Instancing isn’t tech

Just a quick note that I found and that I forgot to add to my (non)contribution (now edited) to the discussion about the use of instancing.

Lum’s defined it this way:

Again – instancing is just tech. Like 3D engines.

While I’d specify (because I think it’s an important point that triggers other thoughts) that instancing can be tech, but it can also exist without it.

In fact I believe that, in particular from the design perspective, instancing is a symbolic structure and nothing else. That can then have different types of implementation that could also require specific technology (like different servers and communicating databases). But what is essential is that you can completely abstract the concept from the technical implementation.

And that’s what actually matters. The tech is a way to realize at best an idea and not vice-versa. The more the technical level is concealed for the final user, the better is the game.

Mark Jacobs, for a change, says nothing

Previous incursions here and here.

“We have invented a bunch of stuff over the years, we have improved a bunch of stuff, we’ve done a bunch of dumb stuff.”

I’m sorry but I the useless hype and that self righteous attitude gives me annoying itches. I cannot suffer it. Plus it reminds me the failing-proof slogans of Vanguard or that other Q&A session on Slashdot.

I read the full chat log on Corpnews and this is my thoughtful commentary:

1- There still nothing that he says about “WAR” that wouldn’t fit DAoC. So absolutely no reason again to feel actually interested about it (beside the lame “it’s new!”).

2- Mark Jacobs needed a good acronym. Because, you know, mmorpg are all about acronyms and if you win on that field you win everything. WoW was good but WAR is better, no?

3- MMORPG sequels are dumb. Even when disguised.

The best part remains this one:

Wraithstorm: Ooh, Mark, I’ve gotta ask. Does the race you choose decide your realm? Or is it possible for someone like a Dark Elf to work side by side with somebody from the Empire

MBJ: Ah, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?

Wraithstorm: That’s kinda the point.

The rest is pure, pointless, hype:

MBJ: I couldn’t answer that without giving away a lot more about the game. I can say, without any fear of contradiction, that what we have in the design so far if a lot more than I’ve seen in any MMORPG to date.

Pure, candid fluff.

MBJ: Well, let me be as clear as I can be about the WAR = DaoC +
No way in hell.
How’s that?

Stupid.

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Kalgan is dumb, and the PvP sucks

COMEDY GOLD on the recent changes to the BattleGrounds and the 10-minute rule that “slipped” in the patch:

(about the 10-minute rule)
I just spoke with Kalgan, and he explained the reasoning behind this change.

As you know, there are several groups out there who are very good at their particular Battleground, and seeing such a group on the opposite team when you’re in a pick-up group can be discouraging. For some, this means they don’t even try to win; they AFK out or fish until such time as the Battleground ends, get their token, and go back into the queue.

This change is meant to encourage groups of all skill levels to put in effort towards winning. Maybe you can hold one or two bases in Arathi Basin; maybe you can keep them from grabbing three flags in ten minutes with a good defense. The idea is to give players incentive to try and fight rather than give up before the match truly gets going.

I will endeavor to clear up the controversy and confusion surrounding the “ten-minute rule.”

The idea that players would have to remain in battlegrounds for ten minutes before they’d receive a Mark of Honor for losing was one the developers were seriously considering as an effort to reduce the incentive players had to lose a battle quickly. The concept was simple: it would give players incentive to try and stay in, rather than giving up and allowing a quick loss without any effort expended. However, during further discussions, it was decided that adding a mild punishment to those who /afk out of battlegrounds, in the form of a requeue timer (Deserter debuff), would be preferable to the old “ten-minute rule” idea. In addition, since the problem was primarily found in Arathi Basin matches held during the Arathi Basin “holiday,” the developers chose to improve the way in which bonus honor was awarded during Arathi Basin holidays rather than institute the ten-minute rule.

The ten-minute rule had been implemented as part of 1.9, and was set to be removed from 1.9 as the Deserter debuff was put in place. Unfortunately, because 1.8.4 was developed simultaneously with 1.9, the ten-minute rule had actually made its way into 1.8.4 too (which was tested and signed off upon some time ago, around the time this change was being implemented). As such, the ten-minute rule mistakenly went live.

This was not intended by our development team, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. The ten-minute rule does not exist on the patch 1.9 test versions that have been on the test realms for some time now (with the exception of Warsong Gulch, which is being fixed), reflecting the fact that the Deserter debuff was intended as a replacement rather than an addition to this mechanic. We intend to fix this bug in a server-side hotfix soon.

Thank you for your patience throughout this. We’re keeping a close eye on PvP, battlegrounds, and the Honor System, and will continue to make changes as warranted.

So the “intended” changes are more stupid than the 10-minute rule.

Now if you happen to join as a random group the BG camped by the farming guild in uber purple you have two wonderful, extremely fun choices:
1- Exit the BG and enjoy another fun penalty on the queue (because they weren’t long enough)
2- REALLY go fishing so that the BG is over quickly and you can cash at least the mark of honor.

Basically we start from the 10-minute workaround, which was designed so that the players were encouraged to hold the battle for at least 10 minutes and get the mark of honor.

I’m not inventing anything. Requoting:

This change is meant to encourage groups of all skill levels to put in effort towards winning. Maybe you can hold one or two bases in Arathi Basin; maybe you can keep them from grabbing three flags in ten minutes with a good defense. The idea is to give players incentive to try and fight rather than give up before the match truly gets going.

So the goal is again to encourage you to fight instead of “giving up”.

And now the smartest of all changes! Instead of the 10 minute rule, they penalize you if you leave the BG with a fancy “queue debuff”.

What’s the result? That this will encourage the players not to fight. But to give up and sit in a BG so that the farming guild will win as fast as possible, cash the mark and requeue without the penalty.

So, basically, they started to think a way to ENCOURAGE the players to fight and finished to encourage them to completely surrender and “go fishing”. Great work!

It’s not only a solution that sucks (it’s blatantly a stupid and clunky workaround) but it’s also completely illogic since it contradicts the original premises:

For some, this means they don’t even try to win; they AFK out or fish until such time as the Battleground ends, get their token, and go back into the queue.

Which is EXACTLY what is going to happen (the fishing part) if they introduce the penalty to the queue.


Now. I rant and point my finger with no shame because the BGs are completely retarded (surpassed only by the Honor system) but also EXTREMELY EASY to fix.

In fact all these problems that are coming up (give a look to this, and Tobold’s comments) are a fucking consequence of a model that just doesn’t work and that was blatantly broken:

The fact is that the PvP in WoW doesn’t exist. The war doesn’t exist. It’s all faked in a sort of detached arcade mode that roleplays itself, taking place somewhere else in the form of a detached, instanced zone. The PvP isn’t consistent, despite the two factions are at war from the “lore” point of view, they aren’t in the game. They don’t fight over something. They don’t conquer nor control (at least in the BGs, on the PvP servers the situation was better before they introduced the honor points). So it’s obvious how the whole and only purpose of the PvP is just the personal gain. A personal gain that can easily be exploited since the “war” exists just as a false excuse. As a pretence.

Basically the problems Tobold noted are just the consequence of a system that is not consistent. It doesn’t simulate what matters and the obvious result is about the players working around the faked war to reach the actual REAL, concrete goal: the personal reward.

Once again the players outsmart the designers and show them where their ideas are broken and pretentious.

Now my belief is that if you fix the model (which would be extremely easy) all the other multiple problems that rose as a consequence will simply vanish without the need of workarounds and workarounds to previous workarounds.

So, concretely, how to fix the model?

It’s simple: remove those fucking retarded diminishing returns on Honor Kills. In the BGs only. Give us FULL CREDIT because we are going in a BG with the purpose to kill. And that’s what the system should reward.

If we get normal credit for the direct kills, a group of PUGs will be encouraged, guess what?, to fight. Because even in the worst situation possible you can still get some kills even if the other group is in uber purple and owning your Arathi Basin session. Plus you’d actually BE ENCOURAGED to fight the bigger guys because the honor reward increases consistently if you kill a much higher rank than yours. While “giving up” will make you just lose honor points.

The logic is simple. We are joining for a fight. So give us credit for this fight.

At the same time, remove the Honor reward for direct kills OUTSIDE the BGs. Completely. As it was on the PvP servers before this horrid Honor System was introduced. And give us, instead, PvP goals to accomplish (PvP hotspots), like PvP towers and outposts to conquer, upgrade and hold.

This would discourage the annoying, disruptive ganking and will give the world some decent PvP depth that is currently totally missing.

(and it was all explained back then, with a longer rant here.)

To conclude, the most fun part. The first quote from Caydiem is dated: 12/6/2005 8:54:52 PM WEST The second quote: 12/7/2005 1:59:49 AM WEST

How can both of these be true? If she went to Kalgan today and said “The players want to know why we implemented a ten minute rule” shouldn’t he have looked at her and said “You mean the ten minute rule we scrapped and never made implemented?”

Maybe they should read Raph’s guide:

“customers see through falsehood really quickly,”

Haha.

EDIIT- Update on the cheap drama:

“How is it, then, that you received an explanation for why it was implemented from the developers when it wasn’t supposed to be implemented?”

A large amount of data runs through our hands on any given day. I asked Kalgan plainly what the reasoning was behind the ten minute rule in Battlegrounds, and he told me, which I then related to you. I’m sure he could tell me about any number of mechanics that almost made it into the game but didn’t if I asked him first thing in the morning. Shortly after I spoke to him he ran back down to me, saying it shouldn’t have been implemented at all, and explained what happened. Instead of simply announcing a hotfix later, he and I wrote up the above message with the explanations therein.

This isn’t attempting to pull the wool over your eyes. We’re human. We made a mistake. Our hotfix team is working to correct it as I type this.

Which fits with my original comment.

The fact that the change was deliberate and not a mistake makes them look even dumber.

(For simplified explanations about what happened give a look to my summary)

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Matt Mihaly kicks asses

Saving a wonderful comment from Matt Mihaly (creator of the superb Achaea) on TerraNova. The discussion is about somewhat innovative middleware that should allow everyone to create a personal, graphical sandbox and deliver “dream mmorpgs”.

Of course the idea interests me but I’m still sceptical about this going somewhere interesting (for me). For my own “dream mmorpg” I’d need just a simple 2D client (I define it “iconic”) like the early Ultima (I’m the only one who drooled at the old screens way more than those “remade” in the video?) but it’s the programming behind it that would be staggering to support the ideas that I have on my mind. And, really, without specific programming a game can only be a recombination of the same boxes. It won’t be all that appealing if you cannot go deeper. And if you can go deeper, once again, you don’t even really need “one-size-fits-all” middleware.

The comment from Matt, instead, is interesting for other reasons and I particularly love the last pharagraph that confirms that idea of “systemic” (living) worlds that I sticked here. And that is also at the base of my “ecological” approach.


I think a LOT of caution is warranted. This whole thread could have taken place in 1990 as this happened in MMOs before, around 1990 when the text codebases like DIKU started coming out. Did it let lots of people make text MMOs? Sure. There are about 1500 MMOs running on a primarily text interface. 98% of them have about 5 players and are nearly identical to each other.

To run worlds of the size that the average hobbyist will attract, you don’t need anything more than Neverwinter Nights really. I can’t say I see how academics, for instance, will particularly benefit from Multiverse. If you just want a cheap way to create a virtual world to study, text has been available for a decade and a half. Yes you won’t get many users, but then, you’re not going to get many users with a nearly budget-less graphical MMO, and you’ll have far less content and far less depth due to the cost of producing the models/textures/animations. Far less ability to actually produce something interesting to study.

Mike Sherman wrote:

I think the downside is the lack of “names” associated with it. Where are the big Mud-Dev names working on this suite? Are we suppose to assume they got it right?

I unsubscribed to mud-dev awhile ago, but if I recall, Blizzard didn’t participate at all and managed to produce a product that kicked the living sh*t out of every game made by the “Mud-dev” crowd put together.

I guess my biggest reasons for not being excited about this boil down to two points:
1. On the scale we’re talking about (ie, presumably, small indies or hobbyists), the technology side of things is not particularly complicated or difficult. They can’t afford to create the content to back up a high-end game, so there’s no need for all the flash.
2. The difficult parts – polish, content creation, and unique selling points – cannot be effectively middle-wared, so the majority of the challenge is still there.

Have ideas for a set of guild management utilities that takes that part of the game to new levels, but not a whole system? Find someone willing to use it. Have a political-modeling system you wanted to try? Put it up there. Your own twist on ingame economies? Ditto.

Well, if enduring a flood of low-quality graphical MUDs with nearly identical feature-sets is appealing…..

Good game design is not on a “black box” system. You can’t just swap an economic system out for one that was developed for another game with different baseline expectations. Particularly in a virtual world, integration of the various systems is key, in my opinion at least.

–matt

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The dichotomies of instancing

The fun trio: Brad, Raph and Lum.

I read everything and commented on-the-fly with the result that now I have a bunch of confused notes and no clue about how to organize them in a somewhat, almost-readable form. I go from random comments, to general design theories and my practical ideas as result of those design theories. It’s a pity because that trio did a really good work to summarize the valid points and keep things gracefully ordered.

I guess I cannot escape myself. I’ll just try to follow the order and quote and comment those parts I found interesting. So it will be a recap plus some messy comments thrown in. Starting with Brad:

Then let me touch on a controversial topic that is definitely related: entitlement to content vs. opportunity to experience content. This is hotly debated, has been, and will be. Because, really, nobody is right except when speaking for only them. The reality is there are, in this case, two types of people: those who want to play a game where they are entitled to experience everything, obtain everything, etc. merely because they pay the fee and put some time in, though it had better be time in allotments and at a frequency that works with the rest of their lives. And then there are those who want more of a challenge and don’t mind indirect competition and finite resources and realize, that unless they really try hard, they’re not going to achieve everything, or see everything – but they also think that’s fine – in fact, arguably, it makes the world more real – you can’t see every square foot of the real world, after all – and you always need something to dream about, or another goal to head towards..

5. Stickiness. Retention. By eliminating or severely reducing competition, player advancement accelerates – access to items that help you advance your player are not limited by other players seeking them as well, either legitimately or by griefing. By making items easier to get, human nature dictates that at least a lot (most?) of people will find they value these items less, that their sense of accomplishment and attachment to a virtual character or item is diminished. People tend to value things they had to work for more than things they obtained more easily, or for no real effort.

A game that retains you with less focus on accomplishment and pride but more so, similar to single player games, on devouring the content – getting through all of the levels – seeing it all. In a sense, at least until the expansion comes out, the goal is to FINISH.

5. You may decide that your target audience is mostly younger, expecting a faster paced game, more immediate gratification, and a UI that is very polished (sorry about the stereotyping, but hey). I don’t say this is necessary linked, but they certainly can go hand in hand. This should influence the style and type of content you create, regardless of theme (fantasy, science fiction, etc.). Know your audience. Stay focused on his group, his type. Branch out if you can, but never sacrificing what makes your core audience attracted to your game. (And actually, the last 3 or 4 sentences are applicable, IMHO, to any MMOG – and also forgotten too often as of late – VISION!).

(Brad here leaves out the low hardware requirements that are also part of the “target audience” and another element that is always overlooked in the success of the game. This is also about the accessibility.)

4. You preferably want different race/class combos that truly offer a different play experience in order to promote replayability. Again, you might not plan on having the player around 3 or 4 years from now, but you also would like him to not leave after he’s maxed his first character in mere months. He needs to be enticed to play at least a couple more times. This too means more content, and varied content too, lest the second experience seem too similar to the first.

(What if the player sees ‘past the curtain’ and doesn’t accept to consider recycled and slightly differentiated content as a new, satisfying experience but just more of the same? The whole “been there, done that”, you know.)

7. Instancing is great. Since the goal is rapid content consumption, you don’t want too many other people in the way of others. What should be the precise mixture between Instanced and Non-Instanced? We probably don’t know yet, but it’s a significant amount – certainly not an afterthought. Players need to get those items, to run through those dungeons, to solve those quests. And you want them doing so in a group, for community reasons and the shared experience. So put that group in an Instance. The only negative here, and it’s an emotional response, is that this can lead to people rushing through beautifully crafted areas only once, never truly learning them, and definitely never truly appreciating all that went into them. I hate to see all of that work get zipped through, but what can I say.

(Agreed – the mudflation is not convenient. But I mean this in a wider sense. All the overlapping content tends to get mudflated and out of relevance after a while. So a waste of work. It’s the model to be stale and inappropriate here.)

10. Important: Contrary to what some asserted earlier in the MMOG timeline, years back, it’s pretty much been proven that PvP does NOT equal true and lasting player generated content. Yes, some will entertain themselves by feasting on each other, and fewer for a longer period of time. Feasting on the unwilling is always bad, but also a different topic. But regardless it’s not truly lasting because there is no gain, and there is no loss – or the gain and the loss are trivialized. And it will eventually come down to, like in a traditional twitch game, who is the best player in real life. If PvP is to be truly realized in an MMOG one day, an elegant melding of character development and real life twitch must be accomplished and both remain important. But that could and should also be the topic of another paper, and again I’d probably not write it, assuming I’ve figured out how to achieve this Holy Grail. *grin* Sekrets!

What a surprise. Because “kill ten rats” equals to “true and lasting content”? Come on. To get some decent appeal there has been the need for a whole lot of development. Substance added.

In the *exact* same way you FUCKING CANNOT just switch on the PvP flag and pretend that it is enough for the players to entertain themselves for the eternity. PvP IS NOT a cheap and short route to fix the lack of content in your game. PvP is not something that magically exonerates the developers from doing the work and just getting paid to do nothing because they finally found the “philosopher stone” that turns everything into gold (Holy Grail my ass!). PvP, to be done right and have wider appeal, must receive AS MUCH work and dedication AS that was put in PvE along these years. Then, maybe, we can discuss about its weight and value. But not till the PvP keeps being ghettoized ALREADY during development.

The fact that PvP is not as strong and popular as PvE isn’t some sort of absolute law we have to cope with. It’s just the direct consequence of a single-minded type of development that was completely unbalanced toward the PvE from the start. Because it was the easiest transition from single-player games. With these premises PvE has been inflated beyond belief and PvP has always remained as a smaller niche that seems to exist just as a lesser feature to add to the list.

Without giving both the same legitimacy, the two cannot be compared. This is all.

(The strength of PvP is not about it requiring less work. The strength lies in its “systemic”, and not linear, nature. Which means that all the work you put into it isn’t mudflated out of relevance two days later. So the game gains depth without wasting that work.)

6. Or are you going for longer term retention and stickiness, with an emphasis on character development in any of its forms (skills, levels, item acquisition, etc.). If you do this, and your world is instanced, how do you plan on maintaining rarity, slowing MUDflation, and protecting a healthy supply and demand?

Slowing mudflation? Haha. Brad, along with many other players, has a really funny idea of mudflation. For him it’s all about the gap between a catass achiever and the smaller guy. The e-peen bragging.

Now, what would I know about the “mudflation”? It’s simple, I own the world. If you type it on google this is the site you’ll see at the top (lol!). But then you can even search the word in the Wikipedia and this is the result:

Mudflation occurs when a newer aquired item makes a lesser item lose significant value.

But the most important part is the one that follows:

This is most common when a game relases a new expansion, as expansions tend to have better items.

That’s the point. What Brad writes makes me chuckle because the developers have NEVER fought the mudflation. They have created it. The mudflation isn’t a side-effect of some sort. It is instead a *deliberate* development strategy largely used to artificially excuse new content (in fact the content must “overlap” for the mudflation to trigger).

There is nothing to pretect and defend if not the whole bragging of catassery at the expense of all those players who crash against the accessibility barriers and for the good laugh of who’s on top of the hill. This is really catassery 101. Inner competition through PvE to mimic the social treadmill and give the geeks their own chance to be proud of something. That gap between “have” and “not have” that Brad believes to be essential to nourish his own feeling of achievement. Being part of the community or finishing refused by it. Included or excluded.

So be open and honest about it. The mudflation is (for Brad) not something to fight, but something to *preserve*. That’s the very ESSENCE of his Vision.

3. Ah, the one I personally like, which may surprise some people. A world designed as a conventional MMOG at its core but also with specific types of Instancing planned from the beginning as well. It is key that these systems are worked in with the greater economy, balance, character advancement, etc. Hard, yes, but if you do it up front, MUCH more safe and possible. And then what I personally think is paramount, even though it would be described as Role Playing and doesn’t directly link to game mechanics or design: explain why small subsets of your universe are Instanced as part of the core story and setting. Make it make sense. Don’t rip me out of one reality into another – make it flow, make it expected. An example? The Star Trek Holodeck or the X-Men’s Danger Room. These are environments that are supposed to have pocket universes in them, and they need to fit the world, but not need to fit the chronology or absolute setting.

And this is something I share and that my “dream mmorpg” has. The whole concept of the multiverse and the access to the different planes and worlds.

The same for his other points:

1. What, especially long term, is the true affect of adding instancing? And by affect, I mean on the whole game, including character advancement, the player driven economy (assuming you have one), etc. How do you control access to these instanced areas? Are they on timers? Are they accessible by demand? What are the drop rates in these areas and how does that mesh with the drop rates of items in the rest of your non-instanced world? Making a partially non-Instanced and partially Instanced economy work is challenging but likely surmountable. Tack it on as an after though or rush your experiment, though, at your own risk. I wouldn’t advise it.

My dream mmorpg has instancing planned as a basic concept and following solid (I believe) theories to justify it. The impact on the character advancement is already defined (developing magic affinities and weaknesses based on the permanence on a specific plane), the player driven economy is (and is completely not instanced as it should be), the access to the instances is. The “drops rates” are also defined for the role of artifacts and their “rarity”.

And there’s a lot, a lot more behind those ideas and the reasons why I give them a precise shape. But then I know that it’s not possible to discuss a project that is defined only in my own mind and that noone is willingly to follow in its entirety. So, while it’s always more useful to put things in a context, I’ll have to put my own ideas aside and comment just the points brought up by others who have more “charisma” and visibility than me.

To conclude the first part about Brad (but I’ll return on this point) I’ll add that he seems to be completely achiever-driven. In the bartle test he could score 90% achiever 5% explorer 3% socializer and 2% killer. Which explains why that gap between “have” and “not have” must remain in the game as the very first fundamental principle or the resulting fun would be not as strong (see the first quote here above).

My opinion is again that I don’t believe he is chasing a virtual world. In fact I believe, like I believed back then, that games completely focused on endless progress and constant mudflation to create new gaps pretty much NEGATE the possibility of a true virtual world. They go in two, diametrically opposite directions. They reduce the depth to an artificial trick to rinse and repeat the same arid mechancis and hide the fact that they don’t have much to offer (we used to consider this as “grind”).


Moving to Raph.

The “worldy” games are just ones with a lot of embedded boxes in them.

I strongly agree with this. The difference is that a “worldy” game is a systemic one. Systemic means that there are different parts or “boxes” as Raph calls them and that these parts must be in a relation, forming a complex system:
1- There must be links
2- These links must be meaningful (need to make sense and have a functional purpose)

But then I don’t agree on the rather weak reasons why in the future we should see more “worldy” games than rollcoasters:

There’s been a lot of talk about whether the day of the “worldy” games is over. The above is why I think it isn’t. The trend over time is still, even with World of Warcraft out there, to have more and more embedded boxes in our virtual worlds. We may see that the quality level of each box keeps rising, but I have little doubt that over time, users will demand more “rides” in their “theme parks,” and not just more rollercoasters but more sorts of rides. The rollercoaster-only theme park fails if it doesn’t have at least a few food stands, and while the rollercoaster may always be the main attraction, the whole package includes everything from parades on Main Street to shops to concerts to convention hotels to go-karts.

By that light, calling the “gamey” games “theme parks” points towards the way they will ultimately evolve: towards worldy games.

“Theme parks” are not or, at least, could not be “worldy” games because the links between the boxes would be weak or not existent and because these links would probably make little sense and have a minimal functional purpose. This is for example why WoW’s PvP sucks greatly and is criticized: There are essentially two games going on, one that takes you out into the world, and one that takes you out of the world completely.

(The SOE All Access account that makes you play the two EverQuest, Planetside, SWG etc… is basically a theme park with different attractions. But this doesn’t make it a “worldy” game since these “boxes” aren’t really linked and the links wouldn’t make sense if they existed)

The second point where I do not agree is that games tend to specialize more than ‘reach’:

What I’m noticing is that the trend is to specialize. Instead of building games that try to reach a wide public and create a virtual world that appeals to different player “types” (we had this discussion long ago), we have games that specialize more and more in just one precise direction.

There’s a natural and even obligatory drift to focus more and more. On the thread of Grimwell Brad wrote that he thinks it’s possible to arrive to a virtual world starting from a Diku and by adding progressively more “world-y” parts and move closer to the ideal. But instead what I see is that both the games, devs and players focus progressively and erode the game to the essential. In DAoC the players focus on PvP and the PvE is more and more left out, despite a decent amount of resources have been spent on it with the time.

What I’m saying is that these games seem to become progressively “poorer”, eroded to the minimum common denominator. Specialized and focused as much as possible. I don’t think is exclusivelly a matter of the continue optimization done by the players.

The general impression is that a game offers progressively *less* as the time passes. Maybe the focus helps to rise the quality of that specific part but there doesn’t seem to exist a possibility to move in the other direction and enrich the game instead of draining/exhausting it.

I’m not sure how to wrap all this up, this is just what I observe. Then I blame the mudflation as always.

Ubiq wrote about this in January but I think there’s more than just marketing observations…


And finally Lum. I think I agree with most of what he wrote. In particular:

Unlike Brad, I don’t really believe that people derive much benefit from hearing about the exploits of Uberguild Alpha by proxy.

Which is also what I hinted comparing Brad’s comments to the one from Eve-Online and that would deserve a long discussion on its own. And:

Instancing is an excuse for not having enough content.
I’m not really sure where he’s going here. Players know when they’re going through the same instance for a thousandth time, so I’m not really aware of any game that can claim this as a wedge against the Content Demon.

Here I believe that Brad screwed the concept because I believe that what he is trying to say is exactly the opposite. Instancing forces you have tons of content. In fact it’s exactly what he says when he describes these types of games:

They have some very serious design hurdles to overcome in order to create the amount of varied and interesting and preferably not-repeatable content I think they’re looking for.

Here I think he considers the use of instances like “content of demand”. So you press the button and the content is served. Pretty much what Lum describes as “cheese delivery systems”.

The use of the instances removes the accessibility barriers and the competition. And here I totally agree with Lum because I’m not sure where Brad is going with that. It seems that his whole rant against instancing is because it trivializes the achievement of the players. This happens because there’s basically no competition over the goods and everything can be basically cloned in a series and brought back to the persistent world (these are the problems he hints about the economy in a game that mixes instanced and not-instanced spaces). So the whole logical sense is that instancing *aggravates* the problem of not having enough content. A game that makes a strong use of instancing is a game that would need a fuckload of (as Brad says: preferably not-repetable) content so that the players, free from any accessibility barrier that keeps them back, still have something to do on the longer term.

Now another important point that was *completely overlooked* is that a game that “finishes” (as Raph effectively summarized, copying Darniaq) and a game that keeps going by adding constantly gaps and then mudflating (exactly what WoW is doing) are essentially the exact same thing. They have BOTH a linear progression with a beginning and an end. With the difference that the seconds is stretched indefinitely to exploit its mechanics as much as possible (I define this bait).

But the point is that both of these are DEAD VIRTUAL WORLDS. They are dead already at the start and have nothing to offer beside the drug-gameplay. Again, the bait. The artificial pretence to keep squeezing money out of you.

Which brings to the reason why there are many players that are bored by WoW. “Have you really done every quest in the game?” Fuck no! But after a while you start to see past the curtain and you can anticipate what WoW is going to offer you. Kill ten this, kill ten that. Okay, after a while you know where it’s going. It could have five hundreds instances (495 of which mudflated out of relevance) but I’m not sure if this would make it a better game.

No, really. MMORPG = infinite progression. Are these games JUST that? Well, I may be an unique exception (the unique snowflake) but that’s the very last reason why I have an interest for this genre and I’m quite sure that there are more like me out there that are dead bored about these games just offering a pretty version of ProgressQuest. That’s not fun for me, nor interesting or stimulating. It’s just predictable, repetitive, dull. It’s that treadmill that I’d like to forget instead of being made stronger and more central. It’s a way to drain these game of any decent value. Make them so arid and unimaginative.

The Vision is blurred.

Instead, to go back at the quotes, I think Brad (or Lum’s summarization) is confusing the use of instancing with the drop rates. Absurdly low drop rates are the artificial trick that was added in WoW to force the players to rinse and repeat those instances. So this function (drop rates) is uncoupled with the instanced technology. In fact instancing removes the barriers and offers content on demand. So the accessibility is *higher* as a direct consequence and the demand for new content rises as well (since the players eat content at a faster speed). How to contrast this increased demand when producing more decent content is the very first problem for the developers? By adding insane drop rates that force the players to re-run and reuse the content over and over and over.

Which is truly retarded since the very first purpose of instancing was about increasing a supply that now has to be severely reduced through low drop rates.

Then tell me if I’m not right when I say that this industry is filled by fools. It just makes no sense at all. And it doesn’t even end here:

– What’s the very first problem of these similar games (WoW included)?

That the devs cannot keep up with the production of new content.

– What’s the mudflation?

Well, first you realize that the mudflation is an artificial excuse to replace content. Then you realize that the mudflation is an EROSION of content.

It’s just the logic saying that this model isn’t so appropriate for the current needs. Blizzard just mastered the pattern that was already available. But this doesn’t mean that there cannot be better ones.

In particular, this pattern will be a suicide for ANY new game that doesn’t have the sheer power of Blizzard. So the discussion is rather important outside this game.

I link what I say here with a comment from Brad:

So who makes these current games and why do they include instancing? I think its two groups who often end up working together because they’re compatible: developers who need or want to pitch a less expensive game and also take advantage of Instancing’s advantages, to varying degrees, coupled with publishers and other entities that are willing to fund MMOGs, but not $30M-$75M ones.

And it is correct. With the difference that it is that the whole ProgressQuest model to not be anymore viable without having a fuckload of founding. You just cannot compete against WoW on its own field and the whole model of mudflation and endless character progression is already boring as hell for many players that believe this genre can offer something more than that.

Maybe the mudflation and continuous “level up” mechanics are NOT so appropriate for an online world?

It’s the model to be limiting and not appropriate, not the implementation.

Really. Are we at the point where we just cannot imagine a game that isn’t completely and totally focused on a overstretched character progression? This game industry has killed the expectations till this point?

Moving on the next part:

Instancing harms player retention by making the game too easy.
“I finished the game, I’m done, I can cancel my account now.” If your MMO is designed in such a matter that you can say “I’m done” at some point, then yes, that is a concern. And I tend to agree with those designers who believe that you DO need to have an end. At some point you want to bring closure to your players. If they continue on for the community that forms within your game, that’s great – but is an embittered player who’s sick of your game after 3 or 4 years worth the customer service cost they’ll start to inflict on you out of sheer boredom? But more to the point, trying to drive player retention by making the game painful is a bad plan. Players that hate you tend not to give you as much money. And if the game is shallow enough that you can race through it in the space of a few weeks, making people wait in line to finish isn’t going to help matters that much.

This is *extremely* important and probably outside the scope that Lum intended.

Beside the impassable barriers between each server and that prohibit the players to meet and play together (“Hey! I play WoW too.” “Great! Maybe we can meet and play together!” “That would be really cool. On which server are you?” “I have characters in Silvermoon, Azgalor and Elune.” “I’m on Cenarius and Arthas..” “Oh well, nevermind..”) there’s also the gaps created by the levels which basically make IMPOSSIBLE to play together with someone if you don’t build specific characters and organize so you play exclusively together.

This is why some games have “platforms”, like at the endgame, so that you can finally gather with friends and achieve/play something together and without the game mechanics *getting in the way* of the fun. I’d like these gaps to go altogether, myself. But this bad habit is one of the most enrooted and I don’t see the situation changing in the near future. Getting worse, maybe. My dream mmorpg is focused to have all players playing together and at all times. Reducing these artificial barriers as much as possible. But then my dream mmorpg will also never exist.

Instancing harms the formation of community by segmenting players into virtual cocoons.
This is the usual argument of those who champion true virtual worlds – if there aren’t enough shared spaces in the world, players won’t come together to form the communities around which virtual worlds grow.

This might be a valid argument if everything in a game was instanced. But I’ve seen very few games structured this way. Some games, such as City of Heroes/Villains, Guild Wars and Everquest 2, do instance large swatches of the world. But they still encourage shared spaces. They’re not shared amongst the entire community, yes. But past a certain point, this isn’t something you want to encourage. There’s no attraction to a huge area where thousands of people gather, because you physically cannot talk to thousands of people.

And this is finally the reason why instancing must exist in a form or another to keep the communities manageable. But this isn’t anymore about the developers and the need to preserve content or the technical needs. This becomes just a need for the players.

What is truly indispensable, and that is the core point of the whole discussion, is that these types of instanced fragmentation to help to maintain the community (and, yes, also the lag) on a manageable level must remain permeable. So that the players can still move, meet together and organize without, again, the mechanics getting in the way. This is why in Guild Wars you are secluded into different districts, but you can still access the menu and move wherever you want to meet with the other players you already know. And this is also why in my dream mmorpg I discarded the impassable barriers to transform them into useful mechanics:
From a side the artificial walls and boundaries are removed, from the other they are progressively rebuilt in order to recreate and respect the natural (complex) behaviour of a “world”.

This is a fundamental basic structure that I still have to see recognized as important and worth the planning-ahead needed to realize it technically.

And finally I quote something old that Raph wrote and that I think could somewhat fit with the discussion:

Legend has MANY quests of similar magnitude and comparable storytelling. It’s worth pointing out some things here: quests that change the balance of entire areas. Quests that naturally reset in bite-sized pieces so that many people can be at different stages at the same time. Quests where the characters can be killed, rather than artificially invulnerable for fear of mucking up the story. The use of puzzles. Quests which do more than just link kill and delivery. The use of special items for quest completion. The ability to opt-out. The increased use of interdependence with other characters. Am emphasis on cinematic moments (FFXI does this well). Constant use of badges and other profile elements, so that others can see what great deeds you have accomplished.

I am pretty sure that a sandbox game can contain quests like the Beowulf one.

I am also pretty sure that a game built around quests cannot contain a sandbox.

One fits inside the other; you can have a section of a sandbox that is theme park rides. But you can’t have a world jammed inside a theme park.


To really conclude I’ll repeat my point of view without going with pages and pages of explanations:

The dichotomies of instancing

“Instancing” is a tool (and I’d say more symbolic than technical, contrarily to how Lum defined it) and should be used when this use is appropriate so that we maximize the advantages. It is already used in every game in the most inappropriate way: the fragmentation in shards (yeah, even Vanguard). So it’s rather silly to nitpick every detail when already the basic implementation is done wrong. Again I believe that a lot could be done by “repositioning” the parts of a game where they belong.

PvP – Not instanced: persistent, dynamic, emergent, contingent, systemic, player-centered, toys, unbalanced, competitive, killer/socializer, player economy, sandbox.

PvE – instanced: static, identity, myths, stories, authorship, control, linear, handcrafted, world centered, balanced, cooperative, achiever/explorer, definite with a start and a conclusion.

(some other recent references, mostly for myself: on Q23, and on Nerfbat, here, here and here)

Gold Farmers turned into prey

There’s an interesting article on TerraNova discussing the game that is drawing more attention and curiosity recently: Eve-Online.

The article linked repeats concepts that I already know and some that I find almost irrelevant and that are instead once again brought up as if the whole game is focused around them (all these discussions about the economies go nowhere and bore me to death). But there’s a part I want to quote and that has a weight in the recent debate that rised with the announce of more content that 95% of the playerbase will never see, most likely (see Zxyrox’s rant, for example):

A solo career in EVE can be just as rewarding a thing, but there is also a vast stretch of the game (most of it?) that is not accessible unless you’re part of a player corporation and even an alliance of corps. The benefit of social interaction in EVE is much greater than in WoW. (In a sense, what it comes down to is that CCP isn’t afraid to make a good bit of its game off limits to most of its players. In fact, this can be seen even at the early stages, given that the game’s learning curve is so much steeper than almost any other MMO.)

And here is where I have 20+ Firefox and Wordpad windows open and following way too many lines of thought and things I’m writing at the same time. So watch this daring association:

Then let me touch on a controversial topic that is definitely related: entitlement to content vs. opportunity to experience content. This is hotly debated, has been, and will be. Because, really, nobody is right except when speaking for only them. The reality is there are, in this case, two types of people: those who want to play a game where they are entitled to experience everything, obtain everything, etc. merely because they pay the fee and put some time in, though it had better be time in allotments and at a frequency that works with the rest of their lives. And then there are those who want more of a challenge and don’t mind indirect competition and finite resources and realize, that unless they really try hard, they’re not going to achieve everything, or see everything – but they also think that’s fine – in fact, arguably, it makes the world more real – you can’t see every square foot of the real world, after all – and you always need something to dream about, or another goal to head towards..

This was Brad McQuaid on the recent debate about the use of instancing. See how it fits? I’ll have to return on this topic because the real point is that these two comments are strongly clashing together even if they seem to agree. The “accessibility barriers” in Eve are completely different from those that Brad is hinting and it’s all about the actual scope of the world simulated. Something that is completely lacking in the world that Brad has in his mind (exclusively focused on achievement). While in Eve (even if with an high risk of failing) the bigger toys available only for a minority are supposed to indirectly create content for everyone else as well. There’s A LOT to delve about this, for now I’ll just let you guess what I mean.

But what is more interesting is what was written in the comments of the thread I linked above and that is actually pertinent to the title I wrote:

Ronald:
Between EVE’s highly specialized, organized economic system and WOW’s one-man-shop economy, which one is better in reducing farmers’ activity?

My first impression is that EVE’s system enables a higher “entrance barrier” for farmers. However, a well-organized farmer corporation with workers working 24/7 will be very efficient in making money in EVE.

Repub Arnaz:
The difference is that farmers are hunted in EVE.

There are several ways for players of EVE to profit by destroying/reporting/griefing the macro miners.
As soon as you find one, you send out a petition to cover your butt, then steal all their ore if they’re doing jet-can mining (where they jettison an open container and drop their ore as they mine into it). The jet-can is considered “trash” and you can very easily steal it.

If they’re doing it in Empire (high security) space, and they shoot at you (this is quite common since oftentimes they’re not “up” on the game system), you can then shield boost and wait for CONCORD to blow them away, allowing you to then pick up whatever high-end components are left of their ship(s).

Macro miners are PREY, and EVE is full of hungry predators. Quite funny that they’ve been turned into targets by the rules of EVE.

Bingo.

I find this comment interesting because it proves one of my ideas correct. When I wrote about it I didn’t know that Eve-Online was already using that model successfully and so I’m glad to find a confirmation.

This is the comment I added:
“That’s the fundamental point, in WoW you are protected and farming is just about tapping resources and waste your time.

In Eve you are exposed. The farmers would be excused right in the game and have to bend their behaviour to the game rules. They become in-game entities and won’t be able to disrupt the game through external intervention. So they are somewhat “digested” by the game.”

And this was already discussed for my “dream mmorpg” with the exact same purpose: solve the RMT “plague” at the root by “repositioning” the game systems where they are appropriate. In particular in the comments I wrote down more details about my stance on this.

My ideal game has three layers to defend itself from this negative external intervention. The first is the one that now I find in Eve and that is confirmed as valid (PvP exposition). The second is about the division between “player-centered tools” and “commodities” so that the farmers would be forced to organize and relate with the community (while the farmers usually isolate themselves and hide from it) and the third is still secret :) (it’s about the role of the “fallen houses”, aka player created factions)

Knowing that the first already works as intended is a confirmation that my goals could be possibly reached and aren’t all that foolish.

Mandatory Voice Chat

I saved on my forums a discussion about the voice chat on WoW forums.

Surprisingly, my new guild has some female voices behind the female characters. Now, if only I could understand a word of what they *STATIC*say*STATIC*…

An excerpt.

This game has been hijacked by lazy people.

Give a look to this.

“Being lazy” seems the whole point of playing games. Even for the academics.


These games are essentially functional and the players themselves set standards that you just ought to respect if you want to be part of the group.

The devs are partly responsible because the higly specialized content brought directly to create highly specialized guilds that completely isolate themselves from the rest of the community. Even if you can use the voice chat you could have an hard time finding a rading guild if you aren’t a priest or a druid.

The content is being shaped around 20-40 men instances and the guilds, as a consequence, are being shaped around that content.

Leading a guild is already a onerous task. Dealing with people (exceptions) who cannot comply with the standards is usually an added burden that noone really wants to deal with.

Posted in: Uncategorized |

A discussion about voice chat

Saving part of a thread discussing the mandatory use of Voice Chat in WoW’s endgame raids. It’s pretty much self-explanatory.


First off, I am sick and tired of just about every single half-way serious raiding guild REQUIRING Teamspeak/Vent. Not to mention, all of the other add-ons. This game is NOT that complicated. Its actually pretty easy. Not to mention, you can just look up just about any boss encounter for the strategies.

I don’t know about you, but when I get off of work, I really, really do not want to listen to 39 other voices barking orders or what-not. Its distracting, and annoying as heck. And theres always that one EMO, pimply-faced kid that is going through the onset of puberty with that cracking voice. Ugh. I simply like to enjoy this game to escape from real-life and enjoy my hobby. Having to listen to 39 other people for 4-6 hours does not fit in with either.

TS/vent didn’t come with the game. All of these add-ons did not either. I’m pretty sure that everything up to and including Nef can be beaten pretty much naked. Besides, if Ts/vent is such a necessity, let the GM/officers have it, with comms going between just the raid leader and the leader of each group.

I’ve gotten through the entirety of ZG without using anything but what came in the game(okay, I use shardtracker, sue me). Haven’t really done MC but once or twice. I was also in a successful PvP guild that won far more than it lost. No TS/vent amongst the members there. Worked just fine.

WoW is a game notorious for not really “bonding” its players together. I have made no friends in here. I don’t want to have to hear stranger’s voices from within my own home. I have no problem taking orders, as long as they are typed.


Kay.

And honestly, I don’t care one way or another. Vent is fun, at time, and it does make things easier, but it’s by no means a “requirement” for us. Two of our people are on Macs; they can’t use it no matter what they do. One of our members just flat doesn’t want to join. *shrug* Doesn’t bug me.


We don’t demand people use these mods but we suggest that people do. They do make things easier especially during the learning processes. That said, our guild is really quite friendly and so our TS conversations are often pretty light.

Also, in a raid, only the raid leader should be talking anyways.


Hyacinth:
We’ve managed to play online games of all sorts requiring teamwork for quite some time and I am mostly deaf (using something like Vent or TS just wouldn’t work).

For years we managed before the technology was even “there” enough to use such a thing. I can understand that it would make things easier in some cases but I can also imagine what it must sound like when everyone gets excited.


These are my feelings exactly. Having a teenage party line channeled into my living room for hours at a time sounds like torture to me. I tolerate some voice comms for shooter games, but those don’t go on for hours like WoW can, and I can freely bail whenever I want.

WoW IS easy mode. I played EQ for years, and went on all kinds of end game 40+ man raids. We never needed to use voice chat. Leaders took a few minutes to type a strategy for the encounter, and people followed it. There is nothing in the WoW encounters that can not be addressed before hand, and a strategy composed for in advance. Relying on voice is a crutch for people to lazy to type a few complete sentences before the fight begins.

I have no problem if other people want to use voice chat. It’s just not something I want for myself. Yes, that means I’m barred from basically all end game raiding guilds. Fine with me. I don’t plan on filing a discrimination lawsuit.


PEOPLE STOP WHINING.

Fine! dont use vent/TS, but if we require our members to Have it, and you dont, then dont join us! and stop complaining.


This is very simple.

If TS/Vent aren’t at all necessary, then you shouldn’t have any problems finding guilds that don’t use/require them.

Right?


Wrong.

It’s by no means necessary to take a 10-man raid into Scholomance. It was built for a 5-man team, and it can be done by a 5-man team, especially post-nerf.

So you shouldn’t have any problems finding a 5-man team, right?

Wrong. You can shave a little difficulty off of it by taking in 10, so most people refuse to go in with less.


Hyacinth:
I don’t think so, no. Necessary to run raids? Nope. Might be convenient, might be a preference but not necessary.


the thing is, MC is hard enough at it is. the main reason guilds require things like this is why make it harder than it has to be? it may not be necessary but it sure makes things a lot easier.


Hyacinth:
Hard for me to argue this because I can’t use Vent/TS *but* we discussed the others in our guild using it and the concensus was that they didn’t see a need. Since we don’t do PUG stuff much and since we know our classes/jobs there’s not too much need to talk. We have a shorthand system down (Peel/mage or sap/mob etc.) which works just fine and has through many games.

It’s a convenience I think and no objection to that but necessary? Nah.


You can do it just fine without TS/vent but it just adds to the fun factor.

The pure hilarity of some of the things that happen on TS is worth it. Also makes it 10x easier for when things go bad or need someone to help you out.

And you can also laugh at your MT when he does something stupid and dies :)


Bingo. If it were not necessary, if it did not help so very much, guilds that want to raid (with few exceptions) would not require it.


Hyacinth:
Disagree. Having a preference can and does lead to a guild requirement. Many guilds prefer Vent/TS, they like being able to talk to one and other. That’s fine, more power to ’em but it’s not necessary to play the game well.


There is no usable Mac client available. Either Vent or Teamspeak. Both require the Speex (sp?) codec which most guild-hosted servers do not support.

The Ventrillo software is late-alpha stage. It crashes within a few seconds of startup.

I certainly have no particular desire to listen to 39 other people playing out their angst, although there are a couple of people in the PUG that runs MC that I would like to hear. I am sure that while we are trying to take down Ragnaros it might be helpful. But if you can’t respond to the CT_RaidAssist notices, you will NEVER respond to the audibles coming out of the headphones.


Abalieno:
Maybe it doesn’t bug you but I assure you that it’s been impossible for me to find a guild to join for about four months.

After being kicked out of the previous one because I couldn’t comply with the requirements.


Abalieno:

Disagree. Having a preference can and does lead to a guild requirement. Many guilds prefer Vent/TS, they like being able to talk to one and other. That’s fine, more power to ’em but it’s not necessary to play the game well.

Yes, but that “preference” is becoming a ****ing accessibility barrier for other players that cannot comply.

And if you cannot comply you are out. Goodbye.

No matter of your “choice”. I wish I had a damn choice.


Hyacinth:
You do. I’m deaf. I can’t use it either and I’ve yet to run into any problems with people trying to insist that I do. Yes, some would like for me to but they don’t freak when I tell ’em I can’t.

We did raiding and all kinds of things that required teamwork in other games and managed just fine without TS/Vent and we’re doing just fine here.

I wouldn’t care to be part of a guild that did insist on something like that. Not because I can’t hear but because I think it would be *more* distracting to have to keep track of what’s on my screen, what’s going on in my ears and I know that people can be excitable and go off on a verbal tangent in the middle of a tough fight.

So, I’m sorry that there are guilds that are excluding you but it still is NOT a necessity. They are making it a requirement for their guilds much like many guilds don’t want any more or insist upon certain levels or professions.


Your grievance is with your guild, not with the larger WoW community or with the game’s developers.

It has almost no bearing on voice-comm software either. This is about some guild’s rules and your objection or compliance to them. If a guild requires you to commit 4 hours a night at 8PM PST, and you can’t comply, it’s their obligation to enforce guild rules or they would compromise their ability to organise and lead their raids.

Leading a raiding guild really _is_ work, and when officers take action to control or limit non-compliant members, it isn’t always personal or acrimonious—they’re just doing their job.


Abalieno:

You do. I’m deaf. I can’t use it either and I’ve yet to run into any problems with people trying to insist that I do. Yes, some would like for me to but they don’t freak when I tell ’em I can’t.

Well, maybe this works for you and the fact that you are deaf triggers a “politically correct” compassion that make them not answer harshly.

But if I ask to join a guild and say I cannot use the voice chat, the answer is one: Goodbye.

Yeah, I know it’s not a necessity but as someone else has written:

Whether or not Voicechat is an ease, or it’s required, or people could use hierarchical menus to get soundbytes (ala PS) is irrelevant in that its forever arguable.

What actually matters is the rules players set. You can mock and sneer all you want, but if 39 people use Voicechat for Raiding or PvP or just %@$%ing around at the Auction House, the 40th person is going to use Voicechat too.

Players make the rules. Everyone else decides to follow them or gets excluded.

And the players care less than zero if this damages the community or excludes some players.

There’s the phat loot and the shortest route to it.

This is what these games are currently “teaching” us.


Hyacinth:

But if I ask to join a guild and say I cannot use the voice chat, the answer is one: Goodbye.

Then they’re intolerant and I would wonder why you’d want to hang out with them to begin with?


Abalieno:
Because, as I said, I wish I had a choice.

I don’t know if my server is particularly bad but I don’t think so and I suspect that it’s exactly the same on every other.

These games are essentially functional and the players themselves set standards that you just ought to respect if you want to be part of the group.

The devs are partly responsible because the higly specialized content brought directly to create highly specialized guilds that completely isolate themselves from the rest of the community. Even if you can use the voice chat you could have an hard time finding a rading guild if you aren’t a priest or a druid.

The content is being shaped around 20-40 men instances and the guilds, as a consequence, are being shaped around that content.

Leading a guild is already a onerous task. Dealing with people (exceptions) who cannot comply with the standards is usually an added burden that noone really wants to deal with.


WoW is an easy game. In MC, what, you have one, maybe 2 jobs to do? Not hard at all, and definately DOES NOT require 39 others talking amongst themselves to figure it out.

This game has been hijacked by lazy people. I bet the same guild leaders/officers are the ones who have a compass in their car because they don’t know how to use directions. Point out this infallacy, and they reply “oh, but why make it hard on yourself?” NOT HAVING TS/VENT IS NOT MAKING IT HARD ON YOURSELF. Pressing this requirement on another guild member means you are insecure, intolerant, untrusting. You don’t need it. If you want it so bad, use it just amongst the raid leader and party leaders.


Abalieno:

This game has been hijacked by lazy people.

Give a look to this.

“Being lazy” seems the whole point of playing games. Even for the academics.


You might be missing a few points.
Q: What is the fastest way for people to communicate ideas quickly to each other?
A: Verbally

You can argue that you can type really fast but you cannot argue that people might not read it. Chat channels can get mobarded with information.


Abalieno:
Yes, noone is arguing that voice chat isn’t an useful “ease”.

The problem is when it becomes mandatory, excluding those who CANNOT use it.

Those who don’t have a choice.