Avoid, avoid. You perform super-repetative activities (usually monster killing) in order to increase your ranking vs other players. What you will eventually learn is that the top-ranked players are simply the ones that spend the most time playing - very little skill is involved. Why do you want to prove that you are a better player than some 12 year old kid who can play 16 hours a day during his summer vacation? Someone eventaully made a joke program to illustrate this point:
http://progressquest.com/pq.html
I never played the graphical MMORGS but I played a few MUDs, which were the text-based precursors to them. After the novelty of killing monsters wore off, I'd usually end up chatting with other people online. Eventually it became more of a chat-room than anything else - something to do in the computer lab in between classes.
― fletrejet, Tuesday, 15 April 2003 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)
Theres a semi-famous story about a guy who played Everquest who died (like, actually died). Some of his online buddies held an in-game funeral for him. I've been trying to find a link but I can't. There's a screenshot of about 20 or so characters stood around in a respectful circle. I'm not sure if that's wierd or creepy or touching or what.
What really shows the main thrust of online gaming is the fact that about 2 seconds after the screenshot was taken a random stranger came along and attacked all the characters taking part in the funeral.
Online gaming is at an interesting but frustrating stage. There are a lot of problems. Most of which revolve around the fact that when you jump into a random public server it's like agreeing to play a game of football with a group of completely random people plucked from anywhere. Oh and most of them will be kids. And I'm not talking about age.
The problem with RPG's is that everyone is the hero. Crowd scenes are impossible. I ran a Neverwinter Nights server with a couple of friends and it was very hard finding players who actually roleplayed. Most just wanted to hack and slash and get overpowered characters, even though it was supposed to be even less of a combat based game than even Everquest. I was really hoping for an old school AD&D not-very-serious mostly dialogue based thing. We ended up having to make Town Guard NPC's who were invulnerable and attacked any one of the many players who appeared on our server and immediately started beating up everything in sight. They even wailed on the chickens, bastards.
The few times we got a small band of people who were happy to talk to each other and interact with us as DM's it was great fun. Online RPG's have possibilites, I imagine a group of old pen and paper roleplayers would find Neverwinter Nights great. It's all about finding the right players and a bit of prep. The problem with doing it within a game is your are limited by what the game can do and what characters, settings and items you've prepared beforehand. There was a breed of arsey player who would try and ask for impossible things to happen all the time.
The best session we had was when myself and Jim were DM'ing on our server. We designed our own little town complete with shops, bars and houses with little adventures for people to do dotted around (they're like a choose-you-own-adventure, you script little dialogue-trees for NPC's, a certain item triggers the next bit of dialogue, players have to go and hack down nasties on interact with other characters to get the item - it means theres something for players to do when you're not there DM'ing).
As a DM in Neverwinter you run around as an invisible character who can take control of any NPC at the touch of a button, make any monster appear, place any item (You have to pre-prepare any custom stuff though). You are God with a very awkward interface to get to grips with.
We waited by the entrance and started talking through some Guards at a few players who joined. We had no plot prepared, we were just winging it. Devoid of inspiration we told everyone to go to the pub. They get there and one goes "What's that noise?". Muggins here who had never really done any of this game designing stuff before had put the wrong ambient sound in the pub. You walked in and there was this terrible ghostly wail. Off the cuff I said "It's the chef's mad brother. He lives in the roof". The players took the moral highground and denounced this as cruel (cue 10xp each for good roleplaying).
So we quickly create the mad brother NPC and the Chef and get into an arguement. We take them elsewhere and later on make the brother re-appear saying he's been poisoned by the chef. Off the players go through our little woods to the rangers house, pointed there by more NPC's, to get the antidote. A few fights and a comedy ranger scene later they get it.
Back in the town Jimmy takes control of the brother again. So I say to him - when they give you the antidote, use your "drink item" animation and then kill the character. The massive shout of "NOOOOOO!!!!" from the PC's when this happened was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. They went after the ranger (a shop owner had told them he was dodgy), but before long it was getting very late and we had to quit.
It was the only time NWN felt like pen and paper D&D. The plot was done on the fly and mostly came from what the player wanted to do or their idea of what was really going on. From one misplaced ambient sound to 4 hours of silly, silly plot twists, conversations and fun. It was certainly the most organic experience I've had with a computer game.
I saw a few other interesting moments. Once I stumbled across a group of six or so following their own plot they'd made up themselves. It was fascinating. They were "playing" really well, tailoring what they found to their little story and staying in character the whole time. What was scary is that one of them knew our town better than I did.
Basically, its all about finding like minded players. Theres a site called Neverwinter Connections where you can find players with similar interests so if you want to avoid the hack n'slashers try that. I'm sure similar sites exist for other RPG's.
T'was fun, T'was fun, but we had to stop the server for some logistical reasons and I haven't played for months. If anyone has the game and wants a copy of our mod, then drop me and email. Who knows if enough people show interest I might see if we can kick start it again.
― Lynskey (Lynskey), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 13:03 (twenty-two years ago)
I'm doing my dissertation on what is popularly called "Internet Addiction"...Among the two EverQuest anecdotes I have included somewhere in there:
1) A case where a young woman ('Sheyla Morrison') killed herself, supposedly after being fired as an EverQuest guide, and this was reported to other EverQuest community members via postings by her family members. The posts began to raise suspicions and after some investigation, it was revealed that the young woman didn't exist, and neither did her family members--it was all one couple acting out the various roles, in an elaborate hoax.
2) A real suicide case, a guy named Shawn Woolley in Wisconsin. His mother is sueing Sony because she claims EverQuest was a major factor in his death (though apparently Mr. Woolley had significant psychological problems prior to him getting drawn into the game).
If there are other stories similar to these, I'd be interested (please post them here, NOT to my email)...
― Joe (Joe), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)
but everyone in this internet cafe is playing some sort of everquest'y game, and it looks pretty fun.
but then again, i know this guy who got so into Neverwinter Nights that he joined some club where they meet up in some field, dressed up like Lichs, Ice Zombies, Goblin Warriors, etc and have mock battles. They got their own guilds, ranks, and alliances, and shit. it's weird. I'll ask him for their webpage - they got photos.
― phil-two (phil-two), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 07:39 (twenty-two years ago)