Your topic title is a loaded question (and "unshallow" isn't a word).
If you meant to ask if mmos will ever reach a level of depth (i.e. interaction with the environment in a realistic way) that you are hoping for: I don't know because I don't know what you are hoping for.
However, we are seeing some sort of trend with mmo worlds getting more interactive for the player. It wasn't too long ago that destructible walls in a 3D mmo were pretty much unheard of, and now we have games like GW2 coming out where the game world can change in larger ways and where you can do things like pick up a rock and throw it, or even use it as part of a spell. I think it'll be some years before we see an mmo come along with the level of interactivity I think you're talking about, but it'll come eventually.
Im getting tired of the generalisations. Shallow games are not only played by shallow people. Not every person looks for the same thing in a game, regardless of how they are as person.
There are no MMOs with stories that are comparable with a good novel. With most games its the same rehashed good vs evil crap. Some maybe manage to provide an immersive way of telling the story. It also has to do with the amount of story in MMO's. Its just too much to keep it all on a high level.
Some of you would be surprised about how many WoW players have an academic degree (not sure how to translate in english), who simply want to be entertained by the game. While they can appreciate a good novel or movie, they also sometimes just want to play without having to think too much.
Or are first person shooters also only appreciated by shallow people? Or workouts? Those are also examples of shallow time occupation.
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.
I love these posts... console gaming ha sheld back innovation in PC gaming huh? Or is it more that, console gaming has develope dat a faster rate than PC gamers/developers had hoped, and they basically got sucker punched and now stand there with a dumb look on their face saying "WTF just happened?"
There are loads of developers out there that work exclusively on PC games, and have never, and will never develop a console game, so the crap about every game being made for console sand ported to PCs as crap, is crap itself. Why have none of those PC exclusive developers not made any amazing leaps and bounds in gaming innovation? Its been quite a few years since online gaming on consoles exploded, but yet PC game devs are still putting out basically the same exact thing they were putting out 5-10 years ago, only with prettier graphics. Yet console developers have advanced in nearly every way possible. How can you explain that?
Im getting tired of the generalisations. Shallow games are not only played by shallow people. Not every person looks for the same thing in a game, regardless of how they are as person.
There are no MMOs with stories that are comparable with a good novel. With most games its the same rehashed good vs evil crap. Some maybe manage to provide an immersive way of telling the story. It also has to do with the amount of story in MMO's. Its just too much to keep it all on a high level.
Some of you would be surprised about how many WoW players have an academic degree (not sure how to translate in english), who simply want to be entertained by the game. While they can appreciate a good novel or movie, they also sometimes just want to play without having to think too much.
Or are first person shooters also only appreciated by shallow people? Or workouts? Those are also examples of shallow time occupation.
Well, sometimes smart people do dumb things. Some smart people love trash TV and others shallow games. And I know some dumb people that like doing smart things also (not always with great results).
I can actually enjoy both deep and shallow games, as long as the story just isn't too stupid. That doesn't make me deep or shallow either.
But to the question: There are some deep games but most are shallow. We might get a trend that goes the other way around in the future, that is really hard to tell but it is far from impossible. I do think most MMOs will get better written stories in the future however (maybe not the Chinese and Korean games). Some real authors are working for MMO companies now, too bad Blizzard are too cheap to hire one, they really need one.
When some games actually have a fun and interesting story you can't get rich by making people kill 25 rats or snakes.
If game companies know if they can keep spoon feeding us the same shit over and over, and people will stick to it like glue.. then no I don't think they will become unshallow any time soon.
simple - simpler - simplest/dumb - dumber - dumbest thats what happen sinds 2005 and this will continuing.
There is no money in complex deep rich mmo.
Fast and easy thats what 90% of mmo players want.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
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.
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.
I agree that some games (and GMs) can take rules and technical details too far for the game to be fun. And that making games more accessible isn't always a bad thing, but sadly these days the only GMs we have are of the "You are walking down a road and get attacked by some orcs.." variety. No story no suspense, no real sense of accomplishment or purpose, just a crapload of repetitious random encounters. Or even more ghastly "Congratulations mighty heroes, you have fought your way through the treacherous dungeon of death, defeated your arch enemy and his mephitic minions, and claimed your rewards. Now you only need to do this same task twelve more times to complete your set of righteous armor and weaponry to move on to the NEXT treacherous dungeon of death." If I wanted to entertain myself by repeating the exact same actions over and over again, I'd just go masturbate.
Also in reference to another posters comments about Soccer Moms. I have to agree that they can be quite fearsome PVP combatants. Its it very hilarious that some of the best PVP gamers in my circle of friends have turned out to be the wives and girlfriends of my so called hardcore gaming buddies. The real sting in the tail is that most of them were not even that interested in online games to start with but just wanted to spend more time with their significant other.
Oh and soccer Moms, less fearsome that the dreaded Hockey Mom? Discuss.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
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.
But all it would take is one company making a simple flight sim that attracted huge numbers of new people to the niche and you'd see all that change. If someone demonstrated there was major money to be made, everyone would adapt to get a part of that pool of easy cash and the hardcore flight sim people would be whining about the good old days too.
When I compare.. say... the original Hero Quest for my PC from Sierra Games to.. say... Mass Effect 2 I just laugh at how cheesy and simple games used to be.
As much as I loved Ultima Online back in the day, it really was a very simplistic and shallow experience.
I guess we have different definitions of what "shallow" really means.
in some ways i like simplicity, in some ways i like complexity. i prefer intuitive controls over using lots o fdifferent widely spread out buttons and mouse gestures for example.
that being said, look at DAO. story was cliched beyond belief, controls were awkward and not well thought out, combat was boring character building was super simple and boring, and in both character skills and quests the game felt like it was trying to be MMOish with stuff like CDs. and according to Bioware they were trying to go back to their roots with it which is hilarious. because i fyou played old bioware games you'd know there was more than one OP party combo and everything else didn't make the game super hard to play, they had rich itemization and rich stories and interesting characters. instead of grinding through an annoyingly overlong map filling your inventory with trash that's only good to sell unless you're a crafter in which case you can create some OK items in a limited fashion and having to go back to town half way through the quest to vendor your inventory.
the peak of great games was in the early 00s, then it went downhill from there as devs started to focus on expensive voice actors graphics and overly simplifying systems and having hte most linear stories possible. NWN2 was the last decent RPG i played, and i played through it multiple times to see all the combinations of story arcs and outcomes. every leg of it was different from the last and all added up to the main story in some significant way, without being about getting ye might shiny piece of specially coloured loot which thou needst for the next boss.
and the saddest thing about NWN2 is that it was criticized for technical issues such as long frequent loading screens, all of which existed in DAO and went without comment by reviewers and players alike despite using the same engine.
wheni compare these two games it's strange. because despite being on the same engine the earlier game i sobviously better in every way. NWN2 had better mechanics, funner combats, more robust and interesting character sheets(not to mention better balance between classes), better voice actors despite not using A list celebirties from tv and film, better looking mobs and armours without hte cheesy blood overlaid on armours, more dynamic story telling, and more features such as online and coop play.
the same thing can be seen in other games and franchises, across any genre. fps or rpg or rts.
Comments
Your topic title is a loaded question (and "unshallow" isn't a word).
If you meant to ask if mmos will ever reach a level of depth (i.e. interaction with the environment in a realistic way) that you are hoping for: I don't know because I don't know what you are hoping for.
However, we are seeing some sort of trend with mmo worlds getting more interactive for the player. It wasn't too long ago that destructible walls in a 3D mmo were pretty much unheard of, and now we have games like GW2 coming out where the game world can change in larger ways and where you can do things like pick up a rock and throw it, or even use it as part of a spell. I think it'll be some years before we see an mmo come along with the level of interactivity I think you're talking about, but it'll come eventually.
Im getting tired of the generalisations. Shallow games are not only played by shallow people. Not every person looks for the same thing in a game, regardless of how they are as person.
There are no MMOs with stories that are comparable with a good novel. With most games its the same rehashed good vs evil crap. Some maybe manage to provide an immersive way of telling the story. It also has to do with the amount of story in MMO's. Its just too much to keep it all on a high level.
Some of you would be surprised about how many WoW players have an academic degree (not sure how to translate in english), who simply want to be entertained by the game. While they can appreciate a good novel or movie, they also sometimes just want to play without having to think too much.
Or are first person shooters also only appreciated by shallow people? Or workouts? Those are also examples of shallow time occupation.
I love these posts... console gaming ha sheld back innovation in PC gaming huh? Or is it more that, console gaming has develope dat a faster rate than PC gamers/developers had hoped, and they basically got sucker punched and now stand there with a dumb look on their face saying "WTF just happened?"
There are loads of developers out there that work exclusively on PC games, and have never, and will never develop a console game, so the crap about every game being made for console sand ported to PCs as crap, is crap itself. Why have none of those PC exclusive developers not made any amazing leaps and bounds in gaming innovation? Its been quite a few years since online gaming on consoles exploded, but yet PC game devs are still putting out basically the same exact thing they were putting out 5-10 years ago, only with prettier graphics. Yet console developers have advanced in nearly every way possible. How can you explain that?
Well, sometimes smart people do dumb things. Some smart people love trash TV and others shallow games. And I know some dumb people that like doing smart things also (not always with great results).
I can actually enjoy both deep and shallow games, as long as the story just isn't too stupid. That doesn't make me deep or shallow either.
But to the question: There are some deep games but most are shallow. We might get a trend that goes the other way around in the future, that is really hard to tell but it is far from impossible. I do think most MMOs will get better written stories in the future however (maybe not the Chinese and Korean games). Some real authors are working for MMO companies now, too bad Blizzard are too cheap to hire one, they really need one.
When some games actually have a fun and interesting story you can't get rich by making people kill 25 rats or snakes.
If game companies know if they can keep spoon feeding us the same shit over and over, and people will stick to it like glue.. then no I don't think they will become unshallow any time soon.
simple - simpler - simplest/dumb - dumber - dumbest thats what happen sinds 2005 and this will continuing.
There is no money in complex deep rich mmo.
Fast and easy thats what 90% of mmo players want.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I agree that some games (and GMs) can take rules and technical details too far for the game to be fun. And that making games more accessible isn't always a bad thing, but sadly these days the only GMs we have are of the "You are walking down a road and get attacked by some orcs.." variety. No story no suspense, no real sense of accomplishment or purpose, just a crapload of repetitious random encounters. Or even more ghastly "Congratulations mighty heroes, you have fought your way through the treacherous dungeon of death, defeated your arch enemy and his mephitic minions, and claimed your rewards. Now you only need to do this same task twelve more times to complete your set of righteous armor and weaponry to move on to the NEXT treacherous dungeon of death." If I wanted to entertain myself by repeating the exact same actions over and over again, I'd just go masturbate.
Also in reference to another posters comments about Soccer Moms. I have to agree that they can be quite fearsome PVP combatants. Its it very hilarious that some of the best PVP gamers in my circle of friends have turned out to be the wives and girlfriends of my so called hardcore gaming buddies. The real sting in the tail is that most of them were not even that interested in online games to start with but just wanted to spend more time with their significant other.
Oh and soccer Moms, less fearsome that the dreaded Hockey Mom? Discuss.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
But all it would take is one company making a simple flight sim that attracted huge numbers of new people to the niche and you'd see all that change. If someone demonstrated there was major money to be made, everyone would adapt to get a part of that pool of easy cash and the hardcore flight sim people would be whining about the good old days too.
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
Games are more complex and detailed then ever.
When I compare.. say... the original Hero Quest for my PC from Sierra Games to.. say... Mass Effect 2 I just laugh at how cheesy and simple games used to be.
As much as I loved Ultima Online back in the day, it really was a very simplistic and shallow experience.
I guess we have different definitions of what "shallow" really means.
in some ways i like simplicity, in some ways i like complexity. i prefer intuitive controls over using lots o fdifferent widely spread out buttons and mouse gestures for example.
that being said, look at DAO. story was cliched beyond belief, controls were awkward and not well thought out, combat was boring character building was super simple and boring, and in both character skills and quests the game felt like it was trying to be MMOish with stuff like CDs. and according to Bioware they were trying to go back to their roots with it which is hilarious. because i fyou played old bioware games you'd know there was more than one OP party combo and everything else didn't make the game super hard to play, they had rich itemization and rich stories and interesting characters. instead of grinding through an annoyingly overlong map filling your inventory with trash that's only good to sell unless you're a crafter in which case you can create some OK items in a limited fashion and having to go back to town half way through the quest to vendor your inventory.
the peak of great games was in the early 00s, then it went downhill from there as devs started to focus on expensive voice actors graphics and overly simplifying systems and having hte most linear stories possible. NWN2 was the last decent RPG i played, and i played through it multiple times to see all the combinations of story arcs and outcomes. every leg of it was different from the last and all added up to the main story in some significant way, without being about getting ye might shiny piece of specially coloured loot which thou needst for the next boss.
and the saddest thing about NWN2 is that it was criticized for technical issues such as long frequent loading screens, all of which existed in DAO and went without comment by reviewers and players alike despite using the same engine.
wheni compare these two games it's strange. because despite being on the same engine the earlier game i sobviously better in every way. NWN2 had better mechanics, funner combats, more robust and interesting character sheets(not to mention better balance between classes), better voice actors despite not using A list celebirties from tv and film, better looking mobs and armours without hte cheesy blood overlaid on armours, more dynamic story telling, and more features such as online and coop play.
the same thing can be seen in other games and franchises, across any genre. fps or rpg or rts.
KERPLAH!