Recently, an online friend and I were discussing how much we miss the fact that we could be trained or griefed in game. We came to the conclusion that part of why MMO's now are so sterile is because they actually don't allow anyone to become a villain anymore.
IMO, what made the early games so great was the competion and the greifers. It formed alliances, and also rivalaries. All of which helped build the community. Most of today's MMOs want to treat players like suburban parents often treat their children —"everyones a winner."
I would venture to guess, that when you reflect on those old MMO experiences, the pain of getting loot stolen, or blocked on a mob, or constantly trained at the zone entrance has been replaced by not only nostalgia, but also a loss of part what made communities great back then–rallying against some Dbag.
So to all the Boofs, Reznors and TreyHarrys of the world, I salute you.
I agree with you 100%, but I'm afraid that, even here, many people will find positive reflections on such things to be outrageous or even infuriating.
I've always loved the fact that peoples true make up and personality come out and I decide the type of Guild and People I want to play with and /ignore.
Yeah, sure, allow me to ruin your gaming night. That's EXACTLY what we need to keep from the "goodole days." /rolls eyes
And, no, not outrageous or infuriating...just not needed in oirder to make PROTF a great game for those of us who want the challenge without all the BS.
Mod Edit: Merged double post into first post. please edit your post instead of posting right after your first one as it is considered double posting and against forum guidelines :)
Anistosoles said:Yeah, sure, allow me to ruin your gaming night. That's EXACTLY what we need to keep from the "goodole days." /rolls eyes
Totally understand and respect this view, and, trust me, I've logged on the disappointed and angry end of that stick MANY times.
That said, "drama", as much as it can be fustrating, certainly adds a chaotic and unexpected element to the game, and can acutally be beneficial towards becoming a thriving community, imo.
Training and other such behavior was in no way a 'good thing' and in the 13+ years I played EQ I could probably count the number of times I was trained on one hand. Now the fact that there was the 'capability' to train, or ninja loot or do other bad things in game was a very good thing. That's basically a consequence of there not being an overabundance of artificial controls being put in place to control player behavior. I hope that that will very much be the case in Pantheon.
I should specify 'intentionally trained,' as in to steal a mob or camp. Pretty much anyone was the victim of unintentional training which just added to the danger and unpredictability of adventuring. Now that danger and excitement was certainly good for the game.
Mod Edit: Merged double post into first post. please edit your post instead of posting right after your first one as it is considered double posting and against forum guidelines :)
The sense of community is never greater than the period that follows a tragedy. Tragedy creates community...
I agree whole-heartedly.
Devs of the modern MMO may not realize that as they were trying to protect their communities by griefers and unsavory gameplay they were actually hurting their communities by not allowing them to BE a community. When they placed safe guards within their game engine to determine who deserves the mob's kill or when they placed parameters so that mobs wouldn't attack other players who did not pull it they created a void where players could not ACT like a community.
The sense of 'community' doesn't just come from doing good/fun things together. It comes from when you can have one of your community member's back. It comes from being griefed together and then helping each other get through it. I live in a city of around 100,000 people and whenever there is a fire, it tends to bring everyone together. Providing blankets or canned food or money or whatever you can provide to help becomes no problem between people who may not even know each other. Ill things of this nature tends to bring the community together.
Best trains in EQ1 were when a raid was failing on Venril Sathir and tried to run/gate to the zone pulling VS along with them only to then zone out and see Gorennaire sitting on the other side.
Back and forth you'd zone, HP dropping each time and there you sat, while the Loading, Please Wait...flashed on your screen, hoping beyond hope that whichever baddy you were zoning into was focused on someone else only to then hear that sickening CRUNCH of a massive damage melee attack that then knocks you back through the zone line for another trip around.
Lol love it. Pretty much like saying the best thing to happen in the last couple of generations was the second World War.
There are lots of things that result in social bonds and a sense of community. I think we can manage it without griefing and conflict, though.
There is a middle ground I'm hoping VR will hit.
Lol yeah sure I remember trains to zone being funny in Unrest (and elsewhere) but it quickly lost it's humour when the same guy did it for the 20th time.
I get that "the old days" were awesome. I was there and I agree. Just not quite so vociferously and whole-heartedly as some.
And my grandfather really did say the war years were the best of his life. And I understood what he meant. And still people think war is bad! Crazy.
disposalist said:Lol yeah sure I remember trains to zone being funny in Unrest (and elsewhere) but it quickly lost it's humour when the same guy did it for the 20th time.
I get that "the old days" were awesome. I was there and I agree. Just not quite so vociferously and whole-heartedly as some.
And my grandfather really did say the war years were the best of his life. And I understood what he meant. And still people think war is bad! Crazy.
Well I think the whole point of the thread was no one actually LIKES being trained, or have mobs stolen, or being griefed but as NoobieDoo touched upon...
noobiedoo said:When they placed safe guards within their game engine to determine who deserves the mob's kill or when they placed parameters so that mobs wouldn't attack other players who did not pull it they created a void where players could not ACT like a community.
Game needs drama (and yes villains) inside and outside of the boundries set by the Devs. The ability to police ourselves. The standard to which you hold others not to "break the rules". This is what helps form community.
Roenick said:disposalist said:Lol yeah sure I remember trains to zone being funny in Unrest (and elsewhere) but it quickly lost it's humour when the same guy did it for the 20th time...Well I think the whole point of the thread was no one actually LIKES being trained, or have mobs stolen, or being griefed but as NoobieDoo touched upon...
noobiedoo said:When they placed safe guards within their game engine to determine who deserves the mob's kill or when they placed parameters so that mobs wouldn't attack other players who did not pull it they created a void where players could not ACT like a community.Game needs drama (and yes villains) inside and outside of the boundries set by the Devs. The ability to police ourselves. The standard to which you hold others not to "break the rules". This is what helps form community.
I kinda took the post to imply that the griefing was a small price to pay for bringing back the old-school feeling, which I'm not sure I agree with. As I've said elsewhere, the devs will have a hell of a job picking the good and leaving the bad and still maintaining the feel. I bow to their experience and hope for the best, though ;)
Having said all that, it was hilarious when they were drawing a close to the Twitch stream and their own train unexpectedly slaughtered them!
Look at these forums. They're full of all these ideas, one of the most recent being how to handle in-game reputation and player policing. Look at all these different facets to the game that we as a group enjoy in our MMO's. These parts that create the whole of what we're looking for. You can't take a whole, take a piece of it away, and expect the whole to be the same. That's what taking griefers and jerks away will do. Community will be gone, the need for reputation will largely be superficial and lack substance, our MMO will be awfully similar to the MMO's we've already tried and hated.
Yes, we need those villains. Without the villains we'll all just stagnate in our own boring pixelated existences where everything is boring rainbows and fudge. I don't want that nonsense. I want a melting pot of personalities and playstyles that, put together, create a dynamic MMO experience where every day brings something new.
Sissies. Ima train you.
-Tralyan
Tralyan said:Look at these forums. They're full of all these ideas, one of the most recent being how to handle in-game reputation and player policing. Look at all these different facets to the game that we as a group enjoy in our MMO's. These parts that create the whole of what we're looking for. You can't take a whole, take a piece of it away, and expect the whole to be the same. That's what taking griefers and jerks away will do. Community will be gone, the need for reputation will largely be superficial and lack substance, our MMO will be awfully similar to the MMO's we've already tried and hated.
Yes, we need those villains. Without the villains we'll all just stagnate in our own boring pixelated existences where everything is boring rainbows and fudge. I don't want that nonsense. I want a melting pot of personalities and playstyles that, put together, create a dynamic MMO experience where every day brings something new.
Sissies. Ima train you.
-Tralyan
Nailed it.
I'm REALLY hoping VR includes mobs with chaotic, proximity-based aggro like the Spectres in Oasis. God, I can't tell you how many times I laughed my ass off training and getting trained by noobs and veterans alike there. I have plenty of fond memories helping guildies farm sand giants or the water goblins for some epic; we'd pass the time by training Spectres on each other, especially if someone went AFK unannounced.
I mean, isn't having fun what a game's all about?
Talv
What a wonderful thing forums are for all the diverse opinions eh?
Well, the devs have said in a couple places that they will be keeping the good and discarding the bad. They certainly do not believe that EQ and VG were all good and wouldn't have made a better whole with some bad pieces removed.
Whether or not training and other griefing is 'bad' to be removed is opinion I guess...
Oh jeez, I hate to use the "nostalgia goggles" argument but it applies here. Not every event of your days long gone were great. They had their ups and downs. Im sure it felt great when "heroes" finally came in to drive the bad guy away but this vision you have of "community" coming together against them was actually a rare occurence which, at best, happened half the time, and only after hours of screaming, yelling, and ragequitting.
Regardless, none of it was worth the small chance of it resulting in a warm, fuzzy, feeling of "kumbaya" from the backlash against the aggressor, who will likely just return sooner than later to do the same. There are plenty of community promoting designs planned for Pantheon without opening the gates to griefers, scammers, and/or ninja's... which are going to be around regardless. There is always someone, no matter what, that will take pleasure in harrassing others. Hopefully VR will implement some kind of account-wide ignore/black lists to really isolate and drive them out.
Kayo said:Oh jeez, I hate to use the "nostalgia goggles" argument but it applies here. Not every event of your days long gone were great. They had their ups and downs. Im sure it felt great when "heroes" finally came in to drive the bad guy away but this vision you have of "community" coming together against them was actually a rare occurence which, at best, happened half the time, and only after hours of screaming, yelling, and ragequitting.
Regardless, none of it was worth the small chance of it resulting in a warm, fuzzy, feeling of "kumbaya" from the backlash against the aggressor, who will likely just return sooner than later to do the same. There are plenty of community promoting designs planned for Pantheon without opening the gates to griefers, scammers, and/or ninja's... which are going to be around regardless. There is always someone, no matter what, that will take pleasure in harrassing others. Hopefully VR will implement some kind of account-wide ignore/black lists to really isolate and drive them out.
Do I want some jerk to grief my group with trains for an hour? Of course not. But everytime the devs place parameters within the game engine itself to safe guard players from this you remove the opportunity for the community to actually be a community. It's not about having that warm fuzzy feeling from policing the griefer. It's about the community existing to make the virtual world feel alive.
This, right here. Perfectly said.
disposalist said:Lol love it. Pretty much like saying the best thing to happen in the last couple of generations was the second World War.
There are lots of things that result in social bonds and a sense of community. I think we can manage it without griefing and conflict, though.
There is a middle ground I'm hoping VR will hit.
Tralyan said:NoobieDoo said:
Do I want some jerk to grief my group with trains for an hour? Of course not. But everytime the devs place parameters within the game engine itself to safe guard players from this you remove the opportunity for the community to actually be a community. It's not about having that warm fuzzy feeling from policing the griefer. It's about the community existing to make the virtual world feel alive.
This, right here. Perfectly said.
+1. Agree, well said. The whole post really.
What Noobie said.
Edit: fixed quote
NoobieDoo said:Kayo said:Oh jeez, I hate to use the "nostalgia goggles" argument but it applies here. Not every event of your days long gone were great. They had their ups and downs. Im sure it felt great when "heroes" finally came in to drive the bad guy away but this vision you have of "community" coming together against them was actually a rare occurence which, at best, happened half the time, and only after hours of screaming, yelling, and ragequitting.
Regardless, none of it was worth the small chance of it resulting in a warm, fuzzy, feeling of "kumbaya" from the backlash against the aggressor, who will likely just return sooner than later to do the same. There are plenty of community promoting designs planned for Pantheon without opening the gates to griefers, scammers, and/or ninja's... which are going to be around regardless. There is always someone, no matter what, that will take pleasure in harrassing others. Hopefully VR will implement some kind of account-wide ignore/black lists to really isolate and drive them out.
Some of you are missing the point. It has nothing to do with 'rose tinted glasses' and nothing to do with burning the agressor at the stake and singing kumbaya with the bros afterwards. And it has everything to do with the lack of hand-holding that EQ and VG did which was a big reason why those games were so great.
Do I want some jerk to grief my group with trains for an hour? Of course not. But everytime the devs place parameters within the game engine itself to safe guard players from this you remove the opportunity for the community to actually be a community. It's not about having that warm fuzzy feeling from policing the griefer. It's about the community existing to make the virtual world feel alive.
It works the same for automating player actions which is another area that some player's have been asking for, and in a sense, more hand-holding. All of this detracts from the virtual world behaving and feeling like a real world which a lot of people credit EQ and VG for having. It removes that 'player interaction' which is a big part of what you need for a virtual world to feel like a living breathing world. A simple example would be group finder tools that automatically forms your group, even across servers, and ports you to the dungeon. This removes that player interaction, that one-on-one where you ask players to join your group or other players ask to join your group and though it may seem trivial it does help to provide a sense of belonging and/or existing.
Well said!
I think the OP was trying to state that in the old days. Several decades ago the early faction and wide open roles one could play were more diverse and added far more to the experience. I totally agree here. I have had many of the negative events happen to me but in truth it was a rallying cry to people or my guild mates around me. Did it work every time get help? No. The bigger picture was it was allowed to happen and there were consequences to those that chose that path. It is the gaming experience as a whole we need to be careful of if not protect. That means good with the bad. There needs to be be checks and balances for sure but the dynamic needs to be there.
Ox