Dancer Archive

On the Bria forums (that's the server I exist on for now), there was a brief discussion about how much of the game is macro-able and the downsides to that. There were no flames in the discussion, nothing but a rational discussion highlighting the downsides to the design.

I read the thread, went to post...and the system told me the thread had been deleted. Gone. No explanation, not closed, just plain blown away.

Things that make you go 'hmmmm'.

- J

Let's not be paranoid. We've all seen posts eat themselves on this lovely forum. It might be a database error.

C

Actually, as someone pointed out, someone did mention in passing the name of a 3rd party macro application, so that might have been a good reason to blow it away.

Of course, that makes THEM paranoid, but hey.

- J

I think people will ultimately become more frustrated in an "I can master with a script" environment than in a traditional one where success has to be earned. But it may take a while for things to shake themselves out. As MMORPGs start being things people play for weeks or a month or two rather than years, and crash financially (SWG won't because of Star Wars but the others do not have this luxury), and as the companies that created them start doing "post-mortems" on what went wrong, I think eventually they will come to realize (as will the players) why "Macro-mastering" does not work in the long run.

The gamers and devs of the world are not stupid, even though they often act as though they were. They will figure it out eventually.

For the rest of us who already see what is wrong, the wait will probably be long and painful. But I am not sure there's anything else we can do at this point.

C

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picklesSW wrote:
Yeah. I don't get it. The old adage that something that is not earned has no value is absolutely true. EQ is still one of the most popular games and part of the reason why is because those who spent so much time and effort to reach the highest levels feel they have something to show for it. Those people have a lot of reason to stay since their investment is so great and since others cannot simply come in and reach 65 in a week.

Maybe the new games are trying to combat that by making it easy for players hopping over to become powerful faster and with less work, but the end result is a game where there is no sense of achievement, no sense of accomplishment, where mastery of a profession means little and people don't have a sense of investment. That might draw a few more people in, but it'll also provide less incentive for them to stay here as well.

I think it's pretty short sighted.

- J

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That's just one perspective. As I seem to enjoy mentioning I have been playing online games for a long time and some of my favorites were from the text days because I love to program things. Making master Entertainer doesn't mean much to me. Being a master entertainer and being able to travel around and do shows for people and interact without the interference of "levels" and "gaining exp" also interests me. So putting the two passions together in this game seems natural to me. I wish the scripting language was a lot more powerful than this weak excuse we have now, personally. Give me some for loops and some boolean decision making capability and I will make one heck of a dancing script

There are certain things I like to do on my own...earning the money for a Cantina, and certain aspects of the game appeal to me. Griding does NOT interest me. Some people like to take the time to go through their character and watch it rise from infantcy. Not me, I enjoy the character most when it is complete and the real fun can start.

Another perspective is that I want to provide my customers with a 24/7 way of getting taken care of by me and I will use an AFK macro to do this. When I am at home I will provide more of a social entertainment, but as we all know, most power gamers just want it fast, they want it now, and they don't want to be bothered in the process. My little afk dancer provides that for them. So at different times of the day I provide the differning levels of service that each in their own way appeals to varying segments of the population.

The point is (in my long-winded thread) people find different benefits from all styles of play and one persons or even 10 persons opinion does not make that right for them. For those that want to have AFK macroing banned because it somehow mysteriously interferes in tehir play, SoE should then turn around and upset another section of their population to appease you(you in general terms not to the target of any particular postings)? I'm sure some of you already know your answers because your thought processes can't get past your own wants and desires for the game.

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Chessack wrote:
I think people will ultimately become more frustrated in an "I can master with a script" environment than in a traditional one where success has to be earned. But it may take a while for things to shake themselves out. As MMORPGs start being things people play for weeks or a month or two rather than years, and crash financially (SWG won't because of Star Wars but the others do not have this luxury), and as the companies that created them start doing "post-mortems" on what went wrong, I think eventually they will come to realize (as will the players) why "Macro-mastering" does not work in the long run.

The gamers and devs of the world are not stupid, even though they often act as though they were. They will figure it out eventually.

For the rest of us who already see what is wrong, the wait will probably be long and painful. But I am not sure there's anything else we can do at this point.

C

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I am not sure I see where the basis of you information is coming from, not one single MMO has failed yet. Even UO which started in 97 and Meridian 59 in 96 are still alive and kicking. Even Text muds like Realms of Dispair which was from around 94 IIRC and others are even still around. As more of these are made yes you may see a more and more of a trend where people shift from one to another, but there are other factors involved as well. There is still a lot to see as far as trends go. UO was going to build UO2 but the decision was canceled because they did not want to separate their player base (and I am sure many other reasons) so they put work in to further improving the graphics and gameplay (at least in some peoples opinions) of their original game. EQ is the first to do a sequal and it will be interesting to see what effect that has in the long run.

This "I can master with a script" has always been there....People macro EQ, AC, DAOC, and all the others, though they choose to face the risk of being banned willingly. In DAOC people use two accounts to act as a 'Buff Bot' for the other one and then they defeat the need to group with others. If anything the trend is leaning to more automated systems like scripting and macroing functionality because that is what a large contingency of the player base wants. The battle over which philosophy is right or wrong will not end with this game or any prior game.

IMHO the biggest problem with the AFK/NAFK debate is that people actually give a darn about what the player next to them is doing and how fast they do it. Boo hoo, they mastered X class in 3 days and it took me 3 months. Rather than Hey, I really enjoyed my 3 months and I made a lot of friends and I did this and that and enjoyed the life I led online. The guy that finished in 3 days is sitting there equally satisified at his accomplishment. We all have different goals in the game. Stop trying to 'keep up with the jones's'. Of course this is just a useless point because the only thing certain in the online world is that everyone will disagree.

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Ewoksniper wrote:

IMHO the biggest problem with the AFK/NAFK debate is that people actually give a darn about what the player next to them is doing and how fast they do it. Boo hoo, they mastered X class in 3 days and it took me 3 months. Rather than Hey, I really enjoyed my 3 months and I made a lot of friends and I did this and that and enjoyed the life I led online. The guy that finished in 3 days is sitting there equally satisified at his accomplishment. We all have different goals in the game. Stop trying to 'keep up with the jones's'. Of course this is just a useless point because the only thing certain in the online world is that everyone will disagree.

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Thats certainly not my problem with it at all nor would i think it's the main concern of any anti afker. Why can't you see that if 90% of the player base is afk there is noone to make friends withor spend 3 months liiving a life online with. Why not go get a copy of morrowind, or kinghts of the old republic, or neverwinter nights and master that because it'd be the same difference. When you take the people out of the equation what the heck are we even paying for? a massively multimacroing soloplaying online game.

Yeah but I could see that though -- or at least blowing that post away, unless the 3rd party item was mentioned in more than one post and it was more efficient to just delete the thread.

C

Sadly, I have heard that many, if not all, of the 'new wave' of MMORPGs either just having come out or about to come out, have macro utilities as good as, or better than, SWGs, meaning that the trend of games being played by computer scripts rather than by players is going to get worse. I find this ironic, because many of the same people who write (and defend the execution of) AFK Macro bot scripts, are the same people who like PVP specifically because the "AI is not good enough" or "a script is never as good as a human." They seem to realize that human-to-human challenge is the way to go, yet they script their way to Master-hood or level-grinding, apparently never realizing that they have just removed from the game the very purpose they claim to have for playing it in the first place.

C

Yeah. I don't get it. The old adage that something that is not earned has no value is absolutely true. EQ is still one of the most popular games and part of the reason why is because those who spent so much time and effort to reach the highest levels feel they have something to show for it. Those people have a lot of reason to stay since their investment is so great and since others cannot simply come in and reach 65 in a week.

Maybe the new games are trying to combat that by making it easy for players hopping over to become powerful faster and with less work, but the end result is a game where there is no sense of achievement, no sense of accomplishment, where mastery of a profession means little and people don't have a sense of investment. That might draw a few more people in, but it'll also provide less incentive for them to stay here as well.

I think it's pretty short sighted.

- J