Grinding numbers up isn't great. Rewarding time over skill isn't great. No MMO has come even close to the full potential. Even worse, a certain kind of MMO (the likes of WoW) has basically taken over the genre, to the point that MMO really just means grind-based leveling game for most people.
An MMO that used Morrowind/Oblivion skill based gameplay would be fucking amazing. Not to mention the world is so fucking rich and detailed.
An MMO that used Morrowind/Oblivion skill based gameplay would be fucking amazing. Not to mention the world is so fucking rich and detailed.
How about a massively multiplayer online game that is not a role-playing game? Even MMOs that have tried to be fps-based, like Planetside, or puzzle-based, like Puzzle Pirates, still have virtual worlds you live in with avatars and such.
MMO only means you have to have multiple players playing together over teh Internet. There doesn't have to be a world, or avatars, or anything like that. It could be anything. Nobody has done anything even remotely outside the box as of yet. It is really lame.
MMO only means you have to have multiple players playing together over teh Internet. There doesn't have to be a world, or avatars, or anything like that. It could be anything. Nobody has done anything even remotely outside the box as of yet. It is really lame.
What is the point of playing an MMO that has no social interaction between the users? I might as well just be a graphical chat room. What are you thinking of, MMOPeggle? The whole point of these massive multiplayer games is to define yourself as an individual and to interact with other individuals within the game space. If there is no sense of persistent individuality, I don't think you could call it an MMO.
What is the point of playing an MMO that has no social interaction between the users? I might as well just be a graphical chat room. What are you thinking of, MMOPeggle? The whole point of these massive multiplayer games is to define yourself as an individual and to interact with other individuals within the game space. If there is no sense of persistent individuality, I don't think you could call it an MMO.
If it's massive, multiplayer, and online, then it's an MMO. If it's also a game, then it's an MMOG.
And who says there can't be social interaction? Is the only way to have socially interact is with the classic model of a world of avatars? See how hard it is to think outside the box?
I think Scott is talking about a game that is not roleplaying or numbers based. A game structured similar to this was the Myst MMO. A world that many, many people use at the same time is an MMO. There doesn't have to be leveling to make it a massive multi player game. All it is just a virtual world that has many people playing in it at once.
A world that many, many people use at the same time is an MMO. There doesn't have to be leveling to make it a massive multi player game. All it is just a virtual world that has many people playing in it at once.
NO. It doesn't have to be a world! There just have to be many people! That's it. It could be fucking tiddlywinks with 1000 simultaneous players.
NO. It doesn't have to be a world! There just have to be many people! That's it. It could be fucking tiddlywinks with 1000 simultaneous players.
So you are just looking for a really large multiplayer game which holds no consistent data between "matches" or "events"? I think one of the many attributes we define an MMO as having is some sort of persistent data which is held from one game to a next. I know that originally MMO was just an acronym but I feel now, through common usage and today's vernacular, that it has become it's own genre.
You just want a really fucking huge multiplayer game.
If it's massive, multiplayer, and online, then it's an MMO. If it's also a game, then it's an MMOG.
And who says there can't be social interaction? Is the only way to have socially interact is with the classic model of a world of avatars? See how hard it is to think outside the box?
The problem is that while game developers tend to think outside the box it is the people who fund them that approve the idea or not, and they tend to like being inside the box since it is a sure thing.
Scott, you have officially lost your shit. I think it is Second Life that you are wanting. And nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wants that.
Wow, people really don't read anything I type do they? What part of no world and no avatars do you not understand?
Well, to be honest, I couldn't see playing a MMO of any sort without a visually interactive space without graphic representation and interaction. I imagine most people feel the same way. 360 Live is about as basic as it can get and still be acceptable. That is why people are looking at Home, for the PS3, with such hungry eyes.
Real world people want what they want. They don't want existentialist ideas for social gaming. They want games with pretty graphics, and they want voice chat, and they want to make nifty avatars. What you are describing, Scott, is a critically acclaimed attempt at a financial failure. And game companies don't want to LOSE money. So, unless you are willing to start designing and coding, good luck. And even if you do succeed, good luck finding other people to play with.
On a side note, you can just log into the IM client of your choice, and set your status to "playing solitaire," and then play solitaire. That sounds to me exactly what you are describing.
Well, Scott, it sounds like you are having "pie in the sky" dreams, then. Like the cel phone that is automatic and puts the calls directly into your head. It will happen, eventually. But for the time being, you are shit out of luck.
On a slightly related note, I'm looking forward to Champions Online. It is being made by the same people who made City of Heroes and City of Villains. The difference between CO and CoX is that CO is looking to be an MMO action game, and it will be using the Champions/HERO system for character creation, which is an amazingly fleshed out system, allowing you to do almost anything you want.
Oh. My. God. That would be, quite possibly, the most awesome game to ever exist anywhere if it was done right. I'd think something ala Spore, where you would make your own objects in a creator and then output them to a giant mutual world. Or possibly a Google-Docs-ish kind of collaboration system, where you could get your friends to help build something awesome?
Or you could be an ass and make about 30,000 Lego penises.
Whether or not the Lego MMO works, it brings up a good point.
MMO is only part of it...there can be different genres of MMO besides MMORPG.
Surely, single-player RPGs suffer from many of the same problems MMORPGs do. Grinding was not invented by Blizzard, Sony, or even Sierra. In fact, the credit truly belongs with the tabletop RPGs which inspired the very first text-based video game RPGs.
For my part, I've long wished for a "better" video game RPG experience. Obviously, the lack of Turing-test-passing AI is a great hindrance to a truly engrossing RPG experience, single-player or otherwise. The lack of total-immersion, totally-realistic Virtual Reality is another barrier.
I gained a lot of happiness and personal satisfaction when I stopped waiting for video games to catch up to my wildest dreams and started getting my roleplaying fix from tabletop RPGs and my mechanics fix from video games of all genres.
So I'm certainly no stranger to the idea that common single-player video game RPG mechanics are less than perfect.
The question is, is not the dreaded grind mechanic endemic to RPGs of all colors? Certainly, MMORPGs would suffer from this, even if the problem were rooted in the second set of three letters. After all, the concept of the MMORPG was nothing more than a multiplayer extension of the SP-RPG.
And no, Scott, you're wrong and have always been utterly wrong about the evolution of MMORPGs. In your vision, it works like this:
Early internet applications -> MUDs -> WoW
Your view naively assumes that MMORPGs evolved as a totally separate track of video game, rooted in early MUDs, and is therefore an unnecessary extension of said genre, which you believe to be inferior in the first place.
The actual history is a bit more complex.
MUDs became more MUDs. Sierra, cognizant of MUDs, extended the concept of their classic adventure games like King's Quest into the MMO world with The Realm Origin, cognizant of the Realm, expanded on the MMORPG concept, and essentially invented many of the MMORPG traditions still seen today Sony, taking all that had come before into account, took things a step further with 3d graphics. Everquest was intended to be a kind of "true" roleplaying experience, with PCs having to actually hold conversations with NPCs to learn about quests, purchase equipment, and so forth. Microsoft and others (sadly, including Square) began tossing their second-rate entries into the field, because of how much money UO, and more so Everquest, were making. Blizzard, having had considerable success with the quasi-MMORPG Diablo, decided to make a full-blown MMORPG based on the Warcraft universe. They learned from the successes and failures of the games that came before them, and clearly advanced the genre to a new height.
I've left out a few minor players (like Neverwinter Nights (the AOL game) and Meridian 59), but the point remains. Ultimately, the MMORPG genre was derived from previous computer RPGs and adventure games. Perhaps those ultimately owe their existence to Rogue and text-based RPGs, but then, by that argument, all video games are the same, because they owe their existence to computers, and eventually atoms, molecules, and physics itself. Everything is physics.
Much like everything is numbers.
In the end, all an MMORPG is is an extension of a single-player RPG.
So which is it? Do you condemn the MMO, or the RPG?
To condemn the MMO is to turn a blind eye toward the inescapable trend toward multiplayer that truly began with the rise of the Internet. FPS games became multiplayer, then started adopting persistent-world features. Strategy games always wanted to be online, and Starcraft proved how popular a format that was. Now, whole hosts of games on consoles, as well as PCs, use online content as a major, if not primary feature of the game.
So is that whole trend bad? Do you just want a fucking time machine to go back to 1985 with your first NES? It's okay if you do. That would only make you a bit unrealistic, maybe a bit of a luddite.
Or is the RPG part? In which case, how can you not point the same finger at Mass Effect, Final Fantasy 1-13, Baldur's Gate, D&D, and Burning Wheel?
Or maybe it could be the particular combination? That somehow, both are valid, but combined, they are not.
Personally, I think the combination of MMO and RPG has done better and will continue to do better than MMOFPS, MMORTS, and any other MMOabc you can think of (with the possible exception of MMOLego?).
To construct a reasonable argument, you must be consistent. You used to blame the RPG-like grinding mechanics for your hatred of MMORPGs. Now you blame the online-ness of it. Which is it? Or is it that all online games and all RPGs are bad?
I am well aware of the history of the MMORPG genre. However, the link between MUDs and modern MMORPGs is much more direct than you seem to suggest. The original Everquest is quite literally a DikuMUD modification with graphics added. MMORPGs have been significantly polished since those times, WoW being the most polished, but the fundamental game has been largely unchanged since. Some games, like Achaea, have taken some steps towards revolutionizing the fundamentals. However, I find it laughable to suggest that any of the big games have made any significant headway. Even the supposedly revolutionary Tabula Rasa was described as "grind-tastic" by Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame.
I have never condemned MMO sans-RPG. I am simply asking why is it that every MMO must also be MMORPG? Surely there can be games involving large numbers of players that are not virtual worlds with avatars? This is all I am asking. If I am condemning anyone, it is the game developers and publishers for not trying new things. There have been some attempts at non-RPG MMO games. However, even Planetside, the only notable MMOFPS attempt, shed many of its FPS elements in favor of RPG elements in order to add in the MMO. Why not just have a normal high quality fps with a massive number of players on a giant map? It's such a simple idea, yet it hasn't been done. MMOQuake might be a difficult game to make, technologically speaking, but nobody has even given it the old college try. Instead they reinvent the wheel in a feeble attempt to slay the unbeatable goliath that is Blizzard.
As for condemning the RPG, that is a loaded question. I think it is a bad joke that we refer to so many completely different things as RPGs. A game like InSpectres has almost nothing in common with Everquest. Burning Wheel doesn't even resemble something like Ultima. While these games all share common ancestry, going back even further than the original Gygax D+D, they are so clearly different species now, that I find it comical we still refer to them with the same terminology. Would you say a point I make about whales is invalid because it does not hold true for goldfish?
Tabletop RPGs, when played "properly", are tools to facilitate conflict resolution for collaborative storytelling. Good tabletop RPGs can also facilitate players in coming up with better ideas for the direction of the story. The vast majority of video game RPGs are effectively no different than movies or books that require the viewer or reader to perform monotonous unskilled labor to gain access to the next chapter in the tale. The only similarity I can find between these things is that they all have rules systems which use numerical attributes to abstract character abilities. Every other gene in the DNA no longer matches.
I condemn neither the MMO nor the RPG. I condemn uncreative developers, and I condemn monotonous, expensive, unskilled labor with meaningless rewards being passed off as a worthwhile and fun way to spend time. The latter includes things ranging from catching all the Pokemon, to collecting miniatures, to playing typical MMORPGs. World of Warcraft just happens to bear the brunt of this criticism because it is the largest offender.
The argument is sound, but based on what I think is an illogical premise.
Apropos of the show originally mentioned, I liken your argument to that of a vehemently anti-sports nerd; That is to say, the somewhat common arguments some otherwise reasonable geeks put forward to argue that sports are an unworthy pursuit.
They attack the character of those who like sports, as if that means anything about the sport itself.
When pressed for logic, they come up with some sort of premise; for example, they might say sports are unworthy because they are not sufficiently intellectual, or that they appeal to a base, animal nature, or even that some sports are okay but American ones are no good.
They then present logic to prove that the premise is the cause of all of their problems. But they never prove the premise itself. Because, in the end, sports are a worthy pursuit, so proving that they are not is impossible. They are.
Your premise is a standard of meaningful gameplay that you invented. To be worthy, games must meet this standard, which is really just an extension of your opinions.
What possible, logical standard could explain how the games you play are worthy, and the games others play aren't? They are all games, after all. They aren't wargames, and you aren't an army. They aren't games to hone some sort of professional skill.
You're getting deep into a realm of philosophy which tries to determine which human activities are worthy. Is enlightenment of the self worthy, or must one give selflessly to others? Are not all worldly pursuits unworthy compared to the realm of the soul?
Bollocks.
You and I will never win an argument with any sane person about what is truly a worthy activity. We are not smarter than all philosophers throughout history combined.
We're just talking about what makes a good game.
And really, we aren't. I don't try to convince people to like games they don't like. This has always been about convincing you two (but you in particular) not to bash people for an activity that causes no harm to you.
Just because you are smart, and can form a logically-sound argument for why your opinions are, in fact, the truth of the universe, does not mean they are.
The only obvious conclusion is to agree to disagree. I've never had a problem with a difference of opinion. I just don't think I, or anyone else, needs to hear the opinion any more, because it's beyond redundant. Until more WoW or MMORPG-oriented news trumps all previous news items, it's an unworthy topic on your show. You don't like it, and none other of your vocal forum listeners cares, so why even mention it?
You talking about it and us listening to it is every bit as unworthy an activity as you same the games are themselves.
The point of this post is and has always been this: we get it. Drop it.
Comments
MMO only means you have to have multiple players playing together over teh Internet. There doesn't have to be a world, or avatars, or anything like that. It could be anything. Nobody has done anything even remotely outside the box as of yet. It is really lame.
And who says there can't be social interaction? Is the only way to have socially interact is with the classic model of a world of avatars? See how hard it is to think outside the box?
A world that many, many people use at the same time is an MMO. There doesn't have to be leveling to make it a massive multi player game. All it is just a virtual world that has many people playing in it at once.
You just want a really fucking huge multiplayer game.
The problem is that while game developers tend to think outside the box it is the people who fund them that approve the idea or not, and they tend to like being inside the box since it is a sure thing.
Real world people want what they want. They don't want existentialist ideas for social gaming. They want games with pretty graphics, and they want voice chat, and they want to make nifty avatars. What you are describing, Scott, is a critically acclaimed attempt at a financial failure. And game companies don't want to LOSE money. So, unless you are willing to start designing and coding, good luck. And even if you do succeed, good luck finding other people to play with.
On a side note, you can just log into the IM client of your choice, and set your status to "playing solitaire," and then play solitaire. That sounds to me exactly what you are describing.
On a slightly related note, I'm looking forward to Champions Online. It is being made by the same people who made City of Heroes and City of Villains. The difference between CO and CoX is that CO is looking to be an MMO action game, and it will be using the Champions/HERO system for character creation, which is an amazingly fleshed out system, allowing you to do almost anything you want.
Also, Necropost.
That would be, quite possibly, the most awesome game to ever exist anywhere if it was done right. I'd think something ala Spore, where you would make your own objects in a creator and then output them to a giant mutual world. Or possibly a Google-Docs-ish kind of collaboration system, where you could get your friends to help build something awesome?
Or you could be an ass and make about 30,000 Lego penises.
MMO is only part of it...there can be different genres of MMO besides MMORPG.
Surely, single-player RPGs suffer from many of the same problems MMORPGs do. Grinding was not invented by Blizzard, Sony, or even Sierra. In fact, the credit truly belongs with the tabletop RPGs which inspired the very first text-based video game RPGs.
For my part, I've long wished for a "better" video game RPG experience. Obviously, the lack of Turing-test-passing AI is a great hindrance to a truly engrossing RPG experience, single-player or otherwise. The lack of total-immersion, totally-realistic Virtual Reality is another barrier.
I gained a lot of happiness and personal satisfaction when I stopped waiting for video games to catch up to my wildest dreams and started getting my roleplaying fix from tabletop RPGs and my mechanics fix from video games of all genres.
So I'm certainly no stranger to the idea that common single-player video game RPG mechanics are less than perfect.
The question is, is not the dreaded grind mechanic endemic to RPGs of all colors? Certainly, MMORPGs would suffer from this, even if the problem were rooted in the second set of three letters. After all, the concept of the MMORPG was nothing more than a multiplayer extension of the SP-RPG.
And no, Scott, you're wrong and have always been utterly wrong about the evolution of MMORPGs. In your vision, it works like this:
Early internet applications -> MUDs -> WoW
Your view naively assumes that MMORPGs evolved as a totally separate track of video game, rooted in early MUDs, and is therefore an unnecessary extension of said genre, which you believe to be inferior in the first place.
The actual history is a bit more complex.
MUDs became more MUDs.
Sierra, cognizant of MUDs, extended the concept of their classic adventure games like King's Quest into the MMO world with The Realm
Origin, cognizant of the Realm, expanded on the MMORPG concept, and essentially invented many of the MMORPG traditions still seen today
Sony, taking all that had come before into account, took things a step further with 3d graphics. Everquest was intended to be a kind of "true" roleplaying experience, with PCs having to actually hold conversations with NPCs to learn about quests, purchase equipment, and so forth.
Microsoft and others (sadly, including Square) began tossing their second-rate entries into the field, because of how much money UO, and more so Everquest, were making.
Blizzard, having had considerable success with the quasi-MMORPG Diablo, decided to make a full-blown MMORPG based on the Warcraft universe. They learned from the successes and failures of the games that came before them, and clearly advanced the genre to a new height.
I've left out a few minor players (like Neverwinter Nights (the AOL game) and Meridian 59), but the point remains. Ultimately, the MMORPG genre was derived from previous computer RPGs and adventure games. Perhaps those ultimately owe their existence to Rogue and text-based RPGs, but then, by that argument, all video games are the same, because they owe their existence to computers, and eventually atoms, molecules, and physics itself. Everything is physics.
Much like everything is numbers.
In the end, all an MMORPG is is an extension of a single-player RPG.
So which is it? Do you condemn the MMO, or the RPG?
To condemn the MMO is to turn a blind eye toward the inescapable trend toward multiplayer that truly began with the rise of the Internet. FPS games became multiplayer, then started adopting persistent-world features. Strategy games always wanted to be online, and Starcraft proved how popular a format that was. Now, whole hosts of games on consoles, as well as PCs, use online content as a major, if not primary feature of the game.
So is that whole trend bad? Do you just want a fucking time machine to go back to 1985 with your first NES? It's okay if you do. That would only make you a bit unrealistic, maybe a bit of a luddite.
Or is the RPG part? In which case, how can you not point the same finger at Mass Effect, Final Fantasy 1-13, Baldur's Gate, D&D, and Burning Wheel?
Or maybe it could be the particular combination? That somehow, both are valid, but combined, they are not.
Personally, I think the combination of MMO and RPG has done better and will continue to do better than MMOFPS, MMORTS, and any other MMOabc you can think of (with the possible exception of MMOLego?).
To construct a reasonable argument, you must be consistent. You used to blame the RPG-like grinding mechanics for your hatred of MMORPGs. Now you blame the online-ness of it. Which is it? Or is it that all online games and all RPGs are bad?
I am well aware of the history of the MMORPG genre. However, the link between MUDs and modern MMORPGs is much more direct than you seem to suggest. The original Everquest is quite literally a DikuMUD modification with graphics added. MMORPGs have been significantly polished since those times, WoW being the most polished, but the fundamental game has been largely unchanged since. Some games, like Achaea, have taken some steps towards revolutionizing the fundamentals. However, I find it laughable to suggest that any of the big games have made any significant headway. Even the supposedly revolutionary Tabula Rasa was described as "grind-tastic" by Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame.
I have never condemned MMO sans-RPG. I am simply asking why is it that every MMO must also be MMORPG? Surely there can be games involving large numbers of players that are not virtual worlds with avatars? This is all I am asking. If I am condemning anyone, it is the game developers and publishers for not trying new things. There have been some attempts at non-RPG MMO games. However, even Planetside, the only notable MMOFPS attempt, shed many of its FPS elements in favor of RPG elements in order to add in the MMO. Why not just have a normal high quality fps with a massive number of players on a giant map? It's such a simple idea, yet it hasn't been done. MMOQuake might be a difficult game to make, technologically speaking, but nobody has even given it the old college try. Instead they reinvent the wheel in a feeble attempt to slay the unbeatable goliath that is Blizzard.
As for condemning the RPG, that is a loaded question. I think it is a bad joke that we refer to so many completely different things as RPGs. A game like InSpectres has almost nothing in common with Everquest. Burning Wheel doesn't even resemble something like Ultima. While these games all share common ancestry, going back even further than the original Gygax D+D, they are so clearly different species now, that I find it comical we still refer to them with the same terminology. Would you say a point I make about whales is invalid because it does not hold true for goldfish?
Tabletop RPGs, when played "properly", are tools to facilitate conflict resolution for collaborative storytelling. Good tabletop RPGs can also facilitate players in coming up with better ideas for the direction of the story. The vast majority of video game RPGs are effectively no different than movies or books that require the viewer or reader to perform monotonous unskilled labor to gain access to the next chapter in the tale. The only similarity I can find between these things is that they all have rules systems which use numerical attributes to abstract character abilities. Every other gene in the DNA no longer matches.
I condemn neither the MMO nor the RPG. I condemn uncreative developers, and I condemn monotonous, expensive, unskilled labor with meaningless rewards being passed off as a worthwhile and fun way to spend time. The latter includes things ranging from catching all the Pokemon, to collecting miniatures, to playing typical MMORPGs. World of Warcraft just happens to bear the brunt of this criticism because it is the largest offender.
The argument is sound, but based on what I think is an illogical premise.
Apropos of the show originally mentioned, I liken your argument to that of a vehemently anti-sports nerd; That is to say, the somewhat common arguments some otherwise reasonable geeks put forward to argue that sports are an unworthy pursuit.
They attack the character of those who like sports, as if that means anything about the sport itself.
When pressed for logic, they come up with some sort of premise; for example, they might say sports are unworthy because they are not sufficiently intellectual, or that they appeal to a base, animal nature, or even that some sports are okay but American ones are no good.
They then present logic to prove that the premise is the cause of all of their problems. But they never prove the premise itself. Because, in the end, sports are a worthy pursuit, so proving that they are not is impossible. They are.
Your premise is a standard of meaningful gameplay that you invented. To be worthy, games must meet this standard, which is really just an extension of your opinions.
What possible, logical standard could explain how the games you play are worthy, and the games others play aren't? They are all games, after all. They aren't wargames, and you aren't an army. They aren't games to hone some sort of professional skill.
You're getting deep into a realm of philosophy which tries to determine which human activities are worthy. Is enlightenment of the self worthy, or must one give selflessly to others? Are not all worldly pursuits unworthy compared to the realm of the soul?
Bollocks.
You and I will never win an argument with any sane person about what is truly a worthy activity. We are not smarter than all philosophers throughout history combined.
We're just talking about what makes a good game.
And really, we aren't. I don't try to convince people to like games they don't like. This has always been about convincing you two (but you in particular) not to bash people for an activity that causes no harm to you.
Just because you are smart, and can form a logically-sound argument for why your opinions are, in fact, the truth of the universe, does not mean they are.
The only obvious conclusion is to agree to disagree. I've never had a problem with a difference of opinion. I just don't think I, or anyone else, needs to hear the opinion any more, because it's beyond redundant. Until more WoW or MMORPG-oriented news trumps all previous news items, it's an unworthy topic on your show. You don't like it, and none other of your vocal forum listeners cares, so why even mention it?
You talking about it and us listening to it is every bit as unworthy an activity as you same the games are themselves.
The point of this post is and has always been this: we get it. Drop it.
And let me also commit the major logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum:
is it Scott or I who is guilty of not leaving this topic alone on the podcast?