My tastes haven't changed since I've started playing. And since then games have changed drastically from the past to the present. Are you sure you aren't just talking about post WoW? That's what it looks like and if that is true then yes I will agree with you because it's true.
I still play FFXI because I love that game and it is everything I've wanted. The whole reason I'm posting this topic is because the pop is dieing and soon enough I'm gonna have to get a new game to play and that is way to hard with what there is today.
Yep, that was the real question. It's obvious MMO's are not going to disappear. But they ave changed into something that just makes me want to put that gun to my head and pull the trigger and hope the pain and misery of seeing this comes to an end.
Well since that is what you mean (though I truly didn't think you were insisting that they would vanish) then you are truly one of the disenfranchised.
But as I mentioned above, this has gone before with other genres. How many people long for real music with varied harmonic structure and rhythmic vitality only to get pop, rock, "alternative', etc.?
However, I am a firm believe of not being elitist and to affirm that if a person doesn't like, want or need a certain level of complexity then they are any lesser and that their desires are garbage. I essentially don't believe in taking away one's humanity because they listen to Brittany Spears or play WoW.
Otherwise you get the whole "Philosopher Kings" idea where only those who really know better should lead those who don't.
Now, to your post, though you feel that you might want to symbolically put a gun to your head, there are so many more people who actually find playing online games more palatable because gameplay is more streamlined. They are looking for harmless diversion not to be tested or to hone "skillz" (or skills for that matter).
So what do you do? Well, unfortunately not much. You either learn to take this new crop of games for what they are and only expect as much as they offer or just not play and hope that someone somewhere might want to return to an older style of gaming.
I might note that it looks like Ryzom will be coming back. Skill based, very few quests, group based, complex skill creation.
Now is the time for players to support a game that does not fall under the normal umbrella of class based/quest based games.
Back in the day the little guy counted. A guy could have this great idea, and push it out the door and compete (like AC1). UO- raph koster and a friend added the housing in 1 weekend. That right, 1 weekend.
These days game developers need "suits" to get their projects out- at least the ones that can really compete with mainstream. "Suits" make calculated risks, unlike a pationate garage developer which will put it all on the line for his dream. Suits don't have dreams beyond making their company profitable
There are some studios stepping up like Champions online, APB, WELL Online, Mortal Online, etc. These guys are taking real risks like EVE/CCP did. But the majority heavy hitters will take safe risks. I still think WAR will be good. Just not off the floor innovative if you follow. Expect more along those lines sadly, safe risks
I wanted to stop here for a moment and talk about Cryptic a little, before we give a wrong impression. What Champions online is doing is NOT about taking risks. They already took those risks with City of Heroes and realized that there was money in it. Most importantly, they realized what it was that SOLD that game. Customization, and lots of it. CoH had some pretty bland gameplay, but tons of character options and tons of skill combinations coupled with even tons MORE skill enhancement combinations. All that customization overrode the bland gameplay so well that it still has 150K or more players EVEN THOUGH MOST OTHER MMO'S HAVE BETTER GAMEPLAY.
Basically...what Champions online is attempting to do is deeply expand the customization (which was obviously the selling point, and always will be) while correcting the "bland gameplay" issue. Most of the gameplay problems lay deeply embed into the shoddy engine they chose to work with. Granted, I very much LOVE the game and still play. I think that they really tried to expand that core engine with Champions to allow it to have much better "super hero" gameplay.
.....
Champions Online is still pretty risky in comparison to the norm. They are abandoning the Class based systems completely in favor of skill-based (HERO PnP system). Recall, they wanted to do that with CoH as well (see old prelaunch e# vids) but then Jack honestly confessed it was just too risky at the time.
Had a long post typed, but I guess in the end the reasons could be summarized into a small list, please forgive me I use EQ1 as a reference for comparison, but it is the easiest for me as I have the most background knowledge to refer to. - Leveling the character: Reaching maximum level means nothing in today's games. They play more like a checklist and people feel like they are on a schedule playing through them. When someone reached Level 50 in the early days of EQ, it was officially anounced. Reaching level 50 and later, level 60 were no small feats. It took effort, knowledge and dedication. - Travel: Journeys mean nothing as well in today's games, they just feel like an unnecessary interruption of what you really need to do, and please remember you are on a damn schedule. So journeys mean nothing. Example of EQ again: You could die on each of your trips to a certain zone, if you were not careful. You had to figure out a safe way to travel through a zone, which sometimes could contain mobs, which could kill you in one or two swings. - Death: Dying means nothing in today's titles. You splat, walk back to your tombstone or whatever icon they picked to be fancy, click it, go on... Some games have some small malus for a time but that's about it. Dying in EQ was real painful, and corpse runs were no fun. But hey, death is nothing trivial, it is death so it should hurt the player, or not? You had to interact, you had to talk to people, ask them for help, for a rezz, a necro to summon a corpse, yadda yadda. You talked to strangers in need of help, you met unfriendly people giving shit about your fate (your charcater's fate of course), you met nice people, helping you. Later you helped them, ingame friendships were made, relationships were built, guilds were formed, ... - Player interaction: See above point, with the addition that in today's titles seeing other players is mostly just perceived as an unpleasant encounter, because the dude is killing my f...... mob, and I have to wait until it spawns again. OMG damn I am on a damn schedule. What is the guy thinking he is doing, darnit... EQ: You were happy to meet other people most of the times. Nothing better than the traveling cleric, tossing you a rezz. The druid SOWing you, unasked, if I might mention that. All in all, you HAD TO interact or the vast dangerous world would never open up to you in its entirity. Full Stop. - Kiting/Reverse Kiting: This one is personal, because I am a fan of it. In none of the newer titles the "Art of kiting" is possible at its fullest anymore. EQ: I loved to kite mobs, mostly reverse kite, my firstie was a necro. I loved to kill something by the power and use of my spells, knowing when I would screw up, fizzle, or get a few unlucky resists I would be toast. That's thrill and not the slaughter of a thousand moles to solve the next quest on my schedule. - Maps: The integration of Mini Maps was probably the worst move ever in MMORPG-history. Nowadays you run after an arrow to your destination, to kill those few moles, to solve your next quest, on your schedule. Oh did I mention you are on a schedule? :P When I read the zone chatter in some of today's games, I really wonder how people can ask for directions and get lost. How in hell is it possible? My impression is that people just rush and don't look around. Exploring, anyone? EQ: Level up Sense Heading anyone? haha. Well after the first login you were so damn lost and overwhelmed. Navigating after loc? Lost art form :P - Raiding: Tactics anyone? Hour long battles? Not in today's games. WoW might be the closest actually to a succesful raid game. I respect what WoW is, but never could get warm with it. But when comparing, WoW has the most inspirations from EQ1 raiding and that is what makes the game succesful in the end. It will never be different. A game lives and dies with endgame content. EQ still has the best raid game ever, which is my opinion and debatable, but I have no problems making that statement as I believe in it. Well there could be more points, but those were the ones coming to my mind, and now it has been a long post as well, but I love ranting about stuff like that. Fell free to agree or disagree, but discuss Maybe one day we will see a company courageous enough to bring the "adventure" back into the adventure games, and just don't spoonfeed everything, making games feel like checklists. I love this game genre to be honest and I tried a ton of games after EQ, but I could play none of them for more than a year's duration. EQ got me hooked for 6 long years until I quit it.
I loath these kinda posts.
EQ is still out there, you can still play it the way you used to, AKA
-taking hours to get your corpse
-running for 30 minutes to get somewhere
-spending 1 hour to get your new spell
Vangaurd tried to do it, uhmm....it took 2 months and they had to change the game to a more friendly style game or people would have all left it.
If you like that sorta game, go play it, it's called "DEAD EQ".
But don't come pretending here that those game can still be successful. People want gameplay and content, the EQ times of timesinks are over.
That's not what he was talking about at all. He just wants a level of skill to actually mean something again. Death should mean something. You should be scared of dying. Travel should mean something to so that getting to that new awesome place is a substantial accomplishment. That doesn't equal time sinks.
Thanks a lot. I could not have replied better. Exactly that was my point.
That's not what he was talking about at all. He just wants a level of skill to actually mean something again. Death should mean something. You should be scared of dying. Travel should mean something to so that getting to that new awesome place is a substantial accomplishment. That doesn't equal time sinks.
It was what he was talking about. I played EQ for 4+ years or so.
I know exactly what he wants.
Meaningful in EQ has ALWAYS meant timesinks.
Travel in Luclin EQ directly equates to timesinks. It was tried in Vanguard and they had to implement portals or people would have left. What more proof do you want that it doesn't work anymore?
If people want they can still come back to EQ, surprisingly noone does.
EQ is dead, sorry.
I hate to break it to you, but by your definition of timesink, every MMORPG is a timesink. This is what those games all are in the end. If you hate timesinks, maybe you should look out for a different genre. This is what I learned and this is why I just play very casually nowadays.
In my opinion people can just perceive a game as a timesink if they set themselves a limit to reach something in a certain time, or how could you ever think of a game as a timesink if you just played it and explored the world? This is what I meant with schedule. People are striving to reach max lvl as fast as they can and the newer titles offer it to them. But where is the sense of accomplishment. Even you state that EQ is dead (which is very true, I don't disagree here), I would make a guess that you can remember more significant moments from your EQ time, than for any other game.
Before my high end raiding time it took me 1 damn year to finish my necro epic, but you know what, when I finally had it, it felt like something special was done. I was pointing out in my initial post that I was using EQ as an example as I have the most references, I even did that in the very first sentence and it should lead to a general discussion about what today's titles are lacking. I was never about "EQ is better than anything out there".
Originally posted by Sharlochar - Maps: The integration of Mini Maps was probably the worst move ever in MMORPG-history. Nowadays you run after an arrow to your destination, to kill those few moles, to solve your next quest, on your schedule. Oh did I mention you are on a schedule? :P When I read the zone chatter in some of today's games, I really wonder how people can ask for directions and get lost. How in hell is it possible? My impression is that people just rush and don't look around. Exploring, anyone? EQ: Level up Sense Heading anyone? haha. Well after the first login you were so damn lost and overwhelmed. Navigating after loc? Lost art form :P
Instead of quoting your entire post, Sharlochar, like a lot of people have, I'm just going to focus on one point. Your statement of adding mini-maps to the interface being the worst move in MMORPG history, may seem like an exaggeration, but I would also put it up there with most of the other lulus which have ruined immersion.
If only those who say they love having a map to follow really understood how bad they are for a game. For one thing, it takes your focus off the surrounding world and places it on the little circle in the corner of your screen. I wonder how much time a player who becomes dependent on a mini-map takes to learn the terrain of the world.
I also would submit if you hate not having a map on the screen, perhaps the rest of the game is not engrossing enough to keep you interested for very long. If all you're interested in is following the map to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible, then there probably isn't enough content to make the game very good.
IMHO, the MMO days are not over...just struggling...between "older" technologies and newer. There are people now just don't want to give up their old computers...and those that crave for bigger and better.
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ~Ernest Gaines
Originally posted by Sharlochar - Maps: The integration of Mini Maps was probably the worst move ever in MMORPG-history. Nowadays you run after an arrow to your destination, to kill those few moles, to solve your next quest, on your schedule. Oh did I mention you are on a schedule? :P When I read the zone chatter in some of today's games, I really wonder how people can ask for directions and get lost. How in hell is it possible? My impression is that people just rush and don't look around. Exploring, anyone? EQ: Level up Sense Heading anyone? haha. Well after the first login you were so damn lost and overwhelmed. Navigating after loc? Lost art form :P
Instead of quoting your entire post, Sharlochar, like a lot of people have, I'm just going to focus on one point. Your statement of adding mini-maps to the interface being the worst move in MMORPG history, may seem like an exaggeration, but I would also put it up there with most of the other lulus which have ruined immersion.
If only those who say they love having a map to follow really understood how bad they are for a game. For one thing, it takes your focus off the surrounding world and places it on the little circle in the corner of your screen. I wonder how much time a player who becomes dependent on a mini-map takes to learn the terrain of the world.
I also would submit if you hate not having a map on the screen, perhaps the rest of the game is not engrossing enough to keep you interested for very long. If all you're interested in is following the map to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible, then there probably isn't enough content to make the game very good.
Agreed, the FFXI map system was by far my favorite. Getting a lot of the maps was hard enough and usually didn't happen for so long that you had to memorize how to get places in an area and remember all the weird little things as landmarks. It truly made exploring the game fun and exciting. I can always recall weird landmarks and still remember a lot of them to this day.
Originally posted by Sharlochar - Maps: The integration of Mini Maps was probably the worst move ever in MMORPG-history. Nowadays you run after an arrow to your destination, to kill those few moles, to solve your next quest, on your schedule. Oh did I mention you are on a schedule? :P When I read the zone chatter in some of today's games, I really wonder how people can ask for directions and get lost. How in hell is it possible? My impression is that people just rush and don't look around. Exploring, anyone? EQ: Level up Sense Heading anyone? haha. Well after the first login you were so damn lost and overwhelmed. Navigating after loc? Lost art form :P
Instead of quoting your entire post, Sharlochar, like a lot of people have, I'm just going to focus on one point. Your statement of adding mini-maps to the interface being the worst move in MMORPG history, may seem like an exaggeration, but I would also put it up there with most of the other lulus which have ruined immersion.
If only those who say they love having a map to follow really understood how bad they are for a game. For one thing, it takes your focus off the surrounding world and places it on the little circle in the corner of your screen. I wonder how much time a player who becomes dependent on a mini-map takes to learn the terrain of the world.
I also would submit if you hate not having a map on the screen, perhaps the rest of the game is not engrossing enough to keep you interested for very long. If all you're interested in is following the map to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible, then there probably isn't enough content to make the game very good.
This is the key to it. It's like you watch your navigation system instead of watching the road, and guess what in ost cases it is enough to do so. You just focus on the minimap and run from Point A to B.
Another issue I forgot on the initial list and which is maybe one of the most important ones is how a game makes you progress. At some point developers just started to put mobs of a certain lvl range into an area, so people flooded in, leveled up and left for the next higher area. This right there is what destroys the feeling of immersion. It could be a nuisance having a mob in the zone, which is like 20 levels above the average player lvl in this area, but i guess nobody doubts it added a lot of flavor to it. The game did not tell you which level the mob has or if it is a group or raid target. You had to find out by yourself
Today, the mob tells you by bright colors in most cases what he is about and if you stand a chance at all. How realistic is that? This is one of the main reasons why I say that there is a difrerence between MMO and MMORPG. It just takes so much atmosphere out if all you do is to judge the mobs by lvl and come back later when ready for them. All you got in EQ was a vague sentence, which was colored yes, but a green mob might have been tough as hell and a red mob might have been beatable. Undercons and Overcons, the excitment is in the fact that you could not be 100% sure, until you tried and found out yourself.
- Leveling the character: Reaching maximum level means nothing in today's games. They play more like a checklist and people feel like they are on a schedule playing through them. When someone reached Level 50 in the early days of EQ, it was officially anounced. Reaching level 50 and later, level 60 were no small feats. It took effort, knowledge and dedication.
- Travel: Journeys mean nothing as well in today's games, they just feel like an unnecessary interruption of what you really need to do, and please remember you are on a damn schedule. So journeys mean nothing. Example of EQ again: You could die on each of your trips to a certain zone, if you were not careful. You had to figure out a safe way to travel through a zone, which sometimes could contain mobs, which could kill you in one or two swings.
- Death: Dying means nothing in today's titles. You splat, walk back to your tombstone or whatever icon they picked to be fancy, click it, go on... Some games have some small malus for a time but that's about it. Dying in EQ was real painful, and corpse runs were no fun. But hey, death is nothing trivial, it is death so it should hurt the player, or not? You had to interact, you had to talk to people, ask them for help, for a rezz, a necro to summon a corpse, yadda yadda. You talked to strangers in need of help, you met unfriendly people giving shit about your fate (your charcater's fate of course), you met nice people, helping you. Later you helped them, ingame friendships were made, relationships were built, guilds were formed, ...
- Maps: The integration of Mini Maps was probably the worst move ever in MMORPG-history. Nowadays you run after an arrow to your destination, to kill those few moles, to solve your next quest, on your schedule. Oh did I mention you are on a schedule? :P When I read the zone chatter in some of today's games, I really wonder how people can ask for directions and get lost. How in hell is it possible? My impression is that people just rush and don't look around. Exploring, anyone? EQ: Level up Sense Heading anyone? haha. Well after the first login you were so damn lost and overwhelmed. Navigating after loc? Lost art form :P
- Raiding: Tactics anyone? Hour long battles? Not in today's games. WoW might be the closest actually to a succesful raid game. I respect what WoW is, but never could get warm with it. But when comparing, WoW has the most inspirations from EQ1 raiding and that is what makes the game succesful in the end. It will never be different. A game lives and dies with endgame content. EQ still has the best raid game ever, which is my opinion and debatable, but I have no problems making that statement as I believe in it.
Well there could be more points, but those were the ones coming to my mind, and now it has been a long post as well, but I love ranting about stuff like that. Fell free to agree or disagree, but discuss
Maybe one day we will see a company courageous enough to bring the "adventure" back into the adventure games, and just don't spoonfeed everything, making games feel like checklists.
As an old EQ player I cringe reading your post. Sorry but you give Everquest players a bad name, go back to Everquest now and see if you really desire all these things. The only bit I agree with is that of adventure- you're right there but let me say this you play a single-player rpg you could very well feel 'immersed' without something of the nonsense that are plain timesinks like 2 hour corpse runs.
Problem with most gamers is they HAVENT been around long enough to play the great old classics
but only most of the players don't post on fourms.
I feel that we need a game like pre-cu SWG to hit main stream and get the games to..ohh i don't know THINK.
sure i am excited for WAR becuase i am RvR fan and i enjoy the lore..but if Fallen Earth came out at the same time and gave us everything they promise i would play FE is one second....
we need a great sandbox game ....and we need it fast
Of course they aren't over. In fact the business is bigger than it ever was. In fact, it's still growing.
That being said, are many veteran online gamers fed up? Well... yeah.
The reason being that MMORPG's just aren't as "fun" as they used to be. In the beginning people were still awed by the fact they could combine role-playing with computer gaming and being online. And when the 3D games like EQ and AC hit the shelves, I remember being even more excited.
In-game announcements meant something. Like, indeed, when someone reached a high level, claimed a rare item, finished an epic quest, defeated a legendary foe, ...
I think maybe the fact that it was more or less a niche concept back then, made sure the devs were people who really wanted to make a great game. But these days the demands are much higher and there are millions more people playing, which has turned it into a business. And like every business it caters to the masses. And the masses are pretty much superficial and dumb. Ergo... the games tend to be like that too.
Companies don't want to take risks with original concepts that may take forever to churn out. It's easier to just make a cookie cutter franchise game and hype it.
Which brings me to one of my own MMO pet peeves... Franchise games. I've played most big ones... and inthe end didn't like any. Usually they are too easy, too constricted by the pre-determined storyline, ...
AC (retired); EQ (retired); DAoC (retired); Horizons (retired); EQII (retired); CoH (retired); AC II (tested); Lineage II (beta); Neocron (tested); Saga of Ryzom (beta); SWG (retired)...
Originally posted by Sharlochar - Maps: The integration of Mini Maps was probably the worst move ever in MMORPG-history. Nowadays you run after an arrow to your destination, to kill those few moles, to solve your next quest, on your schedule. Oh did I mention you are on a schedule? :P When I read the zone chatter in some of today's games, I really wonder how people can ask for directions and get lost. How in hell is it possible? My impression is that people just rush and don't look around. Exploring, anyone? EQ: Level up Sense Heading anyone? haha. Well after the first login you were so damn lost and overwhelmed. Navigating after loc? Lost art form :P
Instead of quoting your entire post, Sharlochar, like a lot of people have, I'm just going to focus on one point. Your statement of adding mini-maps to the interface being the worst move in MMORPG history, may seem like an exaggeration, but I would also put it up there with most of the other lulus which have ruined immersion.
If only those who say they love having a map to follow really understood how bad they are for a game. For one thing, it takes your focus off the surrounding world and places it on the little circle in the corner of your screen. I wonder how much time a player who becomes dependent on a mini-map takes to learn the terrain of the world.
I also would submit if you hate not having a map on the screen, perhaps the rest of the game is not engrossing enough to keep you interested for very long. If all you're interested in is following the map to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible, then there probably isn't enough content to make the game very good.
Agreed, the FFXI map system was by far my favorite. Getting a lot of the maps was hard enough and usually didn't happen for so long that you had to memorize how to get places in an area and remember all the weird little things as landmarks. It truly made exploring the game fun and exciting. I can always recall weird landmarks and still remember a lot of them to this day.
I will not play a game that doesn't have some kind of map.
My idea of a game is not me running around lost for an hour. That's just frustrating and boring, not fun.
I played a lot of PnP games back in the day, so I've always had the idea that there the things that I, the player knows, and then the things that my character knows.
I, the player, may go on vacation for a couple of weeks, and not play the game. I don't remember some crazy city layout or what not. But my Character, who lives there, should not have forgotten the way to the market.
That's just a pain in the arse, for no good reason. So give me a map, or don't get my subscription fee.
I come from the same generation as many of the original EQ players, and I have a few friends are are truely devoted to the game. However I completely missed it at the time, and only started playing MMOs much later. Instead I played RTS games like Command & Conquer, and turn based strategy games such as Masters of Orion, Civilisation and Battle Isle.
I currently play Warcraft, although I've tried a number of other games. There are some aspects of Warcraft I love, but I hate how Blizzard seem to me to be destroying the best elements of their own game in the pursuit of rushing everyone to endgame.
I like going to random instances whilst levelling a character, meeting new people and working in a team. But now everyone just wants to reach 70 asap, and with the new increased questing speed, levelling is far too fast. Can't get a group for an instance on Tuesday? Tough luck - you will be too high level to even queue for it by Thursday.
I like playing both normal and heroic instances at 70. But no one bothers with normals any more, since PvP offers so many easy mode rewards. And even heroics are starting to seem far too easy now I have full badge and raid gear.
I like going to battlegrounds and playing with a good team. But nowadays all the kids have hit max level, so the standard of play is worse than at 30-39 two years ago. We are still stuck with the same four battlgrounds, and too many people are only there to grind honour and marks rather than to enjoy the process. PvP is marred by Alterac Valley afkers and semi pre-mades full of naked people that have been set up to loose as fast as possible in AB.
The only part of this vast game that is left that is really worthwhile in the game is raids. Raids are fun, but it's not enough.
Comments
I have to disagree with you gish/penguin guy
My tastes haven't changed since I've started playing. And since then games have changed drastically from the past to the present. Are you sure you aren't just talking about post WoW? That's what it looks like and if that is true then yes I will agree with you because it's true.
I still play FFXI because I love that game and it is everything I've wanted. The whole reason I'm posting this topic is because the pop is dieing and soon enough I'm gonna have to get a new game to play and that is way to hard with what there is today.
Well since that is what you mean (though I truly didn't think you were insisting that they would vanish) then you are truly one of the disenfranchised.
But as I mentioned above, this has gone before with other genres. How many people long for real music with varied harmonic structure and rhythmic vitality only to get pop, rock, "alternative', etc.?
However, I am a firm believe of not being elitist and to affirm that if a person doesn't like, want or need a certain level of complexity then they are any lesser and that their desires are garbage. I essentially don't believe in taking away one's humanity because they listen to Brittany Spears or play WoW.
Otherwise you get the whole "Philosopher Kings" idea where only those who really know better should lead those who don't.
Now, to your post, though you feel that you might want to symbolically put a gun to your head, there are so many more people who actually find playing online games more palatable because gameplay is more streamlined. They are looking for harmless diversion not to be tested or to hone "skillz" (or skills for that matter).
So what do you do? Well, unfortunately not much. You either learn to take this new crop of games for what they are and only expect as much as they offer or just not play and hope that someone somewhere might want to return to an older style of gaming.
I might note that it looks like Ryzom will be coming back. Skill based, very few quests, group based, complex skill creation.
Now is the time for players to support a game that does not fall under the normal umbrella of class based/quest based games.
It's up to you guys.
Ryzom huh? I'll look into that now.
I agree with you.
I wanted to stop here for a moment and talk about Cryptic a little, before we give a wrong impression. What Champions online is doing is NOT about taking risks. They already took those risks with City of Heroes and realized that there was money in it. Most importantly, they realized what it was that SOLD that game. Customization, and lots of it. CoH had some pretty bland gameplay, but tons of character options and tons of skill combinations coupled with even tons MORE skill enhancement combinations. All that customization overrode the bland gameplay so well that it still has 150K or more players EVEN THOUGH MOST OTHER MMO'S HAVE BETTER GAMEPLAY.
Basically...what Champions online is attempting to do is deeply expand the customization (which was obviously the selling point, and always will be) while correcting the "bland gameplay" issue. Most of the gameplay problems lay deeply embed into the shoddy engine they chose to work with. Granted, I very much LOVE the game and still play. I think that they really tried to expand that core engine with Champions to allow it to have much better "super hero" gameplay.
.....
Champions Online is still pretty risky in comparison to the norm. They are abandoning the Class based systems completely in favor of skill-based (HERO PnP system). Recall, they wanted to do that with CoH as well (see old prelaunch e# vids) but then Jack honestly confessed it was just too risky at the time.
I loath these kinda posts.
EQ is still out there, you can still play it the way you used to, AKA
-taking hours to get your corpse
-running for 30 minutes to get somewhere
-spending 1 hour to get your new spell
Vangaurd tried to do it, uhmm....it took 2 months and they had to change the game to a more friendly style game or people would have all left it.
If you like that sorta game, go play it, it's called "DEAD EQ".
But don't come pretending here that those game can still be successful. People want gameplay and content, the EQ times of timesinks are over.
That's not what he was talking about at all. He just wants a level of skill to actually mean something again. Death should mean something. You should be scared of dying. Travel should mean something to so that getting to that new awesome place is a substantial accomplishment. That doesn't equal time sinks.
Thanks a lot. I could not have replied better. Exactly that was my point.
It was what he was talking about. I played EQ for 4+ years or so.
I know exactly what he wants.
Meaningful in EQ has ALWAYS meant timesinks.
Travel in Luclin EQ directly equates to timesinks. It was tried in Vanguard and they had to implement portals or people would have left. What more proof do you want that it doesn't work anymore?
If people want they can still come back to EQ, surprisingly noone does.
EQ is dead, sorry.
I hate to break it to you, but by your definition of timesink, every MMORPG is a timesink. This is what those games all are in the end. If you hate timesinks, maybe you should look out for a different genre. This is what I learned and this is why I just play very casually nowadays.
In my opinion people can just perceive a game as a timesink if they set themselves a limit to reach something in a certain time, or how could you ever think of a game as a timesink if you just played it and explored the world? This is what I meant with schedule. People are striving to reach max lvl as fast as they can and the newer titles offer it to them. But where is the sense of accomplishment. Even you state that EQ is dead (which is very true, I don't disagree here), I would make a guess that you can remember more significant moments from your EQ time, than for any other game.
Before my high end raiding time it took me 1 damn year to finish my necro epic, but you know what, when I finally had it, it felt like something special was done. I was pointing out in my initial post that I was using EQ as an example as I have the most references, I even did that in the very first sentence and it should lead to a general discussion about what today's titles are lacking. I was never about "EQ is better than anything out there".
Instead of quoting your entire post, Sharlochar, like a lot of people have, I'm just going to focus on one point. Your statement of adding mini-maps to the interface being the worst move in MMORPG history, may seem like an exaggeration, but I would also put it up there with most of the other lulus which have ruined immersion.
If only those who say they love having a map to follow really understood how bad they are for a game. For one thing, it takes your focus off the surrounding world and places it on the little circle in the corner of your screen. I wonder how much time a player who becomes dependent on a mini-map takes to learn the terrain of the world.
I also would submit if you hate not having a map on the screen, perhaps the rest of the game is not engrossing enough to keep you interested for very long. If all you're interested in is following the map to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible, then there probably isn't enough content to make the game very good.
IMHO, the MMO days are not over...just struggling...between "older" technologies and newer. There are people now just don't want to give up their old computers...and those that crave for bigger and better.
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ~Ernest Gaines
Instead of quoting your entire post, Sharlochar, like a lot of people have, I'm just going to focus on one point. Your statement of adding mini-maps to the interface being the worst move in MMORPG history, may seem like an exaggeration, but I would also put it up there with most of the other lulus which have ruined immersion.
If only those who say they love having a map to follow really understood how bad they are for a game. For one thing, it takes your focus off the surrounding world and places it on the little circle in the corner of your screen. I wonder how much time a player who becomes dependent on a mini-map takes to learn the terrain of the world.
I also would submit if you hate not having a map on the screen, perhaps the rest of the game is not engrossing enough to keep you interested for very long. If all you're interested in is following the map to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible, then there probably isn't enough content to make the game very good.
Agreed, the FFXI map system was by far my favorite. Getting a lot of the maps was hard enough and usually didn't happen for so long that you had to memorize how to get places in an area and remember all the weird little things as landmarks. It truly made exploring the game fun and exciting. I can always recall weird landmarks and still remember a lot of them to this day.
Instead of quoting your entire post, Sharlochar, like a lot of people have, I'm just going to focus on one point. Your statement of adding mini-maps to the interface being the worst move in MMORPG history, may seem like an exaggeration, but I would also put it up there with most of the other lulus which have ruined immersion.
If only those who say they love having a map to follow really understood how bad they are for a game. For one thing, it takes your focus off the surrounding world and places it on the little circle in the corner of your screen. I wonder how much time a player who becomes dependent on a mini-map takes to learn the terrain of the world.
I also would submit if you hate not having a map on the screen, perhaps the rest of the game is not engrossing enough to keep you interested for very long. If all you're interested in is following the map to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible, then there probably isn't enough content to make the game very good.
This is the key to it. It's like you watch your navigation system instead of watching the road, and guess what in ost cases it is enough to do so. You just focus on the minimap and run from Point A to B.
Another issue I forgot on the initial list and which is maybe one of the most important ones is how a game makes you progress. At some point developers just started to put mobs of a certain lvl range into an area, so people flooded in, leveled up and left for the next higher area. This right there is what destroys the feeling of immersion. It could be a nuisance having a mob in the zone, which is like 20 levels above the average player lvl in this area, but i guess nobody doubts it added a lot of flavor to it. The game did not tell you which level the mob has or if it is a group or raid target. You had to find out by yourself
Today, the mob tells you by bright colors in most cases what he is about and if you stand a chance at all. How realistic is that? This is one of the main reasons why I say that there is a difrerence between MMO and MMORPG. It just takes so much atmosphere out if all you do is to judge the mobs by lvl and come back later when ready for them. All you got in EQ was a vague sentence, which was colored yes, but a green mob might have been tough as hell and a red mob might have been beatable. Undercons and Overcons, the excitment is in the fact that you could not be 100% sure, until you tried and found out yourself.
As an old EQ player I cringe reading your post. Sorry but you give Everquest players a bad name, go back to Everquest now and see if you really desire all these things. The only bit I agree with is that of adventure- you're right there but let me say this you play a single-player rpg you could very well feel 'immersed' without something of the nonsense that are plain timesinks like 2 hour corpse runs.
yes that is the only problem with ffxi now. the game is great but i miss the glory days.
Problem with most gamers is they HAVENT been around long enough to play the great old classics
but only most of the players don't post on fourms.
I feel that we need a game like pre-cu SWG to hit main stream and get the games to..ohh i don't know THINK.
sure i am excited for WAR becuase i am RvR fan and i enjoy the lore..but if Fallen Earth came out at the same time and gave us everything they promise i would play FE is one second....
we need a great sandbox game ....and we need it fast
need it fast... yes i want it today
now i still like the games i play and its for free 2 so im not tired of it
beblessed
Of course they aren't over. In fact the business is bigger than it ever was. In fact, it's still growing.
That being said, are many veteran online gamers fed up? Well... yeah.
The reason being that MMORPG's just aren't as "fun" as they used to be. In the beginning people were still awed by the fact they could combine role-playing with computer gaming and being online. And when the 3D games like EQ and AC hit the shelves, I remember being even more excited.
In-game announcements meant something. Like, indeed, when someone reached a high level, claimed a rare item, finished an epic quest, defeated a legendary foe, ...
I think maybe the fact that it was more or less a niche concept back then, made sure the devs were people who really wanted to make a great game. But these days the demands are much higher and there are millions more people playing, which has turned it into a business. And like every business it caters to the masses. And the masses are pretty much superficial and dumb. Ergo... the games tend to be like that too.
Companies don't want to take risks with original concepts that may take forever to churn out. It's easier to just make a cookie cutter franchise game and hype it.
Which brings me to one of my own MMO pet peeves... Franchise games. I've played most big ones... and inthe end didn't like any. Usually they are too easy, too constricted by the pre-determined storyline, ...
AC (retired); EQ (retired); DAoC (retired); Horizons (retired); EQII (retired); CoH (retired); AC II (tested); Lineage II (beta); Neocron (tested); Saga of Ryzom (beta); SWG (retired)...
Instead of quoting your entire post, Sharlochar, like a lot of people have, I'm just going to focus on one point. Your statement of adding mini-maps to the interface being the worst move in MMORPG history, may seem like an exaggeration, but I would also put it up there with most of the other lulus which have ruined immersion.
If only those who say they love having a map to follow really understood how bad they are for a game. For one thing, it takes your focus off the surrounding world and places it on the little circle in the corner of your screen. I wonder how much time a player who becomes dependent on a mini-map takes to learn the terrain of the world.
I also would submit if you hate not having a map on the screen, perhaps the rest of the game is not engrossing enough to keep you interested for very long. If all you're interested in is following the map to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible, then there probably isn't enough content to make the game very good.
Agreed, the FFXI map system was by far my favorite. Getting a lot of the maps was hard enough and usually didn't happen for so long that you had to memorize how to get places in an area and remember all the weird little things as landmarks. It truly made exploring the game fun and exciting. I can always recall weird landmarks and still remember a lot of them to this day.
I will not play a game that doesn't have some kind of map.
My idea of a game is not me running around lost for an hour. That's just frustrating and boring, not fun.
I played a lot of PnP games back in the day, so I've always had the idea that there the things that I, the player knows, and then the things that my character knows.
I, the player, may go on vacation for a couple of weeks, and not play the game. I don't remember some crazy city layout or what not. But my Character, who lives there, should not have forgotten the way to the market.
That's just a pain in the arse, for no good reason. So give me a map, or don't get my subscription fee.
I'd just like to offer my own perspective.
I come from the same generation as many of the original EQ players, and I have a few friends are are truely devoted to the game. However I completely missed it at the time, and only started playing MMOs much later. Instead I played RTS games like Command & Conquer, and turn based strategy games such as Masters of Orion, Civilisation and Battle Isle.
I currently play Warcraft, although I've tried a number of other games. There are some aspects of Warcraft I love, but I hate how Blizzard seem to me to be destroying the best elements of their own game in the pursuit of rushing everyone to endgame.
I like going to random instances whilst levelling a character, meeting new people and working in a team. But now everyone just wants to reach 70 asap, and with the new increased questing speed, levelling is far too fast. Can't get a group for an instance on Tuesday? Tough luck - you will be too high level to even queue for it by Thursday.
I like playing both normal and heroic instances at 70. But no one bothers with normals any more, since PvP offers so many easy mode rewards. And even heroics are starting to seem far too easy now I have full badge and raid gear.
I like going to battlegrounds and playing with a good team. But nowadays all the kids have hit max level, so the standard of play is worse than at 30-39 two years ago. We are still stuck with the same four battlgrounds, and too many people are only there to grind honour and marks rather than to enjoy the process. PvP is marred by Alterac Valley afkers and semi pre-mades full of naked people that have been set up to loose as fast as possible in AB.
The only part of this vast game that is left that is really worthwhile in the game is raids. Raids are fun, but it's not enough.
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I feel I want more of a challenge.
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