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There's Nothing Wrong With Fishing
safespacecadet
Member Posts: 374 Arc User
I read several complaints about fishing not long after the Sea of Moving Ice was first launched. I haven't really done much fishing, because I haven't found time for it yet. However, there's nothing really wrong with being able to earn things in an mmorpg while performing activities that do not involve violence. In fact, that's a good thing. MMORPGs need more of such activities, not less. The challenge is to make such activities either fun, important, or rewarding. Or even all three. Of course, not everyone is going to have fun doing the same things. Not everyone enjoys killing monsters, questing, and running dungeons for hours at a time, which is why they don't play mmorpgs. Because that's the majority of what one does in an mmorpg. There is some exploring, crafting, and buying and selling, of course. But the exploring, crafting, and buying and selling all revolve around killing monsters, questing, and running dungeons. Crafting is only important because it can help a person make or upgrade gear or earn experience, money, or items. The money and items are then used to upgrade gear predominantly.
There's no real economy, in the real world sense, in most mmorpgs because characters do not need to eat, drink, sleep, take shelter from foul weather, or change clothes often. Most food, clothing and items never decay, wear out or break, so there is no need to replace them.
Fishing, for example, could be a very important and interesting activity in a game if characters needed to eat. Especially if they grew weak from hunger and could potentially die of starvation. Fishing becomes a matter of life and death if your character's family or village might starve to death if they don't catch enough fish that week. They also might need to salt some fish so that it didn't get rotten too quickly. If they catch enough fish, they could even sell some of the fish to other villages or merchants and turn a profit. I'm not saying that all of this will work in Neverwinter at this time, but it could very well work in an mmorpg. Farming, shepherding, herding cattle, hunting, and gathering can also be very important activities in an mmorpg. You can even make an mmorpg where not every player character must be an adventurer!!!
Merchants could be very important in mmorpgs if they did not have universal auction houses. And npc merchants didn't sell everything a player might need. Merchants would be required in order to organize trade caravans and carry wares to other villages, towns and cities. They would also need to employ npc or player characters to guard these caravans.
Building could be very important in mmorpgs as well. If characters needed a place to sleep sometimes and a place to store their belongings. Farmers need barns, merchants need warehouses and tradesmen need shops to work in. Would also be important if it was bad to get caught in a blizzard or if being out under a blazing hot sun for too long might cause a character to succumb to heat stroke. Of course, in a dangerous world, people usually decide to build walls, towers, and fortifications as well.
I'm not saying that Neverwinter can or should do all these things. I know that Neverwinter is not designed to be such a game. An MMORPG like that would need to be designed that way from the ground up. However, my point is, not everything in an mmorpg needs to revolve around combat.
If MMORPG developers want to expand their pool of potential customers, I hope they understand that not everyone enjoys or wants to do the same things in a game. Sure, games already exist where people can simulate doing some of the things I mentioned. And more. But only an mmorpg can integrate all these activities into a seamless whole in a persistent virtual world.
I also hope more players will begin to understand that mmorpgs can be so much more than just killing, questing, and raiding. And I hope more of them will support developers who attempt to do things that challenge the current paradigm.
There's no real economy, in the real world sense, in most mmorpgs because characters do not need to eat, drink, sleep, take shelter from foul weather, or change clothes often. Most food, clothing and items never decay, wear out or break, so there is no need to replace them.
Fishing, for example, could be a very important and interesting activity in a game if characters needed to eat. Especially if they grew weak from hunger and could potentially die of starvation. Fishing becomes a matter of life and death if your character's family or village might starve to death if they don't catch enough fish that week. They also might need to salt some fish so that it didn't get rotten too quickly. If they catch enough fish, they could even sell some of the fish to other villages or merchants and turn a profit. I'm not saying that all of this will work in Neverwinter at this time, but it could very well work in an mmorpg. Farming, shepherding, herding cattle, hunting, and gathering can also be very important activities in an mmorpg. You can even make an mmorpg where not every player character must be an adventurer!!!
Merchants could be very important in mmorpgs if they did not have universal auction houses. And npc merchants didn't sell everything a player might need. Merchants would be required in order to organize trade caravans and carry wares to other villages, towns and cities. They would also need to employ npc or player characters to guard these caravans.
Building could be very important in mmorpgs as well. If characters needed a place to sleep sometimes and a place to store their belongings. Farmers need barns, merchants need warehouses and tradesmen need shops to work in. Would also be important if it was bad to get caught in a blizzard or if being out under a blazing hot sun for too long might cause a character to succumb to heat stroke. Of course, in a dangerous world, people usually decide to build walls, towers, and fortifications as well.
I'm not saying that Neverwinter can or should do all these things. I know that Neverwinter is not designed to be such a game. An MMORPG like that would need to be designed that way from the ground up. However, my point is, not everything in an mmorpg needs to revolve around combat.
If MMORPG developers want to expand their pool of potential customers, I hope they understand that not everyone enjoys or wants to do the same things in a game. Sure, games already exist where people can simulate doing some of the things I mentioned. And more. But only an mmorpg can integrate all these activities into a seamless whole in a persistent virtual world.
I also hope more players will begin to understand that mmorpgs can be so much more than just killing, questing, and raiding. And I hope more of them will support developers who attempt to do things that challenge the current paradigm.
Post edited by safespacecadet#3341 on
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OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
Casual Dailies
However, I do see your point. Only someone who chooses for their character should need to fish. Or perhaps I'm lost in the woods near a stream or pond or stranded on an island and have no food. Then my character might need to fish if he or she didn't want to starve.
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I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
I agree that I don't like to fish in real life. Unless maybe I was also drinking alcohol. However, if I was going to starve to death if I didn't catch any fish, I would probably find fishing to be very exciting and wonderful.
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
Some people think Realism does not equal Fun. Me, I think more Realism = more Challenge = more Fun.
Permanent death and needing to eat and drink are miles apart in terms of the effect they have or would have on mmorpgs. Permanent death is not workable in any kind of game where it takes months and years to build a character and upgrade gear. Doesn't mean it can never work in an mmorpg though. Just means it could never work in a game designed with similar progression methods to games like Everquest and World of Warcraft.
If you were playing tabletop and your DM decided to kill your party because the players didn't specifically state in every session that the characters stopped to eat and drink, I'd think your DM was a hamster.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
Having supplies stolen or losing them somehow can turn into an adventure in itself. Trying to reclaim rations or foodstuffs from thieves, being forced to forage in the wilderness, or trying to make one's way back to civilization before one starves to death or dies from thirst can be exciting and are an element in many stories.
In old Final Fantasy games, resting at an inn in order to recover health and magic points was a common occurrence. You could even buy tents and camp in the wilderness.
People talk about wanting player housing. Everquest 2 had player housing. You could store some stuff in your house, sure, but mostly it was just so people could interior decorate with furniture they got from quests, made, or bought. So, we can be interior decorators in mmorpgs, but we can't ever actually suffer from fatigue and need to sleep?
I'm not saying that Neverwinter needs any or all of these things. But I don't understand why people feel threatened by the idea of more realism in mmorpgs. Maybe we should also get rid of gravity, so people can just float through the air and not need to walk or ride mounts?
EDIT: How many times did J.R.R. Tolkien make reference to food and food running low on Frodo and Samwise's journey to Mordor? How many times did he mention the importance of the Lembas, the Elven Waybread gifted to them by Galadriel?
The fact that Frodo got tired and fatigued, especially as the weight of the Ring grew heavier upon him, was another important element. And then, gasp, Frodo actually got his gear stolen by Orcs in Mordor!!!
Someday I might catch up, have all the Boons, best-in-slot gear, all legendary companions, epic mount insignias and the highest level enchantments. But then the next module gets released and the grinding begins anew.
But I do not see how this would add to NW's core gameplay, even though Don't Starve is a pretty cool game. It's ok for different games to do different things. Removing gravity wouldn't add anything to NW either, but having anti-gravity elements in a space game might be appropriate, as is the tension of possibly running out of oxygen.
Needing to rest is seriously not the most interesting thing about games that require it to recover spells and heal damage. In fact, most feedback that I've ever seen regarding a sleep mechanic is that it's a bore. Where it can be interesting is when sleeping is a trigger for something in the story like the dreams in Baldur's Gate. In NWN, some UGC did interesting things with rest, but in the original game, you just sat down and channeled for a bit. Hardly gripping gameplay.
(And yes, I do realize you're coming at a completely different point sideways.)
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
As far as fatigue and the need to rest and sleep go, a videogame doesn't need to make us wait ten minutes or five minutes while or even one minute while our characters sleep or rest at a campfire. But just making us take a small break from doing whatever we're doing because our character grows tired or fatigued would add an immersive element that is missing from many modern mmorpgs. Novels and movies don't usually ask us to read long descriptions or watch long scenes of resting and sleeping, but they do make reference to or show a few scenes of such activities. Inns and taverns* are just set pieces and backgrounds in most mmorpgs because characters do not need to eat, drink, rest, or sleep.**
If one wanted to explore the idea further, people that do nothing but stay at home and play mmorpgs have a great advantage over those who also have to work or go to school. Some of this disparity is diminished in a free-to-play game because the person who can't play as much can catch up by paying more money. After all, a really wealthy player could have rank 12 enchantments on the first day if he or she wanted. Though the infrequent player is still at a disadvantage when it comes to earning campaign currency for boons and other such things. I suppose that is changing a little with allowing people to buy campaign completion tokens. Kind of funny though. Pay a lot of money and hardly play the game. Just sit and admire the higher Item Level that your credit card bought you.
But let's say it is subscription game without a cash shop that greatly focuses on pvp. Someone that plays more is going to have an advantage over someone who plays less. But if you throw in some fatigue and the need to rest, you can prevent the no-lifer from spending ten to twelve hours or more at a time playing the same character. Which is really not healthy anyway. Though that doesn't mean they couldn't play another character while their other character is forced to rest.
*Inns, taverns, marketplaces, and town squares could also become a lot more important and interesting if mmorpgs would have more realistic communication. Such as not giving everyone the magical/psionic ability to communicate telepathically and over great distances. But I won't go into any more detail about that right now.
***Aragon, Legolas, and Gimli were in such outstanding phyiscal condition and were so concerned about the fate of their friends that they were able to run for days while pursuing the Orcs warband which had taken Merry and Pippin captive. But if they had had to stop and fight any battles along the way, I guarantee you they would not have been able to continue at that pace.
EDIT: Btw, I have played Baldur's Gate 2 a bit. You can rest basically anytime you want in that game to recover some hitpoints and be able to cast spells again. However, I do feel it was a bit of a poor design choice to have such a huge dungeon with so many monsters to fight as the introduction to a game. Camping often in a dangerous dungeon filled with monsters is not very realistic. Skilled dungeon masters design adventures and dungeons which they know their party is capable of handling without resting often or nearly being killed during every encounter. Healing spells and potions weren't originally supposed to be frequently used in Dungeons & Dragons. Not only that, characters could permanently die. And priests who could cast resurrection spells were rare. In 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it was 7th level spell, which meant that a level 14 priest could only cast one of the spells of that level per day. And level 20 was max level. Also, it took a much longer time to level in that game.
It is because most mmorpgs have chosen to focus on the combat aspect of role-playing games at the expense of everything else that healing, potions, death, and resurrection have become so commonplace. When it takes months or years to build and develop a character, of course the idea of permanent death is unthinkable. This is also largely due to reliance on massive vertical progression of gear to make us feel like we're achieving something getting stronger. But we're not really getting stronger in most respects. The game only provides the illusion that we are by increasing the hitpoints and stats of gear and mobs as we level or begin to complete new campaigns. And why in the world does the next higher level zone or more difficult campaign always have gear with better stats? Not only that, why are all these mobs carrying so much gear that fits us perfectly? Or hiding it in chests?
>_> I have all the boons but not any of those other things. I still have r10-11s on my main. I'm using blue insigna's because paying 400k + AD for a couple hundred more more power seems asinine. I like playing the game and for me that means questing and doing dungeons and such. >_> I always figured the 20+ hour wait time between 'dalies' my character could be eating/drinking/sleeping and whatever else and cleaning the moat my imagination. I don't have to feel involved to make every choice for my character. I have to work and sleep and eat too ;P I love professions so if there was a 'cooking' profession I'd probably do it if the benefit was good. I'm kinda glad they updated some alchemy tasks from chult with pretty much guild food equivalents.
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
Just to say Ultima Online had all that the OP asked for back in 1990 something - you needed to eat to stay alive and strong, no Auction House, player housing, a complete world of non-consensual pvp which led to complete freedom of playstyle, thieves nicking your stuff, monsters looting your stuff etc. There was [is] a proper "d&d" feeling to it. You fell out with a character, you could fight them and nick their stuff. Not so sure it would make for a popular game these days [it isnt].
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
Unless... it was necessary to gather materials to unlock BIS gear...
Which brings us back to... no one should be forced to participate in any game content they find a waste of time.
Also, fishing should never be the way to the best gear available.
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
To enforce fatigue you are going to disrupt many players play time, as A has been on for a while doing Strong Hold stuff waiting on B, C and D. Now that they are all finally able to play, A has to change characters because his main needs a nap.
Anyway, I do definitely want there to be more sandbox mmorpgs available to play similar to Ultima.
If I was designing a game, I would make it an open narrative, open world pvp/pve realm vs realm medieval fantasy sandbox mmorpg.
I have read about UO though, and the game had its flaws. Players will never adequately police themselves in an online game. The real world doesn't function well without law and the possibility of being punished if caught committing crimes. A game world with open pvp needs such things as well.
Everything has to revolve around acquiring BIS gear because that is all most mmorpgs are about. Becoming more powerful so you can do harder things, then becoming even more powerful so you can do the harder things faster and easier. Or you can kill people in pvp. Your character can eventually be imbued with god-like power, but you can't do anything with that power except for do more quests, run more campaigns, skirmishes, dungeons, and pvp matches.
No one is forced to participate in anything in any game. All the time people spend playing games is by choice. All the things they do while playing games are by choice.
I agree that fishing is a silly way to get gear or upgrade gear. Unless you were selling the fish you caught to get money to buy gear.
Anyway, it all depends on how things are implemented. Eating and drinking in a game may be as simple as carrying around food and water that are automatically consumed at regular intervals. That's how it was in Everquest/Everquest 2. Fatigue and the need to sleep can be as simple as going to an inn and renting a room, pitching a tent in the wilderness, or going to your own home and interacting with the bed in order to feel rested again. Whether or not an idea will work in a game depends mainly on design and implementation. A good idea can easily fail if implemented poorly. Almost any human activity can be made into a game or made part of a game.
If you have fatigue in a game, you could also have interesting things happen, like falling asleep on your feet if you go too long without resting.
You can do that with /emote
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I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.