Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
I know that feel, bro.
MMORPGs are uncomfortable to me in general for that very reason, excepting ones where interaction between players is very minimal unless you really want it (eg. Path of Exile, which you really all should play).
Tbh, I dont really see why people should have the ability to single-play all of an MMO
Its called Massively Mutliplayer for a reason
What do you have against people who prefer a single-player experience?
Expecting a single-player experience out of an MMO feels like expecting an RPG experience out of a FPS.
Sure, there are games which sorta let you have it, but not really, and it only works for some extremely few games.
I should note that Path of Exile is more like Diablo II than World of Warcraft.
I think it's more fair to say that the single and multiplayer experiences just aren't seperated like they were in that game (and most games of its type), since it's entirely possible to solo the game, and indeed, it's actually easier.
I also find the reaction I'm getting here rather silly, but whatever.
PoE looks like this
it is free, the only things you actually can by are purely cosmetic, and it was made by a team of less than twenty people.
all things considered it's probably the best value for a game I've gotten in a long time.
also despite the mechanics being somewhat similar (excepting the way skills and flasks (potions) work) the game actually doesn't go out of its way to ape Diablo at every possible turn, which is nice.
The only problems I really have with it are server related. There are only three servers and lag can be an issue at certain times of the day, but it's usually not a big problem. Also if the servers are near capacity instances can reset in as little as eight minutes of being empty, which can suck.
Finally, it's still in Beta and is updated pretty frequently.
and I think that's all my edits for now.
In general, I feel as though MMOs don't make good the implicit promise of the genre's premise. Right now, "MMO" pretty much means "MMORPG", but "MMORPG" tends to describe a very specific set of RPG mechanics under very specific multiplayer limitations.
For MMOs to really make good their potential, I think they have to break free of being almost always attached to RPG mechanics and, when they're still RPGs by intent, design and wherewithal, use a more diverse set of RPG mechanics. The idea of playing an MMO solo seems funny under current conventions, wherein so many mechanics are built around multiplayer and balanced for them... but in order to actually represent a diverse society and world within the fiction and the game, you also need to provide for lone wolves and the kind of person who flits from group to group as it suits them.
I think we'll begin to see this as WoW continues to wind down a bit and technology progresses. As internet speeds increase and computers become more powerful, we might begin to see more freeform kinds of environment interactions, NPCs, combat and so on and so forth. Right now, this is occasionally accomplished with instancing, but I think it can be done even better and on a wider scale in the coming years.
Perhaps a relatively easy way to account for the lone wolf vs. the party in terms of rewards and ease of gameplay is in changing experience rewards and the application of passive buffs. That is, if you're within such a distance of an allied player, you get a moderate stat buff at the cost of some experience gained. The result would be that lone wolves would have a more difficult time completing tasks (as usual), but gain more experience for their efforts -- so in any given area, convincing a lone wolf to abandon their disposition for a while and to join you would be of significant benefit. Or perhaps not, and the mechanics would just be abused to hell.
The point is, though, that with more freeform gameplay should probably come mechanics that encourage people to engage with the game in very different ways and to engage with others socially in very different ways. What I think needs to be abandoned most of all, though, is conventional MMO quest content. Overall, I think it provides too much of an objective goal instead of encouraging players to create their own goals. An MMO with freeform, real-time gameplay, mechanics that establish social divides and using unconventional "quests" (for lack of a better term) would be something else.
So I am thinking I really should not have mentioned that it's an MMO at all.
For what it's worth, I was supporting the notion that going solo in an MMO should be supportable via the mechanics.
I don't
If you want to have a single-player experience, play a single-player game or don't play an MMO.
Expecting an MMO to have all its gameplay aspects to be soloable defeats the object of it being an MMO.
I don't "expect" it, that just happens to be how this game is. Really not seeing the problem.
I realize that but now you're all going to discuss MMO design instead of just downloading the game and giving it a shot. T_T
There's more than just internet speeds and computer power to take into consideration. (Also, it will take a long time for computer considerations to become worthwhile for this, as too many people use lower-end computers that developers have to take into account).
Honestly, I'd be surprised if more people don't start looking at games like FFXI, which was a cross-console MMO. That'd be a neat way to solve the current issue.
Well... that's not what an MMO is really kind of about, is the thing. They are social games by design- it's a large part of what separates MMO's from regular games.
They're not about representing a diverse society, is the thing. Oh, you could certainly make a game which does represent it, but that's never going to be a typical MMO.
There are games out there already that allow people to run off on their own and complete content alone. The thing is, though, at that point, you may as well just hand someone a single-player version of the game. It's no longer an MMO for that person, for all intents and purposes.
There are also single-player games that go online for multiplayer, but that's a different thing.
That's because you haven't given me any reason to give a fuck about Path of Exile.
I don't understand why you seem to be pissed off, but here, bulleted list:
There's probably other, similar things for the other classes, but the only character I've played with at length so far is the Witch.
edit: why does the numbering function always fuck up here
It certainly does. But it's also the case in pretty much every MMO I've played (or at least, the bulk of their content tends to be soloable, and every one I've played directly incentivizes soloing everything you can).
In fact, I can't say I've ever played an MMO that would not be improved by not being an MMO. Don't get me wrong; they appear to exist; EVE Online is all about multiplayer, and while Guild Wars 2 is quite similar to other MMOs I've played, it takes the crazy step of not directly punishing you for playing the game as a multiplayer game. Huh, how about that.
So why did you whine about me "hating" on SPers playing MMOs if you're not playing an MMO?
^^Here
be aware that you do have to make an account and that the game does take awhile to install.
Also if you do play with others, try to get to know people first. The multiplayer servers are about half good people and half complete douchebags.
Because you genuinely seemed really annoyed that I was soloing what is nominally an MMO.
Those are all minor instances of gameplay, other than the aesthetics thing, rather than a reason for me to actually play the game. I don't wanna know that the witch uses a goat horn, I wanna know what the gameplay is like, I wanna know what it's about, I wanna know why they do X so I know there's a reason for it.
Yeah. But just because most MMO's are broken doesn't mean that you should ignore the fundamental concept of an MMO when considering new ones.
Very true, but my point is that it doesn't take too much to be ahead of the curve in this genre.
Yeah. But I wrote what I did because I think that de-incentivizing multiplayer in MMO's is a step in the wrong direction.
Seriously?
Okay, buddy. How about this: don't play it then, it's not that important to me.
I'm not gonna sit here and write you an essay.
Here's the thing, dude. As of this point, the only really substantial thing you've said about the game is that it's a pretty Diablolike MMO. That's...not much info to go on when deciding whether to check out a new game.
You already have, word-count wise. It just doesn't contain much in the way of vital content.
^^ Very well then, buddy.
I really don't understand what about that description and what I wrote up there is not enough to tell you whether you'd like it or not.
Any further developed opinion you'd have to either try it or watch someone else play it. I am genuinely not sure what you want me to tell you here.
Other than the genre and aesthetics, it's mostly either minor stuff (item names) or vague stuff (the skill system apparently isn't like other skill systems in some way). You haven't really said much about, you know, how the game actually plays and stuff.
More confused really than annoyed
I tried to solo Star Trek Online and it wasn't very fun
Let's see then.
How?
What does this do? Does it make for a significantly different experience? Why is it included at all?
And? What does that mean to the player?
Okay. That's a point; aesthetics are important, and help to provide a theme for the game and setting. Does the post-apocalyptic feel affect anything else?
And? Okay, that's cool, but how does it affect the game? Does it make the Witch feel different? Does it change the Witch's lore to something significantly different to the norm, and if so, how, and why should the player care?
You've posted a bunch of words, but they don't tell me anything.
OK.
Have you ever played Diablo, Diablo II, Hellgate London*, Baldur's Gate*, Torchlight, Torchlight 2, etc.?
OK, you know how the game works then. Left click to attack, right click to use skills, keyboard for other skills.
If you liked any or all of those games, you should give this a chance. Because it's similar to those, but different in the ways I outlined above, and consequently, different enough to make it unique.
Does that make sense?
And I mean heck if you don't trust my description I linked to the developer's website.
*I have not actually played these, but my understanding is that they are quite similar in general gameplay.
My contention is that the MMO was (and still is) premature as a set of games and products. The implicit promise of the MMO concept was always that it was to be like existing games, but in context of multiplayer and supporting dozens, hundreds or thousands of players within a given area.
MMOs weren't (and aren't) like non-MMO games mechanically, though. We still can't play a game with high-interaction, open environments with lots of real-time interaction mechanics, such as the parkour of Assassin's Creed or the combat of Dark Souls. So what an MMO is "about", or what is "typical" of an MMO has become warped over time as the implications of their limitations set in, and it's become obvious that the MMO concept was launched into the marketplace too soon.
The more limitations that are eased on MMOs, the more they're going to change to take the form of the original concept the imagination conjures when it hears "massively multiplayer online" without knowing of the performance and data transmission limitations that entails. And rather than the social elements existing mostly within small groups or as phrases like "lfg" or "need X", we might see the social elements of MMOs become much more natural and diverse as they change form.
It's telling that a lot of the social interactions in Dark Souls feel a lot more natural than anything in an MMO despite there being no vocal or text communication. Everything has to be communicated via body language and implication, and players can't see one-another's builds and so have to use educated guesswork to work out strategies and tactics. If you summon a white phantom and they rock up in heavy armour, that heavy armour isn't so much an aesthetic with an attached defense value as it is a descriptor of their style of play, because it has a weight value that might slow them down and a poise value that allows them to walk through enemy attacks unfettered. If that same white phantom has a zweihander, you can bet that they focus on trading attacks, using staggers and high damage output to defend themselves moreso than evasion or blocking.
I don't at all need to see the mathematical values attached directly to their character, I don't need to read their words or hear their voice or anything. I can look at another player's character and they can have a look at mine and we both get a detailed sense of the tactics and strategies we can expect to employ, with specifics denoted only by body language. We don't need longstanding genre conventions to assist us at all -- just intuitive visual cues, plus a little game knowledge.
This is what I'm talking about when I mention MMOs becoming more natural, especially in social terms (despite the fact that Dark Souls isn't a true MMO, or not an MMO at all. I've heard it argued both ways). There's less emphasis, currently, on acting according to intuitive observation and more emphasis on acting according to genre conventions. Often, there is no "character" -- no idea or personality that the concept sprung from, nothing to act according to or anything like that. There's the concepts of "tank", "damage dealer", "healer", "burst damager" and so on with attached aesthetic elements, but it's all very impersonal and rigid.