[TOR] Somebody please tell me bioware know what they are doin

TheDoc

Dohnny Jepp wrote: »

I thought it was the best launch I'd ever experienced. I have issues with the game to some degree, like I'm sure everyone does. However, I can't understand how people are saying it's a poor launch.

1) They messed around with launch dates in a very obvious attempt to put Blizzard off. Everyone knew Blizz's 4.3 was around the corner and it was as if Bioware were waiting for Blizz to buckle first. Notice the timelines, after 4.3 was announced with its expected drop, we all very soon got emails confirming launch and early access.

2) Early access waves. Were a sham. Communication on these were absolutely terribad. It was done by pre-order date which is fair enough. However the prioritisation for US customers was not. The prioritisation for "streamers" was not. I was left hanging until the second day to get in, which might be no big deal, was a big deal as I had to wait until 4PM on the first day to read the first bit of communication explaining the whole thing.

3) Server queues. Artificially placed Q's to encourage people to move server. Stupid. Players choose were to go and where they want to play. Everyone pre organises with friends and guilds where to go. The Q's you witnessed were not actual Q's, they are deployed to encourage people to relocate to other servers. I've barely seen any decent amount of players going around SWTOR, and even last night the planet I was on had 35 people on it, thats pathetic for an MMO.

4) Severe hardware rendering issues. You launch a massive title that DRAINS hardware through inefficent coding and deployment. Was fixed about two weeks after early access, but its a pretty big drop the ball.

5) No Q reservation. With Q's going between 2-3 hours on average, there was no Q reservation. Numerous occasions I was kicked from a Q with an internal launcher bug ( my net connection was fine, and as reported on the bioware forums, was launcher related) and was placed back into the end of a Q. When finally getting into the game, going AFK for what felt like ten minutes, or having another one fo the games many internal bugs that required a restart, would put me back into the end of a Q. Schoolboy...error.

6) Massive glaring bugs that wasted hours. Of the four flashpoints I've entered, three have ahd major bugs haulting me finishing. This has accumualted to a large number of hours wasted. The same for a large number of heroics. These were widespread, glaring bugs that indicated the itnernaly testing done was pretty ****e. After wasting so much time, I'm now avoiding doing ANY heroics or flashpoints till max.

I had a chat with some people on my mumble the other night about WoW launch. Some ahd some issues on the night of release, but rememvering it was released at midnight with servers online straight away. Swtor was released midnight and servers went down till the next day, after having a week of actual early access players already.

I didn't experience a hickup in Wow that I can recall on original launch. Of course there was a few bugs here and there, but nothing that genuinely impeded gameplay.

TheDoc

DeVore wrote: »

They have done some things wrong but it has been good and I'm enjoying it. Been through a few launches from the days of Everquest and Ultima (I R Old ) to Warhammer and Rift. This one hasnt been too bad.

Considering we'll be paying full whack for it a month, I will be expecting some better communication, which at the moment is poor. Not to mention free DLC.

So far I'm enjoying it for what it is, an RPG where I can group with my mates rather than Massively Multiplayer.

DeV.

You wont be seeing regular "DLC". Content patches typically come in quarters of the year. Hard to say what sort of release schedule we would see. But you wont be seeing something new every month. Thats not what your monthly fee is for....


As its the launch I'd say the sort of patches wwe will see over the coming months will be hotfixes and improvements. I wouldn't expect to see any sort of content patch with new content until ATLEAST August if not later.

I would also assume they have a ton of content they held back from launch to drop as content if people went through current content quicker then expected.


Communication is tricky. They have forum reps who deal with queries and answer as much as they can along with the dedictaed call centre and the twitter and facebook accounts.

I would imagine communication, like blizzard will come on their terms, and rightly so. You rarely get decent threads or questions popping up for these guys to answer, and I'd say they loose heart after siving through the bollox that gets posted.

If they get into the habbit of maybe bi-weekly, monthly posting large updates through their website I'd be more then happy. ( mmo-champ please star datamining swtor stuff )

Nody

TheDoc wrote: »

You wont be seeing regular "DLC". Content patches typically come in quarters of the year. Hard to say what sort of release schedule we would see. But you wont be seeing something new every month. Thats not what your monthly fee is for....

Based on your other posts complaining about lack of threat meters the fact you don't appear to recognise Everquest nor Ultima as posted by Devore allow me to bring you up to speed.

Everquest (EQ going forward) and Ultima were considered the first 2nd generation MMOs launched. Everquest at the time was revolutionary due to having actual 3d models and areas to run around in 1st person with out PvP (rather then the over shoulder third party view of Ultima and constant PvP). Everquest was launched about 12 years ago (March 16th 1999) and usually sported an expansion a year (with out any content between). EQ was VERY slow leveling at the start, personally I took 50 days (that's 24h per day) to reach level 50 (max cap at the time) and it also had "hell levels" at 30/35/40/45 which basically (due to a screwed up exp scaling for levels required 2.5 times as much exp as the previous level). it included looking at your spell book when recovering mana (only doable by sitting down which also triggered any mob to attack you directly for full damage) until level 30 etc. There were over 2000 quests that were broken and you could not level with quests, only do the odd one here and there. The rest was pure grinding of mobs (usually with higher then appropiate level mobs roaming ganking your group as well). Most items were also not on quests but rare drops (as in a 0.1% chance to spawn every 8 minutes at one of 9 different spots in a zone type of rare and hope to Brell it did not spawn under ground as you'd need to wait for a server respawn to fix that!).

In EQ you raided with up to 72 people at the time with out threat meters, fancy healing GUIs and you know what? It worked perfectly fine but it actually required people to be skilled rather then be able to play whack the mole style UI. EQ was the definition of hammer on genitals type of MMO, the game developers even intentionally blocked raids by making certain bosses unkillable because the expansion launched with said content actually did not have the zones completed yet (such as Rathe Council, Lord what ever I can't remember the name in the moon expansion that was in the top of the building killed from the roof by "cheaters"). And as for communication? The developers would go around to the class boards usually 1 month before expansions to drum up interest; then they would be quiet until next expansion would come out.

Travelling? That consisted of RUNNING it through the zones (usually 3 to 10 zones each taking a couple of min) unless you got lucky and found a wizard or druid to help you (and they could only go to certain zones at a specific area anyway so footslogging from there).

Dying? Wel at level 50 that usually involved losing between 2 to 10 hours worth of grinding depending on how good your group were unless you could get a ressurection from a priest that could reduce that by 50 to 90% (not that many around that were max level for the 90%). Of course you also lost all your gear were you died and had to run back naked to retrieve it (no wisp ala WoW or something like that) and if you were at the bottom of the dungeon (most dungeons had a 12 min respawn time) all mobs would be up and you could risk losing all your gear. Your spawn spot would usually be 3 to 5 zones away (could only bind at a city if you were not a caster and caster were also limited to have to bind above ground).

Of course all patching was done for US time zone due to low EU population. Sony even said there was not a big enough MMO market in EU yet EU people had to import the expansions from US or wait a month before it arrived in stores here; the day WoW launched EU MMO population became bigger then the US WoW population (up yours Sony!). Also had other lovely things such as fixed respawns, hacking (some hacks they never fixed to date as far as I know), unbalanced items (original fungal staff anyone?), crashed servers (try not being able to play for a week due to an expansion as a normal state) we've seen most things by now.

Point of all of this is, Devore (and quite a few other posters here including myself) are quite aware of how MMOs have developed over time and not only from the time of WoW. I'm not playing SWTOR (to busy with WoT and rl and beta feedback was not good enough) but I'm not hearing any glaring issues. Polishing issues? Yes. Boring quests? Yes. Dead enviroment (lack of life/changes and no people around)? Yes. Crashed and burn MMO (ala FF13)? Don't think so.

I think SWTOR will end up doing a AOC style launch, sell like hell, crash and burn from millions to half a mil in a year or so. In two or three years later it will then become a good game but forgotten as people moved past to new pastures already. Exactly as so many other MMOs have (and will keep on doing); after all you only get one launch window to pull people in, fail doing that and your MMO is going to suffer. As far as I can recall Eve and WoW are the only MMOs who went against this trend by having more paying subscriptions beyond initial quarter sales numbers by end the end of year 1. In case of WoW by launching at the right time (pulling in casual gamers and pulling in bitter MMO vets alike) and by being very public about their beta (free posting, pulling in a ton of people and you know, making things fun and playable on low spec PCs, word of mouth pulled in a ton of people).

TheDoc

While I never played Eq or Ultima, speaking to those that did the raiding and end game content was while at first a jaw dropping experience, was pretty rubbish compared to most recent games.

MMO's make or break on their endgame content.

As someone who enjoys doing endgame content and pushing the hardest modes available, while not being the best player in town, I'd consider myself to be an ok player.

While I appreciate that new MMO's might not have the most polished of user interfaces, there is no denying that there are some basic bread and butter tools nowadays that simply make raiding mroe comfortable and less frustrating.

I don't think its about skill as much as just putting a blocker for players to cause mroe wipes.
And considering there has been leaps and bounds within MMO UI infrastructure and developement over the last 8-10 years, I don't like to think that jumping backwards is a "skill check".

As a tank I should be able to see my threat, group members threat and hilighted aggro around the party/raid frames.

Currently the only way, is to see where the blaster is going : /

I dunno just feel its a basic commodotity nowadays, maybe its just me

Kirby

Surely the sole job of a tank is to manage your threat? If a meter tells the group when to dps and when to not.....aren't they doing your job for you?

I miss the days of week 2 Molten Core when you had to reign in your fire mages and shadow priests. Metres ruined any sense of drama at all in the subsequent 7 years of WoW. And they were nearly banned. Addons like decursive were eventually banned because the devs weren't happy with a classes job being done for them. Aggro metres amount to the same thing and there was fierce debate among the dev team on whether to get rid of raid metres.

Eventually, the decision was taken out of their hands by the bigwigs as they were afraid of the player backlash and so they stayed.

Draupnir

It seems one of the biggest gripes from MMO veterans is the lack of meters and the UI in general. Personally, I think the lack of meters and UI customisation is a real bonus for the game. I don't want the experimentation and danger taken out of heroics and flashpoints by metres, as a healer I enjoy the sense of responsibilty required to watch my team mates health and keep them alive.

Meters would take that away and the game would get crazy easy, not that it's massively hard as it is. That just seems like the gripe of a lazy player who find themselves struggling without their tools from other games.

For what it's worth, I am loving the experience in this game so far, I've only got one char in the mid twenties so far, but I am enjoying it very much, particularly the companion system.

I do find that it can be hard to get groups together for heroics particularly, which is probably due to the instancing approach, hopefully this can be tweekend somewhat to improve it.

JoeDante

Not sure I'll last over 2 months on this one. If it's your first MMO you might stick with it, can't see vets playing it too long. playing with a few online friends at the moment which is keeping my hand in.

witless1

Draupnir wrote: »

It seems one of the biggest gripes from MMO veterans is the lack of meters and the UI in general. Personally, I think the lack of meters and UI customisation is a real bonus for the game. I don't want the experimentation and danger taken out of heroics and flashpoints by metres, as a healer I enjoy the sense of responsibilty required to watch my team mates health and keep them alive.

Meters would take that away and the game would get crazy easy, not that it's massively hard as it is. That just seems like the gripe of a lazy player who find themselves struggling without their tools from other games.

A small part of the overall problem is mods and a larger problem is the mindset taken from other MMOs. It is very much involving playing a healer particularly at low levels (24 here) in that you don't have the resources or throughput to keep more the one person alive over a sustained period of time. The AoE heal on my BH I only received 2 levels ago and it's fairly weak but certainly a help. Mods won't help that as I can see who is taking damage but gear and levels will though.

The last few heroics and flashpoints have frustrated me but it's down to player stupidity of which mods can somewhat address. Split DPS resulting in multiple people pulling aggro. I have had to deal with 2 people tanking separate mobs and me taking healing aggro from an untanked mob because of blinkered tanks. I tried marks, I tried calling things out but it's to no avail. It's obviously only a PUG thing and like you said it's players struggling without their tools from other games. DPS and tanks can't visibly pick up the right targets (despite marks) and tanks are missing targets aggroed onto someone else because they were used to an automated approach telling them what to do. The gripe I have is the mental attitude of simply not requiring CC and people telling me that they have always played a tank, alluding to the fact they played WoW of course. Shouting at a healer for WHY YOU NO HEAL ME when they go in and pull 6 mobs with no cooldown usage or attempt at CC or kill order is after making me respec DPS. I'm going to go back to healing at max level where I can run with guildies instead of idiots. To me it's going to be players who experience both sides of that, the perceived lack of skill of the healer and the flipside of the ignorance of the player base that will push players away from SWTOR. It's no fault of the game or the approach they have taken or the levelling experience but it will reach a critical mass where people will walk away. This game has the potential to be brilliant and a long term MMO but at the same time the mindset of the population driven by watered down piss poor content and behaviour both born in another MMO could well topple it, which would be a shame as the game will die without getting a proper chance. I'm hoping it will last as already there is enough there to make me not want to renew WoW at least not until the next expansion.

Draupnir

witless1 wrote: »

A small part of the overall problem is mods and a larger problem is the mindset taken from other MMOs. It is very much involving playing a healer particularly at low levels (24 here) in that you don't have the resources or throughput to keep more the one person alive over a sustained period of time. The AoE heal on my BH I only received 2 levels ago and it's fairly weak but certainly a help. Mods won't help that as I can see who is taking damage but gear and levels will though.

The last few heroics and flashpoints have frustrated me but it's down to player stupidity of which mods can somewhat address. Split DPS resulting in multiple people pulling aggro. I have had to deal with 2 people tanking separate mobs and me taking healing aggro from an untanked mob because of blinkered tanks. I tried marks, I tried calling things out but it's to no avail. It's obviously only a PUG thing and like you said it's players struggling without their tools from other games. DPS and tanks can't visibly pick up the right targets (despite marks) and tanks are missing targets aggroed onto someone else because they were used to an automated approach telling them what to do. The gripe I have is the mental attitude of simply not requiring CC and people telling me that they have always played a tank, alluding to the fact they played WoW of course. Shouting at a healer for WHY YOU NO HEAL ME when they go in and pull 6 mobs with no cooldown usage or attempt at CC or kill order is after making me respec DPS. I'm going to go back to healing at max level where I can run with guildies instead of idiots. To me it's going to be players who experience both sides of that, the perceived lack of skill of the healer and the flipside of the ignorance of the player base that will push players away from SWTOR. It's no fault of the game or the approach they have taken or the levelling experience but it will reach a critical mass where people will walk away. This game has the potential to be brilliant and a long term MMO but at the same time the mindset of the population driven by watered down piss poor content and behaviour both born in another MMO could well topple it, which would be a shame as the game will die without getting a proper chance. I'm hoping it will last as already there is enough there to make me not want to renew WoW at least not until the next expansion.

I couldn't agree with you more, I am really looking forward to getting to the same level as most of my guild so that I can group with people that actually want to discuss tactics and an approach to fighting. It's frustrating when guys charge in and pull three or four groups of mobs across all three party members leaving me to try and pick one to save!

I'm level 24 Commando btw.

Dubhthamlacht

witless1 wrote: »

A small part of the overall problem is mods and a larger problem is the mindset taken from other MMOs. It is very much involving playing a healer particularly at low levels (24 here) in that you don't have the resources or throughput to keep more the one person alive over a sustained period of time. The AoE heal on my BH I only received 2 levels ago and it's fairly weak but certainly a help. Mods won't help that as I can see who is taking damage but gear and levels will though.

The last few heroics and flashpoints have frustrated me but it's down to player stupidity of which mods can somewhat address. Split DPS resulting in multiple people pulling aggro. I have had to deal with 2 people tanking separate mobs and me taking healing aggro from an untanked mob because of blinkered tanks. I tried marks, I tried calling things out but it's to no avail. It's obviously only a PUG thing and like you said it's players struggling without their tools from other games. DPS and tanks can't visibly pick up the right targets (despite marks) and tanks are missing targets aggroed onto someone else because they were used to an automated approach telling them what to do. The gripe I have is the mental attitude of simply not requiring CC and people telling me that they have always played a tank, alluding to the fact they played WoW of course. Shouting at a healer for WHY YOU NO HEAL ME when they go in and pull 6 mobs with no cooldown usage or attempt at CC or kill order is after making me respec DPS. I'm going to go back to healing at max level where I can run with guildies instead of idiots. To me it's going to be players who experience both sides of that, the perceived lack of skill of the healer and the flipside of the ignorance of the player base that will push players away from SWTOR. It's no fault of the game or the approach they have taken or the levelling experience but it will reach a critical mass where people will walk away. This game has the potential to be brilliant and a long term MMO but at the same time the mindset of the population driven by watered down piss poor content and behaviour both born in another MMO could well topple it, which would be a shame as the game will die without getting a proper chance. I'm hoping it will last as already there is enough there to make me not want to renew WoW at least not until the next expansion.

Absolutely spot on! For people like myself who played WoW from release, the gripes in SWTOR are minor, relatively speaking. SWTOR will change and improve with time. I remember my WoW guild learing to kill Vaelestraz in Blackwing Liar without a threat meter, man, that was wild! WoW has indeed encouraged a player base to be lazy. I do also remember lots of people I played with in first few month(s) quitting WoW as it didn't conform to their expectations. No MMORPG is going to be everything to everyone. This is a very good game which will continue to improve.

DeVore

Why dont we have a button marked X and when you press it you win! We can all press X and we can all win! Hurrah!

You know why I stopped playing WOW? Because I grouped with a PUG rather then my usual experienced buddies and the Shamen pulled a bunch of extra mobs all the time. I am healer and I tell him not to over pull and watch his aggro. Turns out, he has no idea what those concepts were.

In EQ, from which much of modern MMO's derive things from, you just didnt get to 50 unless you knew what you were doing. You would lose so much xp from death that you would stabilise at a level if you were that bad.

Here is the very brief theory of grouping.

Healer: They are the bass players of the band. They control all and should be calling the shots. They heal the tank. If they can do other things too, they will, but their primary task is to keep main tank up.

Tank: Tank pulls. Only tank pulls, no one else. Tank talks to healer and makes sure he's ok to pull. Tank should keep the primary mob on him, and take over any other mob which adds.* Tank's job is to get hit, not necessarily to deal damage.

DPS: Do damage. They kill things. If an add arrives, they may do some crowd control on it. If anything touches the healer, they target it. Everyone should target it. Healer is your quarterback, nothing touches him.

Its much more complex then that but quite honestly, these days its far too easy to zerg the mobs and its lead to very sloppy play. I would love to see the very best drops being at the end of VERY hard Heroic 4+'s which require excellent team play.

In EQ days, groups would quite simply kick you if you didnt understand your role. It was just to dangerous to have a muppet on team with you because you suffered if he pulled half a zone on you. It was really quite simple to pull 2 dozen mobs onto your group when 2-3 would have been very dangerous. Result, everyone gets turned into a grease spot and puts that idiot on their list of "never group with again".

The lack of risk is a problem. I know it sounds weird but losing 5 hours grinding if you died plus possibly a lot of gear was awesome. It meant that sneaking through an area you had to get through to go somewhere but was waaaay to high level, was a real arse-squeaker

Now it feels like you cant really die and if you do, ho hum... consequently there is not risk and therefore no reward. No sense of "achievement".

DeV.

Kiith

As much as i like the idea of harsh penalties in MMO's, losing all my gear that time in Darkfall or the first time i lost my Cruiser in Eve still haunt me. I learned from it in Eve (and bought insurance on my next ship ), i quit Darkfall never to play again.

Draupnir

DeVore wrote: »

In EQ days, groups would quite simply kick you if you didnt understand your role. It was just to dangerous to have a muppet on team with you because you suffered if he pulled half a zone on you. It was really quite simple to pull 2 dozen mobs onto your group when 2-3 would have been very dangerous. Result, everyone gets turned into a grease spot and puts that idiot on their list of "never group with again".

The lack of risk is a problem. I know it sounds weird but losing 5 hours grinding if you died plus possibly a lot of gear was awesome. It meant that sneaking through an area you had to get through to go somewhere but was waaaay to high level, was a real arse-squeaker

Now it feels like you cant really die and if you do, ho hum... consequently there is not risk and therefore no reward. No sense of "achievement".

Well said, I firmly believe that this type of experience was why I spent a number of years staring at a MUD in a terminal window reading text descriptions. That sense of danger and responsibility was outstanding.

Dustaz

That maybe the case Dev, but WoWs raids were/are infinitely more difficult than EQ's, they require more precision, more communication, more synchronisation than eq's ever did. So the tools to educate players exist in wow, its just that some people ignore them.

The reason for this is the numbers game. How many subs did eq have at its peak? And how many people stuck with the horrific grind to level cap?

Compare that with 10 million people playing wow. Of COURSE you're going to get dribblers and you're going to get lots of them.

Its for precisely this reason that the game needs tools like a combat log or dps meters to allow people to rise above the level of dribble

Kirby

10 million people never played wow. They had 10 million accounts . Most people who played had more than one account myself included....and atleast 5% of that ten million accounts were gold farmers. Certain sources put it at a higher number which I would be inclined to believe. Bare in mind that every time they banned a gold farming account, that gold farmer would either hack or buy a new account.....which activision count towards their tally.

Wow is king. No doubting that. But that 10 million figure they loved to chuck around was never true. Especially not now. They've been bleeding users for years. Hence kung fu panda race. Its an attempt at the untapped facebook female market.

DeVore

I dont like grind. I dont think its good "game play". Playing Swtor feels more like an adventure because I'm level 22 and I dont think I have ever said "how many more of these do we have to kill?".

But you can have those informational elements and still have danger and risk/reward. I think you are employing a false dichotomy in that regard.

And yes, obviously there were issue with EQ... the hell levels being one of them! But again, I'm not advocating returning to that, just that some consequences would make the game better and force people to ask "why arent we able to clear XYZ instance and get the uber gear". Level to 50 fine but the top rewards should go to the best players, not the players with the most time...



DeV.

Nody

Dustaz wrote: »

The reason for this is the numbers game. How many subs did eq have at its peak? And how many people stuck with the horrific grind to level cap?

Compare that with 10 million people playing wow. Of COURSE you're going to get dribblers and you're going to get lots of them.

Its for precisely this reason that the game needs tools like a combat log or dps meters to allow people to rise above the level of dribble

WoW is an exception, no other MMO will reach that during the next 5 years, until you accept that any other comparison is a waste of time.

EQ had more paying players on at peak for more years then any MMO released after (excluding WoW) that I'm aware off with possible exception of Runescape (but I think most of those were not paying the normal subscription fee of 15 USD a month).

Dustaz

DeVore wrote: »

I dont like grind. I dont think its good "game play". Playing Swtor feels more like an adventure because I'm level 22 and I dont think I have ever said "how many more of these do we have to kill?".

But you can have those informational elements and still have danger and risk/reward. I think you are employing a false dichotomy in that regard.

And yes, obviously there were issue with EQ... the hell levels being one of them! But again, I'm not advocating returning to that, just that some consequences would make the game better and force people to ask "why arent we able to clear XYZ instance and get the uber gear". Level to 50 fine but the top rewards should go to the best players, not the players with the most time....

Im not sure I understand the point you're trying to make. EQ made people better players because the game forced them to spend more time in the game due to death penalties, but then you say the game shouldn't reward time spent. I'm not having a go, just confused.

As to the last point, you cannot unhinge time spent from skill. The best of the best in anything have put more time into that thing than most other people, thats why they are the best. The best raiders in mmos play a LOT (although they have a lot of downtime once content is cleared), the best quakers, the best sc2 players, the best anything, spent a LOT of time playing that game to get that good. A requirement of 'being good' is to put in the time.

For mmos there's a few levels of skill gradient.
The skill required to get to level cap is non-existant, you do the quests over however long you want and eventually get there.
The skill required to complete a dungeon is very low, you understand the basic concepts of tank/healer/dps and perform your role with a basic modicum of success.
The skill required to raid is a bit higher, you understand how to get a lot more out of your class, you don't stand in fire and you can take instruction and adapt when needed. Its still not rocket science.
The skill required to get server/world firsts is much much higher, apart from squeezing the absolute maximum possible dps/threat/healing etc from your character, you have an ability to read unknown situations with no instruction, formulate and execute new strategies and repeat executions with very little margin for error.


The first 3 plateaus are no brainers to get to, the last one requires a bit of work and time and thats why the best rewards go in that order. Im not sure how punishing the dribblers earlier makes them any more equipped for later.

DeVore

When I said "the best" I mean "people in the top tranche of players", not specifically the very best players on the server.

I didnt say the other things. I spent *less* time in EQ because I didnt die often because I wasnt thick I leveled faster as a result. I never made any point time spent, you put those words in my mouth

I'll try to be clearer: If you died every 5 hours of play in EQ, you'd get to about 40 and then quite simply you wouldnt get much further because the XP lost to death was equal to about 5 hours of play. You'd play, get XP, die, lose XP and never level again.

Only a good player would progress to end game (the idea of raids and the like hadnt come into things).


I think time spent is a poor correlation to skill. I've often picked up games and been better than people who have been playing them for a while. In MMO's it is often simple Intelligence and cop on that is needed rather than practise.

Plus, without any negative why both learning any skills. Just now the door bell rang and I got up and just left my toon mid fight. Why should I care if he dies? What, a tiny bit of damage to my armour? a few credits? I could care less if he dies. Sometimes I watch Mako die just for the giggles.

DeV.

TheDoc

Are people actually trying to argue for " harsher death penalties makes better gamers?"

Really? ... o my....

Kirby

TheDoc wrote: »

Are people actually trying to argue for " harsher death penalties makes better gamers?"

Really? ... o my....

Yes. And those people would be right.

Gamer's today in general are far, far worse than the gamers of the 80' and 90's. The dumbing down for the masses so that even your 4 year old brother can kill space marines with you is there for all to see.

Regenerative health, cover systems, save points every five minutes, multiple difficulty levels, hints, FAQ's, walthroughs, etc.etc. You can argue that these things makes games more enjoyable and will reach more people. You may be right. But that wasn't the statement made. The issue was if you make games easier and have no penalty for messing up.......... you end up with weaker players.

Games were made difficult before. This was partly to keep the kids putting the quarters in the machine and partly because you expected people to keep playing your game.

Nowadays, if a kid dies he gets annoyed and never plays again. This is why games are so damned easy. There are more options nowadays so game devs cater to the herpaderp ADHD kids because they have to. Otherwise their game won't sell. When I was a kid, you got bought a game once in a blue moon so you had no choice but to play over and over. Game dev's knew their games had to last. So they were bloody difficult.

And you died over and over. And this made you better. No infinite continues or instant respawns here......you died? You went back to the beginning. Hours of time lost. So you got good by necessity.

If there is no penalty for doing something wrong, you won't learn from it.

nesf

Kirby wrote: »

Yes. And those people would be right.

Gamer's today in general are far, far worse than the gamers of the 80' and 90's. The dumbing down for the masses so that even your 4 year old brother can kill space marines with you is there for all to see.

Regenerative health, cover systems, save points every five minutes, multiple difficulty levels, hints, FAQ's, walthroughs, etc.etc. You can argue that these things makes games more enjoyable and will reach more people. You may be right. But that wasn't the statement made. The issue was if you make games easier and have no penalty for messing up.......... you end up with weaker players.

Games were made difficult before. This was partly to keep the kids putting the quarters in the machine and partly because you expected people to keep playing your game.

Nowadays, if a kid dies he gets annoyed and never plays again. This is why games are so damned easy. There are more options nowadays so game devs cater to the herpaderp ADHD kids because they have to. Otherwise their game won't sell. When I was a kid, you got bought a game once in a blue moon so you had no choice but to play over and over. Game dev's knew their games had to last. So they were bloody difficult.

And you died over and over. And this made you better. No infinite continues or instant respawns here......you died? You went back to the beginning. Hours of time lost. So you got good by necessity.

If there is no penalty for doing something wrong, you won't learn from it.

+1

My 5 year old completed Mario 3D Land in 4 days. It took him a month to complete New Super Mario Bros. Yes, some of this is greater experience and control etc but the game is substantially easier to its predecessor on the DS. At 4 he could run around starting and mid level areas in WoW and kill thing effectively enough without dying.


I don't mind some games being easy for casual play but I still have fond memories of me and the brother crouched over Panzer/Fantasy General trying to work out how the hell to complete a level and that game wasn't even that hard for the time.

Jumpy

I remember playing Ultima 7 for close to a year. Now that was a tough, huge game.

Add the wizardry series and I didnt need many games

Ivan

We see this debate resurface with pretty much every new MMO. And the counter-argument is pretty straightforward. If people wanted more difficult gameplay, then those MMOs that offer it would be more successful. EVE is probably the greatest example of a successful MMO with harsh death penalties and even that's a niche market. The fact is WoW didn't make players lazier, or worse players - it just gave more people what they wanted - a relaxing experience with gateways requiring greater dedication for better rewards.

I still think it's a sin against humanity that Darkfall wasn't huge. That game had harsh death penalties by today's standards but then you just open up the door to grinding, another pet hate of the majority of subscription payers. It's a toss-up but history has shown the easier the skill curve brings greater player retention.

With respect to the original topic, the Warhammer GMs and QA team used to run through the new content, in GOA, back in the day. We had no clue what we were doing, as alot of the content was undocumented until we experienced it (for fear of details being leaked to the public) While neither Warhammer nor GOA should be a posterchild for anything - it does offer a pretty good insight into Bioware. Considering most of the dev team was drafted from the Warhammer team and most of the support team was drafted from GOA. My point being, they know what they are doing - but the people giving the orders... not necessarily.

P.s. @DeV, I'm not sure if it's your area anymore but can you take a look at/poke someone to take a look at:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056476246&page=2

nesf

Ivan wrote: »

We see this debate resurface with pretty much every new MMO. And the counter-argument is pretty straightforward. If people wanted more difficult gameplay, then those MMOs that offer it would be more successful. EVE is probably the greatest example of a successful MMO with harsh death penalties and even that's a niche market. The fact is WoW didn't make players lazier, or worse players - it just gave more people what they wanted - a relaxing experience with gateways requiring greater dedication for better rewards.

I still think it's a sin against humanity that Darkfall wasn't huge. That game had harsh death penalties by today's standards but then you just open up the door to grinding, another pet hate of the majority of subscription payers. It's a toss-up but history has shown the easier the skill curve brings greater player retention.

I don't think anyone is arguing that making a harder MMO would bring more commercial success. Same as making a more competent but more complicated Operating System would do the same, there's a reason Ubuntu is so massively popular etc.

TheDoc

I just find the arugement completely irrelevant.

So in a nutshell we are that todays MMO's are easier because the death penalty is less, thereby not developing player skill at an early stage?

I just dont agree with it, if your not raiding hardcore raids in WoW, your not playing at the games top skill level, its simple as.

WoW was the first MMO that was really accessible to the casual player,and there is plenty of scenarios on your way through levelling to ensure you know how your clas works and the abilities it contains.

I think its a bit of the same old same old, sweeping generalising statments from players who havnt really done the upper echolons of the content, but reading forums and making assumptions.

I've never experienced ANY challenge as that put forward by Heroic raiding, actually just raiding in general in WoW

nesf

TheDoc wrote: »

I just find the arugement completely irrelevant.

So in a nutshell we are that todays MMO's are easier because the death penalty is less, thereby not developing player skill at an early stage?

I just dont agree with it, if your not raiding hardcore raids in WoW, your not playing at the games top skill level, its simple as.

WoW was the first MMO that was really accessible to the casual player,and there is plenty of scenarios on your way through levelling to ensure you know how your clas works and the abilities it contains.

I think its a bit of the same old same old, sweeping generalising statments from players who havnt really done the upper echolons of the content, but reading forums and making assumptions.

I've never experienced ANY challenge as that put forward by Heroic raiding, actually just raiding in general in WoW

Well, the argument is about PuGs not hard mode raiding. No one has said hard mode raiding isn't difficult.

Draupnir

TheDoc wrote: »

I just find the arugement completely irrelevant.

So in a nutshell we are that todays MMO's are easier because the death penalty is less, thereby not developing player skill at an early stage?

I just dont agree with it, if your not raiding hardcore raids in WoW, your not playing at the games top skill level, its simple as.

WoW was the first MMO that was really accessible to the casual player,and there is plenty of scenarios on your way through levelling to ensure you know how your clas works and the abilities it contains.

I think its a bit of the same old same old, sweeping generalising statments from players who havnt really done the upper echolons of the content, but reading forums and making assumptions.

I've never experienced ANY challenge as that put forward by Heroic raiding, actually just raiding in general in WoW

I think we are talking about the game in general being too straight forward and riskless, as opposed to top end content being too easy. At least we are when we talk about death penalties etc.

There are obviously pretty big death penalties in dungeons / flashpoints / heroics etc. but even then I do think they should be harder. In terms of raiding, you know more than I, but I would assume that the responsibility to your raid mates / guildies is a pretty big risk and means the death penalties are pretty severe there. I bet that adds a lot to the raid experience, would you agree?

TheDoc

nesf wrote: »

Well, the argument is about PuGs not hard mode raiding. No one has said hard mode raiding isn't difficult.

The point being raised is that older MMO's were more difficult and created a higher level of skill within the players.

I just find the arugement moot, simply because its being put forward by people who dont do hardcore raiding. Everyone knows Hardcore raiding is where the challenege and skill is at, and if you want to be a good player or better, this is where you need to be.

Thats not a pop at anyone here, I'm just reading it accross numerous forums that " wow is easy mode" coming from people with aboslutely no noticable achievements or experience, but simply jumping on the bandwagon of what other people are saying, who in turn also have no experience at high level content and the circle continues.

As Darupnir kinda points to yes, a large part of the experience is having 10 or 25 guys all up to a high competant level of focus. You could play your role perfect but someone else making a mistake causes a wipe.

We are definitly being dragged off the topic a little, but I did feel a strong reaction to " Well older MMO's were harder and the players were better" and it just bugs me, its a real stuck in nostalgia attitude that even some wow players get referring back to Vanilla.

Simply put, people have a very skewered look on World of Warcraft. Unless your clearing content on Heroic mode, our not clearing content, hence not finishing, therefore can hold no real arguement as to the level of the content.

As you didn't complete heroic modes, or you stopped, indicates your not skilled enough, or werent arsed putting effort in.

Again, nothing at anyone here, just in general at the webs attitude towards "wow getting easier". Of course its easier in a sense, its over 8 years old...things have gradually being put in place to help poorer/casual players experience end game content, although in my personal opinion I dont think its a good move and destracts from the epicness of raiding tiers.

But really I'm trying to get my head around the point that somehow dying more, is more challenging. It is really not, if anything its more frustrating. I'm going around SWTOR finishing simple mob fights with 40% wondering why am I continuing to play a tank class that takes MASSIVE damage,

TheDoc

Kirby wrote: »

Yes. And those people would be right.

Gamer's today in general are far, far worse than the gamers of the 80' and 90's. The dumbing down for the masses so that even your 4 year old brother can kill space marines with you is there for all to see.

Regenerative health, cover systems, save points every five minutes, multiple difficulty levels, hints, FAQ's, walthroughs, etc.etc. You can argue that these things makes games more enjoyable and will reach more people. You may be right. But that wasn't the statement made. The issue was if you make games easier and have no penalty for messing up.......... you end up with weaker players.

Games were made difficult before. This was partly to keep the kids putting the quarters in the machine and partly because you expected people to keep playing your game.

Nowadays, if a kid dies he gets annoyed and never plays again. This is why games are so damned easy. There are more options nowadays so game devs cater to the herpaderp ADHD kids because they have to. Otherwise their game won't sell. When I was a kid, you got bought a game once in a blue moon so you had no choice but to play over and over. Game dev's knew their games had to last. So they were bloody difficult.

And you died over and over. And this made you better. No infinite continues or instant respawns here......you died? You went back to the beginning. Hours of time lost. So you got good by necessity.

If there is no penalty for doing something wrong, you won't learn from it.

Some good points.

But it has been well documented and studies have been undertaken that hilight current gamers attention spans are DRASTICALLY less then those that have gone before.

That is simply with general populace, not even gamers. People are getting used to getting fired, focused information in small snippets, ala Twitter, RSS, Facebook, Text messages.

Nobody wants details, they want a summary( I even notice it in my place of work)

There is no random coincidence that games of today are drastically shorter with more high focused intensity in smaller time scales. Take example Call of duty, Halo etc..

I know with WoW anyway, that it was only a matter of time that the game was made slightly easier during levelling content, as we are now three expansions in.

Could you imagine if you were rolling a fresh character on WoW, to get to 85, with no heirlooms and the XP cuts werent in place.
At present I'm levelling a shaman and have got her to 70 in roughly about 1 -1.4 days played. I'm not interested in quests, I'm not caring for a challenge. I know the challenge and fun for me comes with endgame gearing and raiding

FML...