[Rant] A Generation Of Gamers That Dont Know What Role Play Is ? (Dev) Replied

Immersion and realism are trumped by being fun. You start at one location and tweak it until you reach the other. The problem with RPing a thief or a PK is that those roles pray upon the fun of others. Some people might enjoy the rush of being prayed on, but just as many don't. Killing people that don't want to be killed or stealing from people that don't want you too is not fun. Ask any real world victim and I am pretty sure they will tell you that realism and immersion is not fun in this regard.

I think there will be roles for thieves and murders but not if you want to pray on people not into that sort of thing.

 

if you pvp other players that just want to play and then you go in to town like nothing happened WRONG. you are a KILLER just like in UO you Can't go in any towns. and it sounds like in this game you will be screwed. maybe if you want to pvp you check a box and you are stuck until you delete that toon. you cant just PVP and act like your a goody two shoes. Now I support PVP but the masses don't want PVP and they Pay the bills. you will loose most of your players if you have to keep watching over your shoulders. I play on a PVP UO server and 6 of my kids and wife tried to play with me they all Quit. Sorry but PVP will cut your buyers way down.

 

In response to the original post, I think it's about striking a balance between the two. A lot of games (espec ones that Kickstarter has been a part of funding) are approaching games with an old school mentality but a newer school of technology. There is a charm and depth that older games have that a lot of newer titles don't even come close to approaching but on the flipside the older games normally had a lot of 'clunkyness' that could go against immersion.

WoW has done a lot for gaming in both good and bad ways. I do agree it's not an immersive game at all. It's basic gated progression designed to make you feel 'stronger' which is the evolution of your character. While it was a great system in 2004 when released it's about 10 years later now and we kinda see it for what it is. Basic mechanics you repeat over and over and over. Some people find that repetition addicting but most just find it boring at this point. The sad part is that most MMOs do the EXACT same thing. The latest flavor of the month is to make the combat slightly more active where you have to avoid big cleave attacks and that sort of things.

SOTA seems to have the qualities that made UO so amazing with modern tech and influence behind it. Needless to say I'm wicked excited. I'm also excited that it's not exactly an MMO. I think the format of paying for a game, paying a subscription or being badgered into buying trinkets in a F2P game needs to die a fiery death.

 

WOW and most modern MMOs work on the gambling model. Flinging rewards through the progression to trigger the pleasure sensor in your brain and make you keep paying the month subscriptions. Free to play games often introduces frustrating barriers inbetween certain points in that progression to make you break down and do microtransactions. Sort of like a drug dealer gives you your first few does for free or at a discount.

I hate being manipulated, and this trend in MMOs have forced me away from them. DLC works kind of the same way. I get a good game like Fallout 3 for $60 with tons of content that I can consume for 50-60 hours. Then DLC comes out for $20 that gives me and hour or two of play. It seems more and more that publishers are bookies or drug dealer using psychology to maximize their profits out of people by using Jedi Mind tricks.

Its the easy rewards and the grinding gameplay that has weakened the ties to true role-playing experiences in my opinion. However, all we can really do is lead by example and hope the new generation follows along. I once met a guy in NWN whose name was MadCow88. I went up and started RPing with him and asked him his name. He was away and did not respond right way, but after a few mins, said "Sorry I was AFK." Since he did not use OOC, which was standard in NWN for out of character talk, I said "Nice to meet you Afka!" and started introducing him to everyone that way. He got a kick out of this and was Afka that day forward and actually began to role-play more.

Its always better to act and set an example than complain and be bitter.

 

In a perfect world a game would be created with an accountability system that actually works. Few games have tried and all have half or mostly failed. There's no question that allowing players to attack each other at any time adds a level of immersion that you can't achieve in a single player game. Or a single player game with a chatroom/WoW. The same goes for stealing from one another. The trick is to find a way that it doesn't end up a free for all like UO was at times. The measures that UO took to curb pking and stealing were ineffective for the most part. Statloss had success though it also sucked. But I digress.

I'm not a fan of this style of game where everyone wins, all of the time, and nobody ever loses anything. It's not a world, you affect nothing. I've always favored sandbox style single player games, the more realistic the better (skyrim & friends). In UO and a couple of other games there's always a thrill, and there's real danger in the form of actual human brains. Don't get me wrong, I liked all aspects of UO - the crafting, the PVE, getting rich and buying a house, etc...but the most fun aspect of the game was the human interaction and the possibilities within it. In games like WoW/Everquest/Elder Scrolls Online/etc.. you affect the world in no way what so ever. To be fair, in ESO you can change things slightly based on what your faction does during sieges or something, yay. In essence these games are glorified single player games, where you can link up with other players and play the single player game together. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this, but there's no question that there's less immersion and less end game involved with these games. Get the next item, repeat.

I have a room mate and some friends that played WoW as their first mmo and they are completely disinterested in anything outside of building characters and collecting the next item. The idea of players being able to attack them and *gasp* the possibility of ever losing an item is completely unacceptable to them.

What it comes down to is that we're just looking for different things. I'd like a game where anything is possible. If I punch a wall my hand bleeds, if I pick up crayons and start coloring it works. If I punch a player in the face I don't want to see some cop-out message stating that I cannot attack that player. And it is a cop-out. Instead of new games working towards achieving realism and a higher level of immersion, they simply add a "you cannot attack that" message in it's place. There, problem solved. Chess to checkers for the sake of the everyone gets a trophy crowd. Sorry, I know that's slightly offensive, but I'm slightly offended by some of the commentary around here regarding why people would prefer a game where attacking other players is possible. Sure, some people just want to pk, but a lot of us find open free world mmo's to be better than the opposite. Ever since Everquest mmo's have all been the same - single player games with chatrooms. One quest to the next never losing a thing. Super...

We are a minority in these games because we like a style that is definitely harder. You're at the mercy of other players skill and your own. The learning curve in online games is always going to be fierce because of the many people that will be so into it that they practice every day. That fact alone will turn off people. The fear of being robbed, killed. The thrill of getting justice, or escaping death. The satisfaction of smashing a thief that just stole from you, and getting your item back. The possibility of a player taking your items upon death. To many people these examples are not their idea of fun. They had a couple of teenagers beat the piss out of them and call them a newb and that was it for them. I read an article in wired magazine in 1997, the reporter had been running around UO talking to people. He ended up getting killed and emote humped, only to be resed and apologized to after they realized that he was a reporter for Wired. This was before the term pk had ever entered my brain. I read this article and didnt think about how many newbies I could emote hump, I reveled in the idea that there was a game where this was even possible.

Games like Darkfall had a great player accountability system in place BEFORE THE GAME CAME OUT. After release there really was zero accountability. Players could kill each other willynilly. Conceptually it's not hard, but apparently when people start making a game it's no longer a priority.

UO is the game that gave a lot of us this feeling that the only acceptable mmo is one that allows as much freedom as possible. So it's understandable that UO players are here in full force, especially considering that we heard there'd be pvp, and considering that Richard Garriot visited some freeshards to spread the word about sota.

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating that open pvp or loot be forced upon those who don't want it in sota. I came here knowing what this game was and I'm not interested in changing it. Obviously I'd prefer more freedom and a seamless world, but hey I'll try anything. It's instanced, it's trammel, it's okay, I'm fine with that. I really just wanted to respond to the general feeling of UO/pvper hate that I'm sensing around here. You don't know why people want open worlds so please stop speculating. It's about a lot more than pking, it's about playing in a world with actual consequences, with players that you can actually interact with.

One day someone will get accountability right, until then there's sota! I realllly like all of the UO resemblances. Crafting, housing, and even the art somehow looks like that old 2d game. I heard that the ultima's were really good, I'd try them out but I don't have a good track record when it comes to trying games with dated graphics&things. I really hope that what pvp there will be, will be good. It'd be cool to play sota in whatever manner you wish, then when you're up for it you can jump into some consensual pvp. I hope that the pvp is competitive, and skill based!

tldr; a lot of people don't want a "hardcore" experience. They don't want to lose items, be attacked, etc.. That's fine and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem for us (the minority in these games apparently) is that they want to play the same games that we play, and vice versa. It's okay that you guys want to play checkers, but don't get mad at us for wanting to play chess. I know you rascals will get all huffy about that statement but is it not true?

Love you big kiss.

 

@jamiesan

Great read!

 

I'm rolling my eyes again! That's not chess, it's Chinese checkers, you are just running around jumping each person in turn. What you describe as 'interaction' is not role playing. Sorry, not buying what you're trying to sell. I did play UO and it was not fun for me and a lot of people.

Nicely worded though....


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When I go out to eat, I order things on the menu that interest me. I don't make changes to the meal, such as ask for no olives, even if I don't like certain aspects.

I want to experience what developers have on the menu. It's their game and I am here to explore their world. If the devs build checkers, that's what I play. If they build chess, I want to experience that too.

What keeps me coming back is when I find the experience has been down well.

Yep, most of us know what we like and don't like. That's why I learned to cook, if I want it done the I like it I will do it myself.

The last thing I would accept from a restaurant is them allowing other customers to choose my meal for me.

Full open PvP is just that. I must eat the meal other people choose. If I want to experience what the devs have to offer and some random person wants to PvP, I must deal with that person first. If that's the game, full open PvP then I play it on my terms.

I choose that on log in.

 

I think a lot of the "death of roleplaying" has to do with the new generation of MMO players (actually gamers in general these days). Back in the day we had to use our imaginations to indulge ourselves in the fantasy world we were trying to create with our D&D characters, or even in computer games due to the rudimentary graphics, and on top of it all it wasn't popular to play video games or D&D back then (you could say D&D still isn't cool to play ), let alone use the internet. Back in the 80s and 90s if you used a computer or played video games you were a dork, geek, or a nerd, but these days it is cool to play video games and you're an outcast if you don't use the internet.

WoW introduced a very large new group of people to the world of video games and the internet, and with it you also began to see the monetization of playing video games with streaming (collecting donations) and "lets play" videos on youtube and whatnot (relying on clicks/views for ad revenue). The vast majority of both those groups of people (faux-nerds/pseudo-gamers) don't care about the lore in-game, and they sure as heck don't care about immersing themselves into the world. They aren't interested in those things like us "old folks" are because all they want is mindless quick entertainment that they can just roll their face across the keyboard/controller to complete. Shining quest beacons, giant arrows showing you exactly where to go, glowing world objects indicating "DO THIS!" Sadly our ways of roleplaying, reading, and exploring to complete things are the way of the dinosaur, but I cannot fault that on WoW. I feel WoW played a big part in it, but it is no fault of its own. WoW was just in the right place at the right time.

 

We certainly shouldn't talk about other people's ideas because we don't like them. There's no need to deride an unpopular sentiment after posting countless missives demanding that your feedback be taken seriously.

Yes your opinion is valid, so are those of the folks wandering back in here. It's an old hat to us but it's not like we don't all do that.

They're going to try to make a world with deep immersion. Some people won't care about that and it's the team's decision to try to appeal to everyone. There are lots of things in modern MMOs that interfere with immersion but there are also times where a nice deep immersive game is tedious.

We're lucky. In this age we have lots of choices. The obvious choice is load something else to get your fix but oh look, Fireangel just logged in! Let me say hi to her for a min and then log... You know what happens then. We all do it. We have the chance to have both in the same game and even toggle it on or off. I know that this is a small project and it seems that supporting all of these desires is a shot in the foot but I mostly see this project as an experiment after all. We're trying lots of things that the industry just doesn't do. We really could fly too close to the sun but I think we're going to end up ahead of where games have been.

SotA might not work out but I think the implications on the big picture are huge.

And as a Google Map geek, I love it when there are rich quests logs with maps that you can annotate in your journal and things. I want to have a place to keep up with my quest updates, spreadsheets for my inventory etc. We did that stuff in the 80s because we had to! It is kind of fun but our characters are doing things on much larger scales than they were 20 years ago. Heck we could even be saving whole galaxies from New Britannia! Roleplay is really going to jump off!

 

Full-on PvP appeals to people because of the lack of real consequence for their actions. The game needs to be designed and advertised FROM THE START, to let everyone know it is a major function of the game. SotA is not solely targeting the PvP crowd, so the game must have limitations.

You either need to segregate the population by server type, or come up with a flagging system (which they are doing). Segregation puts together like-minded people, but it discourages people from crossing the boundaries due to having to restart characters. A server transfer system is problematic due to the PvE-power-level than switch issue allows many to circumvent the PvP ruleset.

With the ability to kill others there must be consequences. Criminal records, NPC reaction, susceptible to bounty hunters, major property loss, all need to be weighed by the would-be PKer to prevent mindless gank-fest that only amuses the juvenile psyche.

 

Why?

Not like I've ever seen anything like this happen in UO. Tho I've seen a lot of it happen in candyland games like WoW.

What is this "ganking" you talk about, then? Never seen it happen. Maybe it's rare? If it's so rare, why do we keep talking about it?

p.s.
More often than not I've been spared by pkers, and even if I wasnt I didnt mind it.

But I've never once seen anyone in UO sit in any kind of noob place and purposefully pwn noobs. Neither on OSI, nor on freeshards. Neither pre-trammel nor post-trammel.

I think some people live with the illusion that "gankers" who mindlessly resskill newbs lurk around in huge packs and hide behind every corner. Look under your bed, there might be a ganker hiding there...

 

So this is a good example as to why PVP/PVE discussions go around in circles. There is no conversation to be had when key principles are not only misunderstood, but not even conceived as existing at all. And this does not just apply to one side.

I am glad you have never "felt" ganked, but that doesn't mean the behaviors you "accepted" was not ganking. I was ganked often in the UO beta which is why I never handed over a subscription fee for the service. I was basically locked in one town that was decimated of all NPCs surrounded by people who did not RP but plain killed people as they were respawning. I am sure stuff like this was eventually fixed, but the game was released that why just a few weeks later. Sure if you found that fun or you might not think that was ganking, but even as someone who enjoys PVP I did not enjoy it as it denied me access to playing with no chance of fighting back (naked with no way to leave town and no way to even try to re-equip. I agree it is going to be difficult to remove all ganking from a game (since this can happen in non-combative ways), but that is not a good reason to just allow toxic behavior.

In the end, I doubt you will understand this concept or even acknowledge its existance, but I am glad the Devs do and that SOTA will be attempting to provide options for players to control their own experience.

 

Honestly, those suggestions are all pretty enticing.

Juvenile psyche? That's just rude.

Really! My thirst for blood: it's just business! No need to take it personally and get all upset.

I think the game designers have the talent & creativity needed to impart a regulated PvP system that lets folks PK, but also bars the grief.


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Little reminder: there are members of the dev team that had access to data from UO's support. They know exactly how common newb ganking, and other forms of griefing, were. Saying that something they had first hand experience with didn't exist is likely to only reduce your credibility with them.

 

As long as I can completely opt out of it without negative consequences to my progression or to which PvE content I can access, sure.

Otherwise, not interested in the least. PvP being by consent only is the only reason I went beyond digital explorer.

Just a reminder, my issue is not with the griefing, but with the non-consensual PvP itself. Being attacked in PvP against my will can ruin my gameplay even if I wipe the floor with the pretense ganker.

 

I am sure you are being sarcastic, but just in case "bloodthirsty" and "just business" are contradictory indicating a conflicted and/or confused mind indicative of under-developed sense of morality and community, hence juvenile.

I for one am all for Open PvP, but in my... lengthing... years I find I like to have options to suit my availability and tempo.

 

Everyone in this thread as been here long enough to KNOW that the concept of hex instances and an Open PVP Flag allows for players that want Open PVP to have PVP and protects players that don't want Open PVP. The big question left unanswered is will the complex never seen before instance filters factor in the PVP Flag, if the instance filter is meant to filter players that it thinks you'll want to play with (stated purpose) then it MUST factor in the PVP Flag meaning they just won't instance them together and problem solved.

Are there other questions? Yes, they want to flag for open pvp via a quest and I believe once flagged it should take some time to unflag (maybe 1 rl week) to keep players from just jumping back and forth. Also, They have some Open PVP rule set we haven't seen yet. If we can get some details on this it might put a lot of this to rest. Open PVP players still want a solid Open PVP system that is balanced to prevent senseless behavior, but it needs to be built into the game like a karma system. I do believe they can deliver an Open PVP system that is balanced and I wouldn't be surprised if they have the system in concept already, you'd just have to tweak it occasionally.

Open PVP players, PVE Players, Hybrids, all of the conversations about what players want is moot when the target sales are 250,000 units in easily over 100,000,000 players and over $76,000,000,000 gaming industry. They could make anything they want and find a niche big enough to cover the operating costs as long as they don't PO every player category. RG just by his name ALONE should sell enough copies just by attracting UO players even if they get disappointed and all rage quit. RG, DS, all the other devs should be able to make the game they want and have it be judged on the open free market for what it is and all this bickering back and forth misrepresenting this game does not help them at all. You are just chasing away $$$$$$ from this game that might keep your $3,000 house online for that much longer.

 

I agree completely... yet there are those, almost exclusively on the Open PvP side of the fence that continue to rail against the current proposal as if it were a violation of a sacred trust. I would say entirely, but I try to avoid absolutes, though I can not recall anyone in the PVE or Hybrid (to use your terminology) camps that is dissatisfied with the current proposal.

Save that many of those in the PvP community of whom you speak believe mistakenly that the game that was released (which wasn't designed by Richard, but by Raph Koster, who was also responsible for Star Wars Galaxies... which didn't repeat the mistakes of UO.) was rife with unexpected consequences of their design decisions which they spent years correcting.

I agree completely.

Who is it chasing off? Those that don't see the current proposal as a reasonable compromise that supports the needs of the majority of all three camps you cite?
Also not sure what misrepresentation you're speaking of, or to whom that statement is aimed.

 

I hope there is a player-configurable priority list containing party, friends, guild, PvP Flag, and your "level" Being maybe a skill point total) at a minimum as a set of priority selections though I think party should be a mandatory 1st. i.e. Party > flag > guild > friends or whatever order I deem fits my playstyle.