The Daily Grind: Want realism with that?

If I wanted "real" I wouldn't be playing a game. The people that complain about "realism" in MMOs seem like those same folks who go out in the park and act out their DnD.... Lame.

I've seen folks go so far as demand an explanation of how other players show up on your minimap. Really?! You need a backstory for every single, minute detail of the game?

Several games have tried the "monsters grow until they attack the town" system, but few of these make it out of beta, mostly because players massacre anything that moves. Ultima Online began with an "ecology", but the developers took it out a few weeks after release because they found nothing was left alive long enough for the "ecology" to function. Star Wars Galaxies was supposed to have this, with bandits or whatever setting up camp near cities and sending in raids and growing in power, but it was badly bugged and no one bothered just wandering the wilderness when they could simply grind mission terminals.

Players will ALWAYS take the path of least resistance, even if it's the most BORING path. If you can get more XP/hour running from a mission terminal to a spawn and back again than you can from exploring, that's what players will do. A lot of "cool ideas" end up being smashed to pieces on the anvil of player laziness. (And then players complain "This is boring" when they have not accessed more than 5% of the game's content, and if this is pointed out, they'll say, "Well, why should we waste time doing that when you get more XP doing this boring crap?")

I think alot of the archaic elements of MMO's that people have clung to could use with a touch of realism to liven things up, but only if it makes the experience interesting.

I'm still waiting for an MMO where the monsters I'm slaughtering look like they're doing something other than wandering around in circles prior to fighting with me. It's 2010 now, and even games like Streets of Rage back in '94 managed to make their mooks look they were doing -something- when you weren't beating their faces in.

But it's tough to do to add those clever little touches of realism that aren't just timesinks and cash shop tricks, and risky. And risk is not something the people who undertake expensive, time consuming projects like MMO's like taking.

This made me think of one day I was laughing and telling my friend that the future mmos would just be getting an apartment/job, going to work, etc etc.

He looked at me very seriously and said;

"I'd play that."

lmao

I thought most of us played games to get away from our own boring reality for a while.. I would much rather have semi-believable fiction rather than realism in games tbh.

Fantasy is just that, fantasy, that being said i have one wish, that the economy side of things, something so small that drives the entire game, be made more "real" this includes active regulation (by devs) checks and balances and finite resources (again a dev responsibility) Economies should drive civilizations, tribes, clans if done properly and give a reason to keep playing.

No MMO currently out has a working economy, they have virtual ebays and bidding houses, nothing more, and thats sad.

In my mind Immersion triumphs realism. If the game makes me feel like I'm part of the world, it doesn't matter whether it's realistic or not. People are looking for escapism and often times Immersion gets confused with realism and they complain without realizing there's nothing realistic about shooting virtual dinosaurs in the shopping mall.

Immersion is golden.

I'd take photorealistic graphics because that's just to my personal liking. And gives an excuse to use the graphics card that's sitting in my computer case.

Any other realism, eh, naah. "Realism" has been used to explain away really painful mechanics like "things take time to craft, ie long progress bar", "anyone ought to be able to attack anyone else at once, ie FFA PvP" and so on. Simulations have their place, but even realistic FPSes become only for hardcore fanatics only, as one bullet = one kill, often from so far away you can't see who killed you. It has its niche place, but it becomes much less fun and popular as a result.

I'll take fun and well-designed for whatever the game's purpose is any day. If the intent is to have a big believable virtual world to play in, then yes, any touches of verisimilitude would be nice... but it's not necessary for all games or MMOs.