MMOs and "wilderness"
Nowadays, with all the available travel powers, teleport powers, etc. to which we have access, no, I do not think there is wilderness in this game. I don't honestly know if there ever was.
However... I distinctly remember my first days in the Hollows, before I had figured out the chat interface, and before I had any travel powers, and before the Hollows revamp. I was sent on a mission in the southeastern corner of that zone, hoofing it with Sprint the whole way (since I also did not know to pick up Fitness at that point). That was really the one moment in this game where I felt truly isolated. |
![](http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/jontalbain-win3.gif)
In some sense, this all depends on what you define "wilderness" to mean. The first thing I thought of after reading the OP was DayZ. It's version of zombie apocalypse survival is unusual in that it tends to put you at odds with every other player in the game. You can try to cooperate but the game really sets you up in a situation where you can't trust anyone but yourself and possibly your closest friends, so self-sufficiency is the means to survival. This leads to some pretty far-out social situations when people do sometimes get together and take a chance on trusting each other.
This is actually a good example. I haven't played SWG, so could you possibly share some more information on the subject? Stories, explanations, anecdotes, anything you have to give more context to the situation to an outsider looking in would be appreciated.
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It was never possible to be completely self-sufficient, in that you would need healing at some point and that would eventually require medical facilities and/or entertainment facilities. As time went on and the game changed it became much easier to deal with those issues on your own and towards the end, those factors became nearly irrelevant, as healing was mostly replaced by buffing instead.
Training was something else that you had to deal with, though there was a unique mechanic in the beginning. You could get your training from other players. After the game remade itself into more of a classical class-based game, training became irrelevant.
In other words, as time went on, players became more and more self-sufficient, often to the point that certain classes that existed as support classes were frequently challenged as being superfluous. To their credit, the designers tried to deal with that problem and sort of succeeded.
As for the wilderness proper: In the beginning, you were in the wilderness the moment that you stepped outside of the hub cities. If you wanted to go somewhere, you walked. If you died, you cloned and walked back to your corpse. It was a challenge to hang out in the wilderness. You could spend your career out there, though, coming in only to sell whatever resources you had gathered to the crafters in town or out in the wilderness themselves. The developers deliberately put things out in the wilderness for explorers to find. There were "dungeons" and such, of course, but the sorts of things I mean are unique sights and "attractions" that would never be seen except by players who made the effort to visit the hard-to-find places on the planetary map.
As time passed, and player cities took root, much of the wilderness was replaced by urban sprawl on the civilized planets. As someone who had spent a great deal of time wandering the wilderness of Talos and Corellia it was a bit disappointing to come back after a couple of years and find the "hidden treasures" with towns plopped nearby and turned into, essentially, tourist traps. That's how things go in the real world, though, so it's not like it would be that surprising.
That was the civilized worlds. The adventure worlds, if you will, were almost entirely wilderness. The toughest did not allow player structures at all, though as the game aged, the restrictions were lifted to at least allow resource gathering machines to operate. On the adventure worlds, the "civilization" consisted of an outpost just big enough to contain a hospital, a cantina, a starship landing pad and a handful of NPC's to establish whether it was a scientific, military, smuggling or some other kind of outpost.
The wilderness on these worlds was deliberately made large and devoid of support systems besides those that you brought with you. Whether you were hunting, mining, exploring or doing something else (like leveling a Jedi out where bounty hunters would be unlikely to find him) you were on your own and you only went back into town (which generally meant not just "town" but flying to another planet entirely) when you absolutely had to do so to resupply or seek healing of wounds or fatigue.
Essentially, the wilderness existed as an option if you chose to exercise it. The advent of vehicles and mounts made it quite a bit less dangerous and more convenient to spend time there, but with very little in the way of instant travel it was always a commitment to do so and you went there looking for a particular kind of experience that you generally would not get in the cities and on the civilized planets.
Star Wars Galaxies had hideously large planets, and since it had player-built structures, you could really be hell and gone from anyone else.
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![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
I was going to mentionm SWG and see what Sam thought about it, based on what he's saying and where he's coming from (sorry for the "he" there, Sam... I started it that way and am leaving it, but I am actually still speaking to you, of course, haha).
Before I get into my own take, I see Slick talked a bit about SWG:
The wilderness of SWG changed over time, but there was always a wilderness to visit if that's what floated your boat. Being an explorer type myself, it's what kept the game alive for me in a lot of ways.
It was never possible to be completely self-sufficient, in that you would need healing at some point and that would eventually require medical facilities and/or entertainment facilities. |
With the Scout and (advanced) Ranger skills, you could create better and better camps for yourself (and others).
Sam, these were temporary campgrounds that scouts and rangers could place (this was not limited by a class system, just skills that anyone could learn [the more advanced ones being an extreme commitment, skill-points-wise]). They would last as long as you, or teammates, would remain within the campground (which grew bigger with each advanced camp type). You created these campgrounds by obtaining the resources and crafting the camp kits yourself (or you could buy or trade them [and sell them]). The more advanced the camp, the more you could do within those camps: use crafting tables, heal, buff, entertain...
Anyway, you could actually heal away all wounds by resting yourself in your own camp. The rate of healing was a lot slower than if you sought out professional medical (and entertainer) healing (medics healed certain types of wounds and entertainers healed "battle fatigue" and mental wounds).
Beyond that, you could have medics and/or entertainers in your campsite and they could heal you there. So, technically, you could all survive together in your own commune out in the wilderness.
And (just for the record, for those not experienced with the game) anything and everything that you needed in that game could be done by players. Any and every spec of resources (whether it was gases, minerals/ores or animal parts) could be found and harvested by players.
I'm just sticking with the SWG before the NGE (which changed the game mechanics from chess to checkers... went from CoH to Wow, as far as skills and such were concerned [33+ professions, made up of 17 skill boxes each with a number of combinations equaling roughly 3-4 different professions for a character to just... One choice of 9 set-in-stone Class options) The only thing that you really needed to start with City NPCs was the training in the skills/professions. Just like Trainers here... except that once a single player trained in any skill, they could teach it to any other player that had the appropriate xp and prerequisite skills.
And, yes... there was enormous amounts of wilderness to explore in that game. Each planet had vast expanses. You could hike them on foot, ride mounts and/or drive faster vehicles. Even on vehicles, the distances were impressive. Not a chore though... it was incredible. Plus, there were shuttles in cities, if you wanted to get places quickly, so not much of a slog if you were adverse to such things.
This aspect of the game (the wilderness of the planets), you can actually still see if you check out the SWG emu, over at swgemu.com.
I'd think it is worth it, just to see (although, you need a copy of the game in order to run it, for legal purposes).
Beyond that...
As Slick mentions, player houses and villages and towns and cities sprawled out over much of the wilderness. However, given the size of the planets, there still was an incredible amount of wilderness!
Still... it was indeed a bit depressing as a wilderness explorer to have the landscapes so marred by buildings, houses and cities created by players.
Still, that aspect may also appeal to what you're saying. The game had so much wilderness that... they allowed you to corrupt that wilderness and turn it into your own community, city, society. You, eventually, could have any and every facility that you could find within an NPC city/town.
As mayor, you could place NPC trainers, shuttleports, cloning facilities (our hospitals), medical buildings, cantinas and theatres for entertainment purposes, crafting workshops, personal housing, guild halls...
Or, you could shun all of that and build a campsite out in the wild somewhere, or in the mountain tops.
And there were locations that you simply could not place buildings/structures/cities... but you could place campsites.
Anyway, just rambling about this to try and convey what it was like to you and see what you think. It was indeed my first mmorpg love. And my first mmorpg loss...
![Frown](images/smilies/frown.gif)
As for the wilderness proper: In the beginning, you were in the wilderness the moment that you stepped outside of the hub cities. If you wanted to go somewhere, you walked. If you died, you cloned and walked back to your corpse. It was a challenge to hang out in the wilderness. You could spend your career out there, though, coming in only to sell whatever resources you had gathered to the crafters in town or out in the wilderness themselves. The developers deliberately put things out in the wilderness for explorers to find. There were "dungeons" and such, of course, but the sorts of things I mean are unique sights and "attractions" that would never be seen except by players who made the effort to visit the hard-to-find places on the planetary map.
As time passed, and player cities took root, much of the wilderness was replaced by urban sprawl on the civilized planets. As someone who had spent a great deal of time wandering the wilderness of Talos and Corellia it was a bit disappointing to come back after a couple of years and find the "hidden treasures" with towns plopped nearby and turned into, essentially, tourist traps. That's how things go in the real world, though, so it's not like it would be that surprising. |
That was the civilized worlds. The adventure worlds, if you will, were almost entirely wilderness. The toughest did not allow player structures at all, though as the game aged, the restrictions were lifted to at least allow resource gathering machines to operate. On the adventure worlds, the "civilization" consisted of an outpost just big enough to contain a hospital, a cantina, a starship landing pad and a handful of NPC's to establish whether it was a scientific, military, smuggling or some other kind of outpost.
The wilderness on these worlds was deliberately made large and devoid of support systems besides those that you brought with you. Whether you were hunting, mining, exploring or doing something else (like leveling a Jedi out where bounty hunters would be unlikely to find him) you were on your own and you only went back into town (which generally meant not just "town" but flying to another planet entirely) when you absolutely had to do so to resupply or seek healing of wounds or fatigue. Essentially, the wilderness existed as an option if you chose to exercise it. The advent of vehicles and mounts made it quite a bit less dangerous and more convenient to spend time there, but with very little in the way of instant travel it was always a commitment to do so and you went there looking for a particular kind of experience that you generally would not get in the cities and on the civilized planets. |
I am missing Enraged Rancor hunts on Endor...
Good memories though.
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Oh, and then there was outer space and your very own personal ship... does that count as wilderness??
*runs away from the thread after having made a pro pre-NGE SWG ramblefest of it!!*
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
In a real wilderness you have to make sure you stay within a certain temperature range, you need copious amounts of water and a decent way to find food, either through foraging or hunting, you need to rest. No games can really emulate the extreme camping or long-distance trekking of real life and still remain fun.
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Why I bring this up is the story, as I told it, revolved around the Rook first surviving the cold and atmosphere, but then eventually building bases of operations staffed with automatons and eventually basically colonising the planet by himself. It was, technically speaking, a story of survival, but outside of the very beginning of it, it was not "realistic" survival. He didn't have to worry about food or water - those could be produced. Instead, he had to worry about about titanic predators, spectral apparitions, migrating giant insects, absolute zero temperatures and so forth. These were sci-fi challenges approached with sci-fi tools, but I still consider them to have taken place in the "wilderness" for my own two rules: He was trapped on that planet with NO way to return until he could build a MASSIVE inter-dimensional portal which consumed vast amounts of resources and power, and there were no other humans on the planet until the very end and the final portal opening.
Basically what I'm saying is you can have wilderness without necessarily turning it into an extreme survival game. As with MineCraft and the SWG examples, it's sufficient (to me) that basic mechanics can be achieved with the need for static NPCs for wilderness to "work."
The biggie, Minecraft! The entire game is based around dumping you in the middle of a wilderness and telling you to get on with it. Visit a PC server with a mapping mod attached and you will see just how huge Minecraft worlds are!
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But at the same time, I have a problem with MineCraft, and it's a big one - the game has no point. It's not a "game" so much as it's a sandbox level editor and, surprise-surprise, I tend to play it in "creative" mode more than anything else. Because it's still a massive grind and it still anchors you down to a "town" of your own making if you want to construct anything bigger. Limited inventory and stationary constructions aid to that. To me, a game simply needs to have a point, or at least some system with which to create and track objectives without having to pretend they exist.
To me, a game in a similar vein that still had a point was The Settlers II - Veni, Vidi, Vici. I played that as a kid, and most of the time I played it without competition, just my settlers expanding their territory. You start out with a central building in an uninhabited land, and everything you do sprawls out from that building, but the game still ultimately has a point. The basic point was, regrettably, combat. The whole infrastructure is designed around either creating intermediate tools or good with which to mine and forge, or around the production of weapons, beer and gold with which to train and upgrade soldiers.
If we ever want to see an MMO that revolves around solitude in the wilderness, it has to have a point of some sort. That doesn't have to mean combat, but it should offer progress of some kind that people don't have to track on their own. It's why I suggested exploring a distant land for artefacts of a lost civilization in an attempt to piece its past together. An MMO like this wouldn't technically even need to be about combat at all. It could be all about, say, Prince of Persia style climbing, or solving puzzles, or beating mini-games, or building for stats and skills that revolve around solving problems other than combat.
The biggest thing to remember, though, is that while an MMO might be a sandbox, strictly speaking, it is also a game, and it's very important to remember this.
As someone who has both soloed and teamed, I can say that you don't always have to force people team up. I have found times where I am soloing and thinking to myself "this is boring, I think I will go and find people to interact with" and proceed to find a team. Teaming is not just about helping each other with a goal; it is also about the socializing and talking. Think about it: doing a boring, menial job tends to be more fun and goes quicker if you have someone to talk to while you are doing it.
In the end, MMO developers need to learn that forcing people to team will get them nowhere. If people want to team, they will. If the don't, they won't. |
The idea is having a vast area not unlike the Shadow Shard where you follow clues out. Where the wilderness idea comes into play is there is no other NPC for miles, you have to completly survive on your own traveling from clue to clue (it could be randomized so that not everyone follows the same path) until you find what you are looking for. Granted, this doesn't have to be done alone if you don't want to of course, but so long as the option is there, I would be happy.
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The big take away is; while a game based around survival and being alone probably would not work, I feel that it can be accomadated for in future MMOs so if people want to go off by themselves and never have to interact with anyone, they can.
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That's a double benefit, as well, because global chatting is "out of character," generally speaking, so having global chat in a game about solitude would not - at least not to me personally - ruin the atmosphere. Sure, you'd have people chatting constantly but you can always silence that, and it's not too unlike leaving the TV to blare on in the background - it's not part of the "game" game, so it doesn't matter.
I actually think that moving away from the need for people to run across each other physically will do MMOs good. I know there's a need to have people "meet" in at least some way, but migrating this to omni-present, out-of-continuity player-to-player chat frees up gameplay to experiment with themes of solitude, entrapment and distance. So what if you can't make it to Coruscant? If you can still meet people over chat and they can "teleport" to your location temporarily, then isn't this just as good? You still have a way to "mingle," but at the same time actually meeting people in person becomes meaningful, as well, because... It's a rare event. You keep hearing other people, but if you rarely see them, it matters.
I remember that one time I met that one other person in the Shard. We didn't say much to each other, other than to express surprise that another person was even there, but the encounter was much more remarkable than all the deadbeat heroes I'd passed in the streets on my way to the FBZ portal. When encounters are rare, they begin to matter and, to me at least, they begin to set the stage for social interaction. When an encounter is special, the least you can do is say hi, which nobody does when you pass another player in a crowded city.
I actually agree with this. Even Shadow Shard doesn't feel like wilderness because...you can just fly. It's hardly wilderness when you've got speedy transit through any zone either through leaping, teleportation or flight. Wilderness stops being wilderness then and instead becomes nice scenery to look at while you zip by.
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On SWG: I didn't know who to quote on saying what, so let me share some basic thoughts.
I like what's being described so far. I like the idea of player-made cities and I like the idea of vast, spanning wilderness, with self-sufficient characters who can take their supply infrastructure with them and go backpacking. That's more or less exactly what I meant, and thank you for sharing. I wish more MMOs did this, and not just for some characters who took some perks, but foe everyone. I honestly want to see an MMO where player characters are not tied down to static resources of any kind. I imagine it would have a much different, much more liberating atmosphere.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Now, granted, the lore of the Shard is very badly delivered, meaning you basically have to hunt down tidbits on Wikis and what developers have said and deleted scenes and such. But bad presentation doesn't mean the story itself is bad. In fact, that's one of my biggest question about the upcoming developer info-dump - I'd like to know more about the Shard. What is the Horta vine? What is the Kora fruit and why do the Soldiers of Rularuu keep guarding and gathering it if they don't eat it? What's at the bottom of the world? Why are the "Citizens of Paragon" and why do they call themselves that if they're native to the Shard? Was the world whole before Lanaru's madness broke it? That sort of thing.
Now, if you just plain don't care, that's fine. But the zone has potential to be a lot more interesting than it is.
They call themselves citizens of paragon even though they are native to the shard because when Ruluruu came to our dimension to devour it the Midnight club used the dagger of Joacas to take a tiny piece from every citizen of Paragon and make a shadow world that when Rularuu ate would kill him. Well Rularuu is super powerful and realized just in time and he gave life to every piece of person that was taken thus the citizens of the Shard were born but originally they had come from Paragon. The shadow shard originally was a shadow of Paragon but Rularuu over time changed it to fit needs/desires what have you. Rularuu can't escape because He used so much of his power giving life the the Shadow Shard.
Hope that answers some questions