How long can it go on...

Ok, following up my question of whether or not people even WANTED Group Based Play (which seemed to be generally a yes), I would like to further clarify by asking how much and how long.

Multiple choices are available, click the ones you like, let's create a bell curve centering on the ideal time.

Oh, and the reason there is no option for making the things no time at all, is that if you are part of the ~10% who don't want there to be GBC, you got outvoted and your opinion of how long other people should be allowed to do it isn't really important. No offense intended, but you won't find me saying how much you should be able to do your thing in your private copy of the game, just how much of it should be rolling over into MY copy.

 

In regards to playing with others (by choice, not forced by game design), I generally like the 1 to 2 hour window. That doesn't mean I won't play longer than that, just that 1 to 2 hours of (small) group play is preferred.

Case in point, for the Release weekends, I usually spend Thursday and Friday nights in Single player checking out the content, then Multiplayer Saturday and Sunday to hang out with people and get ion top of things.

 

It depends. A castle siege in l2 was 2hrs. But we'd often camp a boss for it's spawn window which could be 6...just sitting the holding off PvP, waiting for the spawn. I've certainly been in xp grind groups that went for days...people would just drop out of group and then some from the next time zone would join.

I can't stand long hours of WoW style, Simon says, flawless execution raiding. But I enjoy more intuition based activities for far longer.

Much of it depends on the friction in adding or removing group members.

 

Did not vote on the thread - for reasons below

( The content would have to be good of course )

I'm a fan of any length of time - so it can be 5 hours - 10 hours ... the reason I'm going so far as ten is simply because I would feel that I accomplished some real S#@* if I completed group content that lasted that long

Of course "play sessions" for that content could be divided up through the ability to have / saved progress / and a timer to complete it under

Part of the fun in group content for me is being able to work together - unless the group is challenged - the feeling is not rewarding / and if the challenge is "short lived" due to a short amount of time to complete it then the "feeling" of success/accomplishment dissipates too quickly

Now - I didn't vote because - everyone with real life responsibilities may not be able to lay down the time to do this - and the "bang for buck" motto may not fit into this game - partly do to designing content that a small part of the player base will consume

But some of the funnest times was running through - gauntlet style of riads - fighting to a door; entering - solving group puzzles - avoiding die on impact fire traps - strategic positioning to not fall off / insta death .. you get the picture

the boss / never really cared for that - it was always the about getting to the boss that was fun for me

 

@Margard, assuming a representative sample may be premature, but half the respondents to the "do you want group based content?" survey were in support. Saying what time period you prefer will not enslave anyone, nor force them to endure hours of precision raiding. I get what you are saying about not weighing the game development needlessly in favor of group content, but surely speaking your mind can only give the devs more to work with. I say trust them not to screw the game up, after all, that's what we have been doing from the start, yes?

 

Well, can be from 5 mins to hours, of course. But the optimal for me will be 1/2 hours (and Im not speaking about raiding or similar).

 

Agree -

On a side note - I don't know if the long raids are dying - it seems that games in general have moved to repeatable / half hour instances / content designed for 2-4 ... and the rational usually deals with the life of a play sessions that players can adequately commit to in their play session

I also think the rational is also a little bit of a copout - less content - more money ... but it does have its merits

I think that SoTA needs one "mount everest" if you will - that would get me to group

 

Much agreed, I think WoW overdid RAID content, and I was a raid leader. When there were five major viable raid instances open all at the same time, with guilds progressing through them slowly and painfully, trying to complete 16 + hours of precision bossfighting with zero forgiveness on "hardcore" mode, with hidden secret bosses that gave special bragging rights and super-duper gear, that was just too much. That stuff only catered to the extreme 1% of players (I don't say top 1%, because I could smoke those guys in PvP, was a better leader than they had {by the accounts of many of their own players, who would come run lesser content with me on the side because I made it fun}, and easily dominated them in economic manipulations), rewarding them with extra cool mounts they could show off, or giving them extra shiny gear that really did give a numeric advantage... it was part of the reason that age of MMO's has begun to collapse, shedding players like crazy. Now, WoW might still have the "majority of the MMO population", but they are maintaining their numbers by recruiting nine year olds. The average life of a WoW player is getting shorter and shorter, and their numbers ARE shrinking.

What I want to see is ONE RAID, and a whole lot of smaller instancing. When the in game flag says that a third or so of the player base has beaten the end of the RAID, it's time to design another. You won't get much more than that through a RAID anyways. Half the game population won't ever bother with a raid, and of the half that will, a fair number of them just won't have the time. So probably not huge, multi day RAID instances either. As for the smaller instancing, the bell curve is already giving a good indicator, I suspect it will keep growing just like it is.

All those disenfranchised players want a mature game they can turn to that will give them a real story, and a really complex, repeatable game. I for one think that RG and Portalarium *could* make that game, a new type of MMO, for adults, not focused solely on monthly profits or numbers, that isn't like playing a cartoon. That's why I'm here. Supporting SotA is the very next best thing to taking a crack at designing it myself, and unlike RG, I don't have four million spare dollars of development funding and a crack team of programmers sitting around. So, this is where my hopes currently hang.

 

This!

 

Whatever else they do, I personally hope they add a little bit of story-telling to all combat and raiding... not "in this hex, there's a bunch of monsters of type X that want to kill you, and they come in three flavors." Role-playing shouldn't end when combat begins.

 

This TOO!

 

What to you think about "group content" in UO, like big monsters in Doom or Champions (skiping the PVP part)? For me the good point (can be also bad for some people) is that you can go there in ramdom people that you meet in that place.

 

The problem with a static monster ... that is just hanging out ... waiting for someone to come in and kill them is that its not real

of course this is a game / and tech limitations are what they are

but if the monster was not always there - maybe roamed the landscape ... ran away from you at times ... had a schedule of sorts ...

that would make it more engaging .. make it feel less gamey

 

But Champions had a different spawn mechanic. And Doom monsters supposed to be very dangerous and they "rotate". But yes, Im with you. I also remember now that paragon monster that randomly appears over the world of the 3th expansion.

 

Showing a strong spike at 1-3 hours, centered on 2 hour content. I think that a planned 2 hour run, being done by a team of awesome players who know the content (and seem to enjoy re-running it, for SOME incomprehensible reason), might be condensed down to a 1 hour run. The same run, done by a bunch of feckless noobs who don't know which end of a sword goes in the other guy's gut might drag it out to 6 hours. Personally I think this sounds about right. I also plan to be leading the elite force of bad asses who get it done in 40 minutes.

As for the unrealism of a monster that hangs out waiting for you, how about a scripted behavior that starts when you enter the GBC instance and determines what various NPCs do as time moves on? Maybe certain NPCs will hear you coming and leave, if given too long. Maybe the passage of excessive amounts of time will cause additional NPCs to enter, as calls for help and alarms are answered. And of course, the ultimate NPC, the Grand Dragon, or High Necromancer, or whatnot, will only sit in his throneroom/treasure horde for so long before he comes looking for the group of vandals that is trashing his home...

 

@Eriador

Go forth and vote, dude.

 

I would be interesting for the "boss" to change locations ... "anticipate" and "scale" support as needed.

So if a group of 8 Avatars came into the instance and the game kept track of "average time of completion" for everyone and took that into account and "catered" a unique experience for the "bad ass group" of Avatars

 

I don't think the game should cater to the idea of "bosses" at all, its something that's becoming a gaming cliche and comes from JRPGs, but for the most part never existed in Ultima games. Encounters should be story-based and a "boss" should only exist where it makes sense.

 

What ever the challenge at the end is = boss to me ... lol

Ideally it would be a gauntlet where there is an overlord that is throwing waves of warriors at you in attempts to stop you from reaching your goal ...

a moving maze

 

Yea, but there doesn't need to be a big challenge at the end of everything I don't remember that stuff much in the Ultima series. You had to go places where there might be a lot of danger, where there might not be an organized group that was challenging you. In the case that there was a organized group, and a leader, the leader was either not really more powerful, or only slightly more powerful. Just because someone is a group leader doesn't necessarily mean he's super-powerful... it just means he has a lot of respect among the group members, or is the 'brains' of the operation.