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I think "Next Gen" MMO's have made us lazy!
TwiztedTD
Member Posts: 79
To start off, I began my MMO career playing Asherons Call. I never got into EQ or Ultima Online. I think the new MMO's are gearing for the younger crowed by making the games easier, thus making us Experienced MMO players lazy!
I remember Asherons Call -
To learn a spell you had to FIND / BUY the scroll, or you had to learn it by testing a random cobinations of componants. Sure down the road there was an application that told you all the combinations. But for the first while, only the uber l33t had the cool great spells.
You had to carry componants! If you ran out of Hyssop, or Red Tapers YOU COULDNT CAST UBER HEAL OR UBER FLAME SPELL!
When you died, you lost X amount of items on your character. You would have to gether up a group of higher levels to help you get your body because you were a n00b exploring the Obsidian planes!
There were no classes, you had to figure out your build all by yourself. I remember putting XP into the wrong skills by accident, or learning the wrong skills. Like Armor and Weapon Identify! Again, sure enough later down the road they added the ability to drop skills.
There were no quest NPCs and auto run to next target. You had to grind and learn quests all by yourself. It would take guilds days and weeks to figure out a quest line. It took time and team work to discover a quest.
There was a sence of community. Walking into a town and seeing Tim the Enchantor a level 90!!!! OMG nobody was that level, he was a GOD!
I just think new MMO's are making games TO easy! I miss the challenge. But if a game were to come out that was hard, would it actually suceed? No. I think the MMO genre has gotten to be to easy, and nobody would like the challenge anymore.
Comments
already being now
you like play mabinogi.
that games have that you wanted
no classes , no essential skill tree
you had to figure out your build all by yourself
(sorry, i cannot write another sentense about this mean)
play MMO 32hours in week
my favorite game is
z9star,Tenvi,Alka(1000vs1000 pvp lol),mabinogi(play almost 6year)
i'm freshman major in chemical engneering in university
The basic problem is that dealing with the nuisances you describe isn't fun. It's just an obnoxious hassle. Getting developers to stop putting things into games for the sole purpose of harassing their players and trying to chase them away from the game would be a major improvement. That hasn't happened yet, but the movement in that direction is a good thing.
Those things you speak of are just painful. I played UO when it first came out and that is the very reason I quit. I am married with 3 children and when I actually get an hour or so of free time to play, I want that time to actually be productive. I want to have made at least a little progress. Loading a game up with tedious tasks just keeps us light to medium players from getting anywhere compared to these 12 year olds who can sink their entire weekend into an MMO without blinking an eye.
The only thing I agree with you on is the autorun to the next quest target, etc. I tried Ether Saga Online and you can pretty much autorun to everything. You don't have to figure out where anything is. And so far the monsters are so non-agressive you can pretty much click autorun and then go make yourself a sandwich. Which is taking it a bit far.
I think a delicate balance has to be aceived between challenge and convenience. It's easy to go too far one way or the other. That's why game design is such a difficult art and science rolled in to one.
Playing games is about fun, not 2nd job. If you really want hardcore, you can just delete your toon if you die in WoW, and delete your weapons when it becomes red, dont repair.
And wait untill you have baby dude, your eyes will be open...
RIP Orc Choppa
The REAL problem is that people that are new to games can and could not accept that something OP described as being fun.
Often they see things like that as a hassle, where other enjoyed it, but unfortunaly most don't care if others are enjoying certain aspect of certain games, so in turn the masses turn this genre is a easy to play type of handhold game, where challenge is lost, exploring died with teleports, discovery also died with marker on the map for what ever you might have to look for. Communication also dying, lets creat more public quest type of feature's WOHAAAA.....
Simply put people do not want to accept games for what they are, as seen with excuses like wait till you have kids or family which are such ignorant statements as it shows lack of responsibility and understand what you get yourself into when entering a MMORPG. If you feel playing this genre takes to much of your time, try playing less, if thats not possible just except the game might not be for you. That would make MMORPG evolve again, but aslong we have these unexperianced people trying to play games I fear games will become even more easyer with less and less depth.
Games are for entertainment, not job replacement. Games have not made anyone lazy (other than, its what you do when you are felling lazy), developers are just giving people what they want. Pure and simple.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I do agree with all of you.
Asherons Call was fun when I was 15 playing in my parents basement.
Im 25 and have my own house, fiance and a career. I cant spend hours just trying to do something.
Recently I played WOW for 4 years. The other problem is you have to be in a good Raid Guild, and RAIDS take SOOO long. Some would take 3 hours to do!
I hope that soon an MMO company finds the happy medium. Where the game isnt to dumbed down, but there is customization.
You should try LOTRO.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I have 2 kids, a wife, a house, and a full time job. I'm studying to get a C# cert on top of my 4 year degree I got while I was a single father with 100% custody, working a full time job and going to school at night.
I like to play games where things are not easily obtained or understood. I like it that way. I set out on a long term goal, and work my way towards that goal, usually with friends, one play session at a time. Sometimes I can only play for half an hour. Other times I can play for 4 or 5. I don't try and bend MMOs to suit my schedule. If I really didn't want to put forth the effort to find time in my schedule to play, I'd just start playing single player or console games more often or exclusively.
Or what actually makes the best sense is to just have different kinds of MMO games, which I think we have right now. You can play WoW if you can only devote a bare minimum amount of time and/or must have that feeling of accomplishment the game shows you by dinging a new level or you can play a more involved game like EVE or Darkfall if you have a sense of self achievement without the game dinging for you etc or if you want to help work on projects that are larger than yourself.
We have MMOs for most everybody now days, so it's not really black or white.
nethervoid - Est. '97
[UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1
20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel
I did try LOTR online... It just didnt hitch me.
I am totall adicted to Atlantica Online right now. I can go into the bottom of a dungeon and just sit there near a portal and no mobs will get me. So i can casually play when i want.
Well, yes and no.
Recently I've been dabbling in Vanguard and I have to say that there is a lot that I love about it. However, I can more than easily see why so few people would not play it. example...
Last night I wanted to find a city. I had gone through the new starter area but after I was done with that area I had a choice to go to 3 different areas. I just picked one and there I was. Had no idea what to do. Which in my case was fine, this was sort of what I was looking for out of Vanguard. However, find a city and get a horse.
Took me a while to do so as it wasn't clear to me what the cities or towns were on my map. I eventually stumbled on the elf one. ran around and accidentally fell into a water way which led into a large stone bowl filled with water. Now, I believe this was an oversite on the design team as it didn't seem that players were supposed to end up here. I kept having to keep my head above water in order to try to stay alive. eventually I sort of forced myself over the front of the bowl where the water was overflowing and fell an immense distance to a river below.
I then had to find my way up, fought some mobs, found some sort of dungeon area but still couldn't find my way back. Eventually DID find my back and the stables (where I was headed before I fell into that water area) and actually got a horse.
That took me quite some time. Now, I'm chalking that up to fun because my whole reason for dabbling in Vanguard is the discovery aspect.
But if one were to look at what I really did:
was lost
Accidentally found a city but fell into water area and swam to an area I shouldn't have been in
spent time figuring out how to get out as the bowl didn't seem designed to be exited
fell, spent more time trying to get back
eventually bought a horse.
That was how I spent my game time.
Most people would NEVER want to spend their game time just trying to look for a horse.
So I mention this because it seems that the older games were sort of like this. Trial and error, not knowing where you were, not knowing how to make a character and possibly ruining it.
If one were open to that type of game play then I can easily see why one would think it fun.
But most people just want to play. They don't want to have to fight with getting lost or finding a horse or ruining their character. On top of that I will propose this.
Most people who played the earlier games were exactly the type of people who would have been drawn to them. That the average person didn't really stay with them as they were huge time sinks. It wasn't until the game play was streamlined that they suddenly became a bit more attractive to more average players.
And there are games that do look to the earlier game models. Vanguard is a playable game. Ryzom is a skill based sandbox game. the older games of EQ, Asheron's call, DAoC, etc are still around in some form.
But no one is playing them. "Gamers" are just too fickle. Not to say that you should play something you don't want to but if no one shows interest then the only games that will flourish are the games where people show interest.
That's just how it is.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I kinda want to check out Vanguard now =D
The REAL problem is that people that are new to games can and could not accept that something OP described as being fun.
To the contrary, the "problem" if it can be called as such is that a lot of people have played games with a lot of stupid nuisances, know from experience that they are not fun, and don't want to put up with them yet again. There were many games around long before the Internet was in widespread use.
The REAL problem is that people that are new to games can and could not accept that something OP described as being fun.
To the contrary, the "problem" if it can be called as such is that a lot of people have played games with a lot of stupid nuisances, know from experience that they are not fun, and don't want to put up with them yet again. There were many games around long before the Internet was in widespread use.
Hell yeah! I've been playing games since the times of Golden Axe and the things OP describes ARE NOT FUN.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Solution:
-give more options
-instead of limiting the gameplay, expand it
-build in the game many hidden areas that aren't required for an average gamer to progress but present a chalenge for a player who likes exploring
-do away with elitist agenda, everyone gets loot, but those who put in the extra effort get perks and titles
-throw in some real sandbox elements that provide an avenue for expressing yourself
-make time relative, not a currency
-make 15 minutes of doing nothing as fun as 2 hours of killing stuff
How?! I have no idea. I just know one thing, limiting player options and using punishing game mechanics will result in masochistic community, not intersting one.
The REAL problem is that people that are new to games can and could not accept that something OP described as being fun.
Often they see things like that as a hassle, where other enjoyed it, but unfortunaly most don't care if others are enjoying certain aspect of certain games, so in turn the masses turn this genre is a easy to play type of handhold game, where challenge is lost, exploring died with teleports, discovery also died with marker on the map for what ever you might have to look for. Communication also dying, lets creat more public quest type of feature's WOHAAAA.....
Simply put people do not want to accept games for what they are, as seen with excuses like wait till you have kids or family which are such ignorant statements as it shows lack of responsibility and understand what you get yourself into when entering a MMORPG. If you feel playing this genre takes to much of your time, try playing less, if thats not possible just except the game might not be for you. That would make MMORPG evolve again, but aslong we have these unexperianced people trying to play games I fear games will become even more easyer with less and less depth.
You've got to be kidding me. "You don't like it because you're not hardcore enough". Give me a break. I've grinded up my levels back in the days of Diku MUDs. Doing it now is utterly boring. Trying to do it in yet another MMO bores me to tears. All of the "fun" stuff is locked behind 300+ hours of grind, and even then the fun stuff isn't quite that fun and is just another grind.
Killing 1000 mobs for my next level, gear, or whatever simply isn't fun, especially as it's a test of endurance, not actual skill or anything else.
More options: More activies to do in-game, preferably ones that progress one's character in some manner and especially social activities.
Expanding gameplay + exploration: Stop designing the world as a theme park with "you must be this tall to ride..." type areas or ones that require a person to slaughter tons of mobs just to get to something they see off in the distance. Let a player visit where they want to instead of locking everything behind killing and otherwise forcing that particular mechanic down our throats.
Loot for everyone is good. Granted, for the real achievement crowd, there does need to be some kind of loot with a slightly better bonus, but it shouldn't be OMG UBER.
There are several problems with Vanguard and why some people who might like this type of game might avoid it. And I think if they were to alter their expectations slightly it would be better.
So here are some of the issues:
One, there are still bugs. Granted MUCH, MUCH, MUCH fewer bugs than launch but it's not as polished as LOTRO or WoW. And players get really fickle at this sort of thing.
the most innocuous bug I found was when crossing some sort of area line and there would be a small hitch while something loaded. Completely overlookable but if players are expecting fluid everything they are going to go nuts. Doesn't happen often but it happens.
The worst bug (and I'm guessing it's a bug.. who knows) is that at times I would turn my camera and everything would go black. The first time it happened was right after I applied some anti-aliasing. So I turned it off and it was fine. Until it happened again. It doesn't happen a lot but if it does I just alter the AA again and it requeries the area (my best guess as to what the game is doing) and everything comes back on again.
For many/most people this would be game breaking. But I come from the early Morrowind days when the game would just crash to desktop. So to me it's just a hiccup and can be dealt with.
The other thing is the world is huge. and this is one of the major reason I am playing. Absolutely huge. And it seems that you really can go anywhere. To that end I rented a griffon (5 minute timer) and flew over some area... "something's scar" (I forget exact name) and landed. Was decimated in seconds and the inhabitants were far above me in levels. However, travel a bit closer to that elven city and their is some sort of building that has mobs that are 3 or 4 levels below me. To me this is a plus.
But getting back to the world. It's so large that you just don't see a lot of people. Not an issue for me as I'm playing to explore and to occassionally meet people. But there is a contingent of mmo'ers who just HAVE to be social all the time. Which sort of drives me nuts as I hate chatter. I had to turn off the area chat as it was just people "shooting the shit". Completely ruins the game for me but might help others to alleviate the issue of not seeing people.
After I played Morrowind and Neverwinter nights I tried my first mmo in the form of Lineage 2. I wanted to get the same sense of exploration but loved the 3rd person viewpoint. However, in the end it was a dissapointment because exploration and a wide variety of skills really wasn't what Lineage 2 was about. I was looking to explore caves and dungeons and have to use a torch to see things or to use spells and skills to open chests but I find that many of today's mmo's are not quite about that type of thing.
I loved discovering new areas in Morrowind.
Vanguard gives me a little of that. Even if I go somewhere and it's nothing. When I was trying to find my way back to the elven city I noticed a tower in some water with a stairway in the center. I swam out and tried to get on the lower area so I could climb that stairs but it wasn't going to happen. But I loved the idea that I could try. Found another tower a few days earlier that had some sort of light at the top. As I climbed the stairs they started to decay. There was a portion that I just couldn't get by but I still wonder if it is possible because the stairs then continues to the top.
This to me is what I want from an mmo. So I am willing to put up with some bugs or a smaller playerbase.
But again, I can easily see why people wouldn't want this. Spending a few hours trying to find a city and buy a horse is just not AAA entertainment for some people. Heck, it wouldn't be to me either except the sense of discovery is so overwhelming.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Not all of us are playing Next Gen mmos. Take me for example, 5 year FFXI veteran. Very hard time consuming game, but very rewarding in the end once you acomplish something.
The REAL problem is that people that are new to games can and could not accept that something OP described as being fun.
Often they see things like that as a hassle, where other enjoyed it, but unfortunaly most don't care if others are enjoying certain aspect of certain games, so in turn the masses turn this genre is a easy to play type of handhold game, where challenge is lost, exploring died with teleports, discovery also died with marker on the map for what ever you might have to look for. Communication also dying, lets creat more public quest type of feature's WOHAAAA.....
Simply put people do not want to accept games for what they are, as seen with excuses like wait till you have kids or family which are such ignorant statements as it shows lack of responsibility and understand what you get yourself into when entering a MMORPG. If you feel playing this genre takes to much of your time, try playing less, if thats not possible just except the game might not be for you. That would make MMORPG evolve again, but aslong we have these unexperianced people trying to play games I fear games will become even more easyer with less and less depth.
You've got to be kidding me. "You don't like it because you're not hardcore enough". Give me a break.
Have no idea what you mean with that hardcore stuff as thats not what I said.
I've grinded up my levels back in the days of Diku MUDs. Doing it now is utterly boring. Trying to do it in yet another MMO bores me to tears. All of the "fun" stuff is locked behind 300+ hours of grind, and even then the fun stuff isn't quite that fun and is just another grind.
Hmm I never grind, see no reason to do so in a MMORPG and if that MMORPG does offer mostly grind I simply don't play it, to bad many seem to endure themselfs thru things they seem not to enjoy.....
Killing 1000 mobs for my next level, gear, or whatever simply isn't fun, especially as it's a test of endurance, not actual skill or anything else.
See.....I don't play MMORPG for TEH NEXT LVL, I don't mind those who do if it's provides them fun, but it's funny how people take for example those kill 1000 mobs to just do that, seen it so many times "sorry busy grinding rep. or what ever" , I mean why do people put themselfs in such situation you know you gonna run into those mobs for day's/weeks/months to come so why rush to get to that next lvl, why even that focus on the next lvl.
When I started in EQ in 2000 players were willing to work hard for things and they worked together.....Now in 2009 every game I have played since has been "Make it fast and make it easy".
EQ was incredibly difficult and required good teamwork(along with a lot of time investment) to get anywhere. I personally thnk there is a big market for us "old-mmo players" that rather play difficult mmos. I remember when I used to help newbs out in south ro by killing the giants and buffing them with thorns. they would always ask all these questions about them and I'd tell them about the game. Almost every time someone would say something similar to "omg, how do you know so much"/ And my answer would be, if you ever want to get anywhere, you wil have to know all of it , too. I wouldn't even talk to them about grouping in the planes! Ever plane was completely different. Now days, you get a quest and it lights up a mark on the overhead map, it lights up a amrk on your HUD map, and in many games now it auto-walks you to the NPC's/areas of interest. Part of me likes it, but since I havent played an "auto-walk" MMO for more than a week--- ever--- maybe it's not so great afterall.
Bashing your forehead against a can repeatedly to open it may be hardcore by some people's definitions, but I will still happily use a can opener and laugh at your unsophisticated methods. There's a video of this somewhere on youtube.
I think the same applies for MMO's. If you wish to subject yourself to undue masochistic game mechanics and pretend to be all leet, be my guest, but not all of us enjoy that delusion.
Remember, it has to be fun to be a game. Grinding is a bedroom activity, and the point is definitely not to do my wife as fast as possible.
That's an, uhhh, "interesting" argument you've got there. But there is a not so fine line between a difficult game and masochism. But there is little difference in most of the easy MMOs out there and just watching a movie. That's how I see it. The newer MMOs are just graphical chat rooms since a drunken chimp can get anyhwere they want in the game. It's also interesting because such easy games only becaome a question of time investment, not skill. That's undue masochistic behavior IMO. I got better things to waste my time on.
That's an, uhhh, "interesting" argument you've got there. But there is a not so fine line between a difficult game and masochism. But there is little difference in most of the easy MMOs out there and just watching a movie. That's how I see it. The newer MMOs are just graphical chat rooms since a drunken chimp can get anyhwere they want in the game. It's also interesting because such easy games only becaome a question of time investment, not skill. That's undue masochistic behavior IMO. I got better things to waste my time on.
Searching around for hours because travel is slow, NOTHING is marked, theres no map or minimap and you're given zero direction as to the point of "playing", is not SKILL. Thats called persistence and trial and error. Its very EASY actually if you have an unlimited amount of time and not a care in the REAL world. You need only look to those of us that have no interest in returning to MMOs like that. WE outnumber the hardcore freakshows by very large margins. You're not special for enjoying that sort of gameplay. You just don't value your gametime all that much. I'd say your standards are low for accepting what most people view as a "waste of time". Creating a game with no direction and few intuitive features is actually much easier, which is why MMOs were like that back in the begining. WHen you don't have to test anything, because your players think just walking around in a gameworld is awesome, quality control isn't needed.