Actually, I was making fun of your attempt at dismissal on a thoughtful post on an interesting topic. But hey! Talk away! You’d be completely wrong, but oh well!
gMatt->Vouch(gCharles.has_girlfriend);
I apologize Charles. Your impossibly subtle subtext was apparently lost amidst the actual text of your post, which appeared to be an absurd critique of my forum post code.
Next time you write a post, whether it’s about anything from aardvarks to zebras, I’ll just assume it’s really a love letter to HRose to be safe.
The absurd out of context is a tip off for most people.
And despite the counter-HRose sentiment on this board, he often has good ideas, and is interested in actual discussion. Which is more than I can say for some of the people who post here.
I Googled “The absurd out of context” and I was able to determine that this is not, in fact, a tip off.
Remove the “The” and you get some results. Anything else I can help you with?
This will leak the memory allocated by new in any language that isn’t teh gay.
Not if you use a form of a smart pointer and override the assignment operator properly.
I wrote a shorter version for another forum, so here it is :)
And btw, Charles, I don’t need to be defended. I can do by myself :)
Ding.
This was my idea from the very beginning. See the scheme.
The three layers: open pvp sandbox - (soloable) narrative - communal PvE - happen in different parts of the world:
-
The “shards” here are the PvP (persistent) war maps where the players are divided in three hardcoded factions (+ player-made). Where there’s also the emergent level of the RTS (managing resources, supply lines, patrols etc…) and where all the level of the trade/economy exists. The whole world here is at 100% in the hands of the players. This is the Sandbox pushed to the limit. And this layer would try to simulate much more than just combat. This should be a complete, detailed “virtual world”. At war.
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From these shards the players can use portals to travel to the “planes” (see the image, these are also persistent). These are other dimensions (the game setting was based on “Stormbringer”, by Michael Moorcock, one of the best “dark fantasy” writers EVER). The multiverse. The planes work like social hubs. They are one rather big zone that pivots around a NPC big outpost/city whatever (depending on the different settings for each plane). From here the players can adventure in the proximity of the city (since there’s a certain amount of wilderness sourrounding the city/hub) or open portals to other dimensions (and here we have a total freedom on the content of these dimensions). These portals mean that from there onward you are instanced. It can be a dungeon as it can be a completely independent WORLD. As I wrote elsewhere the idea is to have a “fluid” perception of reality, where everything can happen and where you can add “destabilizing” elements for the player. You become a traveler of worlds, the potential is ENDLESS. This level I described is the level of the narrative I explain in this thread. This is also the part that must be COMPLETELY SOLOABLE. With groups of players of four at max and balanced by default for duos.
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Third is the level of the communal PvE. You are still on the planes and the communal PvE can be or an instance or some encounter out there in the wilderness (out of the city/hub). To have access to these encounters you need to “unblock” them by progressing in the narrative. These are more epic instances less based on a solid, involving story. And more based on the group mechanics/challenge. This is also a level deeply interconnected with the first (the PvP) because these instances have the main purpose of summoning powerful artifacts that can only be used on PvP (also unique per-world and lootable in combat if you die).
See the three levels? The Sandbox is open, persistent, not instanced. The Narrative is open (for the social hub around the main cities) and then instanced so that the player can immerse himself. The progress here is about the story. The quests exist for the story coherently with what I wrote just above. And finally the third level that is the “social” PvE. Both instanced and not, that is also tied with the wirst layer. Bringing every aspect of the game together.
Note: The game is “skill based” and on a flat power curve. The power differential is kept low between new and veteran players, so that they can ALWAY play and adventure together. The character advancement, for the most part, is optional. You can choose to advance your character playing one of the three layers or all at once. The progress depending on the research, instead, (to find rarer spells, evocations and so on. Basically the “meat” of your skills) is strictly tied to the “narrative”, which is, again, soloable. The third level (communal PvE), instead, is NOT tied to the character progress. You WON’T get more powerful items you cannot achieve in the “single-player” game. This level works only for some rare items, skills and spells that define a “status”. But not directly the power. Never as “more powerful version of the same”.
This means that the only, truly mandatory layer is the one of the narrative (and in fact it’s soloable to keep it accessible for everyone). The other two (sandbox and communal PvE) are optional.
What a huge understatement.
Open a new thread (since this is doomed) and ask the people on this board while they would like a mmorpg with a good soloability.
It’s not because it’s “more”. It’s because MOST people cannot schedule their life around a game. And they want to have fun whether they have 10 minutes or 5 hours straight.
Without having to depend on other players.
Posing that statement then then claiming it immediately follows that all players are SICK (all caps, of course) of grouping is not logical.
They are SICK of mandatory grouping. As of mandatory 40-man raids. They are sick of accessibility issues.
As I wrote, grouping is possible in my idea. It’s just not required when it comes to the “narrative”. Which is 1/3 of the whole game. The other two parts rely strongly on group and community mechanics.
Read more attentively :)
In C# setting all the references to an object to null places it in the garbage collection queue and essentially destroys it.
In C++, yeah, you’d have delete it. We wouldn’t want any hRose leaks running around would we? :)
Strongly agree. HRose’s posts have been interesting. Screw you animated gif people. You’re not on GAF.
Let me take a quote from one of HRose’s recent posts to illustrate a point that, if you believe he’s so thoughtful, you should agree with.
“It’s not because it’s “more”. It’s because MOST people cannot schedule their life around a game. And they want to have fun whether they have 10 minutes or 5 hours straight.”
If we substitute the word “post” for the word “game” here the basic problem should be clear to you. It’s very difficult to come to the conclusion that the guy is interesting and thoughtful when he wraps his main ideas in billions of other less important and less thoughtful words. The guy seriously needs to get to the point sooner.
And I think everybody agrees that HRose’s command of the English language is, like Charles’, commendable but lacking. Maybe you could volunteer to read his posts and convert them from ESL ramblings to something more easily understood and more quickly digested.
You’ll be like the police officers who stayed in New Orleans as Katrina hit. You will get the full force of HRose’s mighty intellect (the Category 5 part, if you will) and we can get the benefit of avoiding the strongest winds somewhere safe. A virtual Baton Rouge perhaps.
“They are SICK of mandatory grouping. As of mandatory 40-man raids. They are sick of accessibility issues.”
Not everyone is tired of grouping. In WoW you can solo from 1 to 60. Groups are required for instances, but I don’t really see that as a negative when you look at all the soloable content in the game overall.
Accessibility, which I take it to mean queues, is a problem. I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to this one. I think the queues to get onto the server are the worst issue and perhaps that is something that Blizzard can eventually fix with code and hardware changes. Queues for battlegrounds are a different beast. When you have sides and your goal is to have a balanced battle, you may have more players on one side wanting to play at a given time, which inevitably would result in queues. Even if you had cross-servering queueing for BGs you couldn’t eliminate queues if one side typically queues up more players. You’re just smoothing out the numbers, not eliminating queues.
And if your answer is to eliminate sides, then you’re losing something that’s an important part of the game, the faction rivalry. I’m hopeful that the blood elves will balance the sides a bit more. If the draeni really are the new alliance race I don’t see many horde switching to alliance to play them. I could see alliance players jumping on the blood elves though.
HRose, one of the barriers to entry in the game you propose is the sheer complexity of it in terms of potential players deciding whether they are interested in it.
I stopped reading at
Just seems odd to complain about other players in a genre where the second letter of the acronym is, you know, multiplayer. Kinda like hating shooting things, but complaining how bad FPS’s are.
It’s a myth that playing with other players is a tenet of MMOs. Existing in a world with players is one thing, being forced to interact with them is altogether different. An MMO offers far more than simply grouping. Anyone who doesn’t see that is blind.
Not saying there shouldn’t be grouping or team play, all I’m saying is that it should be entirely by choice and not forced.
You might be willing to discount and mock someone for having english as a second language, but some of us are more tolerant of this than others, I guess. Maybe I just grew up in a more multicultural scenario.
The problem in WoW isn’t forced grouping. No one expects to be able to solo Molten Core and I don’t think players really mind that there is content designed for large raids.
What players want is an alternate, soloable path to the uber loot (or something equivalent) you get in MC and the like. That’s the design challenge.
I’d just like a compromise. I want the epics and I don’t mind grouping, but 40 man groups are a pain and the lockout code discourages pugs as well. I want some new 5-15 man instances with loot that’s better than UBRS and with the lockout code removed.
For the record, I wasn’t speaking specifically about any game in particular. It’s just commonly accepted practice to require grouping (or specific group setups) for a lot of the content with MMOs.
The reason why the gameplay types are linked is a controlled flow of power. If character advancement is optional and power differential is low, is there a point of having the three types linked in the same game? Instead of implementing the narrative section, you might as well just bundle in a copy of Planescape. I understand the artifact gives importance to power flow from communal PvE but if they’re truly rare, why should the average player care about the power flow?
If character advancement is optional and power differential is low, how do you keep players attached to their character? Despite all the jokes and complaints, when the treadmill and carrot-on-a-stick stuff are well implemented, they do make the game fun and they keep the player subscribed.
I really think that making certain aspects of MMORPGs more like single player RPGs is a big mistake, otherwise you are just emulating the single player aspect of portions of WoW or as others have stated single player
RPGs. Static quests are probably the most boring parts of MMORPGs, not because they aren’t necesserily fun or interesting, but they never change as a result of anything that happens in the gameworld.
The problem with MMORPGS is most of the other stuff isn’t too exciting either and quickly becomes stale.
Hrose, is cutting the game world up artificially to accomodate playstyle as you suggest really the answer? Why design complex and restrictive game systems to meet every possible need, when really you just need to focus on the accessibility of your game to your players. I think most people who like to solo at times, or all the time for that matter are concerned about accessiblity, not separate content for them.
MMORPG game designers could take a few lessons from the dynamic sim genre where missions or quests are generated as the result of actual happenings throughout the world through the ebb and flow of faction wars, or MOB AI. Make aspects of these accessable all levels and group compositions (including solo’ers) via a quest filtering system (by level, group size).
Do the same with havesting and crafting. Tie it in to the dynamic needs of the world as opposed to only the personal needs of the crafter. Give gamers a purpose and they will write their own adventure stories by just playing the game.
Here is a thought for all MMORPG designers. Play your game as you expect an average player to. Every 5 minutes take a screenshot. After your testing session load all your screenshots sequentially in slideshow fashion. View the slideshow.
If at any time you start seeing the same slide over and over, or that there are only a few of varieties of slides evident (combat, harvesting, fedex or collecting) then your game ain’t worth a damn.
However, if the slideshow makes you feel that you are reading a comic book or graphic novel without the words you just might have something special.
**** Note these ideas will not or have not appeared in any blog at any time, however are the virtual property of the poster. Thank you very much.
[EDIT]
As an aside and not to derail, I think that WoW’s stellar success is probably because of it’s accessiblity, not necesserily that it represents any great revolution in design. Oh yeah, the polish helps though.