Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft • Hacker News Board

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#141

Post by the8472 » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 3:07 AM UTC

prawks wrote: post #66

FlannelPancake wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're clearly correct about the game beginning at max level, but I don't think heirlooms or exp boosts changed anything. Even in vanilla, there were accepted "do this to level as quickly as possible" routes. No one really hung around silithus pre-AQ, with the small exception of people who chose to level there (and there were much better zones to do that). WoW and mmos in general just don't encourage explorat…

> unless you're really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage This is the exact reason why, no matter how many times I tried over the years to play this game with friends, I could never stay attached for longer than a few hours. There seems to be less and less emphasis put on enjoying the experience of exploration and being in a space in modern online games, and more emphasis on rote activiti…

> and more emphasis on rote activities for the sake of progress.

It's funny. I played a korean grinding MMO which was heavily based around this. But it was also fairly buggy and some of its mechanics poorly designed. The most fun we had was whenever new content was introduced. Figuring out how things worked and then abusing it.

Once you were near the soft cap - there was no practical exp limit, level requirements just started to increase super-exponentially at some point - you just looked for other things to do. Trying to take on bosses that were considered too hard by coordinating more players than intended by the game system or abusing their AI, using the near-invulnerability one had in lower-level dungeons to lure hundreds of monsters around you, find breaks in the invisible walls to leave the map etc.

I think the sandbox aspects of even the least sandbox-y MMOs make the most fun. Non-intervention by the devs (either by policy or by inability) also helps to provide some feeling of freedom, you just do whatever you want instead of being railroaded into some sort of "intended playstyle".

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#142

Post by nerdy » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 3:09 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #88

minimaxir wrote: post #3

I recently reactivated my old WoW account and purchased Warlords of Draenor out of curiosity, and ended up getting my Orc Death Knight to the new level cap of 100. This article only scratches the surface on why the old worlds are abandoned. As with most modern MMOs, the endgame begins at max level. In order to help players level faster, Blizzard added a heirlooms mechanic in the second expansion (Wrath of the Lich Ki…

I think FFXIV has a great solution for it - at various stages in the endgame content you need to revisit all of the areas to perform your MMO regular kill ten rats activities (to level up the ultimate weapons, basically). It also has far less areas (although I think bigger zones), and almost each zone has content for a wide swath of levels. There's also quests (again for the ultimate weapons, mostly) that make max le…

Except FFXIV hasn't seen nearly the massive expansion that WoW has. Heavensward will give some indications of things to come but I see them following WoW extremely closely, almost methodically. Some examples:

  - For the longest time in FFXI equipment was golden; not in WoW and not in FFXIV
  - "Gear Score" / "Average Item Level"
  - Instanced-only endgame content
  - Instant travel to every zone for all players who've been there before
  - All content is beaten before the end of a content cycle
  - No very high-end content which goes months or !years! without being taken down (Vrtra:~2yrs, AV:~4yrs, PW:~3yrs, etc.)
  - General fight mechanics and style (don't stand in the poo, tankbusters, buff-type mechanics); not really many new ideas at all
  - Flying mounts added in first expansion; unavailable in first-version areas, only in expansion areas
  - Character jumping in a FF-series game! Heresy!

FFXIV is a WoW clone in just about every regard, it's just young. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's quite hard to say there's much of anything being done differently.

Regarding FFXIV relics and revisiting zones; relic quests will be nerfed into oblivion with the expansion, just like all previous relic chains were when subsequent content was released. WoW used to make you run around areas and talk to people for legendary weapons too[1], even some of the areas mentioned in this article like Silithus. Then the level cap went up and people had little use for those items anymore.

This all boils down to MMOs lowering the entry bar by allowing new players to catch up with the most experienced players at a casual pace. You're never very far behind the bleeding edge, could be caught up in a month or two. Whether or not that's a good thing is opinion and perspective; FFXI required a very substantial commitment to compete in endgame and it definitely bordered on unhealthy obsession for many max-level players. That said, it'd be great to see some seriously difficult/"unbeatable" (preferably open-world) content, even if they use the old zones to make it happen world-boss-style.

[1] http://www.wowhead.com/item=19019/thunderfury-blessed-blade-...

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#143

Post by cpersona » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 3:32 AM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #73

prawks wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless you're really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage This is the exact reason why, no matter how many times I tried over the years to play this game with friends, I could never stay attached for longer than a few hours. There seems to be less and less emphasis put on enjoying the experience of exploration and being in a space in modern online games, and more emphasis on rote activiti…

This is the opposite of my experience playing multiplayer Minecraft. There are no goals here, other than ones you set yourself. You simply log in, hang out with people, and mess around. Here are some things I've done that were the highlights of my time on this one particular server (semi-vanilla PvE): I helped a fellow player build an iron farm when he didn't know how. Helped another player try to debug his auto-brew…

Reminds me of my experiences playing Ace of Spades before it got bought out. One time we just randomly had a ceasefire on the server. An embassy was built half green and half blue, halfway between the two sides. We built a night club and bar in the basement and everything was strangely peaceful. Unbeknown to us, one rogue player dug all around the embassy until there was just one block holding it all up at which point he collapsed the whole thing leaving a gaping hole. Within moments the fighting started up again and that strange magical moment was gone.

An experience like that is one you can't script and it is richer as a result.

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#144

Post by jlees » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 3:38 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #96

bearlikelion wrote: post #30

I've recently started my first adventures in Azeroth, and its been quite an experience. Being very familiar with the genre I knew what I was getting into, but didn't quite understand the differences of WoW versus Guild Wars, Wild Star, or another MMO. I really enjoyed how they continue to have players level through the expansions, the over joyous feeling of a new loading screen when I reach the next leveling mileston…

You are well beyond the level you can go back and run the raid content from past expansions by yourself. The Blackrock Mountain raids specifically, saw hundreds of thousands of players run through them in groups of forty for hours every night for over two years. You just cannot get that scale anymore, and games that try (hic, Wildstar) don't see popularity like WoW did. So you don't know empty in WoW until you run up…

Yes, one of the more depressing things I did recently was level up a new character in WoD after having not played since pre-Cataclysm, basically. Going back and soloing instances that I remember grinding for months and months, encounters I remember working out for the first time with my guildmates (no videos or strategy guides!), bonds I made and the sense of achievement we all had at the end... totally destroyed by a fifteen second punch to the face by my brand new level 100 character. Though I wanted the gear for nostalgia's sake, it wasn't worth the heartache.

It felt a little like going back to college a couple of years after graduating, where a layer of nostalgia wasn't enough to disguise how much I, and the place itself, had changed. (Because college, like WoW, is a lot more about the people for me than the physical buildings.)

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#145

Post by girvo » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 3:49 AM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #67

atom-morgan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As much as I like GW2, I wish they had kept more gameplay mechanics from the previous game. This was my biggest surprise with GW2. All the videos leading up to its release had me really excited. The combat looked so much more engaging and interactive. In the end, I found myself preferring GW1. But to be fair, it may just be age. I find it harder to play games for extended periods of time than it was back when I was…

The issue is in essence that GW2 has become overly streamlined for sake of PVP. It is a curse i see with all MMORPGs that provide some kind of "competitive" PVP. Sooner or later the PVE side suffers because of some "exploit" or "OP" combo that makes PVPers cry foul.

I agree. One of the things I love about PvE is the ability to feel powerful, properly powerful. Unfortunately, that can be at odds with competitive PvE, so it's unsurprising that the two goals can affect one another.

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#146

Post by nieve » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 3:57 AM UTC

tedks wrote: post #140

FlannelPancake wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're clearly correct about the game beginning at max level, but I don't think heirlooms or exp boosts changed anything. Even in vanilla, there were accepted "do this to level as quickly as possible" routes. No one really hung around silithus pre-AQ, with the small exception of people who chose to level there (and there were much better zones to do that). WoW and mmos in general just don't encourage explorat…

It's important to note that while MMO's don't explicitly incentivize exploration, some of the memories my friends most enjoyed in WoW were glitching underneath Stormwind, into unimplemented areas in raids, all over the place. MMO's are social games, and even if they don't explicitly give you a token for having fun with your friends, saying that they "don't encourage fun" is pretty false. I mean really, why do you thi…

Having played WoW for years and gotten into just about every corner of the maps, almost all the undeveloped regions, and every Easter Egg area I heard about in Vanilla I have to say it was one of my favorite activities in the game and completely unrewarded. Guild Wars 2 rewards just about everything with XP (crafting, gathering, some achievements), but exploration & map completion also come with tangible rewards and enough XP to level a ton just running around. It's a really nice feeling to track down that last hidden point of interest or vista and have the big announcement pop up. There's a big reward for 100% completion of all maps, but not many people make it there.

Basically GW2 is a game that respects your time - waypoint teleports instead of flight paths, no corpse runs, no tagging mobs, per-character (or maybe player?) resource nodes, world events you can just jump into and everyone receives credit based on participation, area quests you don't have to pick up to start getting participation, and a lot you can do at the level cap that's not grinding gear - in fact the best is almost all crafted. I think this has to come down to the game being an initial purchase plus very carefully designed micropayment options instead of a subscription model. The micropayments are pretty much all vanity stuff or conveniences like extra bank slots, there's no gear and the only content options are Living Story episodes you weren't around for. Gold is easy to acquire & swap for the currency.

I think Blizzard tried to introduce some of this stuff in Mists of Pandaria, but there's just too big a gap for them to bridge now. Guild Wars 2 is missing world PvP, but has huge World-versus-World three way maps and team-based PvP. I miss Southshore mass insanity as much as anyone, but WvW is better.

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#147

Post by zanny » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 3:58 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #104

zanny wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly play private servers with friends for the nostalga. They will have 10+ times the XP and gold rates so you don't grind pretty much at all, and it is nice having persistent characters that you can come back to after a while that are not tiers of content behind and obsolete. I think Blizzard is on a path to at least making level 60 the free to play level cap of the game soon, though. It just makes way too mu…

So how do you script the raids (or do you?) When I last looked at private servers all of the scripting for the boss mobs was unavailable so you basically had every boss be a simple spank and kill fight.

NPC actions (actions in general besides movement, particular to WoW) are server-side. Most WoW private server cores come able to handle player interactions and the "default" mob pathing / behavior AI, but it is generic to every version of the game. The server maintainer than overrides the default behaviors for every NPC they or object they want to script. IE, cast X spell, or use Y item.

There are servers for every version of the game that I know of that at least strive to be "blizzlike" with mob and world behavior. It can get pretty complicated, for example the Icecrown Citadel Lich King fight, which I know works pretty well on Molten but I have never tried it elsewhere. It has environment destruction, player teleportation, mob spawning, player movement via mob interaction, and multiple NPC interactions. That would be a bitch to reimplement, I imagine.

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#148

Post by megalodon » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 4:08 AM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #73

prawks wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless you're really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage This is the exact reason why, no matter how many times I tried over the years to play this game with friends, I could never stay attached for longer than a few hours. There seems to be less and less emphasis put on enjoying the experience of exploration and being in a space in modern online games, and more emphasis on rote activiti…

This is the opposite of my experience playing multiplayer Minecraft. There are no goals here, other than ones you set yourself. You simply log in, hang out with people, and mess around. Here are some things I've done that were the highlights of my time on this one particular server (semi-vanilla PvE): I helped a fellow player build an iron farm when he didn't know how. Helped another player try to debug his auto-brew…

The kind of interactions that are unintentional (i.e. not directly planned by the designer) and spontaneously emerge as a result of user communication are amazing because they introduce an entirely new dimension to the game.

It is a huge measure of success because it allows the users to feel like they are actually part of the game and not just playing it. Reminds me of Tibia, which had pretty unique game mechanics, including a 'skull' system for PVP which automatically introduced some pretty advanced political concepts like guild protection (mafia style), blackmailing and bounty hunting. Not saying these are all positive features, but they definitely added to the game's feeling of completeness.

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#149

Post by FlannelPancake » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 4:11 AM UTC

tedks wrote: post #140

FlannelPancake wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're clearly correct about the game beginning at max level, but I don't think heirlooms or exp boosts changed anything. Even in vanilla, there were accepted "do this to level as quickly as possible" routes. No one really hung around silithus pre-AQ, with the small exception of people who chose to level there (and there were much better zones to do that). WoW and mmos in general just don't encourage explorat…

It's important to note that while MMO's don't explicitly incentivize exploration, some of the memories my friends most enjoyed in WoW were glitching underneath Stormwind, into unimplemented areas in raids, all over the place. MMO's are social games, and even if they don't explicitly give you a token for having fun with your friends, saying that they "don't encourage fun" is pretty false. I mean really, why do you thi…

> saying that they "don't encourage fun"

You missed the second part of that clause, which is pretty critical context.

> So unless you're really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage in lieu of running dungeons and getting gear and etc

PvP most certainly falls under that umbrella in italics. Getting to grand marshal back in the day involved sinking copious amounts of time into battlegrounds in order to get a special title and some special gear. There was/is most definitely a carrot on a stick for PvP as well.

In contrast, players have never been incentivized to explore much. Maybe you get a title nowadays, but it's not going to be anything cool like 'Dreadful Gladiator'. There's no special sword for exploring every sector of Azeroth.

EDIT: Further thoughts

> if they don't explicitly give you a token for having fun with your friends, saying that they "don't encourage fun" is pretty false.

Why do you think it's false? It's implicit discouragement. In the thinly-veiled skinner box that is WoW, gear and tokens and titles are positive reinforcement.

It's not a huge leap of logic to say that positive reinforcement tends to discourage behavior that doesn't lead to the reward.

Re: Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft

#150

Post by saraid216 » Sat, Apr 25, 2015, 4:16 AM UTC

FlannelPancake wrote: post #35

minimaxir wrote: post #3

I recently reactivated my old WoW account and purchased Warlords of Draenor out of curiosity, and ended up getting my Orc Death Knight to the new level cap of 100. This article only scratches the surface on why the old worlds are abandoned. As with most modern MMOs, the endgame begins at max level. In order to help players level faster, Blizzard added a heirlooms mechanic in the second expansion (Wrath of the Lich Ki…

I think you're clearly correct about the game beginning at max level, but I don't think heirlooms or exp boosts changed anything. Even in vanilla, there were accepted "do this to level as quickly as possible" routes. No one really hung around silithus pre-AQ, with the small exception of people who chose to level there (and there were much better zones to do that). WoW and mmos in general just don't encourage explorat…

I don't want to turn this into a sales pitch for GW2, but GW2 pretty explicitly rewards you for exploration. Following the quest chain through an area (to the extent that there is one; the chain is slightly orthogonal) only reveals an incomplete picture of the zone. The zone itself explicitly informs you that there are a number of Things Left To Do Here. Collecting all of those is a necessary component to crafting legendary weapons.

So there are a couple levels for exploration: if you don't want to do it, then hurrying through the quest chain gives you lots of XP and you can move on. If you're mildly curious, you can go collect the stuff that interests you, without any real damper on your experience if you decline. If you're gung-ho about exploration for its own sake, there are also plenty of hidden bits and pieces everywhere that aren't necessarily collectibles.