Private Realms not the end all be all?

[JonnyG]

I ran across this interesting topic on MMORPGDOT (http://www.rpgdot.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=50231). The guy makes a case for private realms not being all that the devs are making them out to be.But I have some issues with it all though. The advent of privately spawned areas seem to be bridging some of the gap between single player games and mmorpgs. And although that is certainly a good direction to take mmorpgs in, I’m afraid that it might work against the genre in the long run. Mmorpgs’ greatest defining feature is the fact that you play within a community of other players. Alongside, or against them, but together for better or for worse.
I responded (http://www.rpgdot.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=282527#282527) with my opinions, but thought it might make a good topic for discussion. What do you guys think?

[Bograt]

i am both for and against Private Realms

I love the fact there wont be 10 hour long waits for a boss to spawn, and the fact u have to wait in line, it really destroys a game, especially if u have some guild camping the spot

so to be able to go quest with a few friends and not have to worry is superb


on the other hand, i will miss running into all sorts of interesting people on your travels, i know the devs have said there will be open area's but the private realms seem to be the main focus

it starts becomming not like a mmorpg, more a online RPG where you have a group of friends and go adventuring together

we will see how it all works out but i have my worries

[Bograt]

also i will miss moments like in DaoC when i am running to meet some friends and i come across a group of guys fighting a giant, i sat and watched for a good 10 minutes

also there have been times when a wondering person helped out my group who was in trouble and called for help, cant do that in a Private Realm

[Elvis]

Let us not forget that private realms will also remove the situation where your group needs to wait in line to finish a quest because several other parties slogged through the dungeon (and made it no challenge whatsoever for you to traverse because they'd killed off all the creatures and you arrived before a respawn) ahead of you, the boss takes a while to kill and has a rather long reset.

Example:

Asheron's Call 2: Icefire and Rytheran's Bane (aka "MA"). People would have to wait in line to kill the Gigurath for Icefire and Rytheran for Rytheran's Bane. Often, there would be 2 or 3 groups going in at a time because these were weekly repeater quests that coughed up a lot of XP... the problem was that there was only one instance of the boss creature to defeat.

There were many times when I was doing this quest with a group of friends only to see some idiots jump ahead in "line" and force us to wait even longer.

I don't like lines when doing quests. I want to tear through the thing (or struggle through it) and do it without any help from other groups. If my party's job is to save a village from a band of Trolls, I don't want to have to wait for the Trolls to respawn so that I can finally get my 5 kills amidst a slow respawn and then return to the village.

It's still Massively Multiplayer, but, for a moment, the "story" focuses on you and your friends.

[Leageth]

if you take this idea to the extreme, you could technically just have Mythica be a normal RPG. Where you can connect with some friends online(free cause it would be a hosted server). This kinda makes me worry, cause I'll be paying basically for a global chat, sinec the rest of it could be done in a Neverwinter nights style.

[Bograt]

i agree Leageth

i just hope that the open area's are worth hunting in, a nice mix of the two would be great

Private realms for a epic quest with a group of friends, but still enough content in the open area's to go hunting and have some fun there rather than having to go to a Private Realm all the time

[Dankus]

I don't really agree with his claim. I do see his point, but I personally think that PR's will just bring about a differnt type of gamer.

There will be plenty of games the don't have PR's. I think there is a time and place for both. Some games will have them and some wont and gamers will have a choice as to which they perfer. If you play a game without PR's that you expect huge public areas with lots of camping and such.

You see, though, the interesting thing about this claim, is that games like Mythica will have the public areas just the same. It will be important and fun to frequent these parts. I think that PR's add to the game, not take away.