Entitlement vs. Criticism, Or How an MMO (specifically FFXI) is or isn't different from other games.

[Kaelan?]

I wish I'd found this thread earlier, there's so much I wanted to add as I read, midway through the thread before the conversation changed topics and apparently, upon the mention of nazis, ended. Still, I'm going to make an attempt, trying to keep it brief (and probably failing miserably) and ignoring anything irrelevant to the discussion.

I think probably the most important point in the discussion people seem to not realize was already addressed by Sci - I'll only be reiterating, repeating and underlining what he said. Everyone talks about devs listening or not listening to players as if the devs had no idea how to, you know, actually make good games, and be capable of discerning a suggestion worth pursuing from a retarded suggestion that shouldn't even be considered.

If you think anyone is capable of simply magically creating a great, balanced, deep and fun game just because "they're smart" or "they're creative" and everyone else that can't is stupid or a crappy developer, you have obviously never been involved in any kind of game development before. The fundamental reason why devs have been and will always continue to listen to what people who play their game have to say is because that's the one of the only reliable ways of making your game better. As has been mentioned before, no amount of predicting, scrutinizing and tweaking your game in production yourself will avoid the occasional glaring flaws that will eventually be identified by having people who weren't involved in the production actually play the damn game. This is as true for the game design itself as it is for the code that makes it work.

Play-testing is at the very heart of any game that can be considered good, by any standard on any genre, whether that comes from in-house testing, open beta testing or players playing a continually developed game. And even completely "sealed" games have the people responsible listening to player's feedback after the product has shipped anyway because it's still tremendously important to identify any flaws in the game. You might make a sequel (be it an actual sequel or a "spiritual successor" kind of thing) and guess what, the sequel better address those flaws. Even if you don't, if your job is making games it is in your best interests to get better at it and gaining experience on what went right/what went wrong is probably the single most important part of this.

The biggest reason why this is the case is likely that when you have worked on something for months or years you simply are not capable of playing your own game and getting a good opinion of what the player would actually be going through when they tried to do the same thing. You know too much. And you have to know what they're going to go through because that experience is what will determine whether or not they'll actually play your game for more than 5 minutes. And if this game is under constant expansion and constant development it's even more important that you find out the biggest problems and fix them. The only way to do that is by listening to the people who are actually playing it way more than you'll ever have time to. You get every opinion you can. Then, using what you know about how the game works behind the scenes and about how players' minds work, you filter through the complaints, identify the most important issues and start trying to figure out the best methods of fixing them, given existing constraints. Repeat ad nauseum.

As far as artistic integrity, honestly that whole argument is completely missing how game development actually works, which is that you never end up with a game that is exactly like the idea you initially had. While a very small amount of this can be due to Tech constraints, 95% of the time the primary reason is that the actual game is better. In fact, many extremely good games were created like this - start out with one seemingly good idea, find out some other part of it is WAY more fun and interesting than the original and re-organize the entire game to go towards the direction of the idea which proved to be better in practice. Note that during none of this is listening to player feedback detrimental: your "vision" is never at stake except in the situations where your original vision wasn't very good to begin with.

One of the first rules about game design is that ideas are cheap. Don't get too attached to your ideas - everyone has their own brilliant idea for a game. The only thing that counts at the end of the day is the actual execution of that idea and if part of improving the execution involves sacrificing or heavily modifying part of the original concept, then so be it.

As far as the devs primarily caring about money (as opposed to the business people and the publisher) and who's responsible for decisions, Akanei is (I think) the only person who made an accurate comment, so I'll just support his previous post without really adding anything else.

Well. There goes the attempt at being brief out the window.

[Plow]

I don't think that BRP is an SE apologist at all,

FFXI could come out with an update that literally turns your computer into a sex machine and fucks you in the ass with Naja's mace every time you log on.

BRP would be defending it, raving about his awesome colonic orgasms, and explaining how the massive internal bleeding is fine, and we should just shut up because the developers will eventually fix it if they decide it's a problem.


Meanwhile if WoW released one that spawned a hologram of Jessica Biel along with direct mental virtual reality making it feel like you're really having sex with her, he'd bitch about how WoW makes you waste sperm.

So then it is perfectly viable then, only that we understand MMOs traditionally are inferior to normal games. There is not much of a difference between magazines and books either. Not all books are fiction and not all magazines are nonfiction. (EDIT: I am going to write the whole MMOvsNormal Game bit in an hour or something. Someone reply so I don't double post!)

Magazines find out what their subscribers like and don't like and adhere to it, or they go out of business.

[BRP]

(Expect an essay-sized response for an essay-worthy topic...)

When I talk about creativity that includes adapting to limitations. It is quite a skill, one that can only be created through experience or an incredible amount of born talent. That experience isn't earned from listening to people(let alone fanboys), but making games. You still need to be smart/creative to make fantastic games. This creativity might look different than writing a book, where limitations are nowhere near as blatant. For example of a creative designer: Hideo Kojima created a stealth-based action game called Metal Gear instead of your typical shoot-em-up because of the limitations of the hardware and how many characters/effects could be on screen. I think we understand there is a huge difference in this and posting in nerf-BRD thread lol.

Magazines find out what their subscribers like and don't like and adhere to it, or they go out of business.

Book publications find out what their buyers/fans like and don't like and adhere to it or they go out of business. Well only shitty ones do. Good books and good magazines and good ideas will stand the test of time even if no one purchases them or is capable of purchasing them(even if it takes hundreds of years before they obtain appreciation.)



But I want to talk about why it is silly to not compare a MMO to a "normal game." I am having some trouble with the word normal here. If a videogame is normal, then that is leaving out a shit load of games out of the norm. Do we know think videogams cannot be compared to normal games? Or is that too presumptuous? No matter, because you must do both. There is no way around it.

"Game" is very hard to define, if not impossible(and this ultimately is because we live in one big game.) However you cannot let everything be a game, or else the word will lose all meaning. Here is the most(and only) functional definition I know of: A group of rules that define a competition. These rules come in two categories: mechanics and aesthetics.

An example would be Basketball, I love Basketball! Basketball has the dribbling, hoops, and a various amounts of other rules depending on which version you play. One group of rules that cannot be ignored are the graphics! And physics! The truth is all "real-life" games share a lot of the same rules because they are all built on the same engine. The very best engine. The developers must be very talented, but lets hope they don't listen to their fans. The aesthetics of Basketball are decided on where you play, if the sun is out, etc. The mechanics of Basketball are decided on what planet you play on, if gravity is functioning as normal, etc.

Games can have such a large amount of variety between them. They do break down into categories: genres, and then again into subgenres(and then again, and again until we down to series and one-offs.) Genres must have sufficient amount of difference from each other or they won't matter. Genres must be defined by their difference. This is why no one can explain to me how games like Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, and Diablo are RPGs and how Devil May Cry and Starcraft are not. This is because every one of them is not a RPG and they are all very, very different from each other. And this is going to be an important point later because genres are just categories of a videogame which is a category of game.


But the videogame! The videogame is built on a different engine. An inferior engine. With inferior code. The truth is Street Fighter II is pretty shitty compared to Muay Thai. But videogames still have that set of rules. They are very clearly games. To deny this is to deny you are even playing a game. They still can be measured by their depth. The only difference now is that we get to make judgments on the hardware and how the software uses that hardware.

I've judged both tabletop and computer games. When it comes down to it these games are only different in that you can't complain about how shitty the graphics are in the former - though there is still room to mock the art in the books the rules are explained or if the miniatures are shoddy. The more interesting part of these games, the mechanics, remain comparable. If this wargame has a deep battle system with a lot of choices and struggle it will be a good tabletop game. If this real-time-strategy videogame has a deep battle system with a lot of choices and struggle it will be a good tabletop game. The reason why RPG games don't exist/are lightyears shallower is because they require the potent human mind and the computer is a terrible substitute.

This is a severe topic and I am being brief, so I can only hope by now the connection between "normal games" and "normal videogames" has been made. I really need to get started on the main topic: the connection between MMOs and "normal videogames."


First, the obvious: The Massive Multiplayer Online game is a game. Okay. What is the fundamental difference? These games are played online, with multiplayer, on a massive scale(let's put a number at +400, leaving certain themed FPS shy of being called a MMO.) So it would be in theory that a MMORPG is no different than a RPG without the MMO. The truth is, neither are RPGs, but strategy games(usually RTS - FFXI, WoW, and all but a few Korean off-shoots are Real Time Strategy games. RTS are much more action-focused(reflective) than Turn Based Strategy games, but not enough to be called an Action game.)

Noticed I mentioned that point about FPS games. The truth is separating these games based on the amount of players who play them isn't that high in ranks of difference and will ultimately show(within a few decades, just spitting out a random number) that as is, every game will become a MMO-RPG lol. Noting the difference between MMO Strategy games and normal Strategy games is going to have the same amount of importance as a FPS with 4 v 4 combat(Gears of War) and a FPS with 8 v 8 combat(Halo, which also has 4 v 4 modes). It is significant for sure and will have a big effect on game design, but only in "RPGs" do people give leeway. In a FPS we will still compare how it shoots and blah blah, first and foremost before considering if it is multiplayer(and how many) or online. (The difference given in criticism is made even funnier when these MMO games focus on solo-content! And I don't mean to pick on the WoWfags, because both FFXI and WoW/etc focuses on "measly" 18/25-man content or if we talk about extremes 100-man raid. Still in the area of what a FPS can do in a single match.)

So ordered in importance: (but not bothering with the obvious game/videogame classification)
-Starcraft is a Strategy game(genre), RTS(subgenre), with resource building and blah blah(series defining traits), that is focused on 1-4 players(specific details.)
-Final Fantasy 11 is a Strategy game(genre), RTS(subgenre), with character customization and blah(series defining traits), that is focused on 1 or 6 or 18-4000/8000+ players(specific details.)

And now for the point where I think all this contention is born from:

When you buy a MMO you are usually promised patches/version updates. This is why people feel MMOgame development is "dynamic." This kind of makes it funny because all games on the PC have been getting patches(to be specific) for at least decade before Ultima Online. Oh, hell, maybe even before MUDs. Really though, this point doesn't matter as much as I will soon explain away "patches" are mere patches.

In contrast this is why my opponents say that every other type of game is "static." It is here things get very silly. I would only imagine this comes up because their definition of a game is nonsense. It no longer defines a (video)game for what it is, but how you obtain it. It might be: "Video Games are blah, that you buy as products at a store as Floppy Disks" or "Video Games are blah, that you buy products at the a store or download online" and so on as new developments(or remembered old developments lol) continually challenge this poor definition.

The truth is all games are continually being worked on. The fact we have genres and subgenres tell us that. Videogaming developed as "tree." Remember Kojima and his Metal Gear game? The shoot-em-up gave birth to the stealth game. Now with Metal Gear Solid, he took another step. The game was patched(with 2, then Solid, and odd ports in-between) and we payed for the updated version. From Metal Gear games like Thief and Splinter Cell came out which continued the on this stealth subgenre. More branches on this single branch of a very large tree.

What happened in that patch? The rules were modified. Hopefully for the better. By better: I mean made deeper in mechanics and/or aesthetics(if it was just aesthetics though, we would complain and call it Final Fantasy VII or VIII.)

The larger truth is: Each and every update, patch, sequel, series, and even genre are all fundamentally the same. We are all changing the rules when buy them/download them/insert them into our asses with Sony's Ass-tation XIV. When the NBA releases a new rule where players can't sing the Macarena while doing a foul shot, they have patched Basketball(but we can still and go and play old Basketball or go and play FFV. Unfortunately for some the devs have a tight grip on those versions of FFXI where RNGs weren't nerfed and such - I think someone said that this is the only difference and they are mostly right in saying so)

MMO games "are ultimately a different animal?" Quite the opposite. Only when we look at games with a very distorted and closed-minded view will they seem different. Anyone who says this either doesn't know what they are talking about or is trying to sell you something worth less than it is. Ultimately all games seem the same. This is why we created genres in the first place!

In an OPTIMAL criticism a critic would write a game review for the first version of FFXI, which came out in Japan all those years ago. This review would use comparisons to not to Everquest(unless FFXI is trash and we call it trash, then it is fair to), but Starcraft or so on. Then the next update he would write another review and this review would use the first review as a base and it would measure the game as a sequel. A good sequel makes the game more interesting/deeper, a bad one simplifies it, a mediocre one simply maintains. And he would do this until now, in the year 2009 and continue to do so as long as he plays. We can take some shortcuts, like start at the moment we begin playing, but we are doomed to being just a little more inferior with each cheat.

I have never seen a review even remotely like this. I haven't even seen one that takes updates into consideration! Does this mean things must change to be this way? That I must rewrite reality? No. It is just the way it is and you have to say all these reviews are garbage if you are able to understand why. The reason WoW can get 10/10s and shit is because it isn't being compared to the games it should be. Genres and MMOs, two more flaws of a flawed and useless group of corpses that are IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku, EGM, Little Billy's Blog, etc etc. (But some people love carrion)

So this outlook that MMOs are the "dynamic" and special games enables devs to release a shitty game and justify it with updates. As if we haven't been doing that since the dawn of man! Probably best just to wait until they make a game they would find satisfactory, and if that is 1-2 years into a MMO's life then so be it. I think my initial opinion of FFXI, way back then, greatly benefited because I was playing a game with an expansion ready.


So what we got here is:
-Videogames are games. (Therefor comparable)
-MMOgames are videogames and games. (Therefor comparable)
-Genres, Subgenres, series, and games are divided by their difference(or lack of.)
-In this difference how many players there are falls far below Genre or Sub-Genre in priority.
-All games go through dynamic development: patches/version updates/sequels/new series/new genres. They are all different versions.
-The current poor state of MMOs will remain so unless a revolutionary creative creates a good MMO or people start fairly comparing MMOs to "normal" games. (Chicken or the egg, lol)

[Plow]

For cliff notes of that post, see my post directly above.

[BRP]

Aw man, that would leave my readership limited to the fractional amount of people who think Plow is retarded.

To those who think I am simply defending FFXI, you should consider I only mention it like two or three times.

EDIT: I realize Gears of War is not a FPS, but I really don't care to make up another example. Pretend I said shooter if it is a bother.

Also this should be in the Gaming forum for good reason.

[Ayn]

Being compared to Ayn Rand?

Happens to me a lot.

[Whaleporn]

I read through your post and I want to say...

Edit your thoughts down to key points. A good example:

Noticed I mentioned that point about FPS games. The truth is separating these games based on the amount of players who play them isn't that high in ranks of difference and will ultimately show(within a few decades, just spitting out a random number) that as is, every game will become a MMO-RPG lol. Noting the difference between MMO Strategy games and normal Strategy games is going to have the same amount of importance as a FPS with 4 v 4 combat(Gears of War) and a FPS with 8 v 8 combat(Halo, which also has 4 v 4 modes). It is significant for sure and will have a big effect on game design, but only in "RPGs" do people give leeway. In a FPS we will still compare how it shoots and blah blah, first and foremost before considering if it is multiplayer(and how many) or online. (The difference given in criticism is made even funnier when these MMO games focus on solo-content! And I don't mean to pick on the WoWfags, because both FFXI and WoW/etc focuses on "measly" 18/25-man content or if we talk about extremes 100-man raid. Still in the area of what a FPS can do in a single match.)

I think this means:

'The definition of massively multiplayer is fluid itself. We shouldn't split up FPS genre games based on if they have 4v4 or 8v8 team play. On top of that, the gameplay is what reviews and players focus on in that field. MMOs should be the same: our view should be based on the experience, not the number of people having it.'

but I honestly can't tell. Reading paragraphs like this is like trying to snort an unopened pepsi can to get high.


Besides me bitching about that, I agree that all the games we define as RPGs are really a form of strategy game. However the RPG title has come to mean 'personal tactical game'.

For computer RPGs most of them take concepts from Dungeons and Dragons. If you want to delve deep into how dungeons and dragons is marketed, the game has premade content which is similar to buying a computer game and running through it (dungeons/missions/campaign worlds). The differences in any given run of the premade modules will be mostly how the DM runs his side and how the PCs run their side. You can pick different parties, you might have a DM who describes the scenery better or makes minor changes to the mission, but most will run it as-is... In other words even table top RPGs often are personal strategy games with a shared experience across multiple servers (kitchen tables and your parents basement).

If you want to take this further: A campaign setting is almost like... CoP! Holy shit, mind blown! The only difference is that square can't program your choices in, so they make assumptions. CoP is built on the assumption that you will complete the missions because you want to get sea/that ring/ that earring, just like most modules assume that riches and fame will push you forward and also assume that you don't just randomly kill plot NPCs for no good reason. (I admit I wish I could have just strangled Nag'whatever and called it a day at 2-3...)

CoP forces you into a few set piece combat situations, it has different sub dungeons, a few side quests that players can investigate... It's a railroaded campaign for sure, but it played for many people like a weekly adventure.


It's nice to see other people think about how RPG is a misnomer, but it's already stuck for good and trying to debate it is charging at windmills.

Your criticisms of review standards are the same that many people have with computer games in general vs real life: nothing you program can be as dynamic as a real person, barring advances in A.I. It's why competitive multiplayer games persist: nothing is quite like fighting a human opponent. Perhaps having players who control mobs and BC bosses would remedy this?

Either way, saying 'it's no good!' at a genre means you should back your ideas up with concrete examples of how to fix the issues at hand: If advancement is too easy, then you end up with a game where everything under the final level is unused. If you make players too strong, then no-one would work together.... how do you create a story that has 400 main characters?

[Plow]

I like tangerines, and you like apples. The problem is, you're comparing your apples to pears. You need to compare your apples to oranges, then you'd realize my tangerines are superior.

Seriously dude, games are separated into genres now, and people know what kind of genres they're interested in, and compare to other games within those genres.

Sure, as a completely objective observer with no experience in the field whatsoever, you might want to have the fun of ESPN NFL 2012 compared to the experiences you'd find in, say, Tomb Raider.

But if you've been playing Madden for 15 years, why would you give a shit how the new football game is going to compare to Ultra Mario Wii?

[BRP]

I know my writing isn't quite up to speed with my thoughts, especially when I do it all in one sitting lol. I have to apologize for that, but I feel it isn't beyond understanding. You do have the right idea on what I was saying with the FPS vs MMO bit.

As for the RPG discussion, that's one for another day. I am not sure if I need to clarify, but I don't think all of these games calling themselves RPGs are bad. They simply are not RPGs and shouldn't be judged as so. So FFXI and Diablo and whatever all have the potential to be good games. Strategy games or Action games, but not Role-Playing games.

But if you've been playing Madden for 15 years, why would you give a shit how the new football game is going to compare to Ultra Mario Wii?

You misunderstood my whole post. Madden shouldn't be compared to Ultra Mario Wii because they belong it different subgenres. You could compare them at some level, but it wouldn't provide as much insight. Like comparing a dog to a star vs a dog to a cat. But MMOs? They are no doubt Real Time Strategy games and can be compared quite fairly. And easily.

[Plow]

You misunderstood my whole post. Madden shouldn't be compared to Ultra Mario Wii because they belong it different subgenres. You could compare them at some level, but it wouldn't provide as much insight. Like comparing a dog to a star vs a dog to a cat. But MMOs? They are no doubt Real Time Strategy games and can be compared quite fairly. And easily.

I was one of the best in the world at Age of Empires 2, and I assure you, it is absolutely nowhere remotely near the same genre as FFXI.

[BRP]

I was one of the best in the world at Age of Empires 2, and I assure you, it is absolutely nowhere remotely near the same genre as FFXI.

And I assure you, they are. Only, I provided reasoning and you did not.

[Plow]

Every time I sat down to play AoE2, it was a fresh, new game.


That alone makes them virtually incomparable. You can point out some similarities, but, again, there's plenty similar about apples and oranges.

[BRP]

Every time I sat down to play AoE2, it was a fresh, new game.


That alone makes them virtually incomparable. You can point out some similarities, but, again, there's plenty similar about apples and oranges.

Jesus christ bro, that doesn't even make any fucking sense lol.

I think you are too attached to that apples and oranges saying, you are starting to grade your games on freshness.

[Plow]

That was not a "grading" at all, you completely misunderstood what I said.


When you finish a game in Age of Empires, it's over. You don't gain experience points and become stronger, and fight a harder opponent next game.

You don't save the armor you bought your paladin, nor do you sell it on the auction house so you can start out your next game as goths with more money.


Etc, etc. Every time you sit down, you're playing a "game," and you win or lose, and then it's over. If you play again, you start a new game.


You're asking people to ignore the single most defining point of the MMORPG, the persisting universe.

[BRP]

You're asking people to ignore the single most defining point of the MMORPG, the persisting universe.

No, the most defining point of the MMOgame is the Massive Multiplayer Online part. That's why they are named as so. This is also why games that do have persistent worlds(ie, every "WRPG", "JRPG" with save files ever made) are not called MMOs unless they are have an online multiplayer that is massive. At most you can call these games a little more "persistent" than usual as because they can outlive the character. However is Dwarf Fortress now a MMO? In that game new files take place in the same world. It is not. Because we don't contrast strategy games on how persistent they are, at least not at the level of genres, but far below.

Any RTS and FFXI can be fairly compared because they are both RTS. Real Time Strategy. Strategy which isn't turn-based. Choices which are not dominated by reflexive skill. Now if you wish to challenge this, step up and use genre-deciding factors. Right now the most you have succeeded at is telling me the difference between two franchises. One that uses save-states, the other that resets the game after a battle is complete.

If I may make a request, let us stop with the "apples and oranges" bullshit. We don't need to hear it more than twenty times each time something is being compared. Analogies should be the exception to the rule.


EDIT: inb4 "Those are not persistent worlds, because it doesn't say so on the back of the box like my FFXI does!"

EDIT: As for "grading", I was just making fun of you lol. Freshness comes in grades.

[Plow]

Ok, persistent, online, massively multiplayer worlds.


Seriously, name an "RTS", and no, mmorpg do not count, that's truly massively multiplayer. Let alone one that has a persistent universe through which you, and many others progress. They don't exist.

[BRP]

Seriously, name an "RTS", and no, mmorpg do not count, that's truly massively multiplayer.

Plow, what the fuck are you talking about? Why not just ask to name a RTS that isn't a RTS lol? Actually, that's basically what you did.

When you say MMORPG(assuming you mean WoW and FFXI) you must mean MMO Strategy games. So I can't name a MMO Strategy game that isn't a MMO Strategy game.

EDIT: "Seriously, name an "RTS", and no, massively multiplayer RTS do not count, that's truly massively multiplayer."

Do you want to know the existence of a turn-based MMO? They exist for sure, Atlantica Online for one. Probably dozens of MUDs and others as well. Anyway, if that's not what you are asking then you are speaking nonsense.

Can we get Xavier and Ringthree back in here? They at least put up a fight. I mean this is getting annoying.


EDIT Oh wait, is this about Massively Multiplayer OFFline games? If that the case they only don't exist because no one wants them. They are not feasible. I could picture one though, quite clearly. For a wargame example imagine Dungeon and Dragons with 1 DM and 1000 players lol. For a MMO RTS example imagine Starcraft being played on a LAN of a 1000 people, in one match.

[Plow]

Are you honestly convincing yourself that you can't name any rts other than mmorpg that are mmo, and yet mmorpg belong in the same genre as all the non-mmo rts?

It's a role playing game. You take on a character. You play the role of that character. Hence the name, role playing game.


You can label it whatever the hell you want, call it an mmorts all you like, it's still an entirely different genre.



How about this: name a non-mmo RTS where you control 1 unit, and only 1 unit, for the entirety of the game.

[BRP]

It's a role playing game. You take on a character. You play the role of that character. Hence the name, role playing game.

No! Halo is a role playing game, duh!

How about this: name a non-mmo RTS where you control 1 unit, and only 1 unit, for the entirety of the game.

Diablo

Morrowind

Final Fantasy XII

I could go on, but I think we can just think about games that are similar to these.

[Plow]

You're seriously just going to sit here and randomly call rpg's rts in order to make your point?



"Real time" =/= "Real time strategy"


"RPG" =/= "Turn Based"