They fell in love with their first MMO, whether it was UO, EQ1, AC, SWG whatever.
.
They are trying to recapture that first blush experience. This is impossible because they are suffering from nostalgia and no game can live up to a perfect mental image.
.
So they sit in the forum and gripe.
i have to agree, yessir ;P
i'll never recapture my first MMO experience.. never.. and it saddens me to say that, and be truthful about it.. so now i just look for a game thats fun, regardless of what it has to offer, if i enjoy it, its doing its job right?
Man.. Tibia, back in 2001.. those were the days! i tell ya!
I agree and disagree. It's nearly impossible, but it can happen. Won't be the full on first blush experience, but occasionally there is a game that has a second place holyshit moment, and then continues with it.
My first was EQ, when I was having fun, but not quite catching some of it. I was trying to find the wood elve city, spent two hours, couldn't find it, then realized....I was underneath it. I looked up and saw the entire place built into the treetops and that was my first real holy shit moment. There were plenty of other damned fun ones, but that was what caught my eye and heart in a major way.
Second was WoW(Yes, I admit it), when I just started the game, and it felt so damned smooth and polished, and just fun to run around with. The quest tracker was nice, although I'd been out of online gaming for a while then, but between that, the controls, and a bunch of other small things, that was a great fun thing for a long while. I started drifting away when it seemed like they started making everything easier, so the first ....every level except the endgame, I guess, just felt like it didn't matter. Maybe it was like that while I was playing, but I enjoyed just playing it for a long time, it didn't matter that I wasn't rushing up to max so I could raid the Dark Cavern of Dangly Bits for 12 hours.
I haven't read the rest of the conversation, and I apologize, but wanted to pipe in with my opinion, here.
MMORPG's used to be about adventure and socializing. Now they're about being better than everyone else. Better geared, better hardware, better addons, better guild...
I don't have a problem with competition itself, but what I'm refering to isn't competition in the sense of a game or a sport, it's that whole "keeping up with the Jones's" bullshit.
Take WOW for example. Yeah a new character can have a ton of fun while leveling (I did), doin quests, exploring, running dungeons with random people, trying out the pvp, or just goofing off. But once you hit 80 no one will let you do anything with them, or do anything with you if you don't have good gear. So before you are allowed to even play the game again you have to spend a ton of time just grinding gear.
That's another thing- I'm sorry, but leveling is NOT grinding. POWERLEVELING is grinding. That's why there's two different words for it... any game that doesn't let yoo do any fun social activities until you are max level is crap. And any game that doesn't have any social activities other than dungeons and raids is crap.
There should be several things in every mmo that every character, from the total newbs to the most op on the server, can all participate in. Currently the only thing every mmo lets every character participate in is the economy.
That's so lame.
Wow has the Darkmoon Farire, holiday events, and fishing events. But they never change.
Runescape has holiday events that are different every year, a ton of different minigames, and even a "drop party" room that high lvl players put items in to donate them to newbs who run around frantically to try to pop ballons containing the items. But that game is so simplistic 80% of the population logged in at any given time is gold farming bots (or mindless zombified grindfest players, but subjectively, there's no difference).
There are some mmo's that do cater to the social side of things. I'm not saying they don't. I'm saying that needs to be their MAIN focus, and it should NOT be "keeping up with the Jones's."
What's so terribly wrong with wanting a genre who's main purpose is socializing in a virtual world lacking real life limitations?
What's so terribly wrong with wanting game designers who act more like really creative hosts of a neverending party?
Sometimes gamers can create this atmosphere for themselves in sandbox games or rp servers, but that's basically like a party with no one playing the host. What always happens? Everyone gets smashed and passes out. That's only fun when you're underage, cause it's bad. Just like how kids like these mmo's, cause they get to swear and be mean to people and don't get in trouble.
Fuck.
That.
Shit.
There's so much more potential. And it's all being wasted. Not because there's a lack of creativity. They always PROMISE such cool things. And then they don't do it.
The only 2 things I can think of as to why they always fail to uphold their promises, is either their budget can't handle it, or they can't figure out how to program it.
This post, and a number of others in this thread, make me wish there was a facebook Like function on the mmorpg.com forums.
I think these sort of strong reactions are natural when it comes to the mmo genre. An mmo is supposed to be a game that could potentially keep you playing for months and even years. If a person is to spend so much time with one game its natural to excpect from it something great, something more than other games can provide. So the hate comes from very high expectations clashing with reality. MMOs are a genre plagued with terrible launches and a myriad of bugs for the first weeks or months of the games life. Its a genre in which you cant really judge whether the game will be worth it or not at launch. Some games get through the terrible launch and thrive others crash and burn ( see Vanguard).
The hate is also a result of whats in my opinion a bad approach to advertising the game. Most mmo devs very slowly allow information about their game to trickle out. Its usually years after the project is announced that gamers actually get concrete info on the features in a game. The slow, gradual reveal of info might be good for other games but I do not think its the way to go for mmos. Like I said mmos are games for months that ask more of the player then lets say a shooter. Releasing one screenshot of an FPS is fine, becouse everyone one knows how most of shooters work its simplistic compared to the theoretical living world of an mmo. When an mmo player sees that first glimpse of the game his mind goes into overdrive imagining what the game is like, and very often being completely wrong. There are many mmos that left me disapointed becouse I had over the years of following the development created my own version of the game in my mind. This ofcourse does not mean they are bad games, they are simple not what I had imagined and that is a powerful thing.
I pretty much completely agree, for me it has been the opposite in wow though, I think the key to having a great time in wow is having a regularly active guild that has a good time without restricting fun based on your gear, which is how I have always had the pleasure of experiencing wow at least until I started private servers after taking a 4 month break from retail and then discovering how Gear Score completely ruined that fun atmosphere I once enjoyed. Personally I think thats the main reason wow is so successful, given the right circumstances the community is better than any other and you can easily find people that either live near you or share your same interests simply because of the huge population.
Any one who knows anything about pies, knows momma makes the best pies. Nowadays you go to the grocery store ... and those factory made pies are awful. And as for the girlfriend / wife ... forget about it. She has nothing on your momma's homemade pies.
I am waiting for someone to make the perfect pie.
Game developers are trying to capitolize on the gaming industry and when they clash MMO gamers with Console gamers ... group players vs solo players ... the developers try to make a game that all gamers can enjoy.
Sorry but an MMORPG isnt made for a Console game player. Ppl that go out to by a game for their ps3 or wii or xbox 360 buy it to reach end game content as fast as they can and move on to the next product.
When an MMO developer makes their game so easy for the solo player to cruise through, it gets boring fast. The edge is gone and no one wants to stick around and just socialize or chat it up. Time to move on to the next game subscription
Sure brag about your millions of customers that you have had since the release of the game. You cannot account for your active players.
I know my pie. Needs more spice less sugar ... not too many fruits or nuts and needs to stay warm ... go well with whipped cream or ice cream and a tall glass of milk. And when I finish my slice of pie .... i will want more!
Comments
I agree and disagree. It's nearly impossible, but it can happen. Won't be the full on first blush experience, but occasionally there is a game that has a second place holyshit moment, and then continues with it.
My first was EQ, when I was having fun, but not quite catching some of it. I was trying to find the wood elve city, spent two hours, couldn't find it, then realized....I was underneath it. I looked up and saw the entire place built into the treetops and that was my first real holy shit moment. There were plenty of other damned fun ones, but that was what caught my eye and heart in a major way.
Second was WoW(Yes, I admit it), when I just started the game, and it felt so damned smooth and polished, and just fun to run around with. The quest tracker was nice, although I'd been out of online gaming for a while then, but between that, the controls, and a bunch of other small things, that was a great fun thing for a long while. I started drifting away when it seemed like they started making everything easier, so the first ....every level except the endgame, I guess, just felt like it didn't matter. Maybe it was like that while I was playing, but I enjoyed just playing it for a long time, it didn't matter that I wasn't rushing up to max so I could raid the Dark Cavern of Dangly Bits for 12 hours.
I haven't read the rest of the conversation, and I apologize, but wanted to pipe in with my opinion, here.
This post, and a number of others in this thread, make me wish there was a facebook Like function on the mmorpg.com forums.
I think these sort of strong reactions are natural when it comes to the mmo genre. An mmo is supposed to be a game that could potentially keep you playing for months and even years. If a person is to spend so much time with one game its natural to excpect from it something great, something more than other games can provide. So the hate comes from very high expectations clashing with reality. MMOs are a genre plagued with terrible launches and a myriad of bugs for the first weeks or months of the games life. Its a genre in which you cant really judge whether the game will be worth it or not at launch. Some games get through the terrible launch and thrive others crash and burn ( see Vanguard).
The hate is also a result of whats in my opinion a bad approach to advertising the game. Most mmo devs very slowly allow information about their game to trickle out. Its usually years after the project is announced that gamers actually get concrete info on the features in a game. The slow, gradual reveal of info might be good for other games but I do not think its the way to go for mmos. Like I said mmos are games for months that ask more of the player then lets say a shooter. Releasing one screenshot of an FPS is fine, becouse everyone one knows how most of shooters work its simplistic compared to the theoretical living world of an mmo. When an mmo player sees that first glimpse of the game his mind goes into overdrive imagining what the game is like, and very often being completely wrong. There are many mmos that left me disapointed becouse I had over the years of following the development created my own version of the game in my mind. This ofcourse does not mean they are bad games, they are simple not what I had imagined and that is a powerful thing.
I pretty much completely agree, for me it has been the opposite in wow though, I think the key to having a great time in wow is having a regularly active guild that has a good time without restricting fun based on your gear, which is how I have always had the pleasure of experiencing wow at least until I started private servers after taking a 4 month break from retail and then discovering how Gear Score completely ruined that fun atmosphere I once enjoyed. Personally I think thats the main reason wow is so successful, given the right circumstances the community is better than any other and you can easily find people that either live near you or share your same interests simply because of the huge population.
Any one who knows anything about pies, knows momma makes the best pies. Nowadays you go to the grocery store ... and those factory made pies are awful. And as for the girlfriend / wife ... forget about it. She has nothing on your momma's homemade pies.
I am waiting for someone to make the perfect pie.
Game developers are trying to capitolize on the gaming industry and when they clash MMO gamers with Console gamers ... group players vs solo players ... the developers try to make a game that all gamers can enjoy.
Sorry but an MMORPG isnt made for a Console game player. Ppl that go out to by a game for their ps3 or wii or xbox 360 buy it to reach end game content as fast as they can and move on to the next product.
When an MMO developer makes their game so easy for the solo player to cruise through, it gets boring fast. The edge is gone and no one wants to stick around and just socialize or chat it up. Time to move on to the next game subscription
Sure brag about your millions of customers that you have had since the release of the game. You cannot account for your active players.
I know my pie. Needs more spice less sugar ... not too many fruits or nuts and needs to stay warm ... go well with whipped cream or ice cream and a tall glass of milk. And when I finish my slice of pie .... i will want more!
MOMMA?!?! WHERE IS MY PIE!
...Cephus404
Elite Member
Joined: 2/27/08
Posts: 1542
...apparently you do, lol
I thought i spent way too much time here and i only have 35 posts