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Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

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Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#171

Post by saraid216 »

podperson wrote: post #168
doesnt_know wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an EVE player I don't usually make a habit of defending it so sorry if this comes across as "fanboyish". I'm in one of the largest alliances in the game and general consensus is that it can be "a terrible game", but there is so many things that are wrong or is just misunderstood in that post that it would take me all day to go through them individually. Setting aside all the inaccuracies and misunderstandings of b…

I am sure there are good things about EVE that keep players engaged, but the initial experience with the "game" is so terrible as to boggle the mind. It isn't sold as a "social experiment". (Its qualities as a "war simulator" I won't go into -- it's a simulator of its own assumptions, which aren't terribly interesting.) As an aside: Way back in the early 80s, I was acquainted with a fellow who ran a worldwide play-by…

> My point: the experiment has been run before.

Good job on having 20k players. I'm impressed your email system was able to handle that.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#172

Post by doesnt_know »

podperson wrote: post #168
doesnt_know wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an EVE player I don't usually make a habit of defending it so sorry if this comes across as "fanboyish". I'm in one of the largest alliances in the game and general consensus is that it can be "a terrible game", but there is so many things that are wrong or is just misunderstood in that post that it would take me all day to go through them individually. Setting aside all the inaccuracies and misunderstandings of b…

I am sure there are good things about EVE that keep players engaged, but the initial experience with the "game" is so terrible as to boggle the mind. It isn't sold as a "social experiment". (Its qualities as a "war simulator" I won't go into -- it's a simulator of its own assumptions, which aren't terribly interesting.) As an aside: Way back in the early 80s, I was acquainted with a fellow who ran a worldwide play-by…

"My point: the experiment has been run before."

And as long as there are new generations that want to spend their free time with such an experiment, history will repeat itself. Not to mention experiencing it in a new medium (heh, play-by-mail) and taking it to another scale. Hell, our alliance has it's own custom authentication application that strings together dozens of various applications that serve our coalition. We have a small team of system admins that run our services. A single jabber broadcast for a fleet reaches thousands of members instantly, followed by a flurry on logins to the game server.

As far as the "initial experience" being terrible, I completely agree with you on that one. CCP have put a lot of effort into improving the new player experience but it's still extremely lacking and I honestly don't think this will ever change.

I also admit choosing "war simulator" may not of been the best phrase. You're right, it's a simulator of something, but when you are in a science fiction setting where spaceship pilots are immortal, it's never going to represent any war we are familiar with. You're wrong about it not being interesting though, if it wasn't interesting, thousands of us wouldn't log in at one time to take part in a battle over a bunch of pixels.

In regard to your comment about it not being sold as a "social experiment", you'd be surprised. CCP went in that direction with their marketing material for a few years:

"The Butterfly Effect" - http://youtu.be/08hmqyejCYU

"Causality" - http://youtu.be/uGplrpWvz0I

"I Was There" - http://youtu.be/OSxSyv4LC1c

I'm stop posting about EVE now. I fear about coming across as overly defensive about the game, when that isn't really my intention.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#174

Post by jiggy2011 »

podperson wrote: post #168
doesnt_know wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an EVE player I don't usually make a habit of defending it so sorry if this comes across as "fanboyish". I'm in one of the largest alliances in the game and general consensus is that it can be "a terrible game", but there is so many things that are wrong or is just misunderstood in that post that it would take me all day to go through them individually. Setting aside all the inaccuracies and misunderstandings of b…

I am sure there are good things about EVE that keep players engaged, but the initial experience with the "game" is so terrible as to boggle the mind. It isn't sold as a "social experiment". (Its qualities as a "war simulator" I won't go into -- it's a simulator of its own assumptions, which aren't terribly interesting.) As an aside: Way back in the early 80s, I was acquainted with a fellow who ran a worldwide play-by…

Disclaimer: I haven't played Eve in about 5 years.

The learning curve at the start of Eve is pretty steep and just keeps getting steeper as it goes along. The first time you get your brand new cruiser that you mined rocks for 5 hours to afford destroyed by a pirate you might want to cry (Stuff that is destroyed in the game generally stays destroyed).

I'm not sure about "social experiment" but I do remember thinking Eve looked a lot like what I imagine an anarcho-capitalist society would look like. There is literally a price tag on anything.

I do think that Eve is something best played with others, even towards the beginning, if you want to survive it is best to hang around with a few "mentor" types who can help you get through the jump gates to low sec where all the interesting stuff is (the gates are usually camped by some alliance or other who tend to be trigger happy).

I quit playing the game because the time investment was not worth what I felt I was getting out of it but I don't think it's really fair to write it off as just another MMO.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#175

Post by singlow »

brown9-2 wrote: post #58
jpxxx wrote: post #5

I think that there's something kind of fascinating and romantic about the idea that an entire world and the ongoing social affairs of thousands of people can fit on a single server blade in the middle of nowhere.

Neal Stephenson's "Reamde" had some very interesting takes on this topic.

After reading the review I was afraid that it was going to be primarily about in-game action - but was relieved when I read it that the online game was mostly a backdrop and only a few scenes actually occur there. I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who has played a MMORPG for more than a few hours and enjoyed the concept of it - even if you were never addicted. It is not a masterpiece like Cryptonomicon or Anathem but a very enjoyable read.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#176

Post by podperson »

saraid216 wrote: post #171
podperson wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure there are good things about EVE that keep players engaged, but the initial experience with the "game" is so terrible as to boggle the mind. It isn't sold as a "social experiment". (Its qualities as a "war simulator" I won't go into -- it's a simulator of its own assumptions, which aren't terribly interesting.) As an aside: Way back in the early 80s, I was acquainted with a fellow who ran a worldwide play-by…

> My point: the experiment has been run before. Good job on having 20k players. I'm impressed your email system was able to handle that.

It didn't have 20k players, but beyond a certain point "scale" doesn't change much (most of the kinds of phenomena referred to in EVE occurred in Cluster II -- I know of no cases of real world crimes being perpetrated for in-game advantage though).

Who said anything about email? This was play by mail. Each turn comprised getting a combination state-of-your-holdings/order-form on computer fanfold, filling in and tearing off the order section, and sending it back. Some aspects needed to be handle out-of-band (e.g. if you designed new warships I believe they were verified legal manually -- one of my friends was given free play in exchange for verifying ship designs -- and then entered into the system).

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#177

Post by podperson »

doesnt_know wrote: post #172
podperson wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure there are good things about EVE that keep players engaged, but the initial experience with the "game" is so terrible as to boggle the mind. It isn't sold as a "social experiment". (Its qualities as a "war simulator" I won't go into -- it's a simulator of its own assumptions, which aren't terribly interesting.) As an aside: Way back in the early 80s, I was acquainted with a fellow who ran a worldwide play-by…

"My point: the experiment has been run before." And as long as there are new generations that want to spend their free time with such an experiment, history will repeat itself. Not to mention experiencing it in a new medium (heh, play-by-mail) and taking it to another scale. Hell, our alliance has it's own custom authentication application that strings together dozens of various applications that serve our coalition.…

I appreciate the insights. I'm hardly immune to the alleged charms of EVE (I'm an old school tabletop/board wargamer and game designer), I just think the price (in terms of poor gameplay) outweighs those charms.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#178

Post by thornofmight »

Alex3917 wrote: post #11
jpxxx wrote: post #5

I think that there's something kind of fascinating and romantic about the idea that an entire world and the ongoing social affairs of thousands of people can fit on a single server blade in the middle of nowhere.

This hack is eerily reminiscent of Morpheus coming to free the minds of all the people trapped in the matrix...

It's probably against HN etiquette to say things like this, but I really love this post.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#179

Post by gfodor »

npsimons wrote: post #130
adgar2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just wrote off everything I said except the word "dopamine." Given your outright advocacy ("anti-gamer") throughout this thread, it seems you aren't interested in a real discussion.

And you like to cherry pick what you deem relevant to the discussion and demonize a harmless diversion that millions of people dally in daily with no repercussions to the rest of their life. Look, I'm sorry you've had a bad time and got addicted to WoW. That doesn't make it an inherently addictive thing. Some people can play it in their spare time without issue; others can't. Not everybody is the same.

Some people can go to Vegas once every couple of years and forget about gambling when they fly home, too. Does this make gambling any less "inherently" addictive for those who are susceptible to it? Most people don't get addicted to pain killers, but some do. Addictive substances by their very nature are a game of probabilities dependent upon the person involved, their temperament, and the availability of what they're addicted to. (Some things obviously more addictive to more people than others.)

In 10 years time certain types of video games that leverage addictive elements to hook users will be widely understood to be just as addictive as your average slot machine. They will have comparable awareness groups, treatment programs, etc as those seen for gambling or prescription drug abuse.

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