Newer MMOs are narrower in focus, and shallower in depth than their predecessors. As such, newer MMOs only have one or two things to really do, and once you get bored of those, there's nothing else in the game to keep your attention.
Pretty much how I feel about today's games. They've stripped away most of the "undesireable" elements such as encouraged grouping, downtime between fights, meaningful crafting, strategic cc/healing and turned most modern MMORPG's into non-stop wack a mole contests.
Yawn.
I laugh when I read things like this, such rose coloured nonsense. EQ was nothing but whack-a-mole or as some called it quake with swords. Just having to have 120 of your closest friends with you dose not make it any less whack a mole, having to wait of a half hour for a ship doesn’t give the MMO depth, nor does havening to wait for your mana bar to rise while another person heals.
The issue is people have been there done that and they don't want to do that again with just a different skin. If MMo's are to succeed they need to become less object oriented spreadsheets with NPC vending machines and more engaging worlds, in other words they need to stop being MMO's and start being Online Role Playing games, and no I am not talking about the supposed sandbox of SWG, SWG was the single most boring MMO ever developed oooooh how exciting two mobs just standing by an imperial flag...I think I'll blast them, later on they got really creative and put them in a imperial bunker...yeah that made combat really fun....
When developers start giving NPC's lives, beyond here take this quest now here take this piece of worthless loot and when they can actually put random events in the world where your not following a grind or a quest path then the genre will move forward. As long as they continue to make games instead of giving us living breathing worlds, it will just be re-skinned wow re-skinned EQ.
Finally, someone said what needed to be said.
I can't play medern FPS's, they are no different than Wolfenstein 3D. And Wolf 3D had a lot more *depth*. You know, killing nazis and saving the world. Everything was so much better before, especially the "everything was so much better before" threads.
MMO games just dont hold me for very long at all anymore
They aren't designed to hold you like old games were. They're designed so that people can play for a half hour then run off, soloing most of the content. What we found amazing about the old games isn't in the design of new games, so we aren't sucked in anymore. I'm much younger than you, and I feel the same way, so no I don't think its just life (though that factors in)
Newer MMOs are narrower in focus, and shallower in depth than their predecessors. As such, newer MMOs only have one or two things to really do, and once you get bored of those, there's nothing else in the game to keep your attention.
Pretty much how I feel about today's games. They've stripped away most of the "undesireable" elements such as encouraged grouping, downtime between fights, meaningful crafting, strategic cc/healing and turned most modern MMORPG's into non-stop wack a mole contests.
Yawn.
I laugh when I read things like this, such rose coloured nonsense. EQ was nothing but whack-a-mole or as some called it quake with swords. Just having to have 120 of your closest friends with you dose not make it any less whack a mole, having to wait of a half hour for a ship doesn’t give the MMO depth, nor does havening to wait for your mana bar to rise while another person heals.
The issue is people have been there done that and they don't want to do that again with just a different skin. If MMo's are to succeed they need to become less object oriented spreadsheets with NPC vending machines and more engaging worlds, in other words they need to stop being MMO's and start being Online Role Playing games, and no I am not talking about the supposed sandbox of SWG, SWG was the single most boring MMO ever developed oooooh how exciting two mobs just standing by an imperial flag...I think I'll blast them, later on they got really creative and put them in a imperial bunker...yeah that made combat really fun....
When developers start giving NPC's lives, beyond here take this quest now here take this piece of worthless loot and when they can actually put random events in the world where your not following a grind or a quest path then the genre will move forward. As long as they continue to make games instead of giving us living breathing worlds, it will just be re-skinned wow re-skinned EQ.
Very interesting take, I think you have hit it dead on with the npc part. Until developers can find an affortable way to put that amount of content like npcs with lives and purpose other than quests into games we may never get a real "living breathing world". The amount of work you would have to put into a game to make it more alive like that would take so long that I think it would be a hard sell to financiers, but then again It could probably be a huge hit if someone could pull it off correctly.
Newer MMOs are narrower in focus, and shallower in depth than their predecessors. As such, newer MMOs only have one or two things to really do, and once you get bored of those, there's nothing else in the game to keep your attention.
Pretty much how I feel about today's games. They've stripped away most of the "undesireable" elements such as encouraged grouping, downtime between fights, meaningful crafting, strategic cc/healing and turned most modern MMORPG's into non-stop wack a mole contests.
Yawn.
I laugh when I read things like this, such rose coloured nonsense. EQ was nothing but whack-a-mole or as some called it quake with swords. Just having to have 120 of your closest friends with you dose not make it any less whack a mole, having to wait of a half hour for a ship doesn’t give the MMO depth, nor does havening to wait for your mana bar to rise while another person heals.
The issue is people have been there done that and they don't want to do that again with just a different skin. If MMo's are to succeed they need to become less object oriented spreadsheets with NPC vending machines and more engaging worlds, in other words they need to stop being MMO's and start being Online Role Playing games, and no I am not talking about the supposed sandbox of SWG, SWG was the single most boring MMO ever developed oooooh how exciting two mobs just standing by an imperial flag...I think I'll blast them, later on they got really creative and put them in a imperial bunker...yeah that made combat really fun....
When developers start giving NPC's lives, beyond here take this quest now here take this piece of worthless loot and when they can actually put random events in the world where your not following a grind or a quest path then the genre will move forward. As long as they continue to make games instead of giving us living breathing worlds, it will just be re-skinned wow re-skinned EQ.
Very interesting take, I think you have hit it dead on with the npc part. Until developers can find an affortable way to put that amount of content like npcs with lives and purpose other than quests into games we may never get a real "living breathing world". The amount of work you would have to put into a game to make it more alive like that would take so long that I think it would be a hard sell to financiers, but then again It could probably be a huge hit if someone could pull it off correctly.
And yet at the same time, older MMOs already had more immersive NPCs than the ones we have now. They had homes, shops, they would walk around, they would have their own dialogue, and you wouldn't know if they had a quest until you talked to them. We've taken steps back instead of steps TOWARDS a virtual world.
I'm 33 and I have and my first MMO experience was as a beta tester for an online game being hosted by a previous employer. EQ became my favorite when it came out 2 years later. Over the years there's something that seems to stand out to me.
MMO's used to be more about the game, more about the gamers. Everyone I knew in MMO's were gamers, members of the SCA, nerds, engineers, computer people; people who were considered social outcasts in my school days. That has changed greatly. Part of that has been with the change in the direction of MMO's themselves and some of it with technology.
When I was in elementry school, I knew of only one other kid who had a computer. Computers are much more common, so their use as entertainment has greatgly increased, especially with gaming and social networks; two things the MMO's combine.
MMO's used to be very niche. The people who played them were people that, this kind of gaming was there thing.
Now, no offense to WoW, because I do like it; but it has brought a whole different group of computer users into the genre. And though some would argue that it may be the players themselves, the thing I see is that MMO's have moved into the mainstream and as a result they have become a much more viable source of money.
MMO's are now about the dollar signs and the choice to try and make them more user friendly. This is great for everyday people who aren't necessarily diehard into gaming and not computer savvy. For gamers, it's like when they removed THAC0 from DnD... MMO's just don't seem to be made for us anymore, they're made for the mainstream.
Although I am still optimistic about MMOs in general, I have to agree with the op. Even trying out MMOs late in my 20s, it seems that once I tired of WoW that there just isn't much out there that is different. I dabbled in Eve Online just before Burning Crusade came out. I played both games for a while and have focused on Eve only for about the past year.
What I really miss is the large group stuff. I've been in several alliances, but it seems to me that the biggest strength of Eve is also its biggest weakness: variety. With so many different ways to play it's difficult to get a group of players to work together. On the same account, most new MMOs just seem to be going with the same formula of linear quests and instanced group play.
I'm 33 and I have and my first MMO experience was as a beta tester for an online game being hosted by a previous employer. EQ became my favorite when it came out 2 years later. Over the years there's something that seems to stand out to me.
MMO's used to be more about the game, more about the gamers. Everyone I knew in MMO's were gamers, members of the SCA, nerds, engineers, computer people; people who were considered social outcasts in my school days. That has changed greatly. Part of that has been with the change in the direction of MMO's themselves and some of it with technology.
When I was in elementry school, I knew of only one other kid who had a computer. Computers are much more common, so their use as entertainment has greatgly increased, especially with gaming and social networks; two things the MMO's combine.
MMO's used to be very niche. The people who played them were people that, this kind of gaming was there thing.
Now, no offense to WoW, because I do like it; but it has brought a whole different group of computer users into the genre. And though some would argue that it may be the players themselves, the thing I see is that MMO's have moved into the mainstream and as a result they have become a much more viable source of money.
MMO's are now about the dollar signs and the choice to try and make them more user friendly. This is great for everyday people who aren't necessarily diehard into gaming and not computer savvy. For gamers, it's like when they removed THAC0 from DnD... MMO's just don't seem to be made for us anymore, they're made for the mainstream.
Bravo to you, sir.
I said something very similar to this in a post a while ago and got flamed by the new WoW crowd telling me things like "you're just old. step aside and accept the new" blah blah blah .... it's their mentality that completely KILLED this genre and brought it so smoothly into the mainstream, welcoming asshats like that in to a genre filled with people they make fun of by rewarding them more and more for being asshats and ruining other player's experiences.
MMO's used to be able adventure, exploration, emergence into virtual worlds, and community. Friends. Helping. Not competing with everyone around you to prove how much time you can spend in a raid for phat lewts. The only shred of community in today's MMO's are a bunch of punk ass youngsters either insulting eachother or praising eachother over their "gear scores" or their "DPS" and that's just so damn boring. I just hate that it means there are millions of people who don't have a problem with this and that think I'm crazy for not following along..... screw that.
So, I agree. The genre used to be for us "gamer geeks" and "computer nerds" and now the developers yanked it away like it's a toy we're no longer allowed to have, and they handed it to people who really could care less. Now the mainstream tries to get us to SHUT UP and stop talking about the issue. They want us to move out of the genre that was made for us and it's just sad, because devs don't seem to be at all on our side of this.
Anyone who wants to say I'm wearing rose colored glasses or something else equally shallow and trendy. I say this to you:
1) Try thinking about what people are saying before spitting that back as an instant response all the time
2) How do you sound when something sucks? Happy?
3) go back to playing Halo and take your gear chasing dps counting guild out of our genre and you wouldn't have to read our "rose colored" posts.
MMO's used to be able adventure, exploration, emergence into virtual worlds, and community. Friends. Helping. Not competing with everyone around you to prove how much time you can spend in a raid for phat lewts.
That's something I miss in MMO's. Yes, the MMO was a big part of it but the people were more. I think Minsc said it best, "Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legends! Right Boo?"
I agree with most of what is in this thread. I am 34 =P
In the begining it was about a "Virtual World". Games like Meridian 59, UO , EQ (and the MUDs before them) were the beginings (we thought) of a virtual fantasy RPG world- A 24/7 AD&D game WITH THACO on our PCs at all times... Hell, it wasnt just MMOs, it was all PC games.
We saw what was coming (granted, the tech wasnt there yet) and we were pleased...
The pinnacle of PC gaming WAS the late 1990's- The most advanced, complex and deep gaming experiences were developed during that time. Computer RPGs could take hundreds of hours to complete with some wicked character advancement to boot. Dungeons were massive, dangerous places sprawling huge spans of virtual territory- Games were hard.
MMOs were started as virtual fantasy (sci fi) worlds where we could "live" and "play". They too were quite hard, required cooperation, planning, time and skill. It was true PVE (player vs enviornment) since the harshness of the game world forced us to stand together, forge alliances or die (with a real death penalty).
Then it all started to go "mainstream"- Inclusivness meant "dumbing down" to the lowest common denomanater, innovation was replaced with cloning a "formula" and although it was ALWAYS a buisness t became dominated by greed... So we stand here today with the "tech" for a real virtual world and all we see is a sea of dumbed down, cloned, easy crap which requires you to pay more money for the best looking loot.
I agree with most of what is in this thread. I am 34 =P
In the begining it was about a "Virtual World". Games like Meridian 59, UO , EQ (and the MUDs before them) were the beginings (we thought) of a virtual fantasy RPG world- A 24/7 AD&D game WITH THACO on our PCs at all times... Hell, it wasnt just MMOs, it was all PC games.
We saw what was coming (granted, the tech wasnt there yet) and we were pleased...
The pinnacle of PC gaming WAS the late 1990's- The most advanced, complex and deep gaming experiences were developed during that time. Computer RPGs could take hundreds of hours to complete with some wicked character advancement to boot. Dungeons were massive, dangerous places sprawling huge spans of virtual territory- Games were hard.
MMOs were started as virtual fantasy (sci fi) worlds where we could "live" and "play". They too were quite hard, required cooperation, planning, time and skill. It was true PVE (player vs enviornment) since the harshness of the game world forced us to stand together, forge alliances or die (with a real death penalty).
Then it all started to go "mainstream"- Inclusivness meant "dumbing down" to the lowest common denomanater, innovation was replaced with cloning a "formula" and although it was ALWAYS a buisness t became dominated by greed... So we stand here today with the "tech" for a real virtual world and all we see is a sea of dumbed down, cloned, easy crap which requires you to pay more money for the best looking loot.
Newer MMOs are narrower in focus, and shallower in depth than their predecessors. As such, newer MMOs only have one or two things to really do, and once you get bored of those, there's nothing else in the game to keep your attention.
Pretty much how I feel about today's games. They've stripped away most of the "undesireable" elements such as encouraged grouping, downtime between fights, meaningful crafting, strategic cc/healing and turned most modern MMORPG's into non-stop wack a mole contests.
Yawn.
I laugh when I read things like this, such rose coloured nonsense. EQ was nothing but whack-a-mole or as some called it quake with swords. Just having to have 120 of your closest friends with you dose not make it any less whack a mole, having to wait of a half hour for a ship doesn’t give the MMO depth, nor does havening to wait for your mana bar to rise while another person heals.
The issue is people have been there done that and they don't want to do that again with just a different skin. If MMo's are to succeed they need to become less object oriented spreadsheets with NPC vending machines and more engaging worlds, in other words they need to stop being MMO's and start being Online Role Playing games, and no I am not talking about the supposed sandbox of SWG, SWG was the single most boring MMO ever developed oooooh how exciting two mobs just standing by an imperial flag...I think I'll blast them, later on they got really creative and put them in a imperial bunker...yeah that made combat really fun....
When developers start giving NPC's lives, beyond here take this quest now here take this piece of worthless loot and when they can actually put random events in the world where your not following a grind or a quest path then the genre will move forward. As long as they continue to make games instead of giving us living breathing worlds, it will just be re-skinned wow re-skinned EQ.
Everyone is different. I admit that getting older is probably the biggest reason that I don't play or enjoy MMOs as much as I used to. Having a child and my own home just doesn't afford me the same time or energy as I used to have to spend on the games. Not only that, but video games have a much lower priority than they used to. Im still a gamer. I always will be. But some things are just more important and it takes age for that to really come into focus most time in my opinion.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Im 33, and pretty much agree with everything in this thread, with one caveat. I seem to have found a game, that if played in moderation and with proper perspective, offers me almost the same feelings 1997 UO did, or 1999 Asheron's Call Darktide. I was just involved in a recent thread on this forum discussing this game, as one of the worlds participants just released his version of the game. My comments on that thread highlighted some of the negative aspects of the game, as I felt folks were trying to candy coat it a bit. But I dont hate the game, far from it! The game: Entropia Universe.
Now before folks go off saying scam this scam that: It is not a scam. It is a Ponzi architectured business model, but it is perfectly honest about what it does and how it does it. So there's no scam. Players do however scam themselves by thinking theyre going to get rich. They generally are not. I do not make wads of cash in this game.
I view the game as a subscription model game, with the option to play free. I can pay as much or as little as I want, depending on what I want back out of the game, and this works out for me. If I want to socialize and hang out with newbies, I play for free. If I want to mine, I may get lucky and stretch my dollar for a month or more. Same with hunting. Or I may have to pay $20 that month. There's nothing wrong with paying money as a subscription. We did it on Ultima, EQ, AC, and DAoC. This system does not require us to do so. Subscriptions are essentially voluntary.
Either way, its worth checking out. Its low key gameplay and sandbox nature make it a great game to relax on after work. A game you can bow away from at virtually any time and go hang out with the girlfriend, wife, or kids.
People do outgrow things. You're probably not tuning into Sesame Street as much as you used to. Big Bird and Oscar have lost their charm.
So people do outgrow things.
Another thing to watch out for is burn out. Many people play MMOs way too much and this can lead to burn out. You can get burned out on anything, food, hobby, tv shows etc.
Disagree.
I just turned 34 and I still have the same passion to play MMO's as I did when I was in my early twenties and started playing EQ. The problem for me is the lack of quality in today's MMO's, and the serious decline in quality, friendly, helpful, selfless communities in a given game.
Although I agree you CAN get burned out on games, the same as with anything else...but because of the above mentioned things, I am finding it much easier to get burned out on today's MMO's due to them more than simply playing them too much.
I think you nailed it.
Quality, friendly, helpful, selfess communities are no longer around. In older games these communites are smaller then ever but I think today's MMOs lack great communities, that I think is the major difference between vet gamers and newer gamers.
Newer games are all about "me" and vet games are all about "community".
Personally I think that EQ(1) had the best community in any game I have ever played to date. I got help in that game anytime I asked in general and I helped anyone I could once I got max level. I love to tell this story because it is a great example of what I am talking about with coummunities.
I was in a a elite raiding guild in EQ(1), we raided everyday, we had alot of the harder raids on farm status. Some random saturday the guild was heading to a raid, all 30 of us were runnign though a zone and saw a single cleric asking for help in general and in OOC. See this cleric need to kill one last boss to finish his epic and his guild did not have enough on to kill it. (think it was a dragon if I remember). Anyway my guild, the elite raiding guild, took time to run over and help kill this mob, made sure the cleric got his item and then left and went on our raid. You would never see a raiding guild in todays games go out of their way to help a random player not in their guild do anything, let alone finish an epic weapons quest.
This is one of a million examples I can tell you about. The community in older games helped each other out, not because we gained anything but because we were all in the same game playing together. Sure my raiding guild could have just ran by and raided our zone without even bothering with this cleric but no we stopped, we took an hour of our raiding time to help someone we never knew before.
That is the difference, that is the reason most of us vets find these newer games lacking, they destoried the sense of community. No longer do people just stop and help for the hell of it, now they only stop and help if it helps them in some way.
There are execptions to every rule but for the most part today's communities are anything but communities.
I always like to compare it to your old girlfriend. Sometimes you sit around thinking, "maybe things will be different if I go back to her. Maybe it will be better." WRONG. Try playing UO, EQ, or WoW again. As soon as you start up that subscription, you remember "I remember why I dumped this chik in the first place." What's worse is that many of the newer MMOs simply remind you of the games you left. You're immediately turned off by the "same ole, same ole."
So what do you do when you don't want to go back to your old girlfriend and all the latest ones remind you of that old hag? You wait; you keep your ears and eyes open; and you pray something better will come your way.
I can also relate to those saying they are getting older. I'm only 24, but I recently bought a house, got married, and went back to grad school. On top of all this, my wife's hobby is being with me, so playing games takes me breaking time away from her--which sometimes can tick her off. I honestly don't have as much time anymore. So a game that requires you to do mindless, endless hours of grinding or dungeons is a big turn off for me. So what's a guy to do?--you take every free moment you get to play your game, even if it takes sleeping less. If you don't have a current game, just wait. History and probability are on your side.
I always like to compare it to your old girlfriend. Sometimes you sit around thinking, "maybe things will be different if I go back to her. Maybe it will be better." WRONG. Try playing UO, EQ, or WoW again. As soon as you start up that subscription, you remember "I remember why I dumped this chik in the first place." What's worse is that many of the newer MMOs simply remind you of the games you left. You're immediately turned off by the "same ole, same ole."
So what do you do when you don't want to go back to your old girlfriend and all the latest ones remind you of that old hag? You wait; you keep your ears and eyes open; and you pray something better will come your way.
I can also relate to those saying they are getting older. I'm only 24, but I recently bought a house, got married, and went back to grad school. On top of all this, my wife's hobby is being with me, so playing games takes me breaking time away from her--which sometimes can tick her off. I honestly don't have as much time anymore. So a game that requires you to do mindless, endless hours of grinding or dungeons is a big turn off for me. So what's a guy to do?--you take every free moment you get to play your game, even if it takes sleeping less. If you don't have a current game, just wait. History and probability are on your side.
I agree very much with what you've said. Once you get to be an actual adult with adult responsibilities, you just don't have the time to sit around grinding and waiting for things in an online game. Gaming becomes a luxury, not a lifestyle. I've got a wife, a family, a 50+ hour a week job, a house to take care of, lots of things that need doing that take me away from being able to play *ANY* game, much less an MMO. I just don't have 25-30 hours a week to play. If I'm lucky, I get 10 hours. Therefore, all the mindless grinding, the time-wasting nonsense that most MMOs are full of will keep me away, I don't have the time to waste on them. I need to get in, get something done and get off, all in short order.
Maybe someday some of these grind-monkeys will also grow up and get adult responsibilities and no longer be able to focus on a game every second of the day. The MMO marketplace is getting older, is it any surprise that gameplay is catering more to a casual player?
I always like to compare it to your old girlfriend. Sometimes you sit around thinking, "maybe things will be different if I go back to her. Maybe it will be better." WRONG. Try playing UO, EQ, or WoW again. As soon as you start up that subscription, you remember "I remember why I dumped this chik in the first place." What's worse is that many of the newer MMOs simply remind you of the games you left. You're immediately turned off by the "same ole, same ole."
So what do you do when you don't want to go back to your old girlfriend and all the latest ones remind you of that old hag? You wait; you keep your ears and eyes open; and you pray something better will come your way.
I can also relate to those saying they are getting older. I'm only 24, but I recently bought a house, got married, and went back to grad school. On top of all this, my wife's hobby is being with me, so playing games takes me breaking time away from her--which sometimes can tick her off. I honestly don't have as much time anymore. So a game that requires you to do mindless, endless hours of grinding or dungeons is a big turn off for me. So what's a guy to do?--you take every free moment you get to play your game, even if it takes sleeping less. If you don't have a current game, just wait. History and probability are on your side.
I agree very much with what you've said. Once you get to be an actual adult with adult responsibilities, you just don't have the time to sit around grinding and waiting for things in an online game. Gaming becomes a luxury, not a lifestyle. I've got a wife, a family, a 50+ hour a week job, a house to take care of, lots of things that need doing that take me away from being able to play *ANY* game, much less an MMO. I just don't have 25-30 hours a week to play. If I'm lucky, I get 10 hours. Therefore, all the mindless grinding, the time-wasting nonsense that most MMOs are full of will keep me away, I don't have the time to waste on them. I need to get in, get something done and get off, all in short order.
Maybe someday some of these grind-monkeys will also grow up and get adult responsibilities and no longer be able to focus on a game every second of the day. The MMO marketplace is getting older, is it any surprise that gameplay is catering more to a casual player?
Ah, but there are new players coming in every day. I think I read somewhere that the majority of online gamers are around 25 or so. By the time those folks reach 35, there will be a new breed of 25 year old taking over the market. Games are not dissimilar to anything else in life in this respect, I believe.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I agree very much with what you've said. Once you get to be an actual adult with adult responsibilities, you just don't have the time to sit around grinding and waiting for things in an online game. Gaming becomes a luxury, not a lifestyle. I've got a wife, a family, a 50+ hour a week job, a house to take care of, lots of things that need doing that take me away from being able to play *ANY* game, much less an MMO. I just don't have 25-30 hours a week to play. If I'm lucky, I get 10 hours. Therefore, all the mindless grinding, the time-wasting nonsense that most MMOs are full of will keep me away, I don't have the time to waste on them. I need to get in, get something done and get off, all in short order.
Maybe someday some of these grind-monkeys will also grow up and get adult responsibilities and no longer be able to focus on a game every second of the day. The MMO marketplace is getting older, is it any surprise that gameplay is catering more to a casual player?
Ah, but there are new players coming in every day. I think I read somewhere that the majority of online gamers are around 25 or so. By the time those folks reach 35, there will be a new breed of 25 year old taking over the market. Games are not dissimilar to anything else in life in this respect, I believe.
25-year olds aren't the ones who can sit in a dorm room all night and game, they're out of college and working and starting families. Yes, there may always be *YOUNG* players coming along, but it's the older, financially-settled people with disposable income that really have money to throw around. Your average college kid eating ramen isn't much of a market, is it?
Comments
Finally, someone said what needed to be said.
I can't play medern FPS's, they are no different than Wolfenstein 3D. And Wolf 3D had a lot more *depth*. You know, killing nazis and saving the world. Everything was so much better before, especially the "everything was so much better before" threads.
They aren't designed to hold you like old games were. They're designed so that people can play for a half hour then run off, soloing most of the content. What we found amazing about the old games isn't in the design of new games, so we aren't sucked in anymore. I'm much younger than you, and I feel the same way, so no I don't think its just life (though that factors in)
Very interesting take, I think you have hit it dead on with the npc part. Until developers can find an affortable way to put that amount of content like npcs with lives and purpose other than quests into games we may never get a real "living breathing world". The amount of work you would have to put into a game to make it more alive like that would take so long that I think it would be a hard sell to financiers, but then again It could probably be a huge hit if someone could pull it off correctly.
And yet at the same time, older MMOs already had more immersive NPCs than the ones we have now. They had homes, shops, they would walk around, they would have their own dialogue, and you wouldn't know if they had a quest until you talked to them. We've taken steps back instead of steps TOWARDS a virtual world.
I'm 33 and I have and my first MMO experience was as a beta tester for an online game being hosted by a previous employer. EQ became my favorite when it came out 2 years later. Over the years there's something that seems to stand out to me.
MMO's used to be more about the game, more about the gamers. Everyone I knew in MMO's were gamers, members of the SCA, nerds, engineers, computer people; people who were considered social outcasts in my school days. That has changed greatly. Part of that has been with the change in the direction of MMO's themselves and some of it with technology.
When I was in elementry school, I knew of only one other kid who had a computer. Computers are much more common, so their use as entertainment has greatgly increased, especially with gaming and social networks; two things the MMO's combine.
MMO's used to be very niche. The people who played them were people that, this kind of gaming was there thing.
Now, no offense to WoW, because I do like it; but it has brought a whole different group of computer users into the genre. And though some would argue that it may be the players themselves, the thing I see is that MMO's have moved into the mainstream and as a result they have become a much more viable source of money.
MMO's are now about the dollar signs and the choice to try and make them more user friendly. This is great for everyday people who aren't necessarily diehard into gaming and not computer savvy. For gamers, it's like when they removed THAC0 from DnD...
MMO's just don't seem to be made for us anymore, they're made for the mainstream.
mmo's are boring now. there's no rpg left in it, and it's not because i'm outgrowing them.
same old shit, different shell. we're just more experienced.
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What I really miss is the large group stuff. I've been in several alliances, but it seems to me that the biggest strength of Eve is also its biggest weakness: variety. With so many different ways to play it's difficult to get a group of players to work together. On the same account, most new MMOs just seem to be going with the same formula of linear quests and instanced group play.
Is there more coming down the line do you think?
Bravo to you, sir.
I said something very similar to this in a post a while ago and got flamed by the new WoW crowd telling me things like "you're just old. step aside and accept the new" blah blah blah .... it's their mentality that completely KILLED this genre and brought it so smoothly into the mainstream, welcoming asshats like that in to a genre filled with people they make fun of by rewarding them more and more for being asshats and ruining other player's experiences.
MMO's used to be able adventure, exploration, emergence into virtual worlds, and community. Friends. Helping. Not competing with everyone around you to prove how much time you can spend in a raid for phat lewts. The only shred of community in today's MMO's are a bunch of punk ass youngsters either insulting eachother or praising eachother over their "gear scores" or their "DPS" and that's just so damn boring. I just hate that it means there are millions of people who don't have a problem with this and that think I'm crazy for not following along..... screw that.
So, I agree. The genre used to be for us "gamer geeks" and "computer nerds" and now the developers yanked it away like it's a toy we're no longer allowed to have, and they handed it to people who really could care less. Now the mainstream tries to get us to SHUT UP and stop talking about the issue. They want us to move out of the genre that was made for us and it's just sad, because devs don't seem to be at all on our side of this.
Anyone who wants to say I'm wearing rose colored glasses or something else equally shallow and trendy. I say this to you:
1) Try thinking about what people are saying before spitting that back as an instant response all the time
2) How do you sound when something sucks? Happy?
3) go back to playing Halo and take your gear chasing dps counting guild out of our genre and you wouldn't have to read our "rose colored" posts.
That's something I miss in MMO's. Yes, the MMO was a big part of it but the people were more. I think Minsc said it best, "Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legends! Right Boo?"
I agree with most of what is in this thread. I am 34 =P
In the begining it was about a "Virtual World". Games like Meridian 59, UO , EQ (and the MUDs before them) were the beginings (we thought) of a virtual fantasy RPG world- A 24/7 AD&D game WITH THACO on our PCs at all times... Hell, it wasnt just MMOs, it was all PC games.
We saw what was coming (granted, the tech wasnt there yet) and we were pleased...
The pinnacle of PC gaming WAS the late 1990's- The most advanced, complex and deep gaming experiences were developed during that time. Computer RPGs could take hundreds of hours to complete with some wicked character advancement to boot. Dungeons were massive, dangerous places sprawling huge spans of virtual territory- Games were hard.
MMOs were started as virtual fantasy (sci fi) worlds where we could "live" and "play". They too were quite hard, required cooperation, planning, time and skill. It was true PVE (player vs enviornment) since the harshness of the game world forced us to stand together, forge alliances or die (with a real death penalty).
Then it all started to go "mainstream"- Inclusivness meant "dumbing down" to the lowest common denomanater, innovation was replaced with cloning a "formula" and although it was ALWAYS a buisness t became dominated by greed... So we stand here today with the "tech" for a real virtual world and all we see is a sea of dumbed down, cloned, easy crap which requires you to pay more money for the best looking loot.
Its sad.
This is so true that it made me depressed.
Ultima Online.
That is all.
Everyone is different. I admit that getting older is probably the biggest reason that I don't play or enjoy MMOs as much as I used to. Having a child and my own home just doesn't afford me the same time or energy as I used to have to spend on the games. Not only that, but video games have a much lower priority than they used to. Im still a gamer. I always will be. But some things are just more important and it takes age for that to really come into focus most time in my opinion.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Hey older gamers. :-)
Im 33, and pretty much agree with everything in this thread, with one caveat. I seem to have found a game, that if played in moderation and with proper perspective, offers me almost the same feelings 1997 UO did, or 1999 Asheron's Call Darktide. I was just involved in a recent thread on this forum discussing this game, as one of the worlds participants just released his version of the game. My comments on that thread highlighted some of the negative aspects of the game, as I felt folks were trying to candy coat it a bit. But I dont hate the game, far from it! The game: Entropia Universe.
Now before folks go off saying scam this scam that: It is not a scam. It is a Ponzi architectured business model, but it is perfectly honest about what it does and how it does it. So there's no scam. Players do however scam themselves by thinking theyre going to get rich. They generally are not. I do not make wads of cash in this game.
I view the game as a subscription model game, with the option to play free. I can pay as much or as little as I want, depending on what I want back out of the game, and this works out for me. If I want to socialize and hang out with newbies, I play for free. If I want to mine, I may get lucky and stretch my dollar for a month or more. Same with hunting. Or I may have to pay $20 that month. There's nothing wrong with paying money as a subscription. We did it on Ultima, EQ, AC, and DAoC. This system does not require us to do so. Subscriptions are essentially voluntary.
Either way, its worth checking out. Its low key gameplay and sandbox nature make it a great game to relax on after work. A game you can bow away from at virtually any time and go hang out with the girlfriend, wife, or kids.
Cheers,
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
I think you nailed it.
Quality, friendly, helpful, selfess communities are no longer around. In older games these communites are smaller then ever but I think today's MMOs lack great communities, that I think is the major difference between vet gamers and newer gamers.
Newer games are all about "me" and vet games are all about "community".
Personally I think that EQ(1) had the best community in any game I have ever played to date. I got help in that game anytime I asked in general and I helped anyone I could once I got max level. I love to tell this story because it is a great example of what I am talking about with coummunities.
I was in a a elite raiding guild in EQ(1), we raided everyday, we had alot of the harder raids on farm status. Some random saturday the guild was heading to a raid, all 30 of us were runnign though a zone and saw a single cleric asking for help in general and in OOC. See this cleric need to kill one last boss to finish his epic and his guild did not have enough on to kill it. (think it was a dragon if I remember). Anyway my guild, the elite raiding guild, took time to run over and help kill this mob, made sure the cleric got his item and then left and went on our raid. You would never see a raiding guild in todays games go out of their way to help a random player not in their guild do anything, let alone finish an epic weapons quest.
This is one of a million examples I can tell you about. The community in older games helped each other out, not because we gained anything but because we were all in the same game playing together. Sure my raiding guild could have just ran by and raided our zone without even bothering with this cleric but no we stopped, we took an hour of our raiding time to help someone we never knew before.
That is the difference, that is the reason most of us vets find these newer games lacking, they destoried the sense of community. No longer do people just stop and help for the hell of it, now they only stop and help if it helps them in some way.
There are execptions to every rule but for the most part today's communities are anything but communities.
Sooner or Later
I always like to compare it to your old girlfriend. Sometimes you sit around thinking, "maybe things will be different if I go back to her. Maybe it will be better." WRONG. Try playing UO, EQ, or WoW again. As soon as you start up that subscription, you remember "I remember why I dumped this chik in the first place." What's worse is that many of the newer MMOs simply remind you of the games you left. You're immediately turned off by the "same ole, same ole."
So what do you do when you don't want to go back to your old girlfriend and all the latest ones remind you of that old hag? You wait; you keep your ears and eyes open; and you pray something better will come your way.
I can also relate to those saying they are getting older. I'm only 24, but I recently bought a house, got married, and went back to grad school. On top of all this, my wife's hobby is being with me, so playing games takes me breaking time away from her--which sometimes can tick her off. I honestly don't have as much time anymore. So a game that requires you to do mindless, endless hours of grinding or dungeons is a big turn off for me. So what's a guy to do?--you take every free moment you get to play your game, even if it takes sleeping less. If you don't have a current game, just wait. History and probability are on your side.
I agree very much with what you've said. Once you get to be an actual adult with adult responsibilities, you just don't have the time to sit around grinding and waiting for things in an online game. Gaming becomes a luxury, not a lifestyle. I've got a wife, a family, a 50+ hour a week job, a house to take care of, lots of things that need doing that take me away from being able to play *ANY* game, much less an MMO. I just don't have 25-30 hours a week to play. If I'm lucky, I get 10 hours. Therefore, all the mindless grinding, the time-wasting nonsense that most MMOs are full of will keep me away, I don't have the time to waste on them. I need to get in, get something done and get off, all in short order.
Maybe someday some of these grind-monkeys will also grow up and get adult responsibilities and no longer be able to focus on a game every second of the day. The MMO marketplace is getting older, is it any surprise that gameplay is catering more to a casual player?
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Ah, but there are new players coming in every day. I think I read somewhere that the majority of online gamers are around 25 or so. By the time those folks reach 35, there will be a new breed of 25 year old taking over the market. Games are not dissimilar to anything else in life in this respect, I believe.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
25-year olds aren't the ones who can sit in a dorm room all night and game, they're out of college and working and starting families. Yes, there may always be *YOUNG* players coming along, but it's the older, financially-settled people with disposable income that really have money to throw around. Your average college kid eating ramen isn't much of a market, is it?
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None