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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
What kind of bussiness?
Maybe he has little time for AoC?
Yes. The process and related disciplines
I hope my suggestions are not censored
Yep definitely, reading your post made it even more clear, predictable negligence of reality for personal opinion. Truly meaningless.
Aren't we all sinners?
i feel like the forums have become meaningless.
It is def kind of crazy. So many threads that say the same thing. So many people just spewing crap off topic. I am not a fan of overmoderation but I think they could use a little crowd control about now.
We should be able to loot the likes when we win debates!
Pfft! People would ask for full loot debates!
Anyone remember Ultima Online 2? Richard Garriots failed SoTA? Redfall? You can make lots of arguments as to why they all failed but they were all lead by people with experience in the industry.
All I am seeing is very cynical people with a desire to see the project fail. Who deal in absolutes and have 0 foresight. Unwilling to accept, whether it's ego or they feel threatened, can't accept that this guy might do the job better and having experience in the industry might help him more then hurt him.
Try not to get too prickly guys. You think back on it later and it's like ehh that was kinda cringe. I've been there. It's ok though, it means you're human.
Kinda but if I ever need to know Dygz' bartle score I know where to look.
Yep. I'm more interested in the ideas of indie dev gamers than the AAA heavyweights. It's a cycle. Growth, stagnation, rebirth. We are in stagnation. Rebirth is on the horizon. The empire will strike back though. We'll see what they have up their sleeve to ward off these rebirth upstarts. In the meantime, hold the line Steven, don't fold to any one lobby.
There's been a Skafftaruss sighting in a youtube comments section in which he declares himself a casual. Just fyi for those who care.
Someone said it's a design philosophy.
And my response was that is not a game design philosphy. That is a term that a gamer with a bias uses as a pejorative.
I actually have studied game design theory. Particpation trophy was not a game design philosphy then.
I was a game dev at Activision for 10 years. I don't recall "participation trophy" ever being used as a design philosophy.
But... I'm old. Things change. So I asked some of my pals who are currently game designers and game devs on MMOs if they had ever heard "participation trophy" used in discussions about game development and they said no.
"Participation trophy" is not a concept Steven learned from studying game design theory.
It's not a philosphy experienced game devs use when they create games.
"Participation trophy" is a concept that Steven uses to help describe his disdain as a gamer for MMOs that do not have enough risk v reward to satisfy his adrenaline rush.
This is a term that would be used by a gamer who has enough cash to fund the creation of an MMO that will wonderfully reflect his playstyle.
I don’t think that’s a niche concept. WoW raiders and rated pvpers have had a chip on their shoulder for over a decade about ‘welfare epics,’ even when their efforts rewarded them with higher tier purples.
The people at the pve frontier can keep farming newest rare mobs with their super rare drops, while everyone else can go up in gear tiers to the previous top lvls because it's now easier to do so.
What is "Participation trophy"?
Reward for taking part in an event?
Sounds like 'daylies' where you login, find some random player doing it, you hit the boss once and you get the reward too.
In Diablo 4 I even pickup gold when some random killed NPC's nearby and sometime the game shows a legendary which I missed in a special tab in town, definitely not participated in killing that NPC.
Taking our likes via non consensual interaction feels bad. They deserve more than corruption. Steven protect us!
Let's say one of those icky casuals spends weeks or months farming and grinding to earn something in the game and one of those /footstomp HARDCORE! /jazzhands players gets the same item in a few hours riding on the coattails of a giant guild. Which of those players actually got the participation trophy and which earned the item?
Everyone who bangs on the mob gets a spray of loot. I think an individual player gets more and better loot the more they contributed to the defeat, but everyone gets some loot if just from one hit.
Diablo IV is also a bit "loot pinata".
It feels a bit different than participation trophy in some cases - but, yeah... for example (I think they are called World Events?) you might still gain access to the final treasure chest that pops up at the end of the World Event just for being in the vicinity - even if you barely participated.
Some players like it some hate it.
What's your stance on it?
Maybe the concept is too simple to call it a game design element but rather a rewarding strategy.
Fear of loosing a potential gain.
Steven uses it too with the corruption: if you fight back you get half of what your opponent would get, if you wouldn't participate.
Forum PvP because you wont find most of these bums living in the smoke.
I think we need to look at the word innovation and I might see a bit as to why it seems that there is so little innovation in the games development industry, sometimes.
I am going to give some advice I was given a long time ago in a round about way.
An old construction foreman was arguing with the the safety officer, who was also a journeyman carpenter for 20 years.
The line I heard was " I've been doing this for 30 years, who are you to tell me how to do my job?!"
Safety Officer "Well I'm sorry to tell you this Frank but you've been doing it wrong for 30 years"
I never wanted to be the guy that was doing it wrong for 30 years and it's served me very well in my professional career. I have had a lot of people tell me how to do my job and I have discovered there's a lot of Franks out there.
There are employees that I am sure have been working at Activision/Blizzard for 20+ years. It does not give them any copyright on game development and how to make them.
You are also not allowed to tell people what other people's intentions are when they use phrases or words.
Participation trophy in my mind refers to having things in the game that aren't achievable for everyone. In life not all things, no matter how hard you try will be achievable. UO, not every one got a castle or boat. Asheron's Call,not everyone got to be a Guild leader with massive experience gains. It might not have been talked about it but it still existed.
Maybe there should be a little less"this is the way" and little more "what new ideas can you bring to the table"
Like achieving owning a nice looking sword (because is a legendary one).
But that achievement seems easy to obtain also by buying some cosmetics these days. That was the inovation from the sales department.
A PvX game sounds a good idea to me, wether is inovation or not.
As you say, better than doing what others did the last 20 years.
I understand what Steven implies when he talks about participation trophies. I don't consider there to be a "participation trophy side".
2: In Ashes, I think that the primary reason to kill the World Boss Winter Dragon is to end the perpetual Winter that will continue to ravage the region until the Winter Dragon is killed. And, the reward that truly matters is the end of the perpetual Winter. Would I like to at least get one measely Dragon Scale as a memento for doing some damage or contributing to the Dragon's demise in some small way? Sure.
But, I'm not particularly motivated by Risk or Reward.
Heck - in EQ2, my main character was still only wearing starting rags at Level 80. Gear score was only improved by Jewelry Crafted by an alt. And weapon upgrades.
MMORPG players tend to use the term min/max when they truly mean max to meta.
I'm an old school RPer who likes to have my characters have flaws as well as strengths, so I don't need to have a bunch of uber trophies and all maxed gear. I like it best when my characters also portray some mins.
Instead of an obsession with Risk v Reward - which is more likely to disincentivize me to PvP - I could possibly be motivated to PvP by Meaningful Conflict.
I plan to discuss this on The Ashen Forge Sunday, Jul 23 w/ @NiKr .
3: I am a Casual Challenge player and non-competitive. So, I'm not really going to enjoy competing with other players for any reward. But, that doesn't mean that I need "trophies". If you toss me a bunch of loot, I will probably take it, sure.
I like winter. Why everyone wants to kill the dragons?
That deserves punishment.
The main problem of Participation Trophies is that they diminish the value, importance and meaning of competition basically killing it and i'm not even going to dive into the Narcissism it promotes nor its cheap false sense of motivation as those are quite self-evident...
There is reason behind it being considered pejorative by many people, some call it loser's prize and some are even offended when offered it.
Aren't we all sinners?
1. I'd say AoC isn't "anything" at the moment, because there is no released game yet
2. MMO's are already a narrow niche. Why? Because people's attention span is getting shorter (ages ago we were reading blog posts, then tweets, then youtube came along because we weren't interested in reading anymore, then youtube started promoting shorter forms, meanwhile instagram had us just scrolling pictures and tiktok is something between instagram and youtube). What's "better" business-wise in other types of games? The idea of a "session" for dopamine spike. In shooters, matches are shorter, in Moba's you have a pre-set timeframe and mobile games are all about dopamine and short sessions while MMO's are generally time-wasting machines where you dont get the spike as quick (In my opinion GW2 is so popular because it gives you easy access to all types of content without the need to level or even grind items and this is the future).
3. WoW Hardcore and Classic aren't "seeing a trend" in my opinion, they are just reskins of the same game, pretending to be something new. Activision is just milking older Blizzard titles, WoW/Warcraft/Diablo, all are getting remastered versions, which are nothing new, just a reskinned content for the new generation of gamers. It's the same with CoD games, they just release a "new" game every other year, which is just a tiny bit different, yet people get that dopamine rush from playing a "new" game.
Very much looking forward to hearing this.