The most insidious message of class-based sociality, whether it’s MMO design or classist notions in “real life”, is that people only are, and can only ever be, what someone else has pigeonholed them into being, or what they chose to be once upon a time, long ago. Once you’re labeled, your entire raison d’être is defined, your fate sealed. There is no learning, no evolution, no enlightenment. Only a dammed populace, stuck in ways of thinking and action that were determined long ago.
If, on the other hand, everyone is self-sufficient, capable of stepping up and doing whatever needs doing, social interaction changes. Old roles might be seen for the blindered workhorses they are. Communities that are self-sufficient need not lean on imports to survive. Countries that build their own abilities and resources need not pander to external agendas, slave to those who do not have their best interests at heart.
It’s no accident that airlines demand that you put your own oxygen mask on before helping others in the case of an accident. If you are incapacitated, you are of no help to anyone.
So why do we accept being pigeonholed and crippled in MMOs? Why do we accept a single role in the abstracted sociality present in group combat? Why are we content to be the Best Darn Widgetmaker In The Plant, when we have the potential to be so much more as players? When presented with the option, why do players embrace hybrid class design?
I posit that it is against our nature as beings of aspiration and potential to merely settle for mediocrity and mundanity, ever doing the same thing, never improving our varied talents or exploring other interests. To be sure, gaming isn’t the epitome of human expression or progress, but it really shouldn’t be a surprise when some people want to do a little more in their entertainment than color inside the lines.
It’s no accident that I have played with other players more in Puzzle Pirates than I ever have in all other MMOs combined, forced grouping or otherwise. PP lets me step up and play in any capacity that the ship or economy needs. There are social structures and game mechanics that prevent me from taking the helm whenever I please on someone else’s ship, but I have unprecedented agency to fill whatever station I choose, if it’s available. I’m limited by my own skills as a player (and perhaps a C.O. who doesn’t want me moving around), not my avatar’s level, gear or class.
I can solo my own ship with the help of a few NPC swabbies, or bring on other players who can then fill whatever role they feel like. I don’t need to spam a chat channel looking for a Carpenter class. I can take anyone on board who is willing to make an honest effort and do their best.
That is more social than any class-based trinity MMO could ever be, and it’s all because I have more options, and can choose how I approach the game. When I have the choice to be social or not, but still make all the progress I care to, I have a tendency to be more social. When I’m forced to group up to progress through the game, I kick against the impositions from on high, the ivory tower design ethos, the mandate that “MMO means playing together, noob!”
When I can do anything that the game might need, anything that the group might need, I’m far more willing and able to step up to the plate and actually play with a group. When I’m self-sufficient, I’m more social.
Why do people choose to play only one musical instrument in an orchestra instead of several? Or speak only one foreign language instead of five?
Maybe some people just enjoy specialising, or only have an interest in one role.
Maybe … the big problem with roles in MMOs is that they just aren’t deep enough to make specialise vs generalise a good choice. So if you lose nothing by generalising, there’s absolutely no reason not to do it. (I’m not really complaining because it suits my play style also.)
But just as you say your style helps you socialise, I have found in the past that playing a rare but needed group class has helped me to make friends quickly. When people you don’t even know message you across half a zone to invite you to a group, you get to meet a lot of people.
all this hate toward specialization (read: the holy trinity) is getting really old… there is a reason why we specialize in the real world… you don’t see 5 people working at a widget factory all making a widget from start to finish… you see each person specializing in one part of the process and the widget being passed from one person to the next… specialization is the most efficient way to accomplish a task… and guess what, games are about winning (sorry mom, but the “it’s just to have fun” line is a bunch of BS… take the win condition out of any sport and see how many people continue to play/watch it).. as long as the goal of a process is to win, then people will find the most effective way to win… which is pretty much always specialization.
and i don’t really buy how self-sufficiency makes you more social… by definition self-sufficiency means you DON’T NEED ANYONE ELSE…. so how does not needing anyone else make you more social?… the only way it can make you social is if you are FORCED to be social by some arbitrary group mechanic (such as needing a certain number of bodies to man a ship)… you seem to be against forced grouping, yet that is exactly what is required to get you into social situations if everyone is self-sufficient…
maybe you’re just an outlier… but most people pursue their own self interest, and if there isn’t a benefit to inviting another player onto your ship, then most people won’t do it… if there is a benefit to bringing another player on board, then guess what… you weren’t self sufficient in the first place!
the only other reason to bring someone else on board is if they are already a friend, but since you don’t really need to interact with other players, how do you form these friendships in the first place?
you seem to think that human beings tend toward socialization automatically, without any incentive to do so. but that is simply not true… go to any bar and look around, it’s a bunch of smaller groups of friends doing their own thing, how do you think those friends came together?… they came together because at some point along the line they were put in a situation where they looked at each other and saw a mutual benefit in creating a relationship… basically, specialization… the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
there is a reason for specialization, it’s possible to explore varying levels of specialization, but you’re just kidding yourself if you think it can just be thrown out all together.
Spinks, regarding being a crucial role in a group, the difference I see is that a generalist design means you can bring the player, not the role. It’s coming at socialization from a different direction. Both can work, but they tend to function a little differently and produce different results. Puzzle Pirates friendships tend to be more about the person/persona (which can be different things), based more in socializing than in game mechanics like filling a tank role. The choice between the two is merely one of taste, and certainly, both can be very social.
Logan, you might want to read again. You seem to have missed a few points, or misread by thinking I share some underlying assumptions with you. I do not. Playing is not always to win, and assuming so colors the rest of your assertions. Also, playing is not work, so efficiency is not relevant to all players. To some, yes, MMO gaming is about “winning”, but may I suggest that to such, MMOs really aren’t the best games? They are by nature unwinnable, and you can only measure yourself against others with some fuzzy yardsticks. Something like a Street Fighter tournament might be a better place to take the Sirlin attitude.
Beyond that, remember that I’m also talking about flexibility, not just generalization. If combat maintains the holy trinity (because it still *works*), you still can have flexibility by allowing any player to *change roles* within the trinity at a whim. The roles themselves can still be specialized, but the players need not be. Of course they can be, if they so choose, but if the system itself doesn’t allow flexibility, the choice doesn’t go the other way. In other words, players cannot be flexible or generalists if the game doesn’t allow it, but players can still specialize in a flexible generalist system.
Can of worms post here, Tesh.
I can see both sides.
On the one had I’ve always been interested in mixing up my play experiences. I’d rather play a Druid than a Rogue and am inclined to develop all 4 playstyles to have a look at them.
On the other hand being one of the top armoursmiths on my SWG server was awesome and it only worked because armoursmith was a hardcore brutal grind that very few people stuck. In that game a master craftsman stood out because so few people became one (at least early on).
I think the truth is that the game design issues are more complex than your summary, in fact so complex that each needs to be looked at on its own merits.
WoW is a very well designed trinity system, it really was a lot better than most of what came before. It supports both specialisation and hybriding very well and over time they’ve adjusted the game to increase this aspect (eg dual specs).
Eve (and from the sounds of it Puzzle Pirates too) is great because everyone can be any role simply by swapping a ship. It’s also not number limited which is another big part of this. If a player turning up simply means you have a little more effectiveness it’s great and any role of player
is valued. If you can only take a team of 5 then there is a point at which a role is full and players of a certain role, or who lack hybrid flexibility are valueless.
maybe if instead of calling it self-sufficiency you instead phrased it as flexibility, it would make your argument a lot stronger… but what you’re talking about is most definitely not self-sufficiency, you’re talking about the flexibility to SPECIALIZE to fit any specific group need…. big difference.
if you don’t believe that winning is the point of the game, then you’re right, you and i just won’t ever see eye to eye… but you obviously do see winning as important or you would never ever play a game in your life… MMOs might not be singly winnable, but they have a ton of smaller win/lose conditions all strung together… do you defeat this NPC or do you die?.. do you complete this quest or do you fail?… do you win this BG or do you lose?.. do you clear the instance or do you wipe and quit?… there are a TON of win conditions in MMOs… and they are VERY important… without them there would be NO game… think about it… how would you make a game with no win/lose conditions?… you can’t, because win/lose conditions are what DEFINE A GAME. (sometimes they just aren’t obvious)
also, thinking that efficiency is only important in “work” is just silly… i could try and explain why but you’d just come back with “well winning doesn’t matter so why should i care about being efficient”… so there’s no point in going there… but i’ll try anyway…
basically if you value your time, then you’ll use it efficiently.. yes, even in gaming… if you don’t value your time, then you’re a strange specimen indeed and i don’t know what else to say.
flexibility to specialize how you see fit is perfectly fine, and i agree with you on that point, but you need to state it correctly… the whole self-sufficiency stuff just threw me off i guess.
I agree with Spinks here: different people want different things. What you might want isn’t universal.
Truth is, a lot of people want heavy guidance. One of the big complaints about M59′s rather flexible system was that people were afraid of messing up. In a class-based system where a large part of your character is defined by the class, you don’t feel bad because you can be as crippled or as powerful as anyone else picking that class. A problem with the class gets a whole group of people agitated and ready to declare war on the forums.
You can see this with the popularity of themepark type MMOs. The main complaint by opponents of the style is that themeparks take you by the hand and lead you around to see the sights and ride the rides. Again, some people enjoy that aspect, and an open world is seen as a place to get lost in, not as a place of delight and wonder.
As for the whole solo vs. group thing, I’ve given my arguments many times before.
tl;dr version of the self-sufficiency argument: When I don’t *need* other people, I play with them because I want to. That mindset is the crucial difference. When I’m forced to socialize, if I don’t care to at the moment, but must because the game requires it, I’m not going to like it, or the people I’ve been imposed upon. More likely, I just quit the game. But yes, I’m an outlier. If you don’t know that by now, well, welcome to the site.
As to the theme park/direction angle, I’ll mention again that it’s possible to make a game with freeform design and layer constraints on it. That’s the whole point of my autopilot character development article from ages ago. If you’re working just on the rails, though, and someone wants to go off of them, they are out of luck. The former design is inclusive, the latter is exclusive.
Dev constraints being what they are, though, it’s understandable that the rails would be easier to develop. So it goes.
It could be argued that part of WoW’s success is that you *can* solo to 80, and do a lot of things by yourself. Even if you’re not playing to win, but just being one of Gevlon’s epithetic “socials”. It’s less of a game to be won, more of a hangout to play in. Flexibility and self sufficiency are important to creating that feeling. Layering constraints on a hangout may be great to create the exclusive country club community. If that’s the sort of game you want to make or play, that’s fine, I’m just not interested in it.
Of course, it’s also important to give goals to those who want to “win” the game to keep the Achievers and Killers in the game. To each their own, after all. I’m stating my piece, and what works for me. MMOs aren’t really the place for me either, in the balance.
I find Logan’s position rather dire.
“you seem to be against forced grouping, yet that is exactly what is required to get you into social situations if everyone is self-sufficient…”
Or maybe I’d group with people because….I like them? Rather than need them?
The only hurdle is finding out if you like other people – and it’d be nothing new in programming terms to compare what each player likes, like similar tastes in music and movies, etc, then the LFG groups them with people they might actually like for their own sake, rather than just as a way of getting purples.
I agree with you Tesh – generalising will help socialising because people will group because they like the other person. But I think some method of finding players who have similar interests would also need to be put in. Would you disagree?
Sorry, I’ll add a bit more – when I played guild wars, I never grouped with any one else. I always used henchmen.
I’m sure many people go ‘HA! See! Take away the henchmen and force him to group if he wants to play the game at all! THAT’s how you enable socialising!’
Or you could enter some question on what music, movies, books, TV shows you like and it’d find people with similar tastes.
But that’d be crazy – no, socialising is about cramming random people with likely nothing in common together, not because they enjoy each others company but because content they’ve paid for is cut off from them if they don’t.
In guild wars most people I saw in chat seemed…not people I’d like. I’m sure some were out there, but I had no tools to find them.
Guild Wars had the most godawful offputting chat channels of any game I have ever played. Certainly after having hung out in one of the cities, I had no desire to talk to any of the guys, let alone invite them to group with me. The fact I didn’t need to was icing on the cake.
But I didn’t find it a sociable game.
I always liked your take on grouping: I should group with people because I like to, not because there is no other way to get things necessary for my personal gain/progress. This makes grouping in fact rather anti-social…
I also played Guild Wars and it is true, I dumped over 90% of the players or did not bother to play with them all right from the start.
But despite there being no incentives to group and later hero-npcs becoming so good that they were better than the average PUG player, I met very good friends in this game with whom I am still in contact long after most of us don’t play GW much or at all anymore.
Guild Wars is a fine example how people like to narrow people down to things their classes are SUPPOSED to do.
My buddy Paku was supposed to suck, because he was a ranger. The class sucks by default, at least this was the early take on rangers and common knowledge in GW. He was “tanking” with evasive stances, and it worked wonderfully. He was also dazing and interrupting mobs at the same time.
Necromancers… had to be Minion Masters, because Blood and Curses sucked. So said common knowledge. Spiteful Spirit and Mark of Pain on the other hand were ideal to wipe out large groups of mobs and, especially in the case of Mark of Pain, the skill did not change at all for ages. While other GW skills got changed considerably. So this skill was apparently awesome right from the start. But people did not recognize it.
Why did I tell this anecdote? It shows that people are extremely eager to pidgeonhole whole classes and players! And this in a game with a very very open skill system and tons of possibilities. There is no best build, there are some builds that are very good and useful for most areas, but ideally you change your skills/build in Guild Wars according to the area.
On the one hand, people want easy archetypes – but at the same time, they want to be everything. TRIPLE SPEC says hello?
Regarding Dual Speces, think some more about it. The only thing that makes sense would be to allow free respeccing in town or at least near some specialized NPCs. Guild Wars has it a bit easier with the 8 skills limit, but has an even larger pool of skills to chose from.
* not being able to play with a buddy because his “role” is not needed or another one is needed is a downer! *
So yeah, I wholeheartedly agree to the idea that flexibility would allow for true socialization. Not for socialization based on the need for a guy playing a certain part needed for the group to work, no matter what jackass he is. This is why tanks and healers get away with being primadonnas, because they are needed, not because people would like to enjoy their egos.
Psychochild is right, people really WANT this heavy guidance and getting pidgeonholed. And once they learnt the ropes, they want to be everything.
Why were dual specs actually implemented? Because people wanted to tank or heal in instances and to deal damage in daily questing as well. Because it was unfair to be the most sought after part for dungeon groups but killing mobs 30%-50% slower than a dps class.
So yeah, dual specs are there that players can switch between roles, to make it easier to form the common trinity.
Now one wonders why it should not be the PLAYER that should be tanking, not the CLASS/SPEC that is a good tank by default because it is that, simply being better at tanking.
I also wonder how anyone can think of forced grouping as a good way to encourage/create “socialization”. Sure, it creates contact between people. Like putting two cats of opposite gender into a room, they might start mating.
I am playing Star Trek Online at the moment. 90% of the guys I know disable the “open teaming”, which puts people doing the same mission into the same instance/team automatically.
Are we all sociopaths because we do not play with every random person?
I would say rather the opposite, I have friend-listed and played with people after talking to them, or because I already knew them at least somewhat. I did not do it because I got an achievements or some special rewards for it or because I needed them. I did it because I enjoyed playing with them, what an odd concept.
“The only hurdle is finding out if you like other people – and it’d be nothing new in programming terms to compare what each player likes, like similar tastes in music and movies, etc, then the LFG groups them with people they might actually like for their own sake, rather than just as a way of getting purples.”
so you basically want facebook where you can list all your interests and hobbies and values and then compare them to other users to see who you might be compatible with?… actually that sounds more like a dating site and less like facebook the more i think about it…
are you really going to play a game where the first thing it asks you to do is fill out a survey with all your personal interests, movies, music, books, sexual orientation, political preferences, religious views, the kind of car you drive, etc:… ?
i dunno about you but that seems a little odd for a game to be doing that… and i bet a lot of people would either lie, or just skip it anyway… so what’s the point?
if you want to be matched up with like-minded people, use a dating site… or better yet, go take part in the activities you enjoy and you’ll randomly meet other people who enjoy the same activity… oh wait, isn’t gaming an activity you enjoy?.. don’t you partake in an MMO with other players who also enjoy MMO’s?.. so what’s so bad about randomly meeting people in game?… it’s just like real life, and in real life not everyone is going to be your best friend, you’re going to come across some real asshats… it’s the same in-game… you seem to be afraid of grouping with anyone you don’t already know… but i’d guarantee those people you already know (that you don’t know IRL) you have met because of some reason in-game to interact.
some of the best friends i’ve made in game were just from random groups, or BGs, or party quests, or just from asking a question in general chat and getting a polite and intelligent answer…. but i never would have met anyone if there wasn’t a REASON to engage in those activities with other players… i might as well have been playing a single player game, or better yet, the new super mario bros for the wii with a small group of friends…. without a reason to group, most people won’t do it… some will, but i’d bet they’re in the minority.
and don’t mistake grouping for the only reason to interact, if you’ve ever asked a question in general chat, then there was a reason to interact, if you’ve ever sold an item in the trade channel, then that was a reason to interact, there are a ton of reasons to interact, not just grouping, you just have to think a little deeper… in any game there are many important win/lose conditions… and in a good MMO, there are also many important reasons to interact…
think about the first time you met your in-game friends… you didn’t just send them a random /tell and say “hey, do you wanna be my friend?”… there was some other reason for interacting… without that reason, you never would have met them… how would you know if you like someone unless you have a reason to interact with them?
also don’t forget that you DO have something in common with everyone else playing an MMO… you’re playing the same MMO for crying out loud lol… expecting more than that is just silly.
it’s like me going to a Flogging Molly concert and only being willing to talk to people with the same political and religous views as me… it’s just silly… simply the fact that every person there likes Flogging Molly is enough of a reason to strike up a conversation and find out how much else we have in common… it’s the same with games… the fact that you’re playing the same game should be enough of a reason to want to meet other players, you shouldn’t also need a matching system so that you only meet people who like the same music, movies, books, TV shows, etc:… and even that matching system doesn’t mean you’re much less likely to get grouped with an asshat… and quite frankly the more diverse the people i meet, the more interesting and stimulating the experience… i wouldn’t want to meet carbon copies of myself even if they did exist.
sorry, that’s a lot of rambling… basically i just think that most players are jaded because they made friends in older games that REQUIRED SOCIALIZING to achieve goals in the game, and now they feel like they don’t need to make any new friends and that everyone they meet is an asshat so they just want to play by themselves or with friends they’ve already met, likely because of the forced socializing in the first place.
Logan, there are a number of my own sensibilities you are dismissing or handwaving off as unimportant. Which normally I’d say is fine – not everyone in the world has to nuture things I find important. But then you want us forced into each others company if we play game X.
What are we gunna do? Do you want to walk all over my sensibilities but tell me your not walking on them even when I say you are? Are you gunna let me jam my sensibilities down your throat?
The irony is your dismissing what’s important to me as the very way of proving we are somehow compatable to play together.
@Callan… i’m honestly not sure what you’re talking about. what sensibilities have i been ignoring? instead of talking in vague generalities and completely ignoring the points i’m trying to make, why don’t you try and refute the actual argument and add something to the discussion.
here are my points, just to sum things up…
1. winning is important… whether you like it or not, every game is made up of a series of win/lose conditions, if the game is well made, it’s possible to have fun even while losing, but it doesn’t change the fact that in order to have a game, the win/lose conditions must be present and without those conditions, the game falls apart… or more precisely, you have no game at all. (or at least a very lame one).
2. in MMOs there are many, many reasons to socialize, not just forced grouping (notice i never said forced grouping is the only reason players interact.. all i’ve said is that you need SOME reason to interact, that reason can come in many flavors, but it’s still present, you just have to look for it.).. if you take out the reasons to socialize, then most players simply won’t socialize…
think about it, can you honestly tell me that you would walk up to a random player standing around in the game world and say “hey, how are you? i’m Callan and i’d like to be your friend.”… if you’re the kind of persona that does that, then you are indeed a special social butterfly.
if everyone is self-sufficient, then that takes away a large reason to socialize, you obviously don’t need them for quests, dungeons, etc… but you also don’t need them for trading, crafting, asking questions about game mechanics, etc:… which leaves you with very few reasons to interact with others at all, unless you’re that special social butterfly.
basically i’m trying to say that in order to have a good social game the players must rely on each other… if everyone is self sufficient then there is no reason to rely on each other and therefor little reason to socialize.
what makes MMOs special is that you and your buddies get together and go out into a virtual world and try and take on challenges together with the hopes of coming out victorious… if you take out the win condition, then you’re left with a lame ass game… if you take out the reasons to interact, then you never make any friends, and you end up with basically a single player game. (unless you’re one of those rare and special social butterflies)
does this make sense or does it seem like i’m speaking another language?.. i’m not so good at explaining things, which is why i normally just read blogs and don’t post… but there were just too many blatant errors in logic in this post that i had to say something.
Logan, the logic “fails” because you’re arguing from the wrong premises. You’re not using the same core assumptions that I am, so your logic will naturally take you somewhere else.
i’m not sure what these core assumptions are that you’re talking about (more vagueness)… but i’m assuming they are the exact assumptions i’m refuting in the 2 points listed above.
i know this is your blog and all… but saying that we use different assumptions, without explaining what your assumptions are or why they are correct doesn’t really help advance your argument… you sound like a kid who knows he’s wrong, but is stubbornly holding onto the “well i guess we’ll just agree to disagree” mantra.
i’m trying to explain why your assumptions are wrong, and instead of defending your assumptions you are simply saying that our assumptions are different… which obviously they are, but if you can’t explain why your assumptions are correct, and mine are wrong, then doesn’t that make you think twice about the assumptions you currently hold?
then again, maybe i’m totally off base and you’re talking about something completely different.
Logan, you’re stubbornly clinging to the notion that playing is always about winning, and that people must be given external reasons to socialize (with the concurrent assumption that it’s a game dev’s job to make people socialize). If you can’t understand that those are matters of opinion, and that I do not share those opinions, there is no way you’re going to use the right logical steps to see what we’re getting at here. You’ve not refuted anything, you’ve asserted your mindset and tried to declare that anything different is incorrect.
*That* is faulty logic.
“When I’m self-sufficient, I’m more social.”
Whilst I totally admire your stance, and share it completely, it’s been my experience that most gamers don’t act this way. It seems to me that most people just want to get through content as quickly as possible in order to reach the final goal.
I know that’s a very cynical and depressing statement but it just seems to be the way things are going these days. It’s all about collecting stats, coming top in metrics and being the best and not just about good old fashioned fun with your friends.
It frustrates me to the point that I think we almost need to design games to force people to socialise to make them have fun
so indeed those are the assumptions i’ve addressed… yet you still haven’t proven that your assumptions are correct.. or even proven that mine are wrong… you’re saying that i’m wrong without any reasoning other than your own personal opinion… (isn’t that the same thing you’re accusing me of?… but if you re-read my posts you’ll see that i actually do invoke a lot of logic, it just seems lost on you since you’ve just ignored everything and continued to cling to your own opinion)
let me restate this again… slowly, 1 step at a time…
step #1 : Winning is important.
“think about it… how would you make a game with no win/lose conditions?”… let me just add to the end of that “… that people would like to play.”
answer me this question, then tell me that winning is not important…. this is not an “opinion” it is a fact, which you will find out as you try and come up with an answer…
if winning truly means nothing to you, then you would never have any inkling to play any game whatsoever… the fact that you DO play games, proves that you do indeed find winning to be important, you just can’t admit it to yourself… i’m not sure what about this is illogical… am i the only one that can follow this train of thought?
once someone has answered this question i’ll move on to the other point.
Logan, the difference here is that I’m presenting an opinion on how I play, and suggesting that I be noted by devs, precisely because it’s not the mainstream. You’re just telling me I’m playing wrong because I don’t play for the same reasons you do.
Further trolling will be deleted.
Gordon, not everyone considers socializing to be fun, *especially* when forced. Devs need to provide tools, not mandate actions. MMO design is part social engineering, sure, but successful MMOs enable, rather than constrict. It’s really no business of theirs, telling players they are socializing (or not) incorrectly, or that they are wrong to do so (or not, as the case may be).
Again, MMOs, more than any other genre, support a great many motivations to play. Channeling players through dev-conceived notions of what “MMO really means” is just cutting off those players who might play otherwise, for better or worse.
Perhaps at the core of the issue is the DIKU lineage. If there’s always an “endgame” to reach and better gear to preen over, there will be those who think that’s the *only* point of the game. If, instead, the point of the game is to explore and interact with the world and other players, completely regardless of the rewards, you’ll wind up with a different clientele.
A couple of other players for whom even WoW isn’t all about “winning”:
Cap’n John talks about exploration
Wolfshead talks about immersion
Neither of which have anything to do with trying to win anything. Playing isn’t always about winning. It is often, to be sure, but especially with social games, often, winning is more about contention than cooperation, and runs contrary to any dev ideals about players playing nice together.
Yes, it’s trolling when you extend an argument to try to tell someone else their opinion is wrong. -Tesh
I’m wondering if the premise of the post looked like it said ‘all mmorpgs must be like this’ and Logan was then pushing to see why his prefered format should be taken away and replaced with something else. Or maybe I’m being a softie trying to see the other guys side even when he’s being a bit grating. Also I sympathise with the winning aspect – I played wow to win the only real challenge it seemed to present – hit top level. I actually burnt out and failed on one attempt, only to try again latter. Of course my top level is not any more, but back then it was and that’s what seemed to matter then.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with playing WoW to win. I do think that winning is defined differently by different people, and assuming everyone plays the same way is dangerous, but that’s tangential. Logan’s issue isn’t advocating that perfectly valid playstyle, it’s telling others that they are playing the wrong way and being rather combative and arrogant about it. As I note in my About page, I certainly don’t mind other points of view being espoused. Spinks and Brian clearly have their own take on this, dissenting views I welcome.
I simply will not abide trolling.
Well, I think if a game is actually designed for a specific playstyle and you play it another way, you are actually playing it wrong.
But despite wow having many itty bitty win conditions sprinked through it, I don’t think it’s designed around play to win, sadly (as I like play to win). Though that’s conjecture on my part – actually asking the developers would answer that. Assuming they give an answer and not marketing spin.
So I think you can be playing a game the wrong way – but it’s up to us to ask the devs what is the right way, rather than try and invent it for ourselves and impose our own invention upon others, otherwise it becomes a kind of vigilantism.
I’m not sure that an MMO can afford to only have One True Path to Fun. At least, not one that intends to profit in the mass market. Niche games like Darkfall can embrace a specific playstyle and be stronger for the focus. They will necessarily have a smaller audience, but that’s part of the design and business plan, if the devs are savvy. Smaller and more focused is not a bad way to go in a saturated market.
It depends – for a mmo with a purely capatilist heart, yeah, whatever brings in the most bucks matters most. If having one true path gets in the way of the bucks, it’s outta dere.
But if at it’s heart its trying to get across some sort of content that it thinks is important – well, watering down that content so as to allow a whole bunch of playstyles that have nothing to do with that content…that clearly doesn’t match the heart of the mmo. So no, what a mmo can’t afford to do is sell out itself on this matter.
Of course for various developers, the heart the give to the mmo is probably part capitalist and part important content. But I’d suspect with the main mmo’s it’s around 80% capitalism or higher.
…which comes back to the age old question: to make money, do you give people what they want, or stick to your artistic vision and hope enough people agree with it?
Forcing social grouping doesn’t work any better than being self-sufficient, really. For every friend Logan may have made, I’m sure there was one person or more he blacklisted for various social reasons.
I think the argument for self-sufficiency is more based on convenience and time and social issues. I’d rather be self-sufficient so I don’t have to LFP, or play 5 hours because they can’t find another tank.
Tesh, if your goal is purely to make money, I don’t think you go with your vision and hope people agree with it. You do whatever it takes to make money.
I think the question is isn’t how to make money, but how much you want your goal to be making money (if at all).
(gosh I hope I’m not doubleposting. if I am, sowwy.
I can’t see the refresh)
*waves hullo*
Boring nugs is going to ignore the entire THIS IS HERE ABOUT WINNING series cause I got bored… and talk about GW.
XD
I think Longasc makes a very good point about GW *channelling* like-minded people together… on the rare occasions that they go, ah what the heck, let’s party with weird and inefficient humans for the fun of it rather than my AI that I can wield down to a T.
In 3.5 years of WoW, I made not a single friend that I still talk to now that I’ve quit WoW. All those ‘deep’ bonds between tanks and healers, all that guild drama, even those people whose company I enjoyed having in game. Not a *single* one has made it out into the non-WoW world since I stopped playing over a year ago.
I’ve been playing GW for slightly over a year… and unlike WoW, even though we run off to our respective new-shinies-of-the-moment (For me, it was Sacred 1, Sacred 2, and Jade Dynasty – I highly recommend Sacred 1 though), and for him it was Aion, then Sacred 2, and other whatnots… Even though this person and I drop GW for weeks or months at a time in terms of gaming ‘space’… We remain friends. We are not ‘friends within the context of what we can give each other within the game, such as good, aware DPS with cc and competent tankage.’ We are friends because we like each other.
This, I feel, is what real freedom of choice gives us, when we *choose* to exercise that freedom.
Maybe I’m an overly calculating nugget, but in WoW, something in me was always evaluating the *usefulness* of the other person. In GW, because if I want to go for maximum efficiency (non-PvP), I can just use my AI – that means I don’t feel the need to evaluate everyone else firstly on terms of usefulness, then secondly on everything else.
And so, when I’m feeling social, I can make… friends.
(Long missing nugget was eaten by work and things above.)
Welcome back, nugget! Sorry the comment filter ate your first post; it must not have recognized you for some reason.
That’s the heart of it, methinketh; there’s a world of difference between grouping up because you want to, and because you’re forced to or need to in order to get the best loot. I’d prefer to evaluate people on their character, not what they bring to my earning potential or combat efficiency.
I think it’s especially relevant given the Dungeon Finder in WoW, where playing the game and getting the loot is so… apersonal. You just get in line, blast some DPS, collect your lewts, and move on. Could you make a friend that way? Sure, but it’s not the priority; people queue up in the Finder to get their stuffs, not personal contacts. I can’t help but think that a relationship forged on that basis isn’t nearly as likely to last; the premise of the relationship is about using the other player.
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