefer soloing/grouping. By and large, I consider myself hardcore because I like hardcore features. The difference between me and you is that I recognize I'm niche. I'm a minority. You don't. You think that this is some kind of conspiracy to dumb games down when in reality all this shows is that you're a minority. If you can stop pretending everyone else is like you, you might find some peace. That's how I got over it. I just accepted that I'm a minority.

Half of the battle is just accepting who you're.

No not necessarily, but i want to be able to get some challange if i choose to. If you want to play a ROLE PLAY GAME freaking role play and not let the computer do everything for you. Simple as that. And i do not need to pretend everyone else is like me, because i know they are not. Good for you if you are a miniority, but i require a game to challange me. That does not mean i need huge punishments or no ingame maps, it simply means i dont want everything handed to me. You could draw ingame maps once you explored that area maybe, or be able to set PoIs on your maps where you saw a NPC or a potential quest giver, there are so many freaking possibilities. But no, you get a minimap with flashing icons that show you exactly where you have to go, take you by the hand like a 10 year old to complete a quest. That is not my idea of fun, its stupifying.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Cyrius [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No not necessarily, but i want to be able to get some challange if i choose to. If you want to play a ROLE PLAY GAME freaking role play and not let the computer do everything for you. Simple as that. And i do not need to pretend everyone else is like me, because i know they are not. Good for you if you are a miniority, but i require a game to challange me. That does not mean i need huge punishments or no ingame maps, it simply means i dont want everything handed to me. You could draw ingame maps once you explored that area maybe, or be able to set PoIs on your maps where you saw a NPC or a potential quest giver, there are so many freaking possibilities. But no, you get a minimap with flashing icons that show you exactly where you have to go, take you by the hand like a 10 year old to complete a quest. That is not my idea of fun, its stupifying.

That's your opinion. I find doing quests over and over with groups to be stupifying. Believe it ir not, but some people think they shouldn't have to make the map or buy one. Some people would rather focus on the rest of the game. A lot of people don't enjoy cartography or map making or traveling blind or doing it with only a compass. It's like /follow in everquest. Most people like it, but some people think it's stupifying. An in-game map that has bells and whistles doesn't make someone dumb if they're using their mental resources elsewhere.

Me and you can sit here all day and talk about how cool games can be without everything in front of us. Without all of our buttons and icons and indicators and audio triggers. Should random maps have an in-game map or should it use fog of war or no in-game map at all? But it would all be for not because we're hardcore. What we like doesn't apply to mainstream. It's apples and oranges. It's a waste of time. Now, if we want to make our own game or we want to help make a niche game then it makes all the sense in the world.

Bottom line, most people want a game they can, literally, pause at any moment. A game where they can make measurable progress. A game that won't require them to compromise their RL to play. Many of these people have significant real-life commitments or they're married too. Some of them just don't have 20+ hours to devote to a game per week. There will always be exceptions, but I think that the MMORPG market as it's makes it pretty clear what most people want. That does not mean there can't be niches! That does not mean that a single guy working a 40 hour per week job can't play a game that demands more from him. Some people are fine with a game that demands their attention and if they leave for 1 min it'll get them killed. But most aren't.

[Aadill]

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's how I got over it. I just accepted that I'm a minority.

The game developers didn't want to cater to an audience that didn't speak up.. yeah, you end up being a minority when millions upon millions of people want to sign onto XBox Live and call each other faggots and play horrible quality rap music over their mics.

No one wants to create a good game when there's no one there to urge them on. Finding enough of a market for a niche game that's good enough to push the marketing/accounting department out the window and tell them to fuck the right off is next to impossible because everyone became complacent with crap.

Yeah, maybe hardcore gamers are a minority, but take a look at your words - inferiority complex springs to mind. "We don't matter" isn't what a young bright-eyed dev team wants to hear. Look at P99: You have people doing it for free because they love the idea of recreating something that was monumentally amazing. Even 10 years later we all log on to play this game whether we hate it or not, because it IS hardcore in comparison. A good portion would probably pay for it because Sony shit on everyone with their progression servers, and there isn't anything like this available on the market. A good thing came along and we've finally jumped on the bandwagon.

We have every reason to be disenfranchised - software publishing companies said to sit down when we complained, and we sat down. We lost the right to a share in the market of future video games when everyone stayed hunkered down in their parent's basement to beat Super Mario Bros 2 for the 10th time since they woke up.

[Messianic]

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

yeah, you end up being a minority when millions upon millions of people want to sign onto XBox Live and call each other faggots and play horrible quality rap music over their mics.

rofl


In my younger years when myself and a friend played Starcraft 1, we'd sometimes spend hours on end going into channels specifically to irritate people, yell at them, call them whatever cutting-edge online insults we knew, and make sure you never backed down or talked rationally - just focus on how stupid or unredeemable everyone else was.

I tend to see small survivals of that same experience in every single online game I play. I wonder if people ever get bored of assaulting other people by means of their internet connection :P

[Aadill]

Originally Posted by Messianic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In my younger years when myself and a friend played Starcraft 1, we'd sometimes spend hours on end going into channels specifically to irritate people, yell at them, call them whatever cutting-edge online insults we knew, and make sure you never backed down or talked rationally - just focus on how stupid or unredeemable everyone else was.

You son of a bitch, I remember you! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Just kidding, I never played Starcraft because I royally suck at RTS.