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Mustang posted:Sure, I just think that kind of content doesn't belong in MMO's and actively detracts from the massively multiplayer experience. They certainly don't add anything to it. So what do you want, instead of a story?
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Feb 7, 2021 00:39
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LLSix posted:WoW allows access to whispers. You still have to buy into those games though; I don't remember gold selling being a big issue back when I played GW2 but that might just be because the company itself sells gold directly to the players, so farmers would have to compete with the devs. Itzena posted:"I don't want plot in my MMORPG" There's plenty of combat-centered RPGs that are very story-light or have no story at all. They might also want a game like EVE where the real story is the evolving social meta.
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Feb 7, 2021 00:48
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Now we're getting into the fun of the fact that RPG meant 'role-playing game', i.e. "A game where you roleplay your character", but when translated to early video games became "a game with statistics and mechanics resembling popular tabletop roleplaying games of the era, like DnD, GURPS and Traveler". Now there exist tabletop roleplaying games which straight up don't have stats or combat systems (obviously they're the minority compared to the corporate juggernaut that is DnD) next to video games where the only link to being an RPG is that you beat up enemies to level up. I think my favourite instance of this was seeing some comment on Disco Elysium where someone said "looks cool but not really my thing, is it even an RPG if it doesn't have combat".
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Feb 7, 2021 01:51
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Itzena posted:"I don't want plot in my MMORPG" I'd argue that it depends on what you mean by "story." Of course an MMORPG should have a story for/behind its world, because you need to know where you are, who your people are, what conflicts are going on around you, etc. The problem a lot of people perceive with the kind of single-player storytelling, complete with cutscenes, sidekicks, personal questlines, et al., being included in an MMORPG is that it results in an enormous and irreconcilable level of dissonance between the story a player is told is theirs and the story of the world in which they're actually playing alongside that personal story and after it finishes. SWTOR is a good example of this problem: you're led through one of eight long personal storylines in which you're given a specific origin, a set of companions who have specific reasons for joining up with you, and all the other trappings of a Bioware RPG. And the stories aren't bad per se; they range from decent to excellent as single-player RPG plots go. But then you finish the story and reach max level, and you're thrown into a world where 25% of everyone else playing your chosen faction has had the exact same special origin storyline you did, and suddenly the question of "who" your character is supposed to be within this world is muddy and meaningless. Do you think of your character as the only true version of that story's protagonist, in which case the "multiplayer" element now has no relationship to the storytelling? Do you imagine a different, novel background for your character, thus nullifying the entire storyline you spent 20+ hours playing? And then it gets even stupider with the expansion stories, in which every character has an identical "chosen one" plot about becoming the single most powerful and impactful entity in the universe. The "story" you experience in an MMORPG should be the narrative you as a player create for yourself through the act of playing it, by yourself and with others. The world needs a backstory so as to give that gameplay context, and it should evolve over time to give you new experiences and settings, but personal storylines that by the nature of their events could only possibly have happened to an individual character do not belong in an MMORPG.
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Feb 7, 2021 02:09
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Hic Sunt Dracones posted:being included in an MMORPG is that it results in an enormous and irreconcilable level of dissonance between the story a player is told is theirs and the story of the world in which they're actually playing alongside that personal story and after it finishes. My unironic opinion of ludonarrative dissonance is that it's cool and more games should actively lean into it. It's like the songs in musicals. They're not 'really' happening, the main characters aren't trained singers doing elaborately choreographed dance moves, we just accept that it's a 'heightened reality' abstracting things. Too often we point it out and say "bad" instead of "interesting, what else can we do with it?".
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Feb 7, 2021 02:31
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bewilderment posted:My unironic opinion of ludonarrative dissonance is that it's cool and more games should actively lean into it. I agree that a certain amount of ludonarrative dissonance in an MMORPG is necessary and inevitable: e.g., I know that my character doesn't really see a magical user interface superimposed onto their reality, that the sheer density of monsters and animals populating the world is absurd, that nothing will ever be truly geographically "distant" no matter how it's described due to technical limitations, and that respawning mobs and players don't really make sense. But I'd argue that the narrative attached to one's character is an essential and fundamental element of what makes an RPG an RPG. It's not as though there aren't plenty of single-player stories being told in games; they're the large majority, and I like them too. But multiplayer games set in persistent worlds call for a different kind of storytelling, and incorporating single-player narrative techniques into multiplayer environments always (in my opinion, obviously) fails on both fronts. My character's story should consist of the collection of choices I made and their consequences within a world containing enough content and flexible systems to allow for a variety of interesting choices.
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Feb 7, 2021 03:28
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i think it's fine to have story heavy rpgs that you can play with your friends (in mmo or nwn2 forms), not every game has to be for everyone vvvv: big same Truga fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 03:41
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its a nice and warm feeling when you do old content with a friend who's going through it all for the first time and get to hear/read them gush over the cutscenes, imo
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Feb 7, 2021 04:04
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If you got cutscenes in your MMO (apart from I guess some intro setting one) something went wrong somewhere. I can't really fault anyone for liking them maybe they got into the genre late.
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Feb 7, 2021 06:42
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yeah you keep to your mmos, i'll also play mmorpgs tho
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Feb 7, 2021 06:48
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Thought we are already covered that RPG refers to the stats stuff and not that you're the Golden One Hero of the Universe.
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Feb 7, 2021 06:50
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Groovelord Neato posted:If you got cutscenes in your MMO (apart from I guess some intro setting one) something went wrong somewhere. I can't really fault anyone for liking them maybe they got into the genre late. Counterpoint: FF14 is the only good MMO out right now
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Feb 7, 2021 07:41
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jokes posted:Counterpoint: FF14 is the only good MMO out right now You’re replying to a broke brain who can’t enjoy xiv
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Feb 7, 2021 16:26
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Groovelord Neato posted:Thought we are already covered that RPG refers to the stats stuff and not that you're the Golden One Hero of the Universe. i very much wasn't convinced by that stupid argument, sorry. the best rpgs are ones without stats, so clearly rpgs are a land of contrasts
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Feb 7, 2021 16:34
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please knock Mom! posted:You’re replying to a broke brain who can’t enjoy xiv I didn’t notice. I feel bad when people don’t let themselves enjoy things That’s really sad 
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Feb 7, 2021 16:41
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bewilderment posted:My unironic opinion of ludonarrative dissonance is that it's cool and more games should actively lean into it. I quite like the 'middle ground' WoW and FFXIV have managed to find, where yes, you're playing through "your" story but most of the major plotlines talk more about the plural 'you', the idea being that all the other players are heroes too, so we all need to work together to bring down the demon/asteroid/wizard/big spider.
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Feb 7, 2021 16:43
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Truga posted:i very much wasn't convinced by that stupid argument, sorry. the best rpgs are ones without stats, so clearly rpgs are a land of contrasts It wasn't an argument it was a proper description. jokes posted:Counterpoint: FF14 is the only good MMO out right now Now look at the thread title. please knock Mom! posted:You’re replying to a broke brain who can’t enjoy xiv I made it far enough in to give a fair assessment. It would require a broke brain to keep going from there. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 18:27
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Groovelord Neato posted:I made it far enough in to give a fair assessment. It would require a broke brain to keep going from there. local man finishes reading two chapters of the fellowship of the ring, checks out on the rest of the trilogy because "it's for broke brains"
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Feb 7, 2021 23:09
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Just started working my way through the trial, the Uldah opening is pretty dull but I like the emissary scenes, even if the stuff leading up to the banquet seems contrived Also when you first ride the airship and the camera swings past and back, I was expecting the title to pop up like most Final Fantasies
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Feb 7, 2021 23:23
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Saw that Everquest Online Adventures is making progress on the fan side of things. People have the world at least somewhat populated with mobs, and quests. Its still a very long ways away though, no spells, or attack skills are present yet, and you can't earn levels or exp.
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Feb 7, 2021 23:32
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Frida Call Me posted:local man finishes reading two chapters of the fellowship of the ring, checks out on the rest of the trilogy because "it's for broke brains" If the first two chapters (it's more like a quarter to a third of the book in this analogy) were really bad why would I continue on? Especially if I was looking for a fantasy book and the first chunk of it was an instruction manual for installing a laundry center. I said come in! posted:Saw that Everquest Online Adventures is making progress on the fan side of things. People have the world at least somewhat populated with mobs, and quests. Its still a very long ways away though, no spells, or attack skills are present yet, and you can't earn levels or exp. I only know one person who played that back in the day and he didn't stick with it for very long. He's the one that got me into Asheron's Call.
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Feb 8, 2021 03:51
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How bad is Skyforge? It's got a switch port now
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Feb 8, 2021 03:52
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bewilderment posted:I think my favourite instance of this was seeing some comment on Disco Elysium where someone said "looks cool but not really my thing, is it even an RPG if it doesn't have combat". A really good argument for population control, that one
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Feb 8, 2021 04:19
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I like FF14 but "I'm not going through 30 hours of poo poo to get to the good stuff in a game" is a perfectly reasonable opinion to have. Same reason I stopped playing Death Stranding when I irrevocably wiped my save and couldn't be bothered restarting.
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Feb 8, 2021 08:22
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As someone who gave the game a fair shake and ran through all the expansion content cause goons kept praising it and saying how much better it gets. It doesn’t get that much better, if you don’t enjoy the basic ARR experience you likely won’t enjoy the expansions either. It does get better but not by that much. At least that was my experience.
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Feb 8, 2021 08:29
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I think I would theoretically be really into the whole "no story! Players make their own experiences!" type of sandboxes if they could actually pull it off well. The problem is most sandboxes like that seem to be chasing some sort of eve-light thing and can't retain the population to make it fun instead of getting ganked by tryhards who have more free time than you for the average player. The interesting thing is I think I saw the opposite happen in maplestory 2, there was a ton of casual poo poo but they couldn't nail the endgame at all so all the tryhards jumped ship, shortly followed by casuals.
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Feb 8, 2021 09:29
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Len posted:How bad is Skyforge? It's got a switch port now all I remember is you can make a character with a really tight rear end
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Feb 8, 2021 11:00
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please knock Mom! posted:You’re replying to a broke brain who can’t enjoy xiv you should go outside
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Feb 8, 2021 19:23
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Xun posted:I think I would theoretically be really into the whole "no story! Players make their own experiences!" type of sandboxes if they could actually pull it off well. The problem is most sandboxes like that seem to be chasing some sort of eve-light thing and can't retain the population to make it fun instead of getting ganked by tryhards who have more free time than you for the average player. I bought into MS2 founders pack at the highest tier and also ran one of the largest data mining sites for it. There's a whole other can of worms, where: - tryhard: tryhards could not tryhard or powerlevel/rush, due to weekly dungeon cap - tryhard: no actual endgame/endgame being added slowly - tryhard/casual: pvp sucked and was horribly designed latency-wise - casual: it costs non-trivial amounts of money to add your own content (make shirts, etc) - casual: the DMCAs and legal notices started rolling in after brands took notice that there were thousands of virtual gucci/supreme shirts being uploaded and sold for real life money on the cash shop - casual: idiot gamers do not realise it is a felony, and get loudly upset and often harassing support when they get taken down without refund because they intentionally violated the legal statement they clicked that says it's original work and not stolen every time they upload something - casual: same thing for sheet music from built in instruments and 100+ person public performances NB: The playerbase's fashion sense is basically 49% gucci/lv/supreme branding on every single item, 49% anime/hentai/"choke me"/bad memes, 1% original artwork/actual effort, 1% default unmodified - virtually everything casual required real money, for example auto-fishing while AFK required a cash shop fishing pass, uploading banners to place in town required money (note: eventually the town banners all became either hentai or pepe the frog memes or otherwise) - members monthly cost "subscription" + virtually everything is microtransaction-based - after the founders pack-included credits started running out, people stopped making/uploading content due to IRL cash shop money cost per item Impotence fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Feb 8, 2021 |
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Feb 8, 2021 20:55
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Biowarfare posted:weekly dungeon cap This made me clench so suddenly I heard my pelvis crack. They capped dungeons and included no other endgame poo poo?
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Feb 8, 2021 21:06
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Eox posted:This made me clench so suddenly I heard my pelvis crack. They capped dungeons and included no other endgame poo poo? Don't forget that guild quests and other quests might require you to run a low level dungeon that in no way contributes toward reaching endgame + for a social MMO, do you run a dungeon with your friend to help them out and lose out on 1 run of your cap? I believe they did not actually want tryhards, and instead wanted it to be a chill social MMO, but it's loving maplestory there are people that grind 40 hours without sleeping so they don't waste a 2x exp coupon
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Feb 8, 2021 21:07
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Eox posted:This made me clench so suddenly I heard my pelvis crack. They capped dungeons and included no other endgame poo poo? Yeah, this is how I fell out....I was having a great time but when you can do all your weeklies in like an hour after reset, after that there was literally nothing to do. I really did enjoy that first week though.
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Feb 8, 2021 21:52
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CYBEReris posted:its a nice and warm feeling when you do old content with a friend who's going through it all for the first time and get to hear/read them gush over the cutscenes, imo https://twitter.com/KageSatsuki/status/1354112384529387520 I said come in! posted:Saw that Everquest Online Adventures is making progress on the fan side of things. People have the world at least somewhat populated with mobs, and quests. Its still a very long ways away though, no spells, or attack skills are present yet, and you can't earn levels or exp. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-CHG_To7Ag again?
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Feb 8, 2021 22:44
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My experience of FFXIV was an ungodly number of hours of heavy drinking and Main Questing on Discord with guild members, and then I unlocked Heavensward, which is where the story "really gets good", except it sort of didn't, so there was a bunch more heavy drinking. And then I played Stormblood and there was more very emphatic "it just keeps getting better!" that never eventuated and at some point the drinking outweighed the Discord. I'm so loving genre-starved that I tried playing the english PC port of PSO2 and even that's miserable. I just want my perfect, unattainable MMO experience just one more time...
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Feb 9, 2021 09:20
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Brain In A Jar posted:My experience of FFXIV was an ungodly number of hours of heavy drinking and Main Questing on Discord with guild members, and then I unlocked Heavensward, which is where the story "really gets good", except it sort of didn't, so there was a bunch more heavy drinking. And then I played Stormblood and there was more very emphatic "it just keeps getting better!" that never eventuated and at some point the drinking outweighed the Discord. Have you tried runescape 3?
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Feb 9, 2021 09:42
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Groovelord Neato posted:Might just be a generation gap between players. Its definitely not this. Groovelord Neato posted:If you got cutscenes in your MMO (apart from I guess some intro setting one) something went wrong somewhere. Lmao hot takes incoming. Its cool if you don't like thing but hey, other people obviously like thing. Comeon. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 17:37
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Didn't say people can't like it.Brain In A Jar posted:I'm so loving genre-starved that I tried playing the english PC port of PSO2 and even that's miserable. Just for the hell of it one night some buds and I downloaded FFXI and got on some server that had double XP and I can't believe my brother spent so much time in this game back when it was new. Even at the time the controls and UI would've been terrible. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 17:53
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Groovelord Neato posted:Didn't say people can't like it. No, but implying anybody who likes thing you don't is wrong is worse. Groovelord Neato posted:Just for the hell of it one night some buds and I downloaded FFXI and got on some server that had double XP and I can't believe my brother spent so much time in this game back when it was new. Even at the time the controls and UI would've been terrible. IDK "at the time" was like, Everquest, and the UI is better than that  Also had to be designed to work on PS2 and Xbox as well as PC which was a miracle they managed to pull off. How long ago did you play it? Its a dead game now. But that's also like hopping on WOW Classic in 2020 for the first time ever and wondering why everybody is having more fun than you. I don't even know where to begin responding to this. I feel like you yourself know better. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 18:02
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The EQ UI was better and controlled better (not that it was good) it's what I was comparing it to in my mind and my brother was a big time EQ raider before he hopped over. We went to a private server it's why we had double XP - I knew it was notorious for its grind I just wasn't aware you also had to deal with such a lovely UI. v didn't it have the see through one by FFXI?
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Feb 9, 2021 18:06
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I love EQ but comeon man vs  Its like one of those old Amiga games where they had to cut the resolution by 50% using the UI in order to get the frame rate to a reasonable level. The spell gems were pretty cool though. I still think EQ had the best magic system of any game. I want more games where you manage your spellbook and memorized spells!
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Feb 9, 2021 18:07
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