Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Scarcity: The Greatest Source of Conflict
JamesSunderland
Member
Infinity is an illusion, Abundance is a luxury of the elites and even those will fight eachother for more.
The good old law of supply vs demand, no such a thing in this world creates more wars than the equation of extremely low supply and insanly high demand of Power in the mind of those who desire it the most.
Ah yes, Power, the potential of enforcing ones will over thing and/or people.
In the past with straight up Physical Power, in today's day and age Political Power+Economical Power backing Militaristic Power, all of them "fed" by the power source of resources and their existential scarce nature.
But how about power in video games?
When designing it incorrectly, in the hand of the player too much of it completely trivializes the challenges imposed and too little of it creates truly impossible challenges.
Thankfully decent designs aren't hard to achieve most of the time, especially in singleplayer titles, in some you even get lines starting very hard or very easy and reaching the endgame in the opposite end of the spectrum, with the power spectrum being parallel or somewhat perpendicular to it.
Lets talk a lil Ashes of Creation, no matter how you look at it, it's a game mainly revolved around PvP,
far from a singleplayer title, here you will fight whatever stands in your path towards power, be it monsters, some weird bushes and trees, your enemy players(sometimes even your "allies"?) and your ultimate challenger time itself.
Ah yes, no such a thing as immortality, time, a form of power do to the equation "Time is money and money = power".
I never really recognized the claims of people who says that "a game should respect their time", as such claim itself doesn't even make sense considering a game is not a sentient being able to demonstrate respect towards someone in the first place.
Even if i would entertain the phrase, wouldn't the game simply be an entity that "respect everyones time equaly and has no favorites"? Is the game able to respect your neighbor more even if he has the same amount of time? Tough luck.
Very low drop chances? Very high material amounts to craft?
Same difficulty for the next guy. He has more than you? Trick him, Stab him in the back and claim what you believe you deserve.
Conflict is the name of the game and yes scarcity is its greatest source.
Thank you for reading my abstract rambling.
The good old law of supply vs demand, no such a thing in this world creates more wars than the equation of extremely low supply and insanly high demand of Power in the mind of those who desire it the most.
Ah yes, Power, the potential of enforcing ones will over thing and/or people.
In the past with straight up Physical Power, in today's day and age Political Power+Economical Power backing Militaristic Power, all of them "fed" by the power source of resources and their existential scarce nature.
But how about power in video games?
When designing it incorrectly, in the hand of the player too much of it completely trivializes the challenges imposed and too little of it creates truly impossible challenges.
Thankfully decent designs aren't hard to achieve most of the time, especially in singleplayer titles, in some you even get lines starting very hard or very easy and reaching the endgame in the opposite end of the spectrum, with the power spectrum being parallel or somewhat perpendicular to it.
Lets talk a lil Ashes of Creation, no matter how you look at it, it's a game mainly revolved around PvP,
far from a singleplayer title, here you will fight whatever stands in your path towards power, be it monsters, some weird bushes and trees, your enemy players(sometimes even your "allies"?) and your ultimate challenger time itself.
Ah yes, no such a thing as immortality, time, a form of power do to the equation "Time is money and money = power".
I never really recognized the claims of people who says that "a game should respect their time", as such claim itself doesn't even make sense considering a game is not a sentient being able to demonstrate respect towards someone in the first place.
Even if i would entertain the phrase, wouldn't the game simply be an entity that "respect everyones time equaly and has no favorites"? Is the game able to respect your neighbor more even if he has the same amount of time? Tough luck.
Very low drop chances? Very high material amounts to craft?
Same difficulty for the next guy. He has more than you? Trick him, Stab him in the back and claim what you believe you deserve.
Conflict is the name of the game and yes scarcity is its greatest source.
Thank you for reading my abstract rambling.
Aren't we all sinners?
Would you tell me for whom the bell tolls?
2
Comments
They understand how unfair it was for everyone else when THEY were young and had a ton of free time, so now they're trying to make it "fair" by asking for massive returns on tiny investments and as little risk as possible, cause risk = lost time, which doesn't respect the player with 3 families, 10 dogs and 2.5 jobs.
Ultimately it's all about self-centeredness. "The game has to appeal TO MEEEE, no matter what my life situation is. And if it doesn't appeal to me then it's not respecting my time! And no, I will not just leave it alone and go do smth that does appeal to me!"
I have always wanted an MMO (or any other game) to respect my time. It has never mattered how much time I have, if i chose to spend that playing a given game, I expect that gsme to respect this.
To me, respecting time is multi-faceted, but the most important aspect is consistency. If the game tells me offers me a deal of a specific amount of time for a specific amount of progress, that is respecting my time - as it is giving me the choice of spending thst amount of time or not.
When the game offers a specific amount of time for an unspecified amount of progression, that is no longer respecting my time.
There is obviously also the notion of being successful or failing at a given task that needs to be taken in to account here.
A game that hands things to players too easily can be just as disrespectful of players time as a game that doesn't reward time and effort.
@JamesSunderland when people say the game should respect their time, they are talking about the games design, which is a product of the games developers. Stating it is the game that should respect their time is an easier way of conveying that notion and you are the first person I have seen in two decades that questioned that (take that as a negative or positive if you like).
Such consistency would require 0 RNG involved, which usually leads to extremely monotonous/repetitive patterns, certainly not a big fan of that but well, to each their own.
Such "respect" asked for is nothing more than an imposition of will using the word "respect" as a moral shield.
Don't like the amount of time required to achieve something in the game? Oh the game does not respect my time.
Instead of simple saying its a dislike like anyother one have, one gives it the qualitative of lack of respect towards oneself for cheap emphasis as disrespect is considered an injustice.
Aren't we all sinners?
Would you tell me for whom the bell tolls?
It is also a good idea to add a failsafe to RNG.
You are making this statement as if you are unaware that developers make games knowing how long it will take players to complete a given activity. If you are spending 20 hours on a given task, it is probably because the developers designed that task to take you 20 hours. If you spend 40 hours on that same task while someone else completes it in 2 hours is also something the developers knew would happen. They specifically made design decisions to allow for those things to be the case.
If I go to the DMV or some such to get something done, and someone else also comes at the same time to get the same thing done, if the DMV spends 2 hours to get them done but takes 40 hours to get me done - and I am expected to wait there the entire time, that is very much the DMV disrespecting my time.
It is no different in many MMORPG's. Stating it is a matter of respect of ones time is absolutely valid. If you don't agree, I can only assume you don't value your time very highly.
Oh i see, so the consistency you wrote about isn't truly the most important aspect, is it...?
Not at all, the decision for the design being in the hands of the Devs is what makes the responsibility and intention of the design imparcial, even for an example as ludicrous as the one you provided.
For "Respect" to ever be a proper word in this lame wordplay, it would require something even more ludicrous like imputing actual intention of disrespect from the devs towards targetered types of players
(on an almost personal level).
I can only assume you woudn't be that unreasonable, right?
Aren't we all sinners?
Would you tell me for whom the bell tolls?
In Japan, for example, it is considered disrespectful to enter a home with your shoes on. You not knowing that and so walking in to a house without removing them is still disrespectful, even though you didn't know.
You are focusing in on a VERY specific singular use of the notion of respect and disrespect. You should probably not do that - it is a wider term than you seem to be aware of.
Sure if you're a child still learning the social dogma of what respect implies in your society.
But going from a personal "expectancy of respect" to a pre-established cultural one?
Come one Nooani i know your examples can fall short but i expected more.
At that point the mere feeling of being disrespect would have to be counted as actual disrespect.
What's the next burden to be put on the disrespectful Devs Nooani?
"The Game doesn't respect my knowledge."
"The Game doesn't respect my strategy."
"The Game doesn't respect my skill."
Git Gud?
Aren't we all sinners?
Would you tell me for whom the bell tolls?
This makes me wonder what the problem is.
Like you say that a game respects or disrespects your time, but its so for everyone. If it was a P2W game, then i would understand your concern, but for game with no payments, the "respect/disrespect" is same for everyone.
So if you need 37 hours to craft 1 item, its same for everyone else.
So as long as the game is fun, and it doesnt make you think: "after i get this item i will have fun with the game" Or "After i get to lvl 50 the game will become better" and stuff like this - and instead you are just having fun doing whatever you are doing at the current moment - then for me the game will be respecting your time, even if you have to grind or whatever
you seem too focused on the end result, and for me the journey to this end result is as much important as the reward itself
I promise i don't want "everything"
This is a very interesting point of View. Funnily back then when i was around 20 Years and played WoW Vanilla, i never had the Impression that i was advantaged over all the other Players
( fxxxing PvP Honor Level Ranks. It was IN~SANE~LY HARD to get to like Rank 11 so i had the "Blue PvP-Set" complete. The Pain in the butt to farm that was immense. )
I think i get it - but i bet i might assume the wrong People addressed.
* Thinking of People who want the Game only centered around a certain Type of Content which they love to play. Differenes between PvP and PvE for Example *
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
I am in the guildless Guild so to say, lol. But i won't give up. I will find my fitting Guild "one Day".
Passively camping name mob spawns in its current form is just dull.
When it comes to crafting materials in general, I was in a conflict with a player over a gathering node precisely once, and mainly because I initiated it. For no other reason than to wake up on a Saturday morning. I couldn't care less about that resource node.
Blown past falling sands…
It is Steven unintentionally persuading time constraints players that were playing MMO's 20 years ago when they were students now have when they are adults, with much greater responsibilities.
That is ehat Stevens target market is for this game - people that played MMO's to death in the early 2000's. The time constraints these people jow have are different from what they were, and people wanting Steven to respect that.
This is not rocket science my dude.
I am 100% focused on the end result.
However, the enjoyment had during the journey is a part of that end result, as the end result is compound in nature and encompasses everything gained. Enjoyment gained along the way is still something gained, and so is still a part of the end result of everything gained.
What games you currently play (other than AOC)? Got curious to see what you enjoy playing with this mindset.
Steven truly is quite the disrespectful fellow isn't he?
And to think he is still trying to learn this crazy brand new "cultural norm that is here today",
Maybe the respectful path is to go for the ADHD Zoomer Adderal Brain Lightning fast attention span style.
Who knows, maybe that's the way he will appease his target market and playerbase majority.
Aren't we all sinners?
Would you tell me for whom the bell tolls?
No need for apologies mate, you are free to imagine whatever you want.
That's something i agree with you.
The current value gap between named and unnamed mobs and their distribution is most likely incorrect and incentivises that. The correct value proposition should be around rooms with diversified mobs
(bonus points for RNG variations of said mobs like double/triple spawns and stronger version spawns),
each with something uniquely important or just generaly better than average to stand out,
for a constant rotation and top spot domination mentality instead of a spawn camping one.
That's even more motivation than expected, that's the true gatherer's mentality mate,
gathering as a means to an objective, instead of an objective in of itself.
Aren't we all sinners?
Would you tell me for whom the bell tolls?
Or you could read what I typed that has nothing at all to do with any of what you just said.
The absolutely stupidist thing here is that your position towards other posters in this thread is the same as mine. You want the developer to respect your time, you talk about that in the post above this one in relation to your dislike of camping mob spawns.
Your entire notion of developers setting up the spawn location for these mobs is literally the developer providing you with entertainment - or respecting your time.
Developers setting up a mob spawn that players have specific need to kill in a manner where there is a multi-hour camp with nothing else to do is a purposeful decision from that developer, and they know full well the results of that will be players sitting there doing nothing for hours on end. They feel that is an appropriate way for us to use our time - and that is disrespectful of said time.
Put another way, you seem to have entered in to an argument here without actually understanding what it is you are arguing against.
Respecting players time doesn't mean giving rewards faster - that seems to just be an assumption that you have made, for some reason that I simply can not understand.
What it means is not wasting players time. We play games as entertainment, an expectation to be entertained while performing tasks said game asks of us should not be a controversial take. You are arguing against that with me, yet are asking for that while in discussion with other posters.
Perhaps you should just stop taking the position of arguing against what ever it is that I am typing - because this is not the first time you have done this, it's just the first time I've bothered pointing it out to you.
It always amazes me how much you try so hard to deflect from the main point yet fails miserably every single time.
Almost like you "could read what I typed that has nothing at all to do with any of what you just said."
Always playing arounds with the semantics game, arguing for the sake of arguing as the first responder here.
It's like you are almost unable to understand what you've read in the original post that there is not a drop of logic in the claim "X game should Respect my time" you simply dislike the time patterns, which the next person might not, and the game is the same for you, as it is for the next guy, too bad you didn't had your way, move on?
It doesn't goddamn owe you or me that elusive abstract personal "time respect".
One can definitely point out specific logical design improvements that benefits actual game concepts,
but just saying "the game doesn't respect your time?" Could one ever be more pathetically self-centered in their possible "opinion" or "feedback"?
The Hypocrisy is palpable.
Aren't we all sinners?
Would you tell me for whom the bell tolls?
I mean, how dare someone want people to know what they mean when they use words and shit, right?
Like, why is that a thing that would be considered bad?
You very clearly didn't (and still don't) have a clue what it is you are raging about here, and you want to claim it is a bad thing for someone to come along and clear it up for you.
Fuck off with that, my dude.
And yet you feel it is valid for you to suggest how spawn camping should go.
It is literally the same argument I am making, yet you claim you can make it and I can not - and then you call me the hypocraite.
Fuck off with that as well, my dude.