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Do you think games will ever get unshallow?
He-ManVS
Member Posts: 41
Now I'm not talking about the entire genre as a whole, since there will always be a large audience for shallow games ( Many children, soccer moms etc )
Yes, there are some games in existence that you could argue are not shallow, but the tiny amount of them have only begun to scratch the surface in my opinion.
I don't mean only the gameplay or play design mechanics, mainly because gameplay can be a very controversial issue. But world setting, story, themes, world design, atmosphere ( Levels of interaction within the atmosphere, characters within the atmosphere )
Comments
Yes.
There are a lot of games that are not shallow. Unfortunatly, the majority of players are very shallow, in my opinion.
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uh.... yeah...?
I dont think so, gaming industry is getting huge and when industries get huge they have money to spend on advertsing, demographic studies etc etc.
Thus studiies usually say 'focus on the young, keep it simple and exciting'
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
One problem is that gaming has become "cool". Back in the day it was a bad thing to be a gamer, now everyone is. There was probably more a connection between the developer and the people who play the games back a couple years. Now with game makers like EA and that sorta thing there's a bit of distance. Money wasn't as big of a focus when making games back in the day, now it's #1 and making quality games is secondary. Graphics are being made out to be this giant factor in what makes a game and I think someday we'll go a bit in reverse and look at art instead, and how the art affects gameplay. I think too much graphic power in a game can actually impact gameplay in a bad way, sometimes simplicity in graphics can be a good thing as well. Hopefully games can become uncool soon
Yes, I believe they will. MMORPG is a niche that relies heavily on consumer relations.. when the community on a whole gripes about it enough, they will eventually change because people WILL eventually get fed up enough to not bother spending their money on the finished product.
There are many games out there that have a lot of lore behind them, but the problem is that the game is so simplistic and tried in its design that people will: out-level the content much quicker than they can explore(ala AoC); they don't expose the lore adequately enough in the game(there's more lore that you can find on the website instead of exploring to learn about it in game), creating an inadequate immersive experience.
As games progressively come out with new ideas and styles of game play(ie. sandbox skill progression opposed to the standard levels, random lore-based quest systems that alter the game world), and they fine tune them, we will see auto attack and the typical eq hotbar system fade from view and hopefully move towards a press-to-swing real time twitch based combat system ala Age of Conan.
I'm dope that was cut from the ki
The gaming industry, like any industry, will reflect their customers. Since the majority of people are shallow, so are the games. If you want to change the games, change the people first.
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Yup that all we need is more studies..WTF..All they need to do is Read MMORPG.com forums they will get more than they can ask for..
Some people rob you at gun point..Others will rob you at "Ball Point Pen"
MMORPGs are just like any other video game. Video games have been getting shallower and shallower every year. RPGs of today are pathetic compared to yesteryear. There are very few fantastic games past the 2000 mark, imo, but certainly no lack of 9s being given to these steaming piles. NWN, Morrowind, a few RTS games, and thats about all 2000-2010 has done for me.
I could name hundreds of games pre 2000 that embarass the junk coming out. Dragon Warrior, FF 1-3, Pools of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Pools of Darkness, Gateway to the Savage Frontier and its sequel, Fallout 1-2, 7th Saga, Secret of Mana, Chronotrigger, Crystalis, Innindo. My gosh I could go on forever.
I don't expect games to stop becoming shallower unless we see people stop buying games. We will see games become more beautiful to look at, but we've lost a great deal more.
Funny topic. The very premise of this discussion is one based on subjective points of view. I don't see how gaming becoming more popular is an issue. "Back in the day," when I first played video games (1985), games were most certainly more simplistic. I'm not sure that made these games shallow, but they weren't exactly overly complicated. Save the Princess, etc.
MMORPGs, being a relative newcomer to the gaming industry, is still growing and sending out the feelers. Most of the console market has figured out that each type of gamer can be sustained. Developers, it appears, originally believed that the massive influx of gamers that WoW drew would spill over into the MMORPG market. This isn't the case, by and large. The market has grown, but it's obvious that some developers rolled the dice and tried to make an instant cash cow.
The genre is recovering from this, and now we're starting to see a re-focus of the MMORPG market. There's nothing wrong with simple games coming out that focus on less-serious gamers. With that in mind, there are some games in the pipeline such as Guild Wars 2 that will help advance the industry. The only question will be if gamers reward the risk that's being taken, or if we simply clamor for more of the same.
Yup instant cash cow..Cheap made and half translation..All they need is the trade mark>>>Made in China..
Some people rob you at gun point..Others will rob you at "Ball Point Pen"
The OP needs to define what is meant by "shallow".
Do you mean simplistic? Games are far less simplistic now than they used to be.
Do you mean challenging? Whilst some features may have been "dumbed down", such as death penalties, does that really make them less challenging? I suggest the level of the challenge is set by the player according to eg what level of quest/combat he or she takes on.
I think the OP is working from a false premise. In many ways games have become less shallow, and there are certainly plenty of subscription-based MMO's that are not shallow, although whether the same can be said of the majority of the free-to-play games is less clear.
Ultimately, however, a MMO is only as shallow as the player chooses to make it. In the typical MMO you can certainly avoid doing the crafting, deeds, traits, achievements, certain questlines, and other available options in the rush to the endgame, and the experience will be all the more shallow for doing that, but that's down to the player rather than the game.
Soon as MMOs get real cheap, you'll get tons of them.
.
They'll be a game for every niche, just like movies.
.
Right now MMOs cost tens of millions of dollars so investors don't want to take chances
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
The MMO market mirrored the dot-com market in the early 2000's. At first, we saw a few (UO, EQ, etc). Then we started to see a few more pop up. Suddenly, WoW hits the scene and becomes a massive money maker. Investors and companies are scrambling to recreate that success, hoping for just a small slice of the pie. Thus, you get a multitude of WoW-clones. Gamers get wise and see a saturated field of repeaters, all with the same thing over and over again. These companies are beginning to fold and go under, some didn't even get their game to launch. Today's mmorpger is wiser and more fickle. Simply creating a world for us to grind mobs endlessly isn't enough. We want savvy opponents and a robust interface. We want more dynamics, less statics. We want communication and community.
An MMO doesn't have to cost a ton of money. There are plenty of MMOs that aren't massive productions that fill a niche. Remember, an MMO doesn't have to be a massive launch with elves, servers, and end-game raiding. Club Penguin is a prime example of an MMO that fills the niche for children.
In my opinion many games used to not be shallow, but then a lot of them became that way. So the question is, will they ever again not be shallow? I can only hope.
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Soccer mom’s? As opposed to bar flies? At least soccer mom’s like games, but bar flies are just a cheap time. Which better resembles the here and now? Hehe
Yes, as someone said, games are now “cool”. When games were good, we geeks played them; made by geeks for geeks. Geeks put up with games having depth, and the harder to understand, the BETTER. It takes us back to the days of rolling big confusing dice (to the avg Joe) and playing social computer games that had no pictures, only TEXT. Then at some point she got knocked up, and we had mmorpg’s. But then instead of being a good soccer mom, she went to the local bar and started sleeping with the riff-raff. Again, she got knocked up, but with the illegitimate son of a disbarred lawyer. The son grew up and threw the legitimate son into a ditch, left him to die, ran to the bar to meet mommy and said that her son had been eaten by rats, instances and instances of rats! All a lie of course, but the mommy was too drunk to care, really.
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"shallow" is a lame term, everyone has differing opinions on what it is.
WoW is shallow because it lacks things to do outside defined content that you will run through quickly, then MO is shallow because there is nothing to do unless you figure it out for yourself. Either extreme leads to people thinking a game is shallow, but it all revolves around running out of content, or having zero imagination without content to run through.
It used to be that all you needed was a world to roam around and explore, people were fine with killing random things for loot. Then games ran a treadmill of content, and now nobody can stand it anymore and they refuse to look back at how it used to be done. The industry has ran out of options.
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Every market has successful business people that take advantage of niches that are not catered to.
The "majority" of people that drink, like cheap alcohol. but there is a small niche of people that will pay for premium brands. Smart business people have catered to this market and made a fortune, instead of trying to compete in the over saturated market for the "majority".
I don't see why MMORPGs would be any different.
You can use the same examples in most goods and services. Take movies. The "majority" likes this and that, but every year there is a film that doesnt' cater to the majority, that gets critical acclaim and makes a good return on their investment.
Sometimes catering to the minority is smart business.
First of all, the niche market is small. So game company won't get much profit.
Second of all, not all niche gamer like the same niche game.
I want a darkfall like game without full loot. But I doubt company will spend 20 million just to get 10,000 happy subscriber.
Mmos used to be a haven for those of us who loved all the little details, math, mapping, etc. The more detail, the happier we were. *Hugs his D&D Player's Manual for comfort* Then along comes this giant elephant of simplicity and squished it flat as a pancake.
You know who, as an mmo player, I now envy? The flight sims players. Those games can be so intricate, some of them have manuals over 700 pages long. And those guys (and gals) have been left in peace to quietly enjoy their very intricate, challenging hobby with their complex mechanics. No one has come in and made a super easy flight sim with only a few buttons that suddenly now everyone who makes flight sims starts making them super easy with only a few buttons, where the days of intricate ones are all but forgotten.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
It was replaced with this.
MSCFS all the way, baby! Gots me flight yoke jacked in as always
Even my email addy used for many years is bout' flight sim combat 
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
ugh. sorry amathe, I've never appreciated the "thinking dm's" who were more interested in charts, graphs and numbers than actual storytelling. Charts, graphs and numbers bog down storytelling.
Give me a good story teller who throws away most of the d&d rules and makes an adventure liberated from charts and I'm there.
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You know, my wife is a 48-year old "soccer mom". I'm willing to bet that she would have NO PROBLEM taking a nice big chunk of your prejudices, wrapping them up in that small mind of yours, and shoving it firmly up your backside.
Besides, she's one of the best PvP'ers I've ever seen. She scares the shit out of me when I watch her play.
Not all gamers who prefer deeper games are sniveling little twits, like you.
Such games are already made. They're just not mainstream MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I fear little will now gaming is mainstream. The current generation of consols has held Pc gaming innovation back big time as a lot of developers jump on the multi platform with Pc getting the more than often shoddy port, when ports are done properly the fine trimmings of console gameplay are weaved in and bleed through in to your Pc gaming experience. MMO's seem to be trying to attract the xbox360 boy now days. Pc gamers have to wait for the few and far between exclusives that will push our latest Pc tech and gives us our depths whilst eating current gen consoles for breakfast.