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[MrRoboto75]

I wish STO was anywhere near that active.

I wish City of Heroes... existed

[Sergarr]

Speaking of MMOs that tries to pretend that they are single player games, there is a trend that I rather dislike.

Making any given player character out as the main hero of the story, rather than a small part of a big whole.

An MMO experience will, quite necessarily, involve a lot of people, and taking part in that is the point of playing an MMO, surely? So, trying to portray every player character at the same time as the main hero, on which everything depends, will clash quite fiercely. That illusion will break down right quick, particularly if it only relies on the player not thinking about it at all.

Surely, it is a safer bet to make the player character simply one of many, part of the crowd? Particularly noteworthy players will no doubt stand out nonetheless, for their actions and their standing in the community. I would rather be a freshly baked adventurer, taking part in a great, big fantasy/sci-fi Volksturm much greater than I, than have the game portray me as personally responsible for every good deed in the land, while I am supposed to ignore that I am merely hero number 327 who have done that this afternoon alone. Player co-operation ought to be the goal, joining with some friends and doing something greater together.
I suppose it is more difficult to write fulfilling content where your contribution is still somewhat anonymous to the effort as a whole, than it is to simply write a hero portrait, but it would be better to at least attempt it. Not to mention, there are opportunities now for a lot more dynamic content, or player-made content, as what Eve Online has lived on for nearly one and a half decade now.

The Elder Scrolls Online tried to do both, in a way. Having a story centered on one character, while also having the player hero being just one amongst many heroes present at the same time in a strange time bubble. Silver star for effort, but still. A Dragon Break is high-grade plot spackle, and must be applied carefully and wisely. This was not either.

I think the players get annoyed quite a bit when someone implies that they don't actually matter. I remember there being constant whining about how the plot is revolving around "GM NPCs", even though the players always deal most of the damage and are the ones actually winning the fights. So, the "you're the hero" is supposed to alleviate at least a part of that. I dunno if it actually works.

[Chiefwaffles]

In my opinion, the worst thing a game - MMO or not - can do, is to make the player an observer to the plot. When all you're doing is helping the real main characters saving the day. Sure, having the whole "Help us, Hero #510298, you're our only hope!" is annoying, but not nearly as bad as invalidating a player's efforts. It's a poorly done part of a story or making the player a tertiary character in their game.

There are better methods to do it. There's "You're actually the only hero; the other players you see are just random people helping out". Or "The collective group of players is a protagonist." Or "You're semi-important and have a role in the 'fate' of this world, but everything doesn't revolve around you (optional: Pretending the player's side quests are unique to the player)". And many more other such methods.

[Silverthrone]

It might be a case of the squeaky wheel, or so one hopes, at least. MMOs could certainly do more to display result of player action in the world, like monuments perhaps. The first group on the server to kill the evil King Teapot, remembered forever. But an MMO game ought to make it very clear that it is less "Look what I did!", and more towards "Look what we did!". Pretending that every character is the special hero (and making thus sure that no one is) is a terribly blunt tool. If anything, I find that it rather increases the feeling of having no significance, but that is a matter of individual taste.

Some of the most fun I had in WoW was PVE instances, which are very easy to queue for and never take very long to put you in an instance with other people. It's really easy to actually interact with other people in that game, to this day I've not played an MMO that got the "multiplayer" part as down pat as WoW.

I wish STO was anywhere near that active. The most people I see queued for an instance is 4... when the smallest ones take at least 20. Except for zone chat it might as well be single player, since all the missions take place in private instances. It's always kind of freaky to go to Earth Starbase and actually see other players.

Instance-diving is rather fun. But I must admit that the instant dungeon system did come at a cost, when it was all reduced to pressing a button and then roll your thumbs for a little while. Believe you me, nothing is worse for a healer than that group, the one that is in such a hurry that you get the impression that they are on a crashing aeroplane, and just want a few more dungeons done before they die. No time to talk, no time to drink, run, run, run.
It is still an excellent experience, the humble WoW dungeon, when the group is right. It is pretty damned good, actually. It is interaction and co-operation in a simple, pleasant package.

However, one other problem came along with Garrisons, in my mind. Everyone only sitting around in the capital waiting for dungeons to pop up is bad enough, but then everyone got a private instance to sit around in, instead. After that, one wonders if there is even a point in having an overworld after that. Why bother, give the player character a nice, upgradable house and fill the game with dungeons and raids. The only people out in the overworld where either levelling between the dungeon pop-ups or the odd roleplayers who did anything outside the cities (which is reason enough for Blizzard to scrap it, no doubt, for God forbid that they ever give the roleplayers something pleasant). It is a terrible shame, and it does take a lot of scope from the world. Player convenience is very important, but it can easily go too far.

[Neonivek]

Hey want to play a game?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Find every object here you need to pick up to beat the game. By the by, you can select every object you see here.

[AzyWng]

As the kind of person who has the desire to nab everything they wish they had (legally or not), I can say that even I am driven off by the notion of having to guess what I should pick up. If I want/need to pick up something, it should be obvious why I want or need it, right? Money is money, ammo is ammo, health is health, weapons are weapons, collectibles are collectibles, etc.

As for this puzzle game bullshit...

I don't do so well.

Let me guess: Corollaries include "some items kill you if you pick them up in the wrong manner" or "you can only have a certain number of items at a time".

[Neonivek]

No no... there are no tricks. You can't even die in Simon the Sorcerer (I think)

But this is Simon the Sorcerer... there are a LOT of single screens I can pull up to highlight how bad this game gets.

You think finding a single needle on the ground is bad? PFT! Simon the Sorcerer SCOFFS at your feeble gameplaying.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For example guess which objects in this room (other then the hair rope...) you have to interact with to beat the game!

[AzyWng]

Let's see...

Simon's hat.
The window.

The princess.

The princess's hair.

The screen or whatever's behidn it.

Something in that tangle of parts in the bottom-right.

[itisnotlogical]

That looks like a spinning wheel, IIRC Snow White pricked herself with a poison needle on one of those.

[Neonivek]

I'll tell you that you got EXACTLY one... The Princess.

[AzyWng]

And what does Simon do? Kiss her? Talk to her? Something else?

[Neonivek]

And what does Simon do? Kiss her? Talk to her? Something else?

Pick her up and stuff her in his inventory.

[AzyWng]

Ah, the objectifying of women. It happened in Waxworks, and it happens here, too.

[Mech#4]

Well, there's a perfectly reasonable explaination for it in the game. Note you only see half of the princess.

Spoiler: In case someone is playing through currently. (click to show/hide)

Princess is a pig transformed into a human. Simon turns her back into a pig by kissing her and picks her up because you use her on a gingerbread house later on.

Another annoying bit in Simon the Sorcerer is finding the password to enter the dwarf mine.

Those games though, the artwork in them is really nice. All hand done pixel art.

[Neonivek]

Another annoying bit in Simon the Sorcerer is finding the password to enter the dwarf mine.

That same puzzle is repeated four times in the game... and the Dwarf mine is the second easiest instance of it.

Milrif is either the toughest or second toughest instance of this puzzle... and was pretty BS... but to make it tougher on the people here, I want to get a few pictures.