Random (M)MORPG thoughts

[rusty_shackleford]

IDK if you was mentioned, but:
FFXI enemies have the concept of senses, each enemy typically has a couple different kinds, or only one. You can cover your scent and be invisible to some enemies, or run thru water to get them(enemies that hunt by smell) to stop following you.

Always thought that was really neat.

Also, many enemies go to sleep at night.

[Norfleet]

Distance matters in a modern 3D game, as I suspect you realize perfectly well, for a variety of reasons, perhaps most importantly pathing costs, which are actually brutal to calculate between two or more dynamic positions.

This isn't actually true. I know this because I've done it before. The typical technique for calculating EXTREME LONG DISTANCE PATHING across terrain is to break it up into levels of scale. You don't need to work out how to dodge every tree and rock between LA and NYC. You just need to figure out how to Escape from LA. The individual micro-obstacles are irrelevant at this point because you're only calculating the path on the high-level map (which path you take to get from LA to NYC), and the path on the low-level map (how to Escape from LA). You don't have to even look at every single rock in Nevada, because you already have a high-level pathability map that you used to determine that you can get there, and it's only once you're in it that the pathfinder needs to figure out how to get you to the next map square in higher detail. The high-level pathability grid already knows you can get from Sector [4,10] to Sector [5,10], and the sectors you will thus traverse going from one sector on a huge map to the next.

So this claim is trivially and demonstrably false, and you can see it yourself: Just go to Google Maps and ask it to plot you a course from a random building in LA to an equally random building in NYC. Performing this request is so trivial that Google doesn't even try force you to register for it, and we're talking about doing this on a map that has a scale of "the entire ******* real world". Is that not a big enough map for you?

Then there's the issue that, regardless of the actual density of enemies, the number of entities that have to be tracked goes as the square of the distance - cube if they can be in the air or sea!

Space partitioning is how this is done. A given worker only needs to handle the entities within its workspace. And again, "distance" is just a number. By your logic, it would be impossible to have any game in set in space because the distances in space are measured in AUs or even lightyears, which would be a massive amount of "distance". The maximum any game would ever be able to handle would be ants! Right? Right? But no. Distance is just a number. It doesn't matter whether the distance is 500 lightyears or 500 millimeters. What matters is the zone of interactability in strict relative terms.

Even the actual density is far less important than you'd think. Consider: Why does a modern MMO's instanced raid choke and die when an instance consists of less than 20 people in it fighting each other with autohit attacks (read: no actual entities are generated when you cast magic missile), while running on a modern multi-core server with dozens to hundreds of giga of RAMs and gigabit intertube connections, when a game from 1996 could host hundreds of spaceships shooting each other with physically simulated bullets (every bullet bounces around wildly and can interact with anyone or anything they strike) in a single instance running on a ****** 1996 server over dialup intertubes? Answer: Because modern developers are talentless hacks. Despite having a thousand times the computing resources to work with, they cannot even replicate the feats of decades past.

[Stack of Turtles]

Distance matters in a modern 3D game, as I suspect you realize perfectly well, for a variety of reasons, perhaps most importantly pathing costs, which are actually brutal to calculate between two or more dynamic positions.

This isn't actually true. I know this because I've done it before. The typical technique for calculating EXTREME LONG DISTANCE PATHING across terrain is to break it up into levels of scale. You don't need to work out how to dodge every tree and rock between LA and NYC. You just need to figure out how to Escape from LA. The individual micro-obstacles are irrelevant at this point because you're only calculating the path on the high-level map (which path you take to get from LA to NYC), and the path on the low-level map (how to Escape from LA). You don't have to even look at every single rock in Nevada, because you already have a high-level pathability map that you used to determine that you can get there, and it's only once you're in it that the pathfinder needs to figure out how to get you to the next map square in higher detail. The high-level pathability grid already knows you can get from Sector [4,10] to Sector [5,10], and the sectors you will thus traverse going from one sector on a huge map to the next.

So this claim is trivially and demonstrably false, and you can see it yourself: Just go to Google Maps and ask it to plot you a course from a random building in LA to an equally random building in NYC. Performing this request is so trivial that Google doesn't even try force you to register for it, and we're talking about doing this on a map that has a scale of "the entire ******* real world". Is that not a big enough map for you?

DYNAMIC POSITIONS.
Static, even one-sidedly static, is more or less trivial if you can precalculate.

[Norfleet]

DYNAMIC POSITIONS.
Static, even one-sidedly static, is more or less trivial if you can precalculate.

What, exactly, constitutes a "dynamic position"? Some sort of moving target, like an airplane? Because that ****'s 1950s-era tech. Or did you mean some sort of dynamic map where the terrain is subject to change? Because, you know, that's just Minecraft. It's perfectly possible to pathfind Minecraft.

[Stack of Turtles]

DYNAMIC POSITIONS.
Static, even one-sidedly static, is more or less trivial if you can precalculate.

What, exactly, constitutes a "dynamic position"? Some sort of moving target, like an airplane? Because that ****'s 1950s-era tech. Or did you mean some sort of dynamic map where the terrain is subject to change? Because, you know, that's just Minecraft. It's perfectly possible to pathfind Minecraft.

I didn't say it was impossible.
I said MMO designers aren't going to spend the extra computation time on it when nobody would care enough to pay extra for it.

[Norfleet]

I said MMO designers aren't going to spend the extra computation time on it when nobody would care enough to pay extra for it.

That's because you're viewing it in terms of selling them this as a feature. That's the wrong approach. You make lions hunt players by scent from across the map. Then you charge them extra money for premium scent-masking consumables so that the lions STOP hunting them.

[Stack of Turtles]

I said MMO designers aren't going to spend the extra computation time on it when nobody would care enough to pay extra for it.

That's because you're viewing it in terms of selling them this as a feature. That's the wrong approach. You make lions hunt players by scent from across the map. Then you charge them extra money for premium scent-masking consumables so that the lions STOP hunting them.

MMO players don't want to be attacked by FEWER mobs. That's where the loot is!

[Norfleet]

MMO players don't want to be attacked by FEWER mobs. That's where the loot is!

That's a matter of incentives and outcomes. Believe me, you CAN convince people to want to be attacked by fewer mobs. If fighting and being attacked by mobs is unrewarding and the rewards come from being able to traverse the map and reach resources WITHOUT having to get into fights, you WILL convince players to want to avoid being attacked. See: Every Zombie Survival Game, where zombies don't really drop good loot.

[Stack of Turtles]

MMO players don't want to be attacked by FEWER mobs. That's where the loot is!

That's a matter of incentives and outcomes. Believe me, you CAN convince people to want to be attacked by fewer mobs. If fighting and being attacked by mobs is unrewarding and the rewards come from being able to traverse the map and reach resources WITHOUT having to get into fights, you WILL convince players to want to avoid being attacked. See: Every Zombie Survival Game, where zombies don't really drop good loot.

Sure, but no MMO does this, and games that do it suck. Zombie games in particular suck precisely because combat is just tedious busywork you avoid as much as possible; doubly so because most zombie game devs have a fetish for making every fight a ******** high-stakes gamble with some unavoidable chance of being ****** because that's how zombie movies (which are also ******* boring and ******) work.

[Norfleet]

Sure, but no MMO does this

On the contrary: PLENTY of games do this. It is incredibly common for games to have some mission/raid/quest where your goal is to accomplish something, like, say, killing a SPECIFIC thing, but there are also a bunch of trash mobs you want to avoid.

and games that do it suck.

I want to disagree, but yeah, those games do suck. Most of us really DO want to just kill them all and be done with it. Nonetheless, they exist and continue to annoy us.

[Stack of Turtles]

and games that do it suck.

I want to disagree, but yeah, those games do suck. Most of us really DO want to just kill them all and be done with it. Nonetheless, they exist and continue to annoy us.

You'll notice how this is also true of real life now that combat isn't worth it anymore.

[Norfleet]

You'll notice how this is also true of real life now that combat isn't worth it anymore.

Nobody seems to have informed the Russians of this, though. They seem determined to kill every random trash mob they find, even the ones that aren't aggressive, even as they burn through their dwindling supply of ammo doing it, instead of hitting anything important.

[anvi]

Another thing I wanted to see in MMOs is for mobs to not be blind and dumb.

it compounds the complexity of the game itself which is why some things are a matter of "suspended disbelief" in order to retain a practical means for game play.

I agree but sometimes it can create new and interesting gameplay too. Maybe creatures go to where you roughly are and then they start tracking you. If you walk through water it stops footprints. Maybe you can setup an ambush for them knowing they are coming for you. Would really like to see games just advance in general. As much as I hate on Skyrim it did have a few outposts where you get attacked by archers and stuff if you get near. I thought that was cool. Also in STALKER, the AI in those games will team up and come for you tactically, even if you go into a building they will come up the stairs etc. Would love to see more stuff like that in RPGs.

IDK if you was mentioned, but:
FFXI enemies have the concept of senses, each enemy typically has a couple different kinds, or only one. You can cover your scent and be invisible to some enemies, or run thru water to get them(enemies that hunt by smell) to stop following you.

Always thought that was really neat.

Also, many enemies go to sleep at night.

I love that, didn't know they had stuff like that.

[rusty_shackleford]

developers endorsing RMT was one of the major nails in the coffin of MMOs, everything becomes weighted in terms of "how much real life time am I wasting doing this instead of just working a job for an hour?"

[Xenich]

developers endorsing RMT was one of the major nails in the coffin of MMOs, everything becomes weighted in terms of "how much real life time am I wasting doing this instead of just working a job for an hour?"

Personally I blame the loose acceptance of player coin being used for item purchases over actually going to the dungeon and earning the item through play. I understand the argument concerning the "economic" path to earning items, but it seemed to circumvent the entire point, especially when you would see people who sucked so bad at playing the game, yet somehow were able to amass gear that took a lot of skill to obtain.

Once people accepted in-game coin to circumvent gameplay (ie earning it from its actual source), it isn't too hard to believe that the argument would eventually slide to using real money to do it. In fact, all the arguments of... "I have a job...", "It isn't worth my time...", etc... were all used to justify people using coin made through market play to gain gear.

Since the player base was open to it, developers (or more specifically, the "companies") were definitely going to market on it. This was a hill that had to be fought very early on and at that time, anyone who even suggested the trade markets were counter productive to the games well being were shot down very quickly.

Well, that is the way I saw it. /shrug

[Norfleet]

Personally I blame the loose acceptance of player coin being used for item purchases over actually going to the dungeon and earning the item through play.

It was always a slippery slope.

1. Talking To Other Players is OK

2. Playing With Other Players is OK

3. Giving Things To Other Players Is OK

4. Trading Things To Other Players Is OK

5. Trading Things To Other Players Other Than Strictly In-Game Items is OK (it was and still is common to exchange things in different games)

6. Bribing Other Players is OK

7. Systematically Bribing The Developers Is OK <== YOU ARE HERE

8. Committing Minor Crimes Against Other Players is OK <== EVE Players Are Here

9. Murdering Other Players Is OK

[Xenich]

I will say that buying gear in THJ took away a bit of the "fun" of play I remember in EQ. That anticipation of the drop, the setting of goals to obtain those items, etc... seemed to lose its luster when you can buy items off the bazaar. It also disrupted the natural progression of play in that you could purchase leaps of progression that would otherwise be a slow natural means of obtaining the items in the dungeons themselves.

The game was fun from a nostalgia perspective, and of course the toying with multiple classes, but I would say the bazaar part of the game really works against the game itself (among other things).

Too bad the modes are not in as I think those would greatly improve the development experience of the game.

[Norfleet]

I will say that buying gear in THJ took away a bit of the "fun" of play I remember in EQ. That anticipation of the drop, the setting of goals to obtain those items, etc... seemed to lose its luster when you can buy items off the bazaar.

Well, I guess Auction House PvP is still a kind of PvP, but I still miss the old days when you got better gear not off "drops", but by murdering someone and prying it from their cold dead hands.

[Xenich]

I will say that buying gear in THJ took away a bit of the "fun" of play I remember in EQ. That anticipation of the drop, the setting of goals to obtain those items, etc... seemed to lose its luster when you can buy items off the bazaar.

Well, I guess Auction House PvP is still a kind of PvP, but I still miss the old days when you got better gear not off "drops", but by murdering someone and prying it from their cold dead hands.

Heh, I can respect the Rallos Zek players, I knew a couple who transferred to Stormhammer after the server pretty much died. Definitely not my style of game, but they at least earned their gear through actual play.

The whole AH game I thought to be too easy unless your goal was to dominate along that focus. If it were simply to obtain gear without having to adventure for it, it was way too easy comparatively speaking and for me it ruined the game much like I mentioned with THJ.

[Norfleet]

The whole AH game I thought to be too easy unless your goal was to dominate along that focus.

Given the prices in the Auction House, you are not going to obtain much in the way of top-end gear UNLESS you're dominating the auction house. That's the thing people who complain about those who equip themselves off the Auction House don't get: Being an Auction House warrior is at LEAST as intense as actually fighting some dumb mob, because you're still engaging with the other players in a battle of wits, even if it's not quite to the same level as the old-fashioned way of murdering them and taking their stuff. If anything, it's more so: Being driven into poverty is far more damaging than losing a raid. When you're playing Auction House, you're putting actual pain on the line. You only see the end stage, the point at which I have a bajillion bucks and can just buy anything I want. You're missing the part of how I came to actually be able to DO that.

Remember, the auction house doesn't print free money: All of your wins have to be taken from another player. To consistently be able to outplay swaths of other players is more than just learning the pattern of a dumb mob and repeating until it falls over dead. As an Auction House Guy, when I wear the top-end pimp gear, I don't even ******* use it much. It's not about the gear, it's about flexing on the fact that I can casually buy it with loose change I found in my virtual couch cushions, because I'm winning against everyone else THAT hard. Actually fighting mobs just simply isn't my business model, and I just do it to get the complete experience, to make it a "been there, done that".

That's how it is for the Auction House Guy.

[Xenich]

The whole AH game I thought to be too easy unless your goal was to dominate along that focus.

Given the prices in the Auction House, you are not going to obtain much in the way of top-end gear UNLESS you're dominating the auction house. That's the thing people who complain about those who equip themselves off the Auction House don't get: Being an Auction House warrior is at LEAST as intense as actually fighting some dumb mob, because you're still engaging with the other players in a battle of wits, even if it's not quite to the same level as the old-fashioned way of murdering them and taking their stuff. If anything, it's more so: Being driven into poverty is far more damaging than losing a raid. When you're playing Auction House, you're putting actual pain on the line. You only see the end stage, the point at which I have a bajillion bucks and can just buy anything I want. You're missing the part of how I came to actually be able to DO that.

Remember, the auction house doesn't print free money: All of your wins have to be taken from another player. To consistently be able to outplay swaths of other players is more than just learning the pattern of a dumb mob and repeating until it falls over dead. As an Auction House Guy, when I wear the top-end pimp gear, I don't even ******* use it much. It's not about the gear, it's about flexing on the fact that I can casually buy it with loose change I found in my virtual couch cushions, because I'm winning against everyone else THAT hard. Actually fighting mobs just simply isn't my business model, and I just do it to get the complete experience, to make it a "been there, done that".

That's how it is for the Auction House Guy.

Wouldn't you find that game more interesting if the game was designed around it though? That is, actual real thought was placed into the economic system? Have you ever played games like Capitalism or similar types? Do you enjoy those?

I know there are win/loss conditions to dominating an MMO market, but as I said, I found it extremely easy to use to gain items over adventuring to obtain them. Maybe it takes a bit longer to obtain the top end items if you aren't really good at the market game, but it is less effort I found.

I had an argument once with a guildmate years ago about the whole thing and he went on about how it wasn't easy, so I decided to "play the game" to see how I could outfit an alt as if I were a naked noob. It didn't take long for me to obtain most gear to the level of my main. It was rather boring to me, felt like I was cheating, and it kind of killed the game for me.

I guess I can see how some enjoy that element of play, I just think that it conflicts with the adventure side and causes major issues, not to mention no thought ever goes into the market game like that which is put into the adventure side. I wonder how many people would enjoy the AH game if it truly had all the elements of game play of true loss/gain controls, costs, etc... What if it emulated more realistic markets in that way where loss of money was consistent and winning was required to stay ahead?

When you run a business, you have numerous costs that if your profit does not stay ahead of, you go bankrupt. AH markets don't tend to emulate those types of conditions that would exist in real markets to any serious extent.

I guess in a way, that is why I dislike the direction modern MMOs have gone with penalties though... failure in the early MMOs could result in a backslide due to poor performance, though these days failure is simply "not gaining", there is never any real loss.

[TKVNC]

I guess in a way, that is why I dislike the direction modern MMOs have gone with penalties though... failure in the early MMOs could result in a backslide due to poor performance, though these days failure is simply "not gaining", there is never any real loss.

Truest **** ever. Goes hand in hand with no emergent gameplay. You can't problem solve without a problem.

[Norfleet]

Wouldn't you find that game more interesting if the game was designed around it though? That is, actual real thought was placed into the economic system?

Economies don't have to be designed around it. If anything, the lack of design is what makes it a truly free market, where everything about the economy has to be invented from the ground up by the players because the game didn't even come with a real currency, forcing the players to invent their own currency.

Have you ever played games like Capitalism or similar types? Do you enjoy those?

Yes...but I'm not sure that's the same kind of game. The "Capitalism" game I remember was basically a factory and business builder, having relatively little to do with dominating a PvP economy against other players. It shared more in common with games like Settlers, Patrician, or Anno than STONKS.

HI had an argument once with a guildmate years ago about the whole thing and he went on about how it wasn't easy, so I decided to "play the game" to see how I could outfit an alt as if I were a naked noob. It didn't take long for me to obtain most gear to the level of my main. It was rather boring to me, felt like I was cheating, and it kind of killed the game for me.

Did you equip yourself with BIS, or second-rate vendortrash? Because in MMO economics, best in slot is what costs you, everything else below that mark rapidly degrades to vendortrash level. This is the nature of MMO pricing: The item 1% better than the next best thing costs a thousand times as much, and by the time you're down by -5%, the item is being sold at vendortrash prices. Sometimes even below, for reasons I still do not understand.

The thing is that MMOs typically gate the most desirable items behind "rarity", and by rarity, they mean that it drops infrequently. That means for every top-tier item that is "produced", a bajillion lower-tier items, far exceeding any reasonable demand, are produced as unwanted byproduct. If I want to produce one Ultimate Sword Thing, I will produce dozens of Penultimate Sword Things in the process. I can only use one sword-thing. These extra swords are basically worthless to me, so my only option for deriving any value at all out of them is to dump them on the market. The thing is, everyone's doing that. Supply thus vastly exceeds demand. The item rapidly becomes trash I hand to new guild members as a Starter Kit. Eventually I stop even bothering to waste my time posting it on the auction house as the price collapses to vendortrash levels, unless it's faster to post it on AH than to walk to a vendor. Eventually the combination of inflation and static vendor values means I stop bothering to even do either because it's not worth the extra clicks over rightclick -> discard, and start to openly resent being forced to even pick up the item at all, if I don't have the option of simply ignoring the drop and leaving it to rot on the floor: it's not even LOOT anymore.

I just think that it conflicts with the adventure side and causes major issues

Well, in the sense that it exposes the itemization of the game as mostly a hollow sham where 90% of the content in the game basically serves no useful purpose, yes.

not to mention no thought ever goes into the market game like that which is put into the adventure side. I wonder how many people would enjoy the AH game if it truly had all the elements of game play of true loss/gain controls, costs, etc...

What would "loss/gain controls" even look like? You lose when you buy, you gain when you sell. The only loss/gain control intrinsic to the system is the fact that you can't go broker than broke. And the general lack of any controls of any kind is exactly what makes being the Auction House Guy the ultimate PvP experience. It's you, against the world. No brakes. Make it big or lose it all, with practically no limits. Live or die by your own wits alone. It's the closest thing we have to an unrestricted, full-loot PvP. Who dares win mushrooms?

What if it emulated more realistic markets in that way where loss of money was consistent and winning was required to stay ahead?

That already exists. s'called "Inflation", "Power Creep", and "Nerfs". If you sit on your *** after winning scoring a million bucks, come back in a year or two and that money is now chickenscratch. MMO economies tend to consistently suffer from bad inflation and powercreep. So if you sit on cash, it inflates to worthlessness, and if you sit on assets, those assets can be rendered instantly worthless overnight when the item is nerfed into the dirt or becomes irrelevant to meta when the New Thing drops.

When you run a business, you have numerous costs that if your profit does not stay ahead of, you go bankrupt. AH markets don't tend to emulate those types of conditions that would exist in real markets to any serious extent.

Yes, if you hadn't previously mentioned that this was not your favored mode of play and you only did it like once, THIS line right here would tell me you know NOTHING about being an Auction House Guy. Because as an Auction House Guy, you ABSOLUTELY have to deal with all this. If your profit doesn't track ahead of inflation, you are going broke. If your asset store gets nerfed and you didn't diversify your assets, you're bankrupt now as what was worth a million gold today can be vendortrash tomorrow. If you don't have your finger on the pulse of the game, you will not know what to buy, what to sell. Being a successful Auction House Guy requires a comprehensive knowledge of just about every aspect of the game. Maybe you don't spend your time actually using any of these items to fight monsters, but you **** well better know the mechanics of the game in EXACTING detail, or you will have no way to know whether or not the newly dropped item that appears on the market is any good and that you should snap it up before the public catches on so you can hoard the entire supply and sell it for a hojillion golds. You gotta BUY LOW to SELL HIGH. Make the wrong play and you lose your shirt.

I guess in a way, that is why I dislike the direction modern MMOs have gone with penalties though... failure in the early MMOs could result in a backslide due to poor performance, though these days failure is simply "not gaining", there is never any real loss.

And more importantly, your ability to "gain" is tightly constrained as well. You can't lose, and how much and fast you can gain is rigidly constrained by developer fiat.

That's why I'm an Auction House Guy.

[Xenich]

Wouldn't you find that game more interesting if the game was designed around it though? That is, actual real thought was placed into the economic system?

Economies don't have to be designed around it. If anything, the lack of design is what makes it a truly free market, where everything about the economy has to be invented from the ground up by the players because the game didn't even come with a real currency, forcing the players to invent their own currency.

Have you ever played games like Capitalism or similar types? Do you enjoy those?

Yes...but I'm not sure that's the same kind of game. The "Capitalism" game I remember was basically a factory and business builder, having relatively little to do with dominating a PvP economy against other players. It shared more in common with games like Settlers, Patrician, or Anno than STONKS.

HI had an argument once with a guildmate years ago about the whole thing and he went on about how it wasn't easy, so I decided to "play the game" to see how I could outfit an alt as if I were a naked noob. It didn't take long for me to obtain most gear to the level of my main. It was rather boring to me, felt like I was cheating, and it kind of killed the game for me.

Did you equip yourself with BIS, or second-rate vendortrash? Because in MMO economics, best in slot is what costs you, everything else below that mark rapidly degrades to vendortrash level. This is the nature of MMO pricing: The item 1% better than the next best thing costs a thousand times as much, and by the time you're down by -5%, the item is being sold at vendortrash prices. Sometimes even below, for reasons I still do not understand.

The thing is that MMOs typically gate the most desirable items behind "rarity", and by rarity, they mean that it drops infrequently. That means for every top-tier item that is "produced", a bajillion lower-tier items, far exceeding any reasonable demand, are produced as unwanted byproduct. If I want to produce one Ultimate Sword Thing, I will produce dozens of Penultimate Sword Things in the process. I can only use one sword-thing. These extra swords are basically worthless to me, so my only option for deriving any value at all out of them is to dump them on the market. The thing is, everyone's doing that. Supply thus vastly exceeds demand. The item rapidly becomes trash I hand to new guild members as a Starter Kit. Eventually I stop even bothering to waste my time posting it on the auction house as the price collapses to vendortrash levels, unless it's faster to post it on AH than to walk to a vendor. Eventually the combination of inflation and static vendor values means I stop bothering to even do either because it's not worth the extra clicks over rightclick -> discard, and start to openly resent being forced to even pick up the item at all, if I don't have the option of simply ignoring the drop and leaving it to rot on the floor: it's not even LOOT anymore.

I just think that it conflicts with the adventure side and causes major issues

Well, in the sense that it exposes the itemization of the game as mostly a hollow sham where 90% of the content in the game basically serves no useful purpose, yes.

not to mention no thought ever goes into the market game like that which is put into the adventure side. I wonder how many people would enjoy the AH game if it truly had all the elements of game play of true loss/gain controls, costs, etc...

What would "loss/gain controls" even look like? You lose when you buy, you gain when you sell. The only loss/gain control intrinsic to the system is the fact that you can't go broker than broke. And the general lack of any controls of any kind is exactly what makes being the Auction House Guy the ultimate PvP experience. It's you, against the world. No brakes. Make it big or lose it all, with practically no limits. Live or die by your own wits alone. It's the closest thing we have to an unrestricted, full-loot PvP. Who dares win mushrooms?

What if it emulated more realistic markets in that way where loss of money was consistent and winning was required to stay ahead?

That already exists. s'called "Inflation", "Power Creep", and "Nerfs". If you sit on your *** after winning scoring a million bucks, come back in a year or two and that money is now chickenscratch. MMO economies tend to consistently suffer from bad inflation and powercreep. So if you sit on cash, it inflates to worthlessness, and if you sit on assets, those assets can be rendered instantly worthless overnight when the item is nerfed into the dirt or becomes irrelevant to meta when the New Thing drops.

When you run a business, you have numerous costs that if your profit does not stay ahead of, you go bankrupt. AH markets don't tend to emulate those types of conditions that would exist in real markets to any serious extent.

Yes, if you hadn't previously mentioned that this was not your favored mode of play and you only did it like once, THIS line right here would tell me you know NOTHING about being an Auction House Guy. Because as an Auction House Guy, you ABSOLUTELY have to deal with all this. If your profit doesn't track ahead of inflation, you are going broke. If your asset store gets nerfed and you didn't diversify your assets, you're bankrupt now as what was worth a million gold today can be vendortrash tomorrow. If you don't have your finger on the pulse of the game, you will not know what to buy, what to sell. Being a successful Auction House Guy requires a comprehensive knowledge of just about every aspect of the game. Maybe you don't spend your time actually using any of these items to fight monsters, but you **** well better know the mechanics of the game in EXACTING detail, or you will have no way to know whether or not the newly dropped item that appears on the market is any good and that you should snap it up before the public catches on so you can hoard the entire supply and sell it for a hojillion golds. You gotta BUY LOW to SELL HIGH. Make the wrong play and you lose your shirt.

I guess in a way, that is why I dislike the direction modern MMOs have gone with penalties though... failure in the early MMOs could result in a backslide due to poor performance, though these days failure is simply "not gaining", there is never any real loss.

And more importantly, your ability to "gain" is tightly constrained as well. You can't lose, and how much and fast you can gain is rigidly constrained by developer fiat.

That's why I'm an Auction House Guy.

I may comment in the future, but I want to say, I really enjoy reading your comments on your thoughts and experience Norfleet.

I may disagree on some things, but not so much as where I think you are wrong as much as I think that these types of systems in MMOs create problems for those who seek adventure play specifically. I can respect the MMO AH gamer as you describe it, but I also hate what it does to the games in general.

Good read though man!

[Norfleet]

I may disagree on some things, but not so much as where I think you are wrong as much as I think that these types of systems in MMOs create problems for those who seek adventure play specifically.

I can see how it can be argued that the ability to just BUY the thing cheapens the achievement of getting the thing, yes. However, even in environments where the item cannot be traded, it's an extremely common practice to simply be carried to the loot. I've routinely done this for guildmembers to gain strategic advantage against other guilds by boosting the equipment level of players faster than they could otherwise have naturally attained on their own. This actually cheapens the achievement even more than buying the item does: At least when you buy the item, you have to have been a successful auction house warrior (at least until the era of the wallet warrior). A carry-run can drag a naked newbie to success.

Short of the item being strictly a solo-play item (in which case, why this is even an MMO?), I'm not sure how you could really STOP this outright. Ultimately, possession of the thing will never truly prove that the thing was "earned" "legitimately". Because what even is that, really?

I could see a potential compromise: You can obtain the relevant item by any means, but the item doesn't properly unlock its full potential/shinyform until you accomplish some qualifying trial with it, and perhaps this trial can contain other restrictions to keep it from becoming a pure carry run.

[Xenich]

I may disagree on some things, but not so much as where I think you are wrong as much as I think that these types of systems in MMOs create problems for those who seek adventure play specifically.

I can see how it can be argued that the ability to just BUY the thing cheapens the achievement of getting the thing, yes. However, even in environments where the item cannot be traded, it's an extremely common practice to simply be carried to the loot. I've routinely done this for guildmembers to gain strategic advantage against other guilds by boosting the equipment level of players faster than they could otherwise have naturally attained on their own. This actually cheapens the achievement even more than buying the item does: At least when you buy the item, you have to have been a successful auction house warrior (at least until the era of the wallet warrior). A carry-run can drag a naked newbie to success.

Short of the item being strictly a solo-play item (in which case, why this is even an MMO?), I'm not sure how you could really STOP this outright. Ultimately, possession of the thing will never truly prove that the thing was "earned" "legitimately". Because what even is that, really?

I could see a potential compromise: You can obtain the relevant item by any means, but the item doesn't properly unlock its full potential/shinyform until you accomplish some qualifying trial with it, and perhaps this trial can contain other restrictions to keep it from becoming a pure carry run.

Oh no doubt, heck... on Stormhammer, there was a guild, and when I say guild... I mean a single guy who had setup an entire guild of accounts and computers (yeah, physical machines and monitors, he provided pics back then to prove it, didn't even use KVM switches for his inputs which boggled me) to which he then would schedule and raid targets.... SELLING spots on his raid to get people gear.

So I get it, there is always a way, and even in the most basic sense of play, through just guilds and friends helping, people are going to "circumvent" the play requirements.

My only point on that is... this type of behavior isn't as standardized and systemic as an AH is and so why this behavior exists, it usually isn't at a level where it causes massive shifts on player dynamics.

This was going on in Early EQ, even on Test. People wouldn't sell gear, it was looked down on greatly, but they would gift gear to people, help with raids, group bosses, etc... so yes... there was circumvention to an extent, but as I said, just not at the level that an AH system produces and eventually mass encourages. I noticed a night and day shift in this when I moved from Test to Production back then, it was kind of a shock.

As for the solution to "STOP" it, hmm... I guess my point would be to greatly limit it, but then with the habits and knowledge people have obtained concerning this over the years, you would have to put major attention to stopping it.

I have toyed in thought with various ways over the years and my views have changed obviously as time has progressed, as I learned the problems of gaming in both old and newer games, but I do think there is a way to do it, but it would take some massive attention and more importantly HONEST attention to the solutions, something I have rarely seen people willing to apply with the various discussions over the years I have had with people on the topic. The "cheat" or "easy help" concept of play much of this has is too difficult for many to let go of for various reasons, some understandable, some well... not so much.

One thing I have thought of, and it comes with its own problems is time based trading on drops and then also locking it to group. There is also BOA drops for specific types of drops as well where the rares are all BOA, then maybe uncommon is tradable via a time limit and group lock, with common being open trade.

Anyway, point is, I think there are means to apply controls where people are still driven to the dungeons, but then this also has to take into consideration progression ability, which I think would still need to require people to achieve a certain level of BOA gear to be able to reasonably progress and the uncommon/common gear being a means to "help" with progression of obtaining the rare BOA.

just spit balling, so I honestly don't know... Point is, to force players to progress through play and only use AH as a means to shore up that focus, not circumvent the process.

[Xenich]

Hmm, thinking on this more... Gonna have to say...

Take the "Principle of Least Privilege" approach. Lock everything down on trade, no trade at all.. then... open up trade only under certain conditions.

One way I think would be to facilitate ALL trading through the game itself, via vendors. This allows developers to keep a tight control on trades, coin, values, etc...

You could then open up with suggestions I mentioned via time based trades and group locked on items upon drop, etc... to allow some flexible means for certain conditions and the like, but the point is, by starting trade as being via ONLY vendor or game based systems, you not only control the entry and exit points, but you also centralize tracking to monitor possible abuse.

Oh well, just random thoughts.

[Norfleet]

Oh no doubt, heck... on Stormhammer, there was a guild, and when I say guild... I mean a single guy who had setup an entire guild of accounts and computers (yeah, physical machines and monitors, he provided pics back then to prove it, didn't even use KVM switches for his inputs which boggled me) to which he then would schedule and raid targets.... SELLING spots on his raid to get people gear.

Been that guy before, too.

This was going on in Early EQ, even on Test. People wouldn't sell gear, it was looked down on greatly, but they would gift gear to people, help with raids, group bosses, etc... so yes...

You can see how there's this kind of weird mental inconsistency here. Somehow, it's MORE wrong to that assistance/circumvention comes at a COST, meaning, the player has to earn this cost, rather than simply being given for free, meaning, the player can be buttnekkid or severely underpowered and no form of objective merit gates him at all?

there was circumvention to an extent, but as I said, just not at the level that an AH system produces and eventually mass encourages. I noticed a night and day shift in this when I moved from Test to Production back then, it was kind of a shock.

Yeah, it turns out that scale has an effect. A game with a hundred players on it has a tribal atmosphere. A game with thousands or even millions of players on it has that tribal feeling completely dissolve and interactions become mostly between faceless strangers. It's not the AH that causes that. It's the growth of the playerbase. Humans tend to naturally prefer the tribal atmosphere, as these are the conditions they evolved under. But the same time, is it really an "MMO" if it has only a hundred or so players on it?

Recapturing that tribal feeling in a wider MMO is its own, more different topic.

As for the solution to "STOP" it, hmm... I guess my point would be to greatly limit it, but then with the habits and knowledge people have obtained concerning this over the years, you would have to put major attention to stopping it.

Not to mention that breaking it IS the game. Even in a single player game, there's a subset of the population that exists to prove that your game is perfectly balanced, with no exploits.

The "cheat" or "easy help" concept of play much of this has is too difficult for many to let go of for various reasons, some understandable, some well... not so much.

You call it "cheat" or "easy help", I call it objective-oriented: "Methods are not important, efficiency is what counts in the end.". In objective-oriented play, there is no substitute for success, and it does not matter how success is achieved. At the end of the day, remember: it's a game. It ain't called "gaming" for nothing: the system is meant to be gamed.

Take the "Principle of Least Privilege" approach. Lock everything down on trade, no trade at all.. then... open up trade only under certain conditions.

I can tell you right there that this approach immediately creates an extremely adversarial reaction in players, as it plows square into the natural human tendency towards reactance: Tell me I can't do something, and I'm gonna do it, because **** YOU, that's why. You've created a game where players immediately run into restriction after restriction on their free action, and will immediately seek to break the cage.

One way I think would be to facilitate ALL trading through the game itself, via vendors. This allows developers to keep a tight control on trades, coin, values, etc...

If you mean "items can only be sold to vendors and what can be bought from vendors is a predefined list which does not include anything you'd actually want", you are, functionally, saying there's no trade. That means money is basically worthless and the vendor is functionally a garbage can. We see this all the time in single player games. And the result is always the same: In a sandbox single player game (because an MMO has no defined ending, obviously, unlike a story-based SP game which ENDS), is money EVER worth a ****? Never. It forms an initial constraint for newbies, but pretty much all gameplay revolves around breaking out of that box, after which the player functionally has "yes" money and nothing to buy with it.

If you mean that every item can only be traded from and through a vendor, meaning, "what I sell appears in the vendor's inventory and can be bought by another player but I have no control over what price it will be bought or sold for", I already know this story also, and it results in a much faster breakdown in ways you don't like than even the auction house: At that point, a vendor just becomes a transaction fee, because inflation will effectively have destroyed the fixed values in short order, not to mention the rapid departure between the supply and demand of valuable items, and the REAL exchange will take place elsewhere, where I simply don't make the item available at all unless I'm adequately compensated in some way for doing so. What form does that compensation take? Could be anything. But the less tolerable the in-game system of trade is to use, the more black market workarounds become commonplace. In games without trading, people will just trade whole accounts instead.

[rusty_shackleford]

I wanna to play Dark Sun Online : Crimson Sands.

Post mortem from one of the developers
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/po ... n-sands-i-

[DemoGraph]

MMORPG = Many Men Online Role Playing Girls