Creatively Jerky
One of the coolest parts of Everquest was how people came up with all sorts of ways to play their class and tackle content that I’m sure the developers never imagined. That led to some amazingly fun gameplay, and some frustratingly jerky gameplay, depending on how people applied their creativity.
- Monk FD was used in creative ways (pulling) and jerky ways (training)
- Being able to drop items in public zones was used in creative ways (marking mob placement or invisible bridge in the Deep) and jerky ways (lagged out zones full of corpses)
- Mage mod rods on the ground was used in creative ways (carefully groomed lines of rods for raid mana) and jerky ways (blow up a newb)
Lots of people pine for the good old days of Everquest, saying how much they miss things like waiting for a boat, running around blind and naked at night, and doing good old fashioned corpse runs. Those people are masochistic. What made Everquest cool is the amount of freedom it offered people to do things that the designers probably never intended them to do. I remember doing raids like Plane of Fear all sorts of different ways – sometimes we’d have the enchanters mass mezzing everything for a west wall break, sometimes we’d have a warrior train a path to allow everyone to run to the north wall, or sometimes we’d do a good old fashioned bind rush zerg. I remember spending hours doing the crawl down to the Hole for a quest, and then doing it another time in about 10 minutes. A cleric offered to DA jump down the hole, have me follow behind, and then rez me all the way at the bottom. Probably not what you’d consider “working as intended!”
What strikes me about many MMOs today is that they’ve actually removed a lot of the wiggle room to be creative. Instead of opening up more freedom to alter the world around you, games like EQ2, WoW, and Vanguard pretty much removed that ability entirely. If I try to drop an item in a public zone in those games, it gets destroyed. Scripted events for raids and group bosses certainly increase the challenge and require a lot more precision among players, but they remove the opportunity for people to approach an encounter in different ways. Heck, I remember when I first started EQ, there was a public bulletin board in Freeport, where players could leave notes for others to see. (I am remembering correctly, right?) That was 10 years ago. You’d think someone would have found a way to springboard that concept to allow players to name their weapon, jot down a journal entry for display in their room, or mark a plaque to commemorate an important guild accomplishment or remember a friend.
If you remove or alter certain game mechanics, you remove the ability for someone to be jerky, but you also remove the chance for someone to be creative. This is especially true of the social issues in MMOs. The more you try to program in ways to limit behavoir, the more you starch up the game, and the less fun it is. Maybe some day down the road, someone will find a way for players to have the power to police antisocial behavoir. For now, I think we need to swallow some jerky behavoir, in order to preserve social freedom and creativity.
Posted by jayernh under Archive | Comments (5)
Well, here’s a discussion I’ve had before. Great topic!
I agree entirely with what you are saying, and YES, there was message boards (there was also one in Qeynos). If I remember correctly once they changed the UI to the full screen mode, they took out the capability to use them.
Games have become less about exploring, and more about following a designated story path. As soon as the path becomes unclear, people just assume that the game is broken, or the game has a lack of content. If only they were around back in the early EQ days. You weren’t led from outpost to outpost, it was a “welcome to our world, good luck!” mentality.
I remember hunting with someone a while ago, playing one of the new games. He brought up a good point when he told me that he felt something was missing, but he couldn’t tell what. Eventually he realized that because there are outposts almost everywhere in these new games, it takes away from the sense that you are exploring the unknown. There’s no more exploring a dungeon, to explore a dungeon. There no more exploring the world to explore the world. Now-a-days people need to have a reason, a purpose (a quest!), before they want to explore a new place.
I also feel that this does take away from some of the community aspect to adventuring as well. Before, other gamers would have to spread the word of what they saw crawling through a dungeon. They were able to tell stories to other gamers of the unique adventure that they had. I remember sitting around Sleeper’s Tomb admiring the dragon when one of those high level raid guys came over to us and we had an hour long story telling session about what Sleeper’s Tomb was all about.
These days it is NPC’s which tell you about cool dungeons, it is NPC’s which tell you about monsters, it is NPC’s that give you the strategies to use against them.
I’m not saying that we do less community talking, but I would suggest that the type of conversations you have with your fellow players these days, are a lot different than the kinds you had if you played MMOs 8+ years ago.
All this stuff is subjective though, and could be viewed as an ancient way of thinking. People would say: Why do something when you don’t have a reason to do it? Well, my answer would be, that is why I know MMOs will never be the same.
Comment by Faeran — May 21, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
Well, here’s a discussion I’ve had before. Great topic!
I agree entirely with what you are saying, and YES, there was message boards (there was also one in Qeynos). If I remember correctly once they changed the UI to the full screen mode, they took out the capability to use them.
Games have become less about exploring, and more about following a designated story path. As soon as the path becomes unclear, people just assume that the game is broken, or the game has a lack of content. If only they were around back in the early EQ days. You weren’t led from outpost to outpost, it was a “welcome to our world, good luck!” mentality.
I remember hunting with someone a while ago, playing one of the new games. He brought up a good point when he told me that he felt something was missing, but he couldn’t tell what. Eventually he realized that because there are outposts almost everywhere in these new games, it takes away from the sense that you are exploring the unknown. There’s no more exploring a dungeon, to explore a dungeon. There no more exploring the world to explore the world. Now-a-days people need to have a reason, a purpose (a quest!), before they want to explore a new place.
I also feel that this does take away from some of the community aspect to adventuring as well. Before, other gamers would have to spread the word of what they saw crawling through a dungeon. They were able to tell stories to other gamers of the unique adventure that they had. I remember sitting around Sleeper’s Tomb admiring the dragon when one of those high level raid guys came over to us and we had an hour long story telling session about what Sleeper’s Tomb was all about.
These days it is NPC’s which tell you about cool dungeons, it is NPC’s which tell you about monsters, it is NPC’s that give you the strategies to use against them.
I’m not saying that we do less community talking, but I would suggest that the type of conversations you have with your fellow players these days, are a lot different than the kinds you had if you played MMOs 8+ years ago.
All this stuff is subjective though, and could be viewed as an ancient way of thinking. People would say: Why do something when you don’t have a reason to do it? Well, my answer would be, that is why I know MMOs will never be the same.
Comment by Faeran Caladon — May 21, 2008 @ 12:09 pm
Great post! It’s something I’ve said for a while, usually the way things develop are that each new thing gives you something more, something bigger and better. Seems like with MMOs each new one is restricting you more and more. It’s almost like we are going backwards in the evolution of the genre.
There’s been suggestions on “policing” players. Top of the list (at least for me) would be some type of outlaw system. The prime example would be when the level 50 player runs into town and PKs that newbie, they get flagged as an outlaw which limits them to some point. How would be up to the game maker, but you could have all guards will attack them, or that they can’t bank/sell. Maybe there’s a reward for another level 50 to hunt them down, or maybe all of them together.
I really like Faeran’s point (or his mistery friend’s point) that with outposts everywhere in new games it feels like the whole world has already been explored (not to mention people have settled down and made a town/outpost). You go somewhere and it’s like you are just following in the footsteps of others. Who wants to be the second man to the north pole? Just imagine trekking through the snow and ice only to find there’s already a small town in the north pole. It takes some of the adventure out of it. Maybe I’m just an “old” (Yes I’m putting old in quotes) MMOer who says things like, “Remember when you had to look at your book to med?”
Comment by Gathilas — May 21, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
You’d think someone would have found a way to springboard that concept to allow players to name their weapon, jot down a journal entry for display in their room, or mark a plaque to commemorate an important guild accomplishment or remember a friend.
—And to think all of that USED to exist in MMOGs. In Asheron’s Call, all items had a text field which could be modified once, by anyone. In Ultima Online, people bought books (blank) and wrote short stories in them and sold them to other players.
—As games evolve, players want more out of their game, but they don’t really want more of the above features. Thus, developers hedge out the lesser-desired features in favor of the more-desired ones.
Comment by Nosferum MacLear — May 22, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
I agree. We need more MMO worlds not little games.
Which game was funner to us as kids? patty cake? or hide and seek?
I want to see more games that are more like GTA, just worlds where you go around and be who you want to be.
Comment by lumio — May 22, 2008 @ 4:41 pm