Reply With QuoteIt's turkey time!Originally Posted by XPav
When I roleplay a chef, I want to roleplay the character, experience the way he interacts with other people, whatever - not do the drudge work of mixing shit. Maybe it's just me.
I understand the MUSH thing, really; I just don't understand how adding pointless make-work "gameplay" to the perfectly fine MUSH experience makes it better. The graphics do, obviously, but the "game"?
It's turkey time!
I didn't mean to sound harsh--I don't begrudge you (or anyone else) your right to enjoy Galaxies as much as you want. I just take umbrage with your implication that the "Super Mokeyball crowd" here doesn't understand the fine points of role-playerese. I understand it just fine, and I still think Galaxies sounds deadly dull.
Few, but that's because PCs are that much better at crunching numbers, and thus capable of adding detail without also adding more drudgework. That's hardly analogous to Galaxies, though. It's not like P&P gamers have always yearned to make craft pies but weren't able to because P&P mechanics couldn't handle all the intricacies. And it's also not like the ability to add complexity to a game means that you should. I mean, WWII Online modelled every aspect of war right down to tying your bootlaces before battle, but it didn't make it a better game. Quite the opposite, in fact.How many tabletop wargames allowed you to indulge in the kinds of trivia and detail that The Operation Art of War does?
(double post)
Yeah, when I roleplay, I enjoy roleplaying a particular character. However, I ususally prefer to just make up that character's boring pre-game life in my head ("Grew up on a farm tending moisture vaporators, until one day he couldn't stand it anymore and struck out for Mos Eisley to make his fortune as a smuggler.") I don't want to actually play that boring back-story. I want to start playing on the day I arrive in Mos Eisley. Maybe that makes me a poor role-player in Brian Rucker's eyes, but so be it.
More to the point, I can understand people wanting to role-play characters that don't go out and kill things--I just think every MMORPG to date has implemented such characters very poorly. Here's a good explanation from just such a player:
http://www.stratics.com/content/edit...cles/bread.php
I particularly agree with #6. If someone wants to play an artisan character, I'd wager it's because they are interested in the economics and player interaction that goes with running a business, or because they like the idea of attaining fame as a master crafter/baker/whatever. But I doubt that many people sit down and say "you know, I love role-playing a baker because it means I get to spend hours shuffling shit around in my inventory."
And this is a key problem with MMORPGs in general: one of the most commonly recurring game mechanics is the concept of trading time spent enduring tedium for advancement in the game. You want to let people play artisans in your game? Fine. Identify what's fun about playing an artisan, and eliminate everything else.
I can't imagine why that's the case! I'm sure everyone else will be stumped at identifying why the primary MMORPG game mechanic is tediously wasting time, too!
I'm probably the one that was a little harsh, Ben. I'm having a ball and I think I understand why it is that this game is so compelling. What's frustrating is that either I'm unable to express it effectively or something's getting lost in the translation.
There is no One Absolute Truth of roleplaying. If there were I'm pretty sure I'd rail against it myself on principle.
I'll give it one more shot and then give up before my voice takes on a Koontzian waver. The complexities in this yet unfinished game create the opportunities for roleplayers to really flesh out routines and behaviors that express who their characters are. My IC boss is forging deals with various weapon manufacturers for distribution. The city founder is walking a tight rope that's almost as much OOC as IC in dealing between Imperial and Rebel (mostly covert) factions within the town limits as well as keeping outside PAs at bay. A armorcrafter is hiring scouts to get particular kinds of hides she needs. A ranger set up a droid in the town cantina with each item a sample of a nearby resource complete with waypoint data. Debates broke out in council about the meaning of neutrality within the bounds of an Empire. Creatures wandering through the streets have to be cleared before a fair can begin. A wedding on distant Corellia attracts individuals from many different roleplaying PAs and new friendships and rivalries are formed. A major battle on Tatooine is a directory of the major power players in the Galactic Civil War and (despite some issues with battlefield code) future bloodshed is assured. A crazy Bothan spy leads my character on a meandering chase all over Corellia, and involving a half-dozen RP encounters, before actually introducing him to an NPC he was seeking.
And so on.
"How many tabletop wargames allowed you to indulge in the kinds of trivia and detail that The Operation Art of War does?"
More than you'd think, really. :P You should see the rules to some of the miniatures campaigns for WWII and modern armor, for instance. And if you've every tried to play a boardgame "monster" wargame, well, TOAW can't hold a candle to the gnats' ass picayune anal retentive detail that usually goes along with it. And I like wargames, but it makes my mind boggle sometimes.
I think in re SWG no one really wants to criticize anyone for liking the game, or for not liking it--it's your $15/month after all, not anyone elses. But it is real clear that there is a fundamental disconnect between the camps. I put myself firmly in the camp that says "Star Wars is blasters, space ships, daring escapes, high-level intrigue, big battles, shit blowing up, lightsaber fights, and everyone a hero." A worm's eye view of life in the slums of Mos Eisley is about as fun to me as, well, the time I spent living in the slums of Baltimore. No thanks.
I can however see how it's a case of different strokes, etc. There's a lot to do in SWG, and if it floats your boat, more power to ya. I leaves my dingy high and dry though.
Ultima 7 really is the true forebear to SWG! You can bake your own bread, and you can spend hours shuffling shit around in your inventory!
I thought I'd jump into this thread by talking a bit about my character in SWG - she's a Novice Chef, halfway to her first tier toward Master.
I used to play EQ, AO, and DAoC, but I never really crafted much in them, though I'd heard the horror stories about baking in EQ. I started out as a dancer, found that fun but started getting tired of JUST dancing, so I started crafting stuff.
Despite the fact that the chef class is a bit broken, I'm having more fun in SWG than I ever had in any previous MMORPG (but I should add the caveat that I've got a really low tolerance bar for fun in an MMORPG -- hell, it took a few months before AO finally aggravated me enough to stop playing it).
The crafting IS fun, to me. There are aspects of it I don't like -- the timer, as someone mentioned, is stupid. But I can sort of see how they're trying solutions to make the crafting less boring for people who don't like it without allowing too much power leveling.
So here's my character's story: by day (meaning, maybe, the first half of my play time) she's a chef who just opened her own small cafe outside of Coronet on Corellia, with a waitress and some cafe tables. By night (the last half of my play time) she's a soldier in the Rebel Alliance, close to a promotion to Lance Corporal. She's covert, so no one would suspect that the pretty little Twi'lek chef in her cute little skirt and lekku wraps selling tasty drinks in the cantina is really a Rebel soldier running information for the Alliance and taking out Imperial soldiers when needed. Business is picking up for the cafe as more people recognize that she's the only chef on the server and ask if she's got one, and her food and resources sell out completely at the bazaar.
I roleplay the hell out of my character and thoroughly enjoy it. I bring lots of food and drink with me to the cantina, get behind the bar and dance, and I actually make thousands of credits as people buy food and drink from me. When someone asks what a Starshine Surprise costs, I tell them and I explain that it's so good that Jabba just ordered a whole shipment of it from me. I talk about how this particular batch is special because I had to go all the way to Talus just to get the wheat to ferment, because it was the best wheat for this drink in the galaxy (and that last part can be true -- I've traveled to other planets to get better resources so that my drinks are better buffs than someone else's, and therefore are more desireable).
I like that the crafting allows you to make your items unique. Yes, all chefs can make Starshine Surprises, but I can experiment with mine, both with resource gathering and usage and with experimentation points, to tweak mine. Maybe mine are better than Chef So and So's because I find better wheat or I put my experimentation points more into quality than quantity.
Now, if I want to bypass that crafting, I can, but it requires me to work my way up into being able to afford and use a factory. I hated surveying at first; it was boring and long. Once I could afford one wind harvester and one mineral harvester, suddenly I was able to afford flora farms to do the gathering for me. No more boring surveying. Once I can afford (and once they fix) food factories, I won't have to sit and craft anymore, which I like. It's an answer to the "crafting is boring!!" statement, though admittedly it's not the perfect answer.
Another thing I really enjoy about SWG is the truly persistent nature of the persistent world. Unlike EQ and many other MMORPGs, the world and even my character truly change when I'm not playing. Just logging in is exciting -- did I make money? Woohoo! I sold 10 dishes on the bazaar! And because people have eaten them, my Food Crafting experience has gone up! Hey, my merchant experience has hit 10K while I was gone -- I can afford to have a vendor that talks to customers now! Whoa, my harvesters are 10% full, cool! I feel like the world really does evolve while I'm gone.
As far as the roleplaying aspect and the importance of a person's character in the universe, I think SWG does more things right in that regard than many have done so far. The main problem with MMORPGs is that you really can't have a world where everyone is a hero or being a hero would cease to be unique, so they make everyone mundane and you have to work your way toward hero status. And the structure of MMORPGs puts the onus on the player to do this, much more than a single player game with a story line and a fleshed out main character that saves the day. On a basic level, my character makes food and fights Imperial soldiers. On a more interesting level, my character runs a cafe and has become well-known for her tasty dishes that boost your health and energy, and she secretly runs information and missions for the Rebel Alliance, working her way secretly up the chain of command. (I guess she's kind of like Steven Seagal in that movie where he was a Navy chef, except with more lekku and fewer bad movie reviews.)
Giving my character a story requires me to really come up with it and roleplay it myself, because the game won't do it for me, and I think that's the issue many people have with MMORPGs -- they want and expect the game to do that for them. I think SWG gives the player better tools to do this, and it can be fun as long as you don't expect to be a hero jedi saving the universe the moment your character sets first foot in the game.
I don't even play SWG (though after reading your accounting of it, I'm tempted), but I want to buy pies from you. You sound like a great roleplayer and like you're having a great time with SWG.
BUT, is this do to the things SWG allows, or is this just the fact, as you mentioned, that you will make any game fun and you have tolerances for the game world (not being able to buy food factories, for instance, would annoy me)?
When the chef shows up and tells us that dammit, she's having fun, despite all the fun we're making of "chefs mashing out pies", I think have to step back and say that I've lost this particular argument.
I think it's equal parts both. I admit that, as I've said, I will find fun in most any MMORPG you give me, but I'm having a much different kind of fun in SWG, and as another poster here has said, I'm having difficulty articulating what it is that I find fun about it despite the fact that I'm not a Jedi and I'm not flying a Tie-fighter and blowing up the Deathstar.
I think it's the sheer variety of choices I have in the story I can create for my character and thus the experience for the people around me. For instance, one of the things I'd like to do eventually in the game is buy a large building for my cafe and have basically a restaurant in the main rooms. Then I want to hire a Smuggler to get me spices -- which are essentially drugs in the game; they boost your stats by wicked amounts and destroy things like your focus, and when they run out of your system your character will actually start puking from withdrawals -- and I want to sell spices in a back room.
And if it's possible, I want my back rooms in the restaurant to become a kind of underground Rebellion railroad. I want to pass information and missions covertly on to fellow Rebel soldiers. I want my Twi'lek chef to become known as A Twi'lek In the Know (Wink Wink) when it comes to other players looking for information against the Imperial army.
This is the kind of story that itegrates well with the type of "every day man in the street" and Galactic War combination world that SWG has built. I guess it's just a matter of time to see if it's possible. I think it might be.
Sure, it's possible. But, is it implemented?
Get back to me in six months.
Ok, your description makes it sound more like ATITD, so I can see that. If only I could try it without paying.....Business is picking up for the cafe as more people recognize that she's the only chef on the server and ask if she's got one, and her food and resources sell out completely at the bazaar.
All that sounds very cool, and I can see that sort of character being fun to play. But what is it about Galaxies' mechanics, specifically, that you need in order to role-play such a character? Couldn't you do something similar in any game that allows players to own buildings and items? Or, as Jason said before, in a chatroom with a group of equally imaginative and dedicated people? And while your description of your character concept sounds interesting, how much of the day to day reality of playing the game involves all that wheeling and dealing and back-door smuggling intrigue and the glamour of running a restaurant as opposed to time spent in your inventory clicking on cereal fruit reasources over and over and over and over for hours on end making wastril bread at 70 xp a pop, knowing that you'll probably end up destroying all of it because nobody wants to buy it, but making it anyway because it's the only way you can advance? I'd like to believe that Galaxies has that kind of depth of interactivity (the first kind, not the making wastril bread over and over kind, which is exactly the type of interactivity that I suspect that it actually has), but then I read stuff like this in the forums:
...and am forced to conclude that there must be some sort of cognitive dissonance at work that allows people to pretend that this is fun.Do you macro (primarily unattended)? Perhaps it's the role-player in me, but my character is seldom (if ever) doing anything if I'm not behind her. So, every bit of CXP is with me clicking buttons, and every bit of Factory XP is with me either crafting nearby or wandering around near it. I'm just curious if in these two things I'm working against myself. After all, just to get the first tier now, I've calculated that even if I just sat there and made wastril bread it would take about 45 hours (1-2 weeks). To catch up to the level I'm hearing, It would take me round 3 months, if not more.
My having fun in SWG definitely doesn't completely mask some of the issues I have with it, and that includes the grinding on wastril bread issue. However, I haven't sat down and simply ground out items to get experience and deleted them (or done them in the new Practice Mode, either).
I've just come to expect that climbing up the level tree as fast as I can possibly shoot is not going to be a goal for me. I'd like to level faster, but it's not going to happen right now. That said, I'm not running into the problem you describe above: my character sells every bit of food she makes, and sells out of it before I log her in the next time I play. Every single time. So often when I log in I'll take some time to craft some stacks of the items in most demand that I know I get experience for, put them up for sale on the bazaar or my cafe, and then go off and play other parts of the game, which might be doing Rebellion missions, or visiting the cantina and dancing and socializing, or checking on my harvesters, or just exploring a new city or area, all of which I find fun.
I'm not going to level as fast as other people, but that's just something I'm going to accept. For right now, my luck hinges on the fact that few other people have picked up the chef class.
The crafting system isn't perfect, that's for certain. But there are some interesting things about it I like -- being able to experiment, being able to name your items uniquely, being able to decide which resources to use and having a choice to achieve different affects. Having to sit and make them, yeah, that sucks. I don't know how to get rid of that and still keep the cool parts.
I wanted to think about this a bit before I answered...
I could do something similar in a game that allows players to own buildings and items. But I like the Star Wars mythology and I like the universe; I want to build a character in which I can do these things while participating in that universe.
Sure, I could also do it in a chatroom with imaginative people. But then I don't get to see the pretty clothes my Twi'lek can wear, or watch her giggle when I type /giggle, or see her dance in the cantina and listen to actual music as she dances.
I find it interesting that people have such varying levels of identification with the Star Wars universe. For some, like myself, it's a very low-complexity high-energy thing, blasters and space ships and Jedi and war. For others it's the details of Tatooine or Naboo and Twi'leks and Bothans and moisture farming. I think it's pretty interesting that there is such a difference in what people expect/want/like about the same basic universe.
So, basically, the Star Wars experience is a combination of barbie dress up and easy bake oven. Gotcha.
Yep, when I'm not out fighting for the Rebel Alliance, which is about a third of my playing time. But that's just my experience. I think there is a big variety of experiences to be had in this game with all the different professions.
But having said that, I definitely feel like the game took a huge cue from The Sims, and that it appeals greatly to a female audience (and I even feel weird saying that because I'm a female who normally plays hardcore shooter titles). I know two women who play and both are Dancers who totally get into the Barbie Dress-Up aspect of the game. And one of them has risen pretty high up the Rebel Alliance chain in battle -- when she became a Master Dancer she got a huge battle bonus, making her the best shot in the entire group she plays with. Now she's off at some remote Rebel base getting missions from Princess Leia. When vehicles and starships are put into the game, I can imagine that'll translate into a very cool battle experience for her. And so to me, she's experience a terrific blend of both types of gameplay that the game offers: Playing House and Galactic War.
Uhm, I've not crafted a single thing in SWG... Personally I spend most of my in game time slaying rancors or raiding Rebel bases with my squad of stormtroopers or attempting to finish this quest to recover a lightsaber from a secretive group of force wielding Night Sisters, but whatever.its just confusing to those us used to playing Jedi Knight 2, KOTOR, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, whatever, that the Star Wars online game appears to be about crafting.
Actually I lied about the crafting part, I do spend about a minute a day crafting some stimpacks while waiting for the spaceshuttle to Endor - where upon arrival I will derive pleasure from hunting ewoks and selling their hides for people to make clothes from.
Hey, those are fun!So, basically, the Star Wars experience is a combination of barbie dress up and easy bake oven. Gotcha.
The unfortunate thing is that every MMORPG appears to be bringing us closer to the goal of realistically simulating the life of, say, a Nicaraguan shopkeeper who helps out the rebels after hours. Drudgery and violence, ahoy!
That should be on the game box. ;)
I've never played a MMOG before and I cannot fathom paying $15 U.S. per month (over $20 Canadian) to play SWG, but Caryn's descriptions do make it sound oddly appealing. I like the fact that the game seems to offer a good variety to both the roleplaying/crafting crowd and the typical "bash small rats until you can bash bigger rats" crowd.
Now, can you really hunt Ewoks? I'd think George would have not allowed that...although he did take out their silly little song and dance in the special edition of Return of the Jedi. Hmm...
The ones I've seen are apparently "outcast ewoks", but yes you can hunt them... Not sure if there are any non-outcast ewoks to kill as my exploration of Endor has been limited so far (I hunt on Dathomir mostly). You can kill gungans too on Naboo, that's also enjoyable but sadly I've not seen one named Jar Jar Binks yet - I refuse to kill Jawas though, those little dudes are cool.Now, can you really hunt Ewoks? I'd think George would have not allowed that...
Fair enough. I guess my big complaint--and this isn't limited to Galaxies, by any means--is that this sort of role-playing occurs almost in spite of the game's mechanics rather than because of them. So much of the actual mechanics of these games--using and improving skills, earning levels--feels like drudgework. I think PlanetSide may have spoiled me a bit in this regard, because it's the first MMO game that's so much fun just to play, on a minute-to-minute basis, that I don't really care how fast I level. And yeah, everyone can say how it's a shooter and doesn't live by the same rules as an RPG, but I think it could. Why does improving your baking skills have to be so boring? Hell, I half wish that someone would have the cojones to design a MMO game with no levelling at all. Just design your character and play. Then the designers could stop worrying about how many hours of clicking it should take weaponsmiths to reach the next sub-level of gun-barrel-making and focus on providing players with things to do that are actually fun.
Yeah, I said the "F" word. But MMORPGs really need a big ol' booster shot of fun, so Tom can bite me.
;)
{Whispers}... Player-based and not Character-based!
Player-based skill. Think about real life. Is real life a levelling grind? Or is it a combination of skill, talent, and experience?
Puzzle Pirates... how good you are at swordfighting is a matter of the quality of your sword and YOUR SKILL at the game. You don't go through a level grind to get better at the game (there are skill levels inexplicably, although I don't know what they do), although additional experience at playing the game and *training* from good players helps. Your *character* is irrelevant... its YOU playing the game.
The basic mistake is to have Role-playing in the game. Thus the need for Characters... for a separation between the player and his character.
Replace Characters with Avatars. Its YOU playing the game, guiding your Avatar around. Its a matter of Doom or Duke Nukem instead of Morrowind. Possession instead of The Guiding Hand.
How well you do in the game should be a matter of how effective YOU are in the game... not how effective your character is. Puzzle Pirates executes this by means of skill games within the game. Other ways to execute this can be devised as well.
Take a look at a Warcraft ladder. Its pure ability. Players compete against each other... there is no levelling grind. The winners move up, the losers move down. Experience helps, skill helps, talent helps, etc. There are no Characters.
Lets say I'm walking down a street in an Autoduel-inspired MMOG. I can try to carjack someone. I can walk into the AADA office to get a courier, guard, or construction mission, I can apply for a job in the FBI, etc. Its ME doing these things... not a character. My avatar does them.
How well I do at the guard mission is based on luck (how effective an attack occurs), my skill at car combat, the quality of my car, the skill of my fellow guards, etc. All skill is WITHIN THE GAMEPLAY, and not based on a superstructure called a "character skill level".
When you shoot a monster in Doom, does the game check a "character skill level" to determine if you hit? No... fuck that! Its YOUR skill that determines it.
I think Caryn did a much better job explaining things than I did, or could have. Crafting isn't a big thing for me (though I did have fun figuring out which combinations of experimentations would make good weapon upgrades - evidently with many items the quality level you select can offer markedly different traits and the highest isn't always the best). Combat isn't a big thing for me, on its own merits, either although next to roleplaying (and running around planets on foot) it's the thing that takes up most of my time. And you know what, when my character needs food he'll find someone that likes crafting food to get what he needs. When he needs backup to hunt big game or deal with a dangerous location he'll hire a few 'rat bashers' as retainers.
I don't think I see much in there to disagree with. I've been saying the grind sucks and gameplay (immersion through simulation and coding with an eye to psychology to me or maybe an aspect of what Koster calls impositional design) should be enhanced since the beginning of time. I remember arguing with folks all the time on the old CGM boards when I called for this. I don't know if I'd hold up Planetside as a model for what SWG 'should have been' though, admittedly I haven't played it. I can't imagine anyone simmering down long enough to actually roleplay. I can't see what folks that like crafting or politics would get out of that. It's just not, IMHO, a good baseline for creating societies and the pressures that move them and MMORPGs are online societies. But you have to create environments people other than Sgt. Rock and Ghengis Khan can relate to if you want a more interesting, subtle, place to live.
That said, a little Rock n' Khan you end up with zero drama and The Sims Online instead.
I'll bet that when PvP does include the holding of territory and the building of bases the battles around Vagabond's Rest are going to mean a whole lot more to the players there (and characters) with their variety of reactions to the mayhem than battles on Planetside mean to the players there. Much more to work with as a roleplayer. More interesting inter-personal dynamics not only inspired by, but to an extent, inflicted by the hardcoded systems.
The problem with going that route is that it makes it difficult for people to roleplay a character with very different skills. I might want to play SWG as a Han Solo-type, but if I don't have good twitch skills (for shooting and piloting), I'm out of luck. Guess I'll have to play a Space Lawyer or something. IMO, there's room for both types of games. I like games that are entirely (or mostly) dependent on player skill, like PlanetSide and Warcraft. But for some types of games, particularly role-playing games where I'm trying to slip into an alter-ego, I prefer it to be more dependent on character skill. It doesn't have to be ALL character skill (like EQ is); I prefer a mixture, so that I feel like I am adding something to what goes on (particularly in combat). DAOC was going in the right direction with combat, I thought--your character skills made a big difference in what you can do (how well you hit, whether you can cast spells, what special abilities you have access to), but there was a measure of player skill required as well (deciding what specials to use, trying to use triggered specials and chain combos where appropriate, balancing how much stamina to keep in reserve for possible flight, etc.).
I'm also not too keen on Ben's idea of no advancement. I like feeling as if my character has a story arc; that he's grown better and more powerful since I started. Although I'm not in favor of fighting rats and garden snakes to start, I do like the idea of starting out fighting lesser monsters, and working your way up to fighting giants and dragons. If a game came out where your character didn't grow or change at all, I would miss that aspect.
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