http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7441
as they stand packers are useless maybe if we get enough votes devs may do something about it may not but we can only try =/
please vote :P
Re: please vote :P
Its a lot more realistic plus you can still use your items from your packer to craft when your far away from the stable. I think this should be changed too, so you need your packer near you to use or store any item. One of the thing that attracted me in Ryzom is that the Devs wanted to make a realistic game and I think the packers should respect that. I keep my packer in one place and go there when my inventory is full. You can always use teleports (cheap and fast, most of us are rich and dont know what do to with our money anyway).
People will always complain when you take away their candy, even if they shouldnt have got it in the first place.... thats one of the biggest mistake Nevrax made; giving too much "illegal" candy and having to take those back to persue their vision.
Do you remember a certain post with an essay by Richard Bartle, he was talking about poor design decision and about player request ? This would be a poor design decision.
I decided to repost it : There was an essay written by Richard Bartle (one of the inventors of MUD/MUSE code, game developer, creator of the famed "Bartle Test") on this subject that was posted on the UK forum here (SoR) that was absolutely fascinating.
__________________________________________________ ____________
Introduction
Virtual worlds are being designed by know-nothing newbies, and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it. I don't mean newbie designers, I mean newbie players - first timers. They're dictating design through a twisted "survival of the not-quite-fittest" form of natural selection that will lead to a long-term decay in quality, guaranteed. If you think some of today's offerings are garbage, just you wait?
Yeah, yeah, you want some justification for this assertion. Even though I'm in Soapbox mode, I can see that, so I will explain - only not just yet. First, I'm going to make four general points that I can string together to build my case. Bear with me on this?
The Newbie Stream
Here's a quote from Victorian author Charles Dickens:
Annual income £20/-/-, annual expenditure £19/19/6, result happiness.
Annual income £20/-/-, annual expenditure £20/-/6, result misery.
Annual income £0, annual expenditure £20,000,000, result There.com.
OK, so maybe he didn't actually write that last line.
What Dickens was actually saying is that, so long as you don't lose more than you gain, things are good. In our particular case, we're not talking olde English money, we're talking newbies, although ultimately, the two amount to one and the same thing.
Now I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news, people, but here goes anyway: even for the most compelling of virtual worlds, players will eventually leave. Don't blame me, I didn't invent reality.
If oldbies leave, newbies are needed to replace them. The newbies must arrive at the same rate (or better) than the oldbies leave; otherwise, the population of the virtual world will decline until eventually no-one will be left to play it.
Point #1:Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies
Newbie Preconceptions
Another quote, this time from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams:
If we build it, they will come.
Well, maybe if you're an Iowa corn farmer who hears voices inside your head telling you to construct a baseball stadium, but otherwise?
A virtual world can be fully functioning and free of bugs, but still be pretty well devoid of players. There are plenty of non-gameplay reasons why this could happen, but I'm going to focus on the most basic: lack of appeal. Some virtual worlds just aren't attractive to newbies. There are some wonderfully original, joyous virtual worlds out there. They're exquisitely balanced, rich in depth, abundant in breadth, alive with subtleties, and full of wise, interesting, fun people who engender an atmosphere of mystique and marvel without compare. Newbies would love these virtual worlds, but they're not going to play them.
Why not? Because they're all text. Newbies don't do text.
Newbies come to virtual worlds with a set of preconceptions acquired from other virtual worlds; or, failing that, from other computer games; or, failing that, from gut instinct. They will not consider virtual worlds that confront these expectations if there are others around that don't.
Put another way, if a virtual world has a feature that offends newbies, the developers will have to remove that feature or they won't get any newbies. This is irrespective of what the oldbies think: they may adore a feature, but if newbies don't like it then (under point #1) eventually there won't be anyone left to adore it.
Point #2:Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like.
Not-So-Newbies
Here's another quote (kind of), from a private study of 1,100 players by the Themis Group. Themis's researchers asked veterans of 3 or more virtual worlds how many months they'd spent in their first one and how many months they'd spent in their second one. Dividing the second figure by the first, we get these averages for time spent in the second virtual world compared to the first:
EverQuest 80%
Ultima Online 70%
Asheron's Call 70%
Dark Age of Camelot 55%
Anarchy Online 55%
Players spend considerably less time in their second virtual world than they do in their first. Why is this?
Well, the first virtual world that someone gets into is very special to them. It's a magical, enchanting, never-to-be-repeated experience. You thought it was only you who looked back wistfully on your early days like that? Nah, it's everyone.
This has consequences. There used to be a virtual world called NeverWinter Nights, unrelated to the BioWare RPG, on AOL. When it was closed down, its refugees descended on Meridian 59. They immediately wanted M59 to incorporate every piece of NWN functionality that they could remember.
In general, players view all their subsequent virtual worlds in the light cast from their first one. They will demand that features from their first world be added to their current world, even if those very features were partly responsible for why they left the first world. They'll say they hate treadmills, but if their first experience was in a virtual world with treadmills, then they'll gravitate towards other virtual worlds with treadmills, all the while still hating them.
There's a long explanation for this, to do with the search for identity, which I won't delve into here because you only need to know that players do behave this way, not why (that's a different rant). Read my book (Designing Virtual Worlds) if you want the full story.
Point #3
layers judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.
Short-Termism
No quote this time.
When a virtual world changes (as it must), all but its most experienced players will consider the change on its short-term merits only. They look at how the change affects them, personally, right now. They will only make mention of possible long-term effects to help buttress a short-termist argument. They don't care that things will be majorly better for them later if things are minorly worse for them today - it's only the now that matters.
Why is this? I've no idea. Well, I do have an idea, but not one I can back up, so I'll keep quiet about it. The fact is, players do behave like this all the time, and it would only take a cursory scan of any forum after patch day for you to convince yourself, if you don't believe me.
This short-termist attitude has two outcomes. Firstly, something short-term good but long-term bad is hard for developers to remove, because players are mainly in favor of it. Secondly, something short-term bad but long-term good is hard to keep because players are mainly not in favor of it.
Design that is short-term good but long-term bad I call "poor". Virtual worlds are primarily a mixture of good and poor design, because the other two possibilities (outright bad and short-term bad, long-term good) either aren't implemented or are swiftly removed. Good design keeps players; poor design drives them away (when the short term becomes the long term and the game becomes unfun).
Point #4:Many players will think some poor design choices are good.
Summary
OK, so we now have the four points I need to launch into my tirade. These are:
Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies
Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like.
Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.
Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are good.
I can now construct a line of reasoning that supports my initial assertion.
The Newbie Induction
Under point #4, players will eventually quit a virtual world that has poor features. Under point #3, however, they won't necessarily recognize that a feature which caused them to leave was indeed poor. Under point #2, they won't play those virtual worlds that lack this feature. Under point #1, those virtual worlds that do lack the feature - that is, those with the better design - will die through dearth of newbies. Any absolute newbies, for whom this is their first virtual world, will be educated to believe that this is how things are meant to be, thus starting the whole cycle again. Q.E.D.
The normal rules of evolution by which computer games operate propagate good design genes from one to the next. Each generation of game takes the best mutations from the previous generation and adds to them.
Virtual worlds also propagate good genes, but they propagate poor ones more readily. The best virtual worlds don't pass their design genes around much because of their high retention rate: "Why would I quit when what I want is right here?". Poor design genes cause players to leave sooner, so it's these features that wind up being must-haves for the next generation of products. This leads to a bizarre situation: for a new virtual world to succeed, it has to have the same features that caused its antecedents to fail..!
You're not convinced, huh? OK, here are two of examples of the theory in action, one old and one new.
Example 1 (Old): Permanent Death
If characters that died stayed dead, it would open up all kinds of very convenient doors for virtual world design:
It prevents early-adopter players from gaining an iron grip on positions of power.
It re-uses content effectively, because players view same-level encounters from different angles using different characters.
It's the default fiction for real life.
It promotes role-play, because players aren't stuck with the same, tired old character the whole time.
It validates players' sense of achievement, because a high-level character means a high-level player is behind it.
Many designers and experienced players would love to see a form of PD in their virtual world, but it's not going to happen. Newbies wouldn't play such a game (under points #2, #3 and #4), therefore eventually neither would anyone else (point #1).
PD is short-term bad, long-term good: rejected.
Example 2 (new): Instancing
Instancing looks very appealing on the face of it: groups of friends can play together without interference in relative tranquillity. What's not to love?
The thing is, this is not what virtual worlds are about. How can you have any impact on a world if you're only using it as a portal to a first-person shooter? How do you interact with people if they're battened down in an inaccessible pocket universe? Where's the sense of achievement, of making a difference, of being someone?
Most players don't see it that way, though.
Newbies see it as familiar - "fantasy Counterstrike, cool!" (point #2). They don't know what it means for their long-term enjoyment (point #4). Of course, they eventually will learn what it means - boredom and disenchantment - but even so, they probably won't connect the effect with the cause. They'll just go looking for another virtual world that features instancing (point #3). Older-era players will perhaps initially avoid anything with instancing because their first love didn't have it (point #3), but they'll probably try it eventually because (point #4) hey, maybe it's that missing piece that will give them the sense of closure they crave?
Thus, instancing will get locked into the paradigm. New virtual worlds that don't have it will get fewer players than those that do have it, even though they have the better design.
Instancing is short-term good, long-term bad: accepted.
Analysis
It's not just permanent death, it's not just instancing: it's teleportation, it's banks, it's non-drop objects - it's everything that makes sense in some contexts but not in all (or even most) contexts.
Player: You don't have teleporting! How can I rejoin my group if I miss a session?
Designer: Well gee, maybe by omitting teleportation I'm kinda dropping a hint that you can have a meaningful gaming experience, without always having to group with the same people of the same level and run a treadmill the whole time?
Player: Are you NUTS? I want to play with my friends, and I want to play with them RIGHT NOW!
Designer: But how are you ever going to make new friends? How -
Player: Are you listening? RIGHT NOW!
Designer: (Sigh)
Virtual worlds are becoming diluted by poor design decisions that can't be undone. We're getting de-evolution - our future is in effect being drawn up by newbies who (being newbies) are clueless. Regular computer games don't have this problem.
The market for regular computer games is driven by the hardcore. The hardcore finishes product faster than newbies, and therefore buys new product faster than newbies. The hardcore understands design implications better than newbies. They won't buy a game with features they can see are poor; they select games with good design genes. Because of this, games which are good are rewarded by higher sales than games which are bad.
In virtual worlds, the hardcore either wanders from one to the next, trying to recapture the experience of their first experience or they never left in the first place. Furthermore, in today's flat-fee universe, the hardcore spends the same amount of money as everyone else: developers aren't rewarded for appealing to the cognoscenti, except maybe through word of mouth that always comes with caveats (because of point #3).
Possible solutions
I'm not completely pessimistic here; there are ways the cycle can be broken, mainly by attacking points #2 and #3 (that is, by overcoming prejudices concerning what "should" be in a virtual world). Here are half a dozen hopes for the future:
Innovation. If evolution doesn't work, maybe revolution will? A virtual world different enough that it doesn't map onto players' existing experiences may attract newbies and oldbies alike. Of course, there's no guarantee that the new paradigm won't itself be short-term good, long-term bad?
Marketing. People can sometimes be persuaded to overcome their preconceptions. Even a text-based virtual world could become a monster hit if it had the right licence and was advertised to the right group of people. Unfortunately, marketing costs money.
Cross-fertilization. If no poor features are ever added, point #4 becomes redundant. How do you know that a proposed feature is genuinely good, though? Simple - there are two traditions of virtual worlds (West and East) so you cherry-pick the best ideas from the other one. You speak Korean, right?
Works of art. Virtual world design involves much craft, but at root it's art. A designer makes decisions based on how they feel things ought to be. Players will eventually pick up on the differences and play a new virtual world just because they like the designer's previous work: Raph Koster, Brad McQuaid and Richard Garriott already have more creative freedom than first-time designers. Point #3 evaporates! If only designing a virtual world didn't take so long?
Time may heal. If you wait long enough that people forget why they ever objected to something, that something can come back. Fashions change, and who knows what the newbies of 2024 will think? Good ideas will always get a second chance to enter the paradigm, it's just that "wait a quarter of your life for it to happen" thing that's a little depressing.
Growing maturity. Perhaps the best hope for the future is the growing maturity of the player base. First-time newbies will always assert the supremacy of their first virtual world, but oldbies who have been through the mill enough will realise that some of the features they've been taking for granted are actually counter-productive. If they're around in sufficient numbers, we may see virtual worlds appearing that do everything right and very little wrong, removing point #4 and leading us into a golden age. I can dream?
Conclusion
Virtual worlds are under evolutionary pressure to promote design features that, while not exactly bad, are nevertheless poor. Each succeeding generation absorbs these into the virtual world paradigm, and introduces new poor features for the next generation to take on board. The result is that virtual world design follows a downward path of not-quite-good-enough, leading ultimately to an erosion of what virtual worlds are.
Fortunately, there are a number of processes at work that have the potential to arrest this descent. Thus, although the future of virtual worlds may look disappointing, it's not completely bleak.
Besides, for the purist there will always be text MUDs.
[Author's second note: A non-Soapbox version of this hypothesis will be presented at the Other Players conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, later this year. Academics should refer to that, not to this.] -Richard Bartle
People will always complain when you take away their candy, even if they shouldnt have got it in the first place.... thats one of the biggest mistake Nevrax made; giving too much "illegal" candy and having to take those back to persue their vision.
Do you remember a certain post with an essay by Richard Bartle, he was talking about poor design decision and about player request ? This would be a poor design decision.
I decided to repost it : There was an essay written by Richard Bartle (one of the inventors of MUD/MUSE code, game developer, creator of the famed "Bartle Test") on this subject that was posted on the UK forum here (SoR) that was absolutely fascinating.
__________________________________________________ ____________
Introduction
Virtual worlds are being designed by know-nothing newbies, and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it. I don't mean newbie designers, I mean newbie players - first timers. They're dictating design through a twisted "survival of the not-quite-fittest" form of natural selection that will lead to a long-term decay in quality, guaranteed. If you think some of today's offerings are garbage, just you wait?
Yeah, yeah, you want some justification for this assertion. Even though I'm in Soapbox mode, I can see that, so I will explain - only not just yet. First, I'm going to make four general points that I can string together to build my case. Bear with me on this?
The Newbie Stream
Here's a quote from Victorian author Charles Dickens:
Annual income £20/-/-, annual expenditure £19/19/6, result happiness.
Annual income £20/-/-, annual expenditure £20/-/6, result misery.
Annual income £0, annual expenditure £20,000,000, result There.com.
OK, so maybe he didn't actually write that last line.
What Dickens was actually saying is that, so long as you don't lose more than you gain, things are good. In our particular case, we're not talking olde English money, we're talking newbies, although ultimately, the two amount to one and the same thing.
Now I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news, people, but here goes anyway: even for the most compelling of virtual worlds, players will eventually leave. Don't blame me, I didn't invent reality.
If oldbies leave, newbies are needed to replace them. The newbies must arrive at the same rate (or better) than the oldbies leave; otherwise, the population of the virtual world will decline until eventually no-one will be left to play it.
Point #1:Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies
Newbie Preconceptions
Another quote, this time from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams:
If we build it, they will come.
Well, maybe if you're an Iowa corn farmer who hears voices inside your head telling you to construct a baseball stadium, but otherwise?
A virtual world can be fully functioning and free of bugs, but still be pretty well devoid of players. There are plenty of non-gameplay reasons why this could happen, but I'm going to focus on the most basic: lack of appeal. Some virtual worlds just aren't attractive to newbies. There are some wonderfully original, joyous virtual worlds out there. They're exquisitely balanced, rich in depth, abundant in breadth, alive with subtleties, and full of wise, interesting, fun people who engender an atmosphere of mystique and marvel without compare. Newbies would love these virtual worlds, but they're not going to play them.
Why not? Because they're all text. Newbies don't do text.
Newbies come to virtual worlds with a set of preconceptions acquired from other virtual worlds; or, failing that, from other computer games; or, failing that, from gut instinct. They will not consider virtual worlds that confront these expectations if there are others around that don't.
Put another way, if a virtual world has a feature that offends newbies, the developers will have to remove that feature or they won't get any newbies. This is irrespective of what the oldbies think: they may adore a feature, but if newbies don't like it then (under point #1) eventually there won't be anyone left to adore it.
Point #2:Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like.
Not-So-Newbies
Here's another quote (kind of), from a private study of 1,100 players by the Themis Group. Themis's researchers asked veterans of 3 or more virtual worlds how many months they'd spent in their first one and how many months they'd spent in their second one. Dividing the second figure by the first, we get these averages for time spent in the second virtual world compared to the first:
EverQuest 80%
Ultima Online 70%
Asheron's Call 70%
Dark Age of Camelot 55%
Anarchy Online 55%
Players spend considerably less time in their second virtual world than they do in their first. Why is this?
Well, the first virtual world that someone gets into is very special to them. It's a magical, enchanting, never-to-be-repeated experience. You thought it was only you who looked back wistfully on your early days like that? Nah, it's everyone.
This has consequences. There used to be a virtual world called NeverWinter Nights, unrelated to the BioWare RPG, on AOL. When it was closed down, its refugees descended on Meridian 59. They immediately wanted M59 to incorporate every piece of NWN functionality that they could remember.
In general, players view all their subsequent virtual worlds in the light cast from their first one. They will demand that features from their first world be added to their current world, even if those very features were partly responsible for why they left the first world. They'll say they hate treadmills, but if their first experience was in a virtual world with treadmills, then they'll gravitate towards other virtual worlds with treadmills, all the while still hating them.
There's a long explanation for this, to do with the search for identity, which I won't delve into here because you only need to know that players do behave this way, not why (that's a different rant). Read my book (Designing Virtual Worlds) if you want the full story.
Point #3
layers judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.Short-Termism
No quote this time.
When a virtual world changes (as it must), all but its most experienced players will consider the change on its short-term merits only. They look at how the change affects them, personally, right now. They will only make mention of possible long-term effects to help buttress a short-termist argument. They don't care that things will be majorly better for them later if things are minorly worse for them today - it's only the now that matters.
Why is this? I've no idea. Well, I do have an idea, but not one I can back up, so I'll keep quiet about it. The fact is, players do behave like this all the time, and it would only take a cursory scan of any forum after patch day for you to convince yourself, if you don't believe me.
This short-termist attitude has two outcomes. Firstly, something short-term good but long-term bad is hard for developers to remove, because players are mainly in favor of it. Secondly, something short-term bad but long-term good is hard to keep because players are mainly not in favor of it.
Design that is short-term good but long-term bad I call "poor". Virtual worlds are primarily a mixture of good and poor design, because the other two possibilities (outright bad and short-term bad, long-term good) either aren't implemented or are swiftly removed. Good design keeps players; poor design drives them away (when the short term becomes the long term and the game becomes unfun).
Point #4:Many players will think some poor design choices are good.
Summary
OK, so we now have the four points I need to launch into my tirade. These are:
Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies
Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like.
Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.
Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are good.
I can now construct a line of reasoning that supports my initial assertion.
The Newbie Induction
Under point #4, players will eventually quit a virtual world that has poor features. Under point #3, however, they won't necessarily recognize that a feature which caused them to leave was indeed poor. Under point #2, they won't play those virtual worlds that lack this feature. Under point #1, those virtual worlds that do lack the feature - that is, those with the better design - will die through dearth of newbies. Any absolute newbies, for whom this is their first virtual world, will be educated to believe that this is how things are meant to be, thus starting the whole cycle again. Q.E.D.
The normal rules of evolution by which computer games operate propagate good design genes from one to the next. Each generation of game takes the best mutations from the previous generation and adds to them.
Virtual worlds also propagate good genes, but they propagate poor ones more readily. The best virtual worlds don't pass their design genes around much because of their high retention rate: "Why would I quit when what I want is right here?". Poor design genes cause players to leave sooner, so it's these features that wind up being must-haves for the next generation of products. This leads to a bizarre situation: for a new virtual world to succeed, it has to have the same features that caused its antecedents to fail..!
You're not convinced, huh? OK, here are two of examples of the theory in action, one old and one new.
Example 1 (Old): Permanent Death
If characters that died stayed dead, it would open up all kinds of very convenient doors for virtual world design:
It prevents early-adopter players from gaining an iron grip on positions of power.
It re-uses content effectively, because players view same-level encounters from different angles using different characters.
It's the default fiction for real life.
It promotes role-play, because players aren't stuck with the same, tired old character the whole time.
It validates players' sense of achievement, because a high-level character means a high-level player is behind it.
Many designers and experienced players would love to see a form of PD in their virtual world, but it's not going to happen. Newbies wouldn't play such a game (under points #2, #3 and #4), therefore eventually neither would anyone else (point #1).
PD is short-term bad, long-term good: rejected.
Example 2 (new): Instancing
Instancing looks very appealing on the face of it: groups of friends can play together without interference in relative tranquillity. What's not to love?
The thing is, this is not what virtual worlds are about. How can you have any impact on a world if you're only using it as a portal to a first-person shooter? How do you interact with people if they're battened down in an inaccessible pocket universe? Where's the sense of achievement, of making a difference, of being someone?
Most players don't see it that way, though.
Newbies see it as familiar - "fantasy Counterstrike, cool!" (point #2). They don't know what it means for their long-term enjoyment (point #4). Of course, they eventually will learn what it means - boredom and disenchantment - but even so, they probably won't connect the effect with the cause. They'll just go looking for another virtual world that features instancing (point #3). Older-era players will perhaps initially avoid anything with instancing because their first love didn't have it (point #3), but they'll probably try it eventually because (point #4) hey, maybe it's that missing piece that will give them the sense of closure they crave?
Thus, instancing will get locked into the paradigm. New virtual worlds that don't have it will get fewer players than those that do have it, even though they have the better design.
Instancing is short-term good, long-term bad: accepted.
Analysis
It's not just permanent death, it's not just instancing: it's teleportation, it's banks, it's non-drop objects - it's everything that makes sense in some contexts but not in all (or even most) contexts.
Player: You don't have teleporting! How can I rejoin my group if I miss a session?
Designer: Well gee, maybe by omitting teleportation I'm kinda dropping a hint that you can have a meaningful gaming experience, without always having to group with the same people of the same level and run a treadmill the whole time?
Player: Are you NUTS? I want to play with my friends, and I want to play with them RIGHT NOW!
Designer: But how are you ever going to make new friends? How -
Player: Are you listening? RIGHT NOW!
Designer: (Sigh)
Virtual worlds are becoming diluted by poor design decisions that can't be undone. We're getting de-evolution - our future is in effect being drawn up by newbies who (being newbies) are clueless. Regular computer games don't have this problem.
The market for regular computer games is driven by the hardcore. The hardcore finishes product faster than newbies, and therefore buys new product faster than newbies. The hardcore understands design implications better than newbies. They won't buy a game with features they can see are poor; they select games with good design genes. Because of this, games which are good are rewarded by higher sales than games which are bad.
In virtual worlds, the hardcore either wanders from one to the next, trying to recapture the experience of their first experience or they never left in the first place. Furthermore, in today's flat-fee universe, the hardcore spends the same amount of money as everyone else: developers aren't rewarded for appealing to the cognoscenti, except maybe through word of mouth that always comes with caveats (because of point #3).
Possible solutions
I'm not completely pessimistic here; there are ways the cycle can be broken, mainly by attacking points #2 and #3 (that is, by overcoming prejudices concerning what "should" be in a virtual world). Here are half a dozen hopes for the future:
Innovation. If evolution doesn't work, maybe revolution will? A virtual world different enough that it doesn't map onto players' existing experiences may attract newbies and oldbies alike. Of course, there's no guarantee that the new paradigm won't itself be short-term good, long-term bad?
Marketing. People can sometimes be persuaded to overcome their preconceptions. Even a text-based virtual world could become a monster hit if it had the right licence and was advertised to the right group of people. Unfortunately, marketing costs money.
Cross-fertilization. If no poor features are ever added, point #4 becomes redundant. How do you know that a proposed feature is genuinely good, though? Simple - there are two traditions of virtual worlds (West and East) so you cherry-pick the best ideas from the other one. You speak Korean, right?
Works of art. Virtual world design involves much craft, but at root it's art. A designer makes decisions based on how they feel things ought to be. Players will eventually pick up on the differences and play a new virtual world just because they like the designer's previous work: Raph Koster, Brad McQuaid and Richard Garriott already have more creative freedom than first-time designers. Point #3 evaporates! If only designing a virtual world didn't take so long?
Time may heal. If you wait long enough that people forget why they ever objected to something, that something can come back. Fashions change, and who knows what the newbies of 2024 will think? Good ideas will always get a second chance to enter the paradigm, it's just that "wait a quarter of your life for it to happen" thing that's a little depressing.
Growing maturity. Perhaps the best hope for the future is the growing maturity of the player base. First-time newbies will always assert the supremacy of their first virtual world, but oldbies who have been through the mill enough will realise that some of the features they've been taking for granted are actually counter-productive. If they're around in sufficient numbers, we may see virtual worlds appearing that do everything right and very little wrong, removing point #4 and leading us into a golden age. I can dream?
Conclusion
Virtual worlds are under evolutionary pressure to promote design features that, while not exactly bad, are nevertheless poor. Each succeeding generation absorbs these into the virtual world paradigm, and introduces new poor features for the next generation to take on board. The result is that virtual world design follows a downward path of not-quite-good-enough, leading ultimately to an erosion of what virtual worlds are.
Fortunately, there are a number of processes at work that have the potential to arrest this descent. Thus, although the future of virtual worlds may look disappointing, it's not completely bleak.
Besides, for the purist there will always be text MUDs.
[Author's second note: A non-Soapbox version of this hypothesis will be presented at the Other Players conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, later this year. Academics should refer to that, not to this.] -Richard Bartle
Last edited by trosky on Thu Dec 02, 2004 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: please vote :P
Well, I don't know about all that, but...
Packers should be accessed the same way you would access ANYTHING ELSE in real life. If it's not within your physical reach, you should not be able to access it. Yes, there are some things that allow us to remotely access random resources, but we're dealing with the idea of physical items. In no way should you be able to stand 20 feet away from a packer and be able to access it, let alone be in a whole other city/region/whatever.
However, staying true to the game's dynamics, packers should be able to be brought back to life, and should be able to gain levels and wear some sort of protection.
There shouldn't be an elaborate discussion about freakin' packers. Packers is something the devs should be able to govern on their own, especially if their main idea is to make them realistic. There should be a discussion about the PvP in the Prime Roots... but not this.
Packers should be accessed the same way you would access ANYTHING ELSE in real life. If it's not within your physical reach, you should not be able to access it. Yes, there are some things that allow us to remotely access random resources, but we're dealing with the idea of physical items. In no way should you be able to stand 20 feet away from a packer and be able to access it, let alone be in a whole other city/region/whatever.
However, staying true to the game's dynamics, packers should be able to be brought back to life, and should be able to gain levels and wear some sort of protection.
There shouldn't be an elaborate discussion about freakin' packers. Packers is something the devs should be able to govern on their own, especially if their main idea is to make them realistic. There should be a discussion about the PvP in the Prime Roots... but not this.
"Z"
RRA
RRA
Re: please vote :P
If the packers don't have protection will we have a lot of Zorai-Packer hybrids running around? j/k
Re: please vote :P
I also have to agree that packers should only be able to be accessed from the stable in which they are bought from. It simply doesn't make the least bit of sense that you can access them from long distances. One of the coolest things about this game is that it tends to be as realisitc as possible. Of course this does put a huge strain on players wanting to access inventory. So what can be done?
One person in another thread mentioned the introducing the ability to have a NPC teleport items back and forth to the person. Of course this does have the problem how one would teleport to a location without a Kami standing there or a Karavan teleport machine. A better idea would be if they introduced the ability to hire a NPC stable delivery person. For a fee you could hire someone to take things back and forth between you and your packer. You could hire him (or her) to go along with you on trips. When you need something you send them back to get it.
Another solution that could work would be to hire a player to run back and forth. The devs could add an option to let you give access of your packer to another player. This could even be extended to become an entire player generated mission system. You could either have a sort of job listing where people ask for messngers or you could have players create jobs asking for someone to bring specific items.
Any other ideas that might work?
One person in another thread mentioned the introducing the ability to have a NPC teleport items back and forth to the person. Of course this does have the problem how one would teleport to a location without a Kami standing there or a Karavan teleport machine. A better idea would be if they introduced the ability to hire a NPC stable delivery person. For a fee you could hire someone to take things back and forth between you and your packer. You could hire him (or her) to go along with you on trips. When you need something you send them back to get it.
Another solution that could work would be to hire a player to run back and forth. The devs could add an option to let you give access of your packer to another player. This could even be extended to become an entire player generated mission system. You could either have a sort of job listing where people ask for messngers or you could have players create jobs asking for someone to bring specific items.
Any other ideas that might work?
Re: please vote :P
The question I have is why was this change implimented. In the short term, its simply annoying. Can I deal with it. You bet. It's just one of those annoyances that I put on a list in my mind and when the game becomes more annoying for me to play than its worth my time, I leave.
Realism is great when you you have the time. Travel is one of those time consuming things that will have a lot of debate in a game. It simply wastes time. Sometimes that is important, others it is not.
I play a game to have fun, not study the realism of inventory management. If not having access to my stored inventory will have a long term benefit to the game, then tell me what it is, so I can undertand it. Maybe people having packer access was ruining the economy. I can understand that, and would be in favor of it in that case.
In the Real World I can buy as much storage as I can afford, I don't have artifical limits on how much stuff I can have. The game servers obviously do have limits, so I get 3 packers. Due to the fact that packers suck as actual moving bits of transportation, it is a defacto bank.
Realism is great when you you have the time. Travel is one of those time consuming things that will have a lot of debate in a game. It simply wastes time. Sometimes that is important, others it is not.
I play a game to have fun, not study the realism of inventory management. If not having access to my stored inventory will have a long term benefit to the game, then tell me what it is, so I can undertand it. Maybe people having packer access was ruining the economy. I can understand that, and would be in favor of it in that case.
In the Real World I can buy as much storage as I can afford, I don't have artifical limits on how much stuff I can have. The game servers obviously do have limits, so I get 3 packers. Due to the fact that packers suck as actual moving bits of transportation, it is a defacto bank.
Re: please vote :P
Well, I have one... keep it realistic, and let me buy several packers at several towns. Same with appartmentsraynes wrote:IAny other ideas that might work?
Regards,
A.
Re: please vote :P
You can't do that?iphdrunk wrote:Well, I have one... keep it realistic, and let me buy several packers at several towns. Same with appartments
Regards,
A.
Re: please vote :P
Sorry, I should have been more specific... What I meant is that I would like to buy 3 packers in yrkanis, 3 in pyr, 1 in dyron, 1 in thesos... I would agree that you should only be able to put/get things from packer and craft at the stables your packers are, but imho, inventory is slightly small for some players, including myself. I spend a few hours crafting/harvesting, and I'd be glad to have more space.raynes wrote:You can't do that?
Regards,
A.
Re: please vote :P
We all just need MORE space to store stuff!!!!!
I dont' care if I have to stand next to my packer to use it, but when I could only put four or five things on it and NOW I have to be standing next to it as well -- they just serve even less point than they did before. Or, at least, increase the size of player / guild apartments. Or better yet, allow for guild shared items from within a guild apartment; common warehouse.
I dont' care if I have to stand next to my packer to use it, but when I could only put four or five things on it and NOW I have to be standing next to it as well -- they just serve even less point than they did before. Or, at least, increase the size of player / guild apartments. Or better yet, allow for guild shared items from within a guild apartment; common warehouse.