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Zaphod42 posted:Its true, that would be A solution. If your game exists on Stadia and Stadia ONLY, then you could add all kinds of content and players wouldn't have any way of data mining (unless they hack Stadia somehow) yeah, Stadia is essentially the skinniest thin client possible. For a more traditional but more secure game client I'd imagine you would need to have your engine capable of streaming all sorts of assets - essentially you'd need to go halfway toward building another Second Life. You would need to support sending models, animations, textures, audio files etc across the wire, or somehow building them from primitives that you store in the client. But then you may as well go the extra mile and build another Second Life and allow users to upload their own assets. Dicks, dicks everywhere! Definitely easier to just put the spyware on there.
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Feb 11, 2021 22:53
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I think there's a worthy middle ground where you still store art assets client-side but have as little metadata or level scripting and stream all that as the client is aware of it. So people could data mine "there are 2 bosses, one of them looks like a dragon" but they wouldn't know where they are or how much HP they have or what their weaknesses or loot tables are. Again though, its more work and for how much benefit? The thing is even if you can't data-mine, you still have a race among players to get world-first and then post the Fatboss guides for everybody else to watch, spoiling everything. So data mining itself only buys you a little more lead time before the full spoilers.
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Feb 11, 2021 23:10
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Chev posted:It's not necessarily laziness, but in the early years of graphical MMOs (MUDs had already learned that lesson more than a decade earlier) developers seriously underestimated the lengths to which players would go to gain an advantage by messing with the client and connection. In modern days (especially post-Destiny as it was a presentation about it that popularized the concept) putting more responsibilities on the client and trying to protect it with anti-cheat has a different reason to be, which is that every authoritative computation done client-side is a computation you don't need server infrastructure for, so you get less server bills. Having a games media willing to write puff pieces about how your blatant cost cut strategy is actually a revolutionary breakthrough in network and server engineering helps too
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Feb 12, 2021 05:25
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It really cracks me up because yesterday after watching Preserving Worlds (which I heartily recommend) I looked up the 1990 postmortem of Lucasfilm's Habitat and of course they'd already realized that anything not server-side would be used for cheating.
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Feb 12, 2021 11:10
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Chev posted:It really cracks me up because yesterday after watching Preserving Worlds (which I heartily recommend) I looked up the 1990 postmortem of Lucasfilm's Habitat and of course they'd already realized that anything not server-side would be used for cheating. Thank you for sharing these they're great.
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Feb 12, 2021 19:21
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Chev posted:It really cracks me up because yesterday after watching Preserving Worlds (which I heartily recommend) I looked up the 1990 postmortem of Lucasfilm's Habitat and of course they'd already realized that anything not server-side would be used for cheating. Its interesting how many almost-MMOs there have been made throughout time that just disappeared and most everybody forgot about them. Gosh I can barely remember myself, but I know in addition to Habitat there were at least a couple other similar almost-second-life style projects, I think Sony did one? Seems like they got pretty far but the tech was just too rudimentary for their ambitions.
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Feb 12, 2021 20:40
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I like that every generation has their own virtual world sorta deal that gets big, latest being VRChat of course.
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Feb 12, 2021 21:37
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CYBEReris posted:I like that every generation has their own virtual world sorta deal that gets big, latest being VRChat of course. And much like Second Life it will rapidly devolve into degeneracy. Although SL had a whole thing with a secondary economy going on so that is largely different.
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Feb 12, 2021 23:27
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Roblox has also made great strides in this area.
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Feb 13, 2021 00:00
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All the talk about old EQ UI got me thinking pretty hard about the question in the thread title. For myself at least I don't think their will ever be a good MMO again. I made a character on my brothers EQ account when I was like 10 years old and played a lot over the course of the early 2000's. Even at that age I was obsessed with high fantasy with swords and magic and poo poo. Being able to play in a world like that for the first time was like nothing else in gaming I've ever experienced. With the lack of high speed internet and guide sites like allakhazam not really being in play at the time you depended on others for information about the game and what to do or where to go. Even just zoning into the higher level zones adjacent to the one I would be leveling to check them out was scarier and more exciting than any other game because it was so mysterious and I had no idea what I was getting into, I felt like a badass explorer. It felt like an actual world where you had to communicate with people to get anywhere meaningful. I think a lot of what made EQ so great at that time was a few things: my young age accompanied by a wild imagination made it easier to just get excited about a game and dive in, the community was generally friendly and helpful and lastly it was a completely new(to me at least) genre of game unlike I had ever imagined, I had played RPGs but never in an online fashion in a huge mostly unchanging world. I played WoW from closed beta to about a 9 months after launch then quit because it didn't feel the same. Fast forward to now I can't even bother to care about MMO's. Some people I worked with convinced me to join them in WoW classic, they all quit soon after and I stayed for like 3 months maxed out 2 characters and got all my best in slots for my mage and some for my rogue. When playing and grinding endlessly I wondered why I wasn't having fun and I think I realized the reason. Nothing was a mystery, there was nothing to be excited about. I could find the most efficient builds, best xp grinds, best farms, or any information that I wanted in seconds with wow websites. It became a chore of how to get the best stuff and I did it with the efficiency of coked out 80's businessman but without the enjoyable part of being high as gently caress. When I had everything I wanted after running MC every single week and grinding reputation and gold so I could get my epic mount etc. I just kinda sat there and wondered wtf I was doing and canceled my subscription because MMO's are more of a job than most actual jobs and that's where it stops being fun. If you're not treating it like a job you're missing out on keeping pace with everyone else around you and can't find groups but if you go all in like I did and blast through content you get to the top and have nothing left to do except look at all the days you wasted.
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Feb 13, 2021 03:51
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CYBEReris posted:I like that every generation has their own virtual world sorta deal that gets big, latest being VRChat of course. Has there been a major MMO VR game yet? Excluding, Star Citizen, of course
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Feb 13, 2021 14:15
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Virginia Slams posted:All the talk about old EQ UI got me thinking pretty hard about the question in the thread title. This is the same reason why I think there will never be another MMO worth playing like Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, and early WoW was for a lot of people my age. Just last week I read about some "movement" a poster was trying to start in MMOs. Basically, they said that to enjoy modern MMOs all you have to do is not read online guides or watch youtube videos about the game. If you did this, all the feelings you had for old school MMOs would return. I think what they failed to realize is just how difficult it would be to truly do this in a game like modern WoW. I want to see a new person start Shadowlands Mythic dungeons (not even raids) without knowing the spec you are supposed to be, which gear attributes you need, your rotation, and every detail about the dungeon encounters. I want to see how quickly they would be kicked out of the group. This could only work if you found a solid group of people with the same mindset. That could actually be an interesting experiment.
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Feb 13, 2021 16:15
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Cardboard Fox posted:This is the same reason why I think there will never be another MMO worth playing like Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, and early WoW was for a lot of people my age. I mean people have to actually do the content to know how to make guides for it. There's always a sort of vanguard doing the content blind.
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Feb 13, 2021 16:27
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I know this is streamer poo poo but in the lull between prepatch Shadowlands a bunch of streamers leveled characters to 30 I think and did the "raid appropriate content" for that level. The guild leader was a dude who had never played or at least raided in WoW before. It was certainly entertaining to see them follow his instructions for 5 hours on a single boss trying to beat it ha. I imagine it would be near impossible for a bunch of randoms to do that and be dedicated to the gimmick.
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Feb 13, 2021 16:30
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CYBEReris posted:I mean people have to actually do the content to know how to make guides for it. There's always a sort of vanguard doing the content blind. Exactly! That's the kind of content I would want but that leads into what I was talking about. If you had a brand new MMO with ludicrous amount of content and an actual player base you could have that experience but the catch is to have that opportunity you would have to pour a preposterous amount of time in to stay on top so you can consistently be a part of the unconquered content as the server progresses, which leads into it feeling more like work than a game. Otherwise you wait too long, even a week or two and everyone has that content figured out down to the last detail of the loot tables and you have lost that mystery/adventure and then it's just cold hard strategy on how to do it fast. And if you missed that window for unspoiled content and aren't on the same page as everyone else doing high level content, like Cardboard Fox said nobody is going to want to be in a group with you. There's no real way to balance it without that large hypothetical group of friends who are consistently playing and grouping with you while everyone is in agreement to willfully ignore all guides, it would be an interesting idea almost akin to a form of roleplaying. I think in practice it wouldn't work out because getting a large group of people on the same page is already ball bustingly difficult in real life and doubly so online. No matter what though you will run out of content when you're keeping pace and consistently in the top tier of players and then there's nothing left to do but reroll another character or endlessly run instances to help friends or randoms get their top level gear. But again this is just how it is for me and why I won't ever likely enjoy another new MMO for more than maybe a few months at a time.
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Feb 13, 2021 17:08
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Cardboard Fox posted:This is the same reason why I think there will never be another MMO worth playing like Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, and early WoW was for a lot of people my age. I played a Japanese only MMO (Dragon Quest X) for a few years. There was no translation patch of any kind. It really helped cultivate that old-school, no idea what the gently caress is going on feeling.
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Feb 13, 2021 18:04
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CYBEReris posted:I mean people have to actually do the content to know how to make guides for it. There's always a sort of vanguard doing the content blind. At the same time, unless you have a static pre-made group of people doing that, it becomes impossible to interact with other players while still holding to that pattern. You're trading the social aspect for a solo one, in which case the mmo is just an extremely grinding bog standard rpg
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Feb 13, 2021 20:09
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CuddleCryptid posted:At the same time, unless you have a static pre-made group of people doing that, it becomes impossible to interact with other players while still holding to that pattern. You're trading the social aspect for a solo one, in which case the mmo is just an extremely grinding bog standard rpg Pretty much this, "I won't read a guide" in many turns into you effectively being a complete rear end in a top hat to other players in any form of cooperative matchmade content or otherwise required party or dungeon content, and you still don't get the sense of friendship, camaderie, or guild interactivity (poo poo, guilds in half the asian MMOs exist just for people to be the first to get a guild named a single short dictionary word for clout)
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Feb 13, 2021 20:25
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Call me crazy, but doing homework outside of the game just so I can play a mmo the “right” or most efficient way is... not fun?!
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Feb 13, 2021 20:43
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Biowarfare posted:Pretty much this, "I won't read a guide" in many turns into you effectively being a complete rear end in a top hat to other players in any form of cooperative matchmade content or otherwise required party or dungeon content, and you still don't get the sense of friendship, camaderie, or guild interactivity (poo poo, guilds in half the asian MMOs exist just for people to be the first to get a guild named a single short dictionary word for clout) what? no. never read guides you can only do content blind once (if that's your thing, anyway) if people can't handle a newbie they shouldn't join the group with newbies
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Feb 13, 2021 21:01
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Carmant posted:I played a Japanese only MMO (Dragon Quest X) for a few years. There was no translation patch of any kind. It really helped cultivate that old-school, no idea what the gently caress is going on feeling. Yep same thing with age of wushu. That was the first mmo in a long long time to have that feeling for me. Nobody knew poo poo because the translation sucked and even when you could figure it out it never really worked quite right or was so loving weird you wondered if yall are actually doing it right. It was kinda niche and the vanguard guilds kept their findings in house because it was a PvP heavy game. I'm sure everyone's figured that poo poo out by now though.
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Feb 13, 2021 21:36
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Shadowlz posted:Yep same thing with age of wushu. That was the first mmo in a long long time to have that feeling for me. Nobody knew poo poo because the translation sucked and even when you could figure it out it never really worked quite right or was so loving weird you wondered if yall are actually doing it right. It was kinda niche and the vanguard guilds kept their findings in house because it was a PvP heavy game. wushu was so fuckin fun
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Feb 13, 2021 21:47
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kedo posted:Call me crazy, but doing homework outside of the game just so I can play a mmo the “right” or most efficient way is... not fun?! There's no right way to play an mmo, it's just that if you are interested in an alternative playstyle than most then you shouldn't be surprised when no one wants to group with you.
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Feb 13, 2021 21:54
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Chopstix posted:Has there been a major MMO VR game yet? Excluding, Star Citizen, of course Star Citizen has no VR support or plans to support it AFAIK, one of the few features they HAVEN'T already sold. I can't think of any VR MMOs yet except for maybe something like Rec Room, which only counts in a Second Life sort of way. Lots of people want to be the "oasis", the virtual reality internet. But nobody's really trying for a VR MMO. When you think about it, MMOs are crazy expensive and nobody is even making flatscreen MMOs anymore, and VR games have a small audience, so huge budget + small audience doesn't make for good business calculus. I would absolutely kill for a VR Ren Faire type experience though, someplace to walk around and roleplay with others in VR in fantasy costumes. Having actual gameplay would just be a bonus.
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Feb 13, 2021 22:11
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kedo posted:Call me crazy, but doing homework outside of the game just so I can play a mmo the “right” or most efficient way is... not fun?! That's fair, but to plenty of other people, that's totally "The game". EVE online is half played in forums, for instance. I think discussing tactics with your guild can be really cool, although the fact that top tier teams race and find the strat and put videos out somewhat negates the ability to actually have a conversation around strategy and turns it into just "everybody watch this video before Saturday"
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Feb 13, 2021 22:13
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Zaphod42 posted:I would absolutely kill for a VR Ren Faire type experience though, someplace to walk around and roleplay with others in VR in fantasy costumes. Having actual gameplay would just be a bonus.
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Feb 13, 2021 22:36
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kedo posted:Call me crazy, but doing homework outside of the game just so I can play a mmo the “right” or most efficient way is... not fun?! There are no MMOs where a bumbling 40 year old drunk idiot without discord whining about his second divorce in global chat can join an end-game raid moments after beating the tutorial and contribute enough dps to beat the enrage timer.
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Feb 13, 2021 22:40
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There is a VR MMO, and for how little funding it has, it is really rather fun. It's called Orbus. The first time I played, someone was glitched into the wall behind a fish trophy. Anyway, the fish trophy person gave me a quest to go kill a monster outside the city walls that would one shot me. I still played along and they sent another player to watch form a distance and see if I did it. Then when I reported in and said I failed his quest he gave me like 10k gold. Game is pretty fun, though, still a bit limited. Magic users have to accurately draw runes in the air to cast, Paladins hold their mace above their head to generate lightning charges, etc.
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Feb 13, 2021 22:51
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eonwe posted:Magic users have to accurately draw runes in the air to cast, Paladins hold their mace above their head to generate lightning charges, etc.
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Feb 14, 2021 04:01
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I get that undiscovered feeling in overly expensive alphas and betas. Can't find a guide for a thing with a $200 barrier to entry and 4 weeks of game time that will be rendered moot and impermenence
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Feb 14, 2021 04:48
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eonwe posted:There is a VR MMO, and for how little funding it has, it is really rather fun. It's called Orbus. The first time I played, someone was glitched into the wall behind a fish trophy. Anyway, the fish trophy person gave me a quest to go kill a monster outside the city walls that would one shot me. I still played along and they sent another player to watch form a distance and see if I did it. Then when I reported in and said I failed his quest he gave me like 10k gold. That's extremely my poo poo
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Feb 14, 2021 07:08
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AfHEeuIPnw&t=96s thing at this time stamp was what one shot me
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Feb 14, 2021 08:08
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Zaphod42 posted:Star Citizen has no VR support or plans to support it AFAIK, one of the few features they HAVEN'T already sold. uhh, i definitely remember oculus rift kickstarter happening at around the same time and crobber being excited about it. one of the (very early) playable versions even had DK2 support it's since been stripped from the game because the game performs like absolute poo poo even in flat mode, but the dreams live on 
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Feb 14, 2021 09:08
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The whole "EQ had no spoilers" thing is just nostalgia clouding memories though - sure, Allakhazam wasn't up at launch but EQStratics and three or four other websites whose names I've forgotten (EQLore?) were, and so were a bunch of message boards happily spoiling the poo poo out of everything they could find. Partly because Verant tried to hide everything from the players and while a minority loved that, turns out most people want to know things like "So what does this new ability/spell actually do?" and " Did I miss something on this questline that had me run around three continents killing rare mobs, or is this poo poo just broken? "
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Feb 14, 2021 11:08
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i think the biggest thing back in the day was that you weren't expected to read a bunch of guides/youtubes about a particular subject it wasn't hard to spoil yourself on the content if you wanted to, but out of game resources weren't considered required for playing by other people like they are these days
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Feb 14, 2021 11:11
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goddamn maps were out of game resources
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Feb 14, 2021 15:26
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Truga posted:i think the biggest thing back in the day was that you weren't expected to read a bunch of guides/youtubes about a particular subject Original eq forced full screen and having a 2nd monitor / computer to look up stuff was not as common as it is today. The prime source of information at the time was other players. To an extent players still provide information in mmo games now but a lot of times it’s referring folks to an offsite reference.
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Feb 14, 2021 15:30
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milkman dad posted:Original eq forced full screen and having a 2nd monitor / computer to look up stuff was not as common as it is today. as I recall you couldn't even alt-tab. it was bad.
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Feb 14, 2021 15:52
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It was pretty normal to have a stack of printed maps from EQAtlas.
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Feb 14, 2021 16:02
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Hispanic! At The Disco posted:It was pretty normal to have a stack of printed maps from EQAtlas. Yeah I totally printed a bunch of them
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