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The "the game doesn't get fun till lvlXX!" comment
vinceh
Member Posts: 208
So who've seen these types of posts?
"The game doesn't start/get fun until (some high level)!"
Some people would agree with those comments while others don't. Some valid arguments against that comment include:
"Why should I bother leveling up to that level if it is boring to start with?"
"I can't bear to play a boring game for that long"
and more..
To me..I can understand a game being rather dull and shallow in the beginning..but it needs to have some components which keeps me playing, because I know if I do, I WILL get rewarded in the higher levels. If I don't like the general concept of the game, I won't waste my time leveling up to some higher level to MAYBE find it's actually a decent game.
I guess some people don't seem to understand that games are meant to start out relatively simple, and actually rather repetitive - fighting with only a few skills, using the same crappy items, etc. Especially with the huge pile of MMOs right now..it's almost a standard for a game to be made like that. Most games now start with all the boring "kill X number of Y" quests. I would guess that people now adays actually judge a game more on graphics, user-friendlyness, UI, AI, and customization (that's how I judge a game..because all games are the same right now).
I don't know, what do you guys think?
-Vin
Comments
How old are you?
I ask this because I'm curious of where you started playing games as opposed to were you are now.
I'm not trying to be derogatory or anything
I have to disagree in general regardless
I've grown up with the experience that games were fun from beginning to end, entertaining, even enthralling!
It seems as time has gone on, developers have made it less and less important to require that their games are deep, enthralling, entertaining, engaging, or whatever you may call it, from beginning to end.
The only game I know thats "fun when you get to level xx" is WoW.
which seems to be the only defense anyone has against the hoards of people who say "the game is boring".
While it may be true that the game is fun once you reach whatever the level is that it is supposedly fun at, There are hundreds of other games I could sit down to play and be having rediculously absurd amounts of fun playing from the moment I dropped into the game.
I don't think its okay for developers, being one myself, to continue this trend of allowing games to be boring up to a certain point, simply because they don't know what to fill the mind numbingly boring sections of the game with.
Games take huge amounts of time to build for a reason, and a good chunk of that reason is making sure that the players are entertained from beginning to end.
last note, WoW has 9 million accounts, not 9 million players, just something I wanted to point out to everyone.
Games shouldn't be boring and ABSOLUTELY should not be repetative, games should be new and engaging every time you play them, as long as the genre permits it to be so.
Agreed!
I think MMORPGs was more fun before WoW and EQ2 came out. WoW was an success and brought many new players to the genre. For me WoW don't give me the near fun I had with other games.
Of the new games out there EQ2 gives me most fun with tho it's lacking at many points. The newer games are way to easy these days. In UO, DaOC and EQ it was a challenge from start.
And another point a don't like is that everything is so solofriendly, heck it's an MMO. But of course soloplay should be in, I don't have the same time to play anymore wich many more than me is lacking.
Anyhow, the market is growing and a few games that have a great amount of intresting features are listed. Sandboxgames for the way!
______________________________
The Sceptics, yes they're special but we've need them to.. I guess.
And if they're put more effort MMORPG.com can create a 'Team Sceptic'
and send them to the Special Olympus.
Dunno but I started having "fun" the few minutes I started playing world of Warcraft..
I am really suprised to hear people talking about wow not being fun till xx level. Of all the mmo's i had played before wow (swg,EandB, EQ, AO, COH, EVE, and on and on...) were always light on what you did in the beginning, generally sending you to 1 area to nub it up for awhile.
Wherein from the beginning after the initial 5-10 min starting area, the size of the places you can explore and still manage to survive at lvl 3-10 is gigantic in comparison to many starter zones. Now SWG was a little different cause it started you in a town/city of your choice, but it was still a good while before you could venture too far on foot without getting wtfpwned (especially around launch).
Wow also has you constantly finding new equipment in the lower levels. If anything it seems as it slows down at endgame with the raiding and the long periods of gear stasis you can get if your equipment doesnt drop from boss x for z raids in a row.
Its just my opinion but after my first year of raiding i kind of missed the simpler times of leveling that first character and enjoying the huge areas to explore, and the quests that had you crossing deserts and forests to get to them. And of course making an alt can give you some of that back but never that initial wonder.
But its just my opinion, and i have since quit wow after 2 years of raiding and am back to EVE, which is fun in the beginning and as long as you keep an open mind is fun all the time.
Se you guys in AOC.
Lick Here you could be one of the lucky 10!!!
See you there!
I'm probably going to get flamed for this but ah well.
For me most games have been boring and repetitive for a very long time. Heck, I have really had fun in a mmog since Neocron 1. I have had some fun in Eve Online but everything else I've tried has been the same game different packaging type of thing.
To me, if a game isn't fun at the beginning it's not going to keep me playing.
With the games I've played they have been fun from the start and just gets better the longer I play.
Another question that might go along with this one is "Would I be doing the same thing at level XX as I was doing at level XX?"
I guess it depends on how the game is set up. Some developers embrace the level treadmill while others encourage players to roam freely and explore with unknown dangers ahead.
In general is it safe to say, If I played one level treadmill based game I've played them all?
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
I will never understand or care for these guys.
Leveling is the game.
At level X, well, you have accomplished that much and there are only a few levels left.
If I can advance my character further and enjoy it, I will. If I find that advancing my character further is boring at any point in the chain, I will never start it and you won't get me past level 1. If you put raiding/PvP at level 60, then I won't bother to even get level 2, cause it is a boring ending. Unless this raiding/PvP has no impact whatsoever on grouping, then it is not at the end, it is another path.
Each part of my path matters, alternates paths, I may take or ignore, as I see fit. But if the starting or the ending of the path is not fun, I won't play.
I crave for unlimited levels. But I can accept less. Although, I rather see a cap on every zone then see a cap on the whole game, as a level cap on the game means that I will stop and be done at that moment precisely, which is artiificially short. A level cap on a zone with unlimited levels on the game give me a short term goal, and a never remove the long term goal.
Again, what you put after level X matters a LOT, if it make peoples better at the main activities (grouping/soloing), then I MUST do it or leave the game, in the case of RvR, PvP and Raiding, I just leave the game...before purchasing it. You want a customer like me? Well, make sure, that for grouping/soloing, someone never receive better rewards outside of grouping/soloing. This is not negociable. Best groupers have to be groupers. Best soloers should be soloers. You can mix both however in my case. Have alternate stats, like a +100% damage VS players only on a weapon, and this weapon is acquired in PvP, doesn't care at all, and will most likely ignore it...or maybe...maybe I will PvP? At any rate, I would be happy and playing what I like.
See, each gameplay should have a different character sheet/gear set. Best soloing gear should be different then best grouping gear...and guess what, you acquire the first by soloing, and the second by grouping. It would be easy to give an armor with 30 hps in solo, and with 10 hps/per player in the group as a group drop. We all understand that 30 hps is better then 10 for a soloer, but for the grouper who is usually in groups of 5-8 peoples, 50-80 hps is a lot better then 30...having 2 characters sheets would simplify it for the player, so no need to swap gear all the time. This logic can easily be extended for PvP (weaker stats but huge bonuses vs players), for raiding (3 hps per player in the raid for example) and so on. You would need to flag each zone with 1 activity only, solo/group/raid only, so the character sheet used is not at the player choice, but adjusted for the monsters in his current zone.
Again, if you make the raiders better then everyone else, since I don't raid, I won't even bother to play your game, as I am not welcome. Again, the best at any activity, should be the persons doing this activity. Real raiders will raid only to be good at raiding, anyone thinking otherwise is not a real raider. Your want soloers happy? Make sure that they have to solo more to become better. You want groupers happy? Make sure they have to group more to become better. Simple is good. The complexity belong to the devs with new systems to developp, not to players to go in foreign gameplays they dislike.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Its a pity a lot of people judge the whole game after playing for half an hour. Look at Crysis for example. The first two hours are just like Farcry. A lot of my friends played the game for an hour and said: "Hell, its farcry. I already did that and it has become boring." and then deinstall the game. People who have played Crysis know that after the "weak" beginning the game is worthy of 90%+ review scores.
I do understand though that games that have a bad beginning and show no possibilities for better, more fun content will not succeed but still some people should give the games a chance and play for more than just 30 mins. I guess older players have become a lot more critical than in their "gaming youth", neglect 8 of 10 games from the start and only play those that are fun (and new) from the first minute.
As for WoW: I actually had fun leveling up my warlock to 60. After doing each instance once and participating in a few raids the fun stopped. Repeatadly doing the dungeons and participating in the pseudo pvp killed the game for me.
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Don't worry, man. It's called "mmorpg burnout". We all get it sooner or later.
The only games I've had fun in right from the beginning that are still fun no matter how long I play have been Anarchy Online, Ryzom, and Eve. Partly because I prefer sci-fi to fantasy, but mainly because there's so many ways to play them.
Ryzom has a beutiful "living" world and great communiy. AO and Eve are also the most complicated games, in my opinion, as far as learning curves. "Easy to learn, difficult to master". That's what attracts me to a game. Having to use the ol' noggin once in awhile, calculating setups and such. As well as a great background story, which AO, Ryzom, and Eve all have for those who seek them out.
If it isn't fun from the start, I won't keep playing it 'til it gets fun. Like the supposed British Navy quote,"The beatings will continue until morale inproves."
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg></a></p>;
Those people are right. Before Everquest and especially WoW [which made this game model a MMO mainstream] Games were fun from the beginning and they still had 'Rewards' at the end [assuming the game had an end].
Grinding and paying a sub for a game for weeks to months just to reach some promised endgame content that's promised to be fun [but might not be for you] is not fun at all. The fact you find it fun is saddening and is very telling of your playing history.
In the end developer's are supposed to make games that are fun not games that are designed to keep you playing for months just so that you pay more to reach that carrot [which is them moved further away so you have to do it all again just like they did for WoW]
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
Exploring danger ahead only works for the first timer, after you've played a game for a few months there is no longer any "danger" that you're not aware of. Because a persistent world doesn't change that much often, and any "danger" or "unknown" ahead ppl will talk about long before you get to them.
Some high-school nerds do grow to become successful, interesting and even super beautiful. If you want to judge a game by its first few levels or its look (to me the two have same underneath reasoning), go right ahead, and I guarantee you'll be missing a few gems along the way.
Agreed. WoW was a fun game from the beginning. Once I started my character, not once have I felt like I need to reach level x to enjoy it. Now once I leveled up, that's a whole different story. But from level 1 to max WoW was a fun game.
Agreed. WoW was a fun game from the beginning. Once I started my character, not once have I felt like I need to reach level x to enjoy it. Now once I leveled up, that's a whole different story. But from level 1 to max WoW was a fun game.
I'm the polar opposite. WoW's leveling game was "meh". Fun at times, boring at others. End game raiding and PvP is way more fun because of the challenge involved and you have way more interaction with other players.
EQ on the other hand was fun from the beginning.
Agreed. WoW was a fun game from the beginning. Once I started my character, not once have I felt like I need to reach level x to enjoy it. Now once I leveled up, that's a whole different story. But from level 1 to max WoW was a fun game.
Thats how I felt. after max level the game becomes a much worse grinder than most asian games do.
I agree. WoW is one of the few mmo-s where low lvl play is not so boring. Low lvls should have events and low level play would be interesting if u search hidden treasures and explore new lands.
Interesting range of opinions here. For me, the end-game is usually the least fun part of the game, especially in a game like Wow. Up until that point, my character gets steadily more uber, as new levels unlock new/better skills. Once at the max level, though, my character can only improve through loot. At the max level, this is a very slow and frequently unproductive process. BTW, I found raiding long and dull and PvP just.... dumb and pointless. In most games, once I get to the max level, it's time to create an alt or move on.
Also, the first time you level a character through a game is the best. Seeing zones for the first time, etc.
Well, you're not really "disagreeing" with me, since I haven't made an argument with or against those type of comments, maybe it's just the way I worded it.
But I agree with you, I started my MMO experience with EQ, and yes, to me it was very exciting, from the moment I started till the moment I quit. And ya, I don't agree to this trend of game design at all. But if I think about it, if I went back into EQ again, I don't know if I CAN get back into it (and not because of the stupid expansions or anything), simply because as a gamer, I HAVE advanced my knowledge in MMORPGs, and I expected MMOs to advance the same way, and sadly, they have not. And that's why I'm feeling disappointed over and over again when these new MMOs fly out like AOL CDs. Instead, I've become numb, like I've changed my expectations, because all those expectations of exciting, engaging gameplay have all become hope, something..unreal. As a gamer, what am I to do? I'm just one person, and that is why I've changed my expectations to simply graphics/UI/general things, because I know that's how the game will be. You give me 1 example of a game that isn't 90% predictable with a decently sized community.
With all that said though, I'm obviously still on the lookout for that next "innovative" game, and I'm still shaking my head at 90% of the games out there right now, and that's probably why I'm not currently playing an MMO.
Honestly though, we both know the reasons why MMOs have become like this, because it's a HUGE market now. And the bottom line is money.
-Vin
Honestly, I would say the best MMO for you right now is the most classic of MMOs. Dungeons and Dragons...board game style.
-Vin
Those people are right. Before Everquest and especially WoW [which made this game model a MMO mainstream] Games were fun from the beginning and they still had 'Rewards' at the end [assuming the game had an end].
Grinding and paying a sub for a game for weeks to months just to reach some promised endgame content that's promised to be fun [but might not be for you] is not fun at all. The fact you find it fun is saddening and is very telling of your playing history.
In the end developer's are supposed to make games that are fun not games that are designed to keep you playing for months just so that you pay more to reach that carrot [which is them moved further away so you have to do it all again just like they did for WoW]
Key word, "supposed". But they don't, because doing it the retarded way brings in money. And the bottom line in this industry is money.
-Vin
Ya, I agree with the most part. But I like PvP..it's probably the only reason I played on a free WoW account. But I remember playing EQ...and having to run through tons of high-level zones being scared that some mob will one-shot me, then having to go back AGAIN just to loot up my body. Ah, those were the days.
-Vin
Why all the crazy long replies? The only thing that can really be said about this topic that actually means anything is something along the lines of "That shiat be whack."
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