Squinting into the future

[Lissa]

I just finished my first time through on Thief 3. I'm not sure what to think about the ending, kinda spoilerish, but if there are any further thief games (and you've played through the first two and know Garrett's story), Garrett will likely not be the title character (no, he doesn't die, but the ending ties in with his story, that's all I'll say that is spoilerish).

Thief 3 is a great game if you like FPS with a different feel (instead of being kill, kill, kill, it's h34r:, h34r:, h34r:, :axe:, and steal their gold... :P)

[The Black Cursor]

Funny you should mention KOTOR -- I just picked this one up finally last week (Xbox version) and am having a blast. Been in a bit of a funk right now too, but KOTOR brought me back from the brink this time around.

Be seeing you...

---> TBC (Now the daughter has to share the game machine with Dad, what a concept!

[Cyrene]

Originally posted by Sirian@Jun 1 2004, 12:10 AM

[b]I kind of have a theory, and it goes something like this: The quality of any given game will drop to the lowest common denominator. Gather trustworthy, intelligent, good-natured friends and even an 8plr game may be stellar. Grab folks at random for 8plr, you'll usually see a wide sample of good folks and one or two jerks. If you can put up with them, you may still do OK. Some games will be ruined, though. Cram 1000 players with anonymity into one gaming space, and the certain number of jerks, griefers, exploit-hunters, cheaters, etc, is bound to drag the whole thing down into the muck. I'm still waiting for a single example to prove this theory fallible.

[/b]

First off—Hi every one (Cy waves).

Second, sorry for bumping an old thread.

I was just missing my old friends and re-reading the forum when this caught my eye.

While I understand Sirian’s point (and man, have I seen it played out over, and over, and over, and over...), reading this again set off a rant (not directed at anyone here). And here it is.

My biggest ongoing frustration with MMO game-type-thingies is that they don’t seem to understand either (a) the reason people play the games, or (B) people. The designers go to extraordinary, expensive, laudable, and often freaking amazing lengths to create, populate, and give life to an entire new WORLD, with different races, norms, rules, well, everything. Then they ASSUME that everyone will play the game the precise way they intended (and we all know, when you make an assumption, you ass hump, erm, wait, that’s not it--you sump pump, wait, oh, never mind). Well, if people played nice and all got along without incentives we would be spending our time singing cum bah yah and not subjugating third world countries. When things don’t go as foreseen, software companies go berserk. Mention an exploit, and they ban you from the forum. Exploit, and they look the other way as long as you pay the monthly dosh. Buy and sell on EBAY? Go after the little fish, leave IGE alone as they service subscribers who like to pay. Servers are policed by a pathetically small staff of GM’s, who don’t have the authority to fart. I understand the market-driven decisions, but they are all missing the sheep-loving point! We KNOW this is a fantasy world. Quit pushing us outside to redress wrongs. The most devoted gamers are RPGers. We get into it. Big time. By definition. Whether we are well-adjusted, successful, folk, who happen to be gamers, or whacko, loser, lamers, we all feel there is a side of us that only finds expression in our online gaming personas OR WE WOULD NOT PLAY. We would PAY MONEY to be able to police the “evil ones” ourselves--or to BE the evil ones. We would PAY MONEY to be able to have multiple characters in the same world who had all the classical alignments of PnP RPG. “Tonight I play the Paladin who fights, speaks, relates, and aligns with good!” “Tonight I play the Ranger who roams the borders, but I really need a new cloak and will help out a party of Dwarves raiding a mine or maybe even some bandits raiding the road if either pays enough” “Tonight I play the bitter warrior who only knows self-interest-—all I care about is what gives me the immediate good.”

I want a persistent world with clans of bandits, clans of do-gooders, clans of pragmatists, clans of magnificent “evil”, and yes, clans of jerks 8-). There are no GM’s in real life. Like-minded people band together and create societies and governments. Then they oppress the opposition, which in turn can fight against the odds to find other like-minded folk and fight back 8-). I think people would pay a lot more, and a lot longer, if MMO-type-thingies empowered people to roll characters, find like-minded characters, band together, and, well, feel EMPOWERED in their world.

Designers keep making better and better worlds, with less and less gameplay. When will they realize that all RPG’ers need is a stage and support to choose and live our character’s roles, and WE will provide the content! I want visible indications of alignment based on past deeds. I want shining citadels of barfing-level good, villages of sturdy farmers, pragmatic neutral trading centers, bandit camps, and imposing black strongholds. I want MOB’s that are aligned to good as well as to evil, and that react to PC’s based on alignment and distance. Why try to regulate the jerks and exploiters OUTSIDE the game? Let them choose a side and declare themselves! The players WANT to police the game. A lot of the players will have characters on both sides 8-).

Bottom line.

The game is in the player’s heads. DnD wasn’t/isn’t a game, it is a rule set. The game is in the players. Give us an online structure—we will make the game. You don’t have to provide a conflict—we will create it. Make us a world with hard and fast and understandable rules—especially alignment. Let us choose our alignment, and make them all workable with trade-offs. Move the clan sites into the game world, and promote team play with common warehouses and port 80 access into the game for clan areas. We will pay.

Gladly.


--Cy


ps—finally dumped the beloved ’88 T-Bird Sport for a soccer-mom-mobile (Honda crv) because the kids were REALLY getting cramped back there. Sigh. I guess Rogaine and Viagra are next…

[Sirian]

Then they ASSUME that everyone will play the game the precise way they intended

If developers haven't learned this lesson by now, then we need to get some body bags in there to clean up the mess, because they must all be dead. Only the dead could be that unobservant.


I agree with much of what you said, but not sure I think the vision you laid out is viable. There is still the assumption that players will play within a certain intended framework. How many roleplayers are left? One can role play in Diablo, but the masses are gravitating to the easiest parts of the game and the biggest shortcuts to powerful characters.

How do you measure grief play? How do you measure ANYTHING in a game and get it right? Look at how poorly the Civ3 scoring system measures successful play.

Our imaginations are mighty, but the realities are feeble. One of the main reasons I quit PPRPGs and decided writing was a better outlet for my creative energies is that PPRPGs actually suck. What does the player do? He plays a game. He fights monsters or rivals and engages battle. Or he role plays. One's got squat to do with the other. The roleplaying can be glorious at its best, but it takes a skilled GM to set up interesting situations, or to let players direct the course and build the stage around them as they play. Either way, the GM does all the work and most of his work gets wasted. Either the GM presents four fully fleshed options, of which only one can be chosen (meaning the others go to waste) or the GM presents only one option and the players get herded into it one way or another.

RPG is a grand opportunity to open the imagination, but a poor avenue by which to explore it.

Games come down to WHAT DOES THE PLAYER DO and how engaging is it. How hard is it. How soothing is it. How wondrous is it. How does it allow player to interact with other people (cooperatively or competitively). And that's it. Four types of effects. A good game has to score on at least three of them and a great game has to include all four.


- Sirian

[CelticHound]

Either the GM presents four fully fleshed options, of which only one can be chosen (meaning the others go to waste) or the GM presents only one option and the players get herded into it one way or another.

Or the referee develops excellent skills of improvisation.

That's one of the things I really miss from the days I was in a weekly RuneQuest game. Our group was such that if the REf presented "four fully fleshed options", the players would naturally pick option number six. And herding the players down a predetermined path had to be done subtly, or there would be flat out rebellion.

When trying to describe RPGs to people who were wondering if we were practicing Black Magic, the description I finally settled on was "improvisational radio theater". With breaks for ice cream sundaes...

-- CH

[Occhidiangela]

Guild Wars.

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Hoping it does not blow up in its own face.

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While the Beta hype is an obvious marketing ploy, someone who gets internet gaming is behind it.

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Instancing may be handy. If we want to take on others, we can do that too.

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Who knows, it may be a decent fit.

Occhi