[MUD-Dev] Better Communication [was: Better Combat]

[Michael Hartman]

cruise wrote:
> Michael Hartman wrote:

>> As both a developer and a player, I think game created "dead
>> time" where the players' hands are free enough to chat is
>> absolutely vital. If you don't have this, the game will take on a
>> go-go-go-go feeling and you'll have virtually zero socialization.

>> CoH is a perfect example of this. It is the quietest most dead
>> feeling MMORPG I've ever played. Groups are silent. Areas are
>> silent. There's no time to chat because you never have to rest
>> (not even for a minute) and what little travel there is requires
>> complete interaction from the player (instead of like other
>> games, where everyone /sticks to the leader and thus everyone but
>> the leader can easily chat).  The end result is that CoH feels
>> like Diablo 2 to me. It plays like a single player game with some
>> multiplayer co-op options.

> I'd say this was more a case of designing around technical
> limitations. The group of friends I play CoH with run a teamspeak
> server, and so our group is /constantly/ chatting over our
> headsets. We get constant gameplay from CoH, and yet it interferes
> with our socialisation not at all.

When my wife and I play with our close RL friend, we call him up on
speaker phone and thus we can all talk.

So what?

Crypic didn't send us our telepones and pay our phone bills. They
didn't set up your teamspeak server. Neither yours nor our method of
improving interaction are part of the game of CoH. Cryptic/CoH do
not get "credit" for this type of interaction.

There are four main game design reasons and one programming reason
that CoH is a mostly silent game with virtually zero interaction.

The game design reasons:

  1) The game is go-go-go-go-go all the time. There is no downtime
  at all. There is no travel time. I'm not saying there should be
  10-20+ minutes of either, but even a minute here or there can be
  very conducive to communication.

  2) The /follow implementation is absolutely horrendous. Since a
  group cannot stay together by following the leader, everyone has
  to drive their avatar to each location on their own. In other
  MMORPGs, /following the leader frees up the other members both
  mentally and physically to chat.

  3) Grouping is worthless in CoH. Soloing is far more
  profitable. They nerfed the living daylights out of fighting
  anything red or purple. They had to admit failure and scale back
  some of the nerfs, but the end result is the same. You are far
  better off solo. The other reason soloing is better is because of
  the way the game is designed. The overwhelming majority of mobs
  equal to or slightly higher level than your character die in 1 or
  2 hits. What's the point of a group? You can kill everything so
  fast that a huge percentage of attacks get wasted when the target
  of your attack DIES during the animation time of your attack. The
  Hero vs. Mob of Minions design is terrible for grouping. Yes,
  there are a few things in the game that TRY to encourage grouping,
  but their influence is minimal in the face of the overwhelming
  reality of the rest of the game.

  4) The game does nothing to encourage community. There is no
  meaningful loot. You can only carry 10 enhancements. You have no
  vault. There are no meeting places. There is no reason to hang out
  anywhere. There are no trade skills. The list goes on. With no
  community, the need to communicate with others plummets.

The programming reason:

  1) The chat interface is the worst I have seen on any MMORPG I
  have ever played, and I've played tons.
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