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If you want to see how bad this genre has become go play a good single player RPG
Rekindle
Member UncommonPosts: 1,206
Thats right: another Oblivion convert. I realize that not much that I will say is anything new that hasn't already been said in the last few months but its been a while since i went off on a good tangent:
It took a long break from mmos and gaming in general, then a return to single player RPG's for me to realize exactly how useless and crappy mmorpg gaming is these days.
Now I realize that the nuiances of how Oblivion works would be somewhat difficult to implement in an online setting and some of you will say I'm comparing apples and oranges but let me put it to you straight: A MMO that plays like Oblivion would be a welcome change to the crap that has been spewing out of various online gaming studios over the last few years. I think at this point I will only play an online game that is made to the quality and feel of Oblivion.
Playing Oblivion has made me realize what has been lost in the new age of online gaming and reminded me of the awe I first felt when I played an RPG game called Ultima that was online. In case anyone thinks I'm suffering from first kiss syndrome that same RPG'ish feeling was rekindled in Everquest, a game where I did maybe a total of 10 quests in 3 years ( and I can, to this day, still tell you about the epic encounters therein).....but thats where the buck stops because each generation of online game is a copy of the previous. Further, each generation dumbs things down more. When I play certain mmos i feel like I'm playing a Tonka Truck (yanno the big kiddie ones) . Most have been dumbed down to be something of a poor quality online chat room where you grind through stupid pointless mobs just standing around waiting to be plucked like some poor chicken in a huge slaughter house.
Playing oblivion has made me rethink a lot of things about online "rpgs", mainly its given me new perspective:
Instancing.
I used to be anti instancing but now I could care less as long as the content was good and not %100 of the world was instanced. Remember LDON and how the instanced dungeon scaled to your level? Was it really that bad? Oblivion has gear and content that levels with you too and I love the idea of going whereever whenever and not having to see how many effin dots the mob is.
Good story telling
Collect 10 boar husks then return.
Fedex this crate
Kill x mobs of type B, kill y mobs of type C - > and here is the reward you will get.
...There is no sword in the stone, no bling in the basement no haunted crypts that have a mystery at the bottom.
Modern commercial mmos are poor at telling a good story. WoW did well with the scripting of the story (because they can because its instanced) but every other cookie cutter Wow Clone (yes i said wow clone) really lacks this dynamic. How the hell can you have a RPG that is online without cohesive lore? Why does each quest have to be basically the same kill X zerg fest?
Skill based progression AND level based progression combined
Its all about the stinking levels these days. I think a game that has good story telling and makes progression through the levels meaningful will do well....maybe even take out exp and require x skill ups to level, i dunno. I think its a really cool idea to be level 50 and have very poor mace skills that could be improved on.....they once tried to fill this void with AA.
I could go on but I won't. I get the feeling I'm in the minority anyway. Maybe its because I'm getting older and loosing touch with my/the youth. It seems many of the gamers in this world are perfectly happy with the RMT scams and the subpar story telling and (lackof) imersion experienced in modern mmos (no offense intended). ...perhaps they are playing the game for different reasons and getting different things from it.
My expectations are too high for this genre.
No cookies please. Also, please try to avoid using popular culture internet lingo derived from "uber" communication paradigms such as the WoW message boards: It makes you sound as generic as the games we're talking about these days.....and I know you're not really generic.
Comments
A few points:
Fallout 3 fixed a lot of these problems by not being use-based.
If you want the best skill/level hybrid system, play Asheron's Call 1. Definitely the most solid use-based progression I've seen in an RPG, because you can use XP to directly increase skills which aren't fun to raise manually (besides which there aren't very many skills that involve dull activities to raise.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Or play monster hunter..
it shows how the mmorpg can influence in a positive way a single player rpg 
If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it's about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey
Different strokes for different folks.
For some RPGers, storyline is vital. They want to feel that they are doing something important with their time; more so than (for example) just having a contrived and pointless reason for killing 10 generic boars that respawn endlessly. They want to be the hero (or villain) of the story. They want to change the (virtual) world.
This is fine in single-player RPGs (or ARPGs like Oblivion) because they are built to support that purpose. MMOGs aren't designed to handle this for obvious reasons; you can't have 10000 "chosen ones" running around together and the more instancing that you cram into an MMOG, the less immersive it feels.
The majority of MMOGers don't seem to be RPG fans at all, and only see levelling/questing as a means to an end(game) where they can start to cooperate-and-compete with other players in prescripted PvE content (i.e. themeparks) and PvP/RvR. Many of them would happily choose to grind mobs from level 1-to-a-hundred if it was a more time-efficient method of progression.
It's the Facebook generation; people who play with friends or make friends with those they play with. They don't care much about pre-written fictional lore and/or stories because, for them, other people are their story/lore.
These two groups of players are pretty different, and it's clear (to me at least) that the MMORPG genre has been catering to the latter group rather than the former for the past ~10 years or so and that's understandable from a business perspective; there are a lot more generic gamers than there are RPGers.
Oh, and Oblivion kinda sucks. If you can stand the graphical devolution, give Morrowind a try, it's a much better RPG.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
OP is right Singleplayers RPG are soo better than any MMORPG that is incredible. The quality of a MMORPG is horrrrrrible.
But you can also found lots of people that dislike Oblivium. Bad example here.
If your playing Oblivion be sure to download and play the OoO mod
It is AMAZING it changes the whole game, makes it much more difficult as it sets the levels of the game (the mobs dont level to the same as you anymore)
Its like a huge expansion on content as well.
Anyone that likes anything it is a fact that someone else doesnt. So lets not be obviously obvious.
O3 and some other mods make the game neat!
now back to topic,
COME ON this genre has what +/-10 years? its evolving, very fast, compared to other sciences, its just a down phase, not of critivity, but of logics, we have great game mechanicis out there, ENOUTH gfx, its just happend that industry waht to pull the new 3 headed blue rabbit to get attention instead of the simple and working white rabbit out of the sandbox instead of the hat =p
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
Perhaps, but I felt a much more profound sense of immersion in Fallout 2 (third-person, 2-D isometric view) than I ever felt in Fallout 3. I guess I would add to your statement, "Sure, if it's handled properly, and appropriate for the game in question." (Though for MMORPGs, it's probably nearly always a good idea.)
Damn right. I love the Elder Scrolls games, I've made or worked on probably half a dozen mods for them, I'm a regular at the official forums, and I've played the crap out of them. In other words, I'm a hardcore Elder Scrolls player, not a casual one.
In Oblivion, the entire world was ridiculously level scaled (that's the official term for what you're referring to). Are you running around in glass armor using Daedric weapons? So is every single bandit in the game. Are you level 15 and exploring a ruined fort? Guess what? Every single container in that fort has the exact same random loot tables as every other container in every other fort in the game.
Generic-ness, random generation and no incentive whatsoever to explore. Yay!
Morrowind (which I like 100x better than Oblivion) has hand-placed, mostly non-level-scaled enemies and loot, a homemade touch so to speak, so almost every area (except non-special wilderness with scaled wildlife) has unique loot and enemies to kill. Morrowind also is a whole lot harder than Oblivion, which by comparison was designed with super-easymode in mind.
There's a mod called Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul that fixes the retarded level scaling issues in Oblivion, as someone mentioned previously. But the landscape, architecture and atmosphere of Oblivion are still extremely generic compared to the exotic Morrowind.
EXACTLY. The default system makes you practice and train certain skills before every level-up to get the best attribute bonuses, and even select major skills based on facilitating that. Retarded.
Fortunately, there are mods (GCD and nGCD being my favorite) which fix this in both Morrowind and Oblivion.
-------------------------------------------------
But yeah, Oblivion is far, far from perfect. It needs a whole lot of modification (thank God for modability) in order to fix the stupid decisions.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
Have to agree that we have been spoiled with few good RPG in recent years. Like mentioned Oblivion and Fallout 3, but also The Witcher and Mass Effect. All which have engaging story and interesting world to explore. To be honest, I am much more looking for Dragon Age: Origin than any MMO at the moment.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
I'm double-posting because my last post is already TL;DR, and I just realized something:
Morrowind is in the "old-school" category of Elder Scrolls games, because Oblivion was comparatively much easier, more dumbed-down, more generic, more consolized, had less skill and weapon variety, and the devs took a number of steps backwards in terms of complexity and the gameplay systems.
Oblivion only really surpassed Morrowind in graphics tech, animations, full voice-overs, Radiant AI (which sucked anyway, LOL@ ten shopkeepers appearing simultaneously outside their shop doors at closing time, then moving to the same restaurant in a herd), and the close combat system. Everything else was worse than before.
This almost exactly mirrors the difference between older MMORPGs and newer ones. Newer ones have fancier features, better graphics, voice acting and such, but just plain suck compared to the old ones.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
I played both Morrowind (never finished maybe ill go back) and Obivion (just started about a week ago).....so far I've been so captivated by the story line that loot has been a non concern for me. I realize that eventually the story line may wear off and some of these aforementioned blemishes may arise but I hope my point doesn't get lost.
MMO's have been using the complexity of the MMO world as an excuse to release drab games with little story telling.
now im off to look up mods for Oblivion lol
Yes i agree. Its hard to beat a well done single player RPG. If you can get past the dated graphics the original NWN is still one of my favorites. NWN 2 and Oblivion are very high on my list of great games. Im seriously thinking of going console. While my computer is still able to run pretty much anything i want to run it will not be long until upgrades will be needed . Most everything coming to us now is available on console as well without the hardware confilcts and MMO's are set up to run on less than monster rig specs so as said im leaning away. But back on topic
Ive had a lot of fun playing Titan Quest and S.T.A.L.K.E.R between Aion weekends. Like most agree, the single player games are much more in depth and what RPG's are supposed to be. Even the best MMO's fall short of what most of us like. If Aion leaves me cold it may be a long dry spell for me as far as MMO's, however STO will be something i have to try, i mean, its Star Trek 
, at least its supposed to be , we will see.
Yes and no. For the first time in 5 years I find myself subscribed to no MMO's (I'll resub to EvE in 3 to 6 months. Its a love/hate thing with EvE
) and I started playing Assassin's Creed. Bearing in mind the repetitive nature of the game, its was nonetheless a compelling story and frankly the game is gorgeous. However what I look for and find compelling in a standalone rpg is absolutely not what I look for in an MMO. I can't stand mmo's where the storyline is mandatory. If its there, fine, if its compelling great but bottomline I want to be able to create my own storylines by interacting with other players, and determine my role in world, as opposed to AoC that forced every player to be the 'one' whose fortelling was told in the stars. (how embarrassing).
I don't want Single Player gameplay in my MMO, I want online grouping social gmeplay like SWG.
i hope you dont mind guys/gals if i jump right into the discussion based on the thread tittle
after reading it i was asking myself if the "genre" really has become worse.
has it?
hm .....
i do not think so because:
my conclusion:
the "genre" has not become worse! it is the quality that many vendors provide has! -> due to tight time shedules and low budgets of minor companies with no expierience in this "playfield". look at all the "crap" in the gamelist which will never make it to beeing able to qualify as a p2p game.
so there are masses of games of more or less of such low quality that are released over us all, with each competing with each other. look at the anger in the gameforums where they piss each other off. there is much money to be gained here and it seems that the participants are taking the gloves off
so:
there is no bad genre its is a tight market where every participant wants his share as big as much .....
just my 5 cent what do you guys think ?
Anyone that likes anything it is a fact that someone else doesnt. So lets not be obviously obvious.
There isn't a game out there that doesn't have a hate following along side the opposite, hell I stopped naming games I like on the internet all together because of this.
Anyways back on topic, MMOs will will always have the vast world where multiple number of players can partake in at the same time. If this is what you look for in video gaming MMOs will always be looked with much higher reward than any other game.
But when it comes to overall quality of the game, MMOs still ain't there yet not by a mile and depend too much on the multi player aspect to have immersion factor.
As a single player game, MMOs would fail miserably within mere seconds of release because they're just not built for overall quality. Too much of the gameplay and storyline is sacrificed for it to be possible to have hundreds of gamers to play together at the same time.
Right now I have a number of single player games I'm looking forward to being released within the next couple months, as for MMOs I only have a few in mind that are suppose to be release sometime in the next couple years. Plus, with the single player games I can expect them to actually be good, looking at the track record of MMOs I've been expecting for the past 3years, the god awful truth is there's more chances they'll suck compared to being any good.
So let's do the math, wait a couple weeks for some good single player games, or, wait over a half a year up to a year and end up playing an MMO that sucked just as bad as AoC or WAR....at least with single player games I never have to feel that nagging question in the back of my head if it was probably best if I never left WoW....0o
And that's just he bottom line....=/
About five years ago, tech consultants started to convince VCs that getting into MMOs was like putting a bucket out and catching the money. I believe those days are beginning to come to a close.
Most of the innovation in this industry lately has been on the business side, not the design side. Instead of trying new things on the design side to stay competitive, the industry players are trying new things on the business side to stay competitive: pricing schemes (RMT, value-added services, etc.), marketing schemes (advertising tie-ins, new media, gurella marketing), and the like (digital distribution another good example). It seems that the only things that have advanced are in the way they sell games, price games, marketing, and public relations.
We've had a few high profile failures, but there needs to be more of them, I'm afraid, in order to weed out a lot of the dead weight in this industry. What it's going to take is something like the 1984 video cartrige crash in order to get this industry focused back on design.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Juat wait until Borderlands (4 player co-op) Dragon Age: Origins (single player) release. These 2 games alone will be far superior than any mmo this year and possibly until the end of next year. MMOs fail because most devs count that monthly fee before they even consider being passionate about making a great mmo. Luckily we have Blizzard, Arenanet and Bioware to give is great gaming experiences. The rest always seem to be way behind times and counting their money.
not really cause games like fallout 3 and oblivion get incredibly boring playing by yourself
I think MMO developers are finally starting to learn that you sell entertainment by being entertaining. Building a business model then slapping a gaming face on it just isn't going to cut it anymore. There just aren't enough obsessive compulsive / addictive personality type players out there to supoort the kind of proft these companies want now, so the MMO formula is going to have to change.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
You read my mind. I've been saying for a while now that MMOs are going to hit the same kind of die-off that video games had in the early '80s. Players are starting to show reluctance to buy garbage.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Hopefully developers start to realize what made them like this genre in the first place. Really the last 5 years has been really pathetic and you can chalk that up to greed, publishers, sellouts, and gamers who game turned developers who don't. Whatever the reason it's sad. Thank god for CCP with WoD and Square Enix with FFXIV. Otherwise we would have absolutely nothing that is AAA quality and different from the same crap that's been done since the genre was born.
I find it amusing that the MMORPG genre sees more subscribers than ever currently, yet we have doom and gloom people predicting some 1980s downfall of the genre.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'd love to agree with the OP but the fact for me remains that the last 5+ years of single player RPGs have either been terrible or short lived. About the only stand outs are Mass Effect and Fallout 3. ME has zero replay value since the main story is on rails and the rest of pointless. F3 is tedious after a while and despite being open ended the world is too one zonish to be played like an MMO for any period of time. So we bounce from MMO to MMO because despite the quests being mostly blah the worlds and combat are interesting. The quests have always been more about pointing you at content than actual oh ah quality writing. But then to be fair how many of us read it? If I wanted to read a book, I'd read a book. What I want is to see some great worlds and crush some heads. And no not every MMO even gets that much right
Absolutely and I believe that will simply be another price hike in the name of delivering AAA content. Ie once upon a time we paid $10 then 12 now 15... up next 20.