Comments on: Do people still dream of a virtual world?

By: Wolfshead

Wolfshead — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:02:58 +0000

Sadly the “world” part of WoW has always been there to serve the game; it’s just a convenient backdrop and prop and nothing more really.

Even as a pure game, WoW fails for a majority of the experience. A pet chimpanzee could easily level to 85. There is no skill involved whatsoever. The real game happens during the raiding phase of WoW, that’s where the hardcore Fires of Heaven forum goers dwell to show off their epeens.

WoW is all about being rewarded for just showing up. It is neither game nor world. It’s more of an experience and takes a bit more involvement than watching television.

By: Zombigamification « Tish Tosh Tesh

Zombigamification « Tish Tosh Tesh — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:08:35 +0000

[...] coming to get you, whether you like it or not. (“Or not” being more likely for me and these fine authors.) It’s soulless. It’s relentless. It’s remorseless. You just [...]

By: ZombiePirate

ZombiePirate — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:44:25 +0000

One of the reasons I loved SWG was because it really was a virtual world when it started. There were no quests really other than the themeparks for the factions and a couple of places and those were really isolated around giving you rep to get into places to meet the characters from the movies. PvP could be anywhere, anytime if you spoke to your faction recruiter and turned it on, but the rest of the planets were open. Player cities were great and the RP community the best I’ve ever been a part of, OK SOE screwed up the game as we all know but I have so many fond memories of “living” Star Wars and would really love to have that again.

By: spinks

spinks — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:06:46 +0000

You’re right, and this is one of the reasons I was asking the question because I think people talk about wanting virtual worlds but I wonder whether they’d want to play them. Having said that, the reason I never got into Second Life was because it was just too much of a pain in the neck – I got as far as logging in and it was immediately confusing. My old MUSHes were a lot easier than that.

So maybe there just haven’t been any virtual worlds that were accessible enough yet …

By: Bertie

Bertie — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:23:02 +0000

Your extended blogroll has spent a lot of time over the last year or two on the decline of virtual worlds, railing against “theme parks”, praising the sandbox, praising Bartle and MUDs, and so forth and so on.

But hardly ever has anyone mentioned places like Second Life, Entropia, or IMVU, where all that stuff lives on. I wonder why that is.

Now, I don’t have terribly much to say about those and other present-day virtual worlds, either. But I’m not one of the ones who think there’s anything wrong with WoW.

By: Kring

Kring — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:55:53 +0000

I’m quite sure AOE never flagged you for PvP.

And a quick google search found some mentioning from 2005 that it doesn’t flag you. If it ever did, it’s fixed for a long time.

By: kiantremayne

kiantremayne — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:45:18 +0000

Kring – that may be how it works now. I believe Blizzard changed it exactly because of the behaviour Stabs described

By: Kring

Kring — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:32:24 +0000

In WoW, your AE spells won’t hit players flagged for PvP if you’re not PvP flagged yourself.

What you can do is flag yourself and stand on top of a non-hostile quest giver and hope that someone clicks on you instead of the NPC and thus attacks you.

By: kiantremayne

kiantremayne — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:49:35 +0000

@Stabs – I’ve never been a fan of the “pvp flag” system for that exact reason – it’s always going to be gamed by people trying to either find a way to force others into pvp against their will or to grief others while under pvp immunity. The best solution was the DAOC one – each faction has its own PvE area, that the other players cannot enter, and the frontiers which everyone knows are a pvp free fire zone and you enter at your own risk. The downside for the developer, of course, is that you have to build separate PvE content for each faction – which is probably why the model hasn’t caught on.

For Spinks’ Dune setting I would make the wilds of Arrakis, away from civilisation, into PvP territory. Go out there and you know that you are at risk from enemy players, sandworms and the NPC Fremen if you haven’t built up enough faction with them. Everywhere else is under the steely gaze of Imperial Sardaukar who keep the Padishah Emperor’s peace, meaning that the only PvP allowed is duelling or formally-declared kanly between Great Houses (guilds). Screwing other players over politically is of course always allowed (need some sort of way of affecting other people’s NPC faction standing via an “intrigue system”).

Right, now I need somebody to go and make this game so I can play it…

By: Tesh

Tesh — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:34:28 +0000

I still *play* WoW for the world. I just go pop into Flight Form and explore. There’s a world there that was used at one point. Yes, the game design has sadly gone to the dark “gamification” side, but at least the world is still there.

I do wish there were a stronger focus on virtual worlds in the genre overall. I’ve written about that ever since I started blogging a few years ago. I’m not optimistic about it happening, though.