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I think we all missed the point
SgtEcho
Member Posts: 139
Something that I've notced lately (I'm 14 btw) with these forums and with new MMOs coming out and what it has turned into. Let me explain by starting off with a generation that I missed.
I missed the generation of pen and paper and the old school Dungeons and Dragons. But I have a good idea of why people fell in love with these genre in the first place. It allowed you to be someone you could never hope to be and to go places and go on adventures that you could never hope to take on in real life. It was your imagination doing the work while you had a great time playing with your friends. MMOs now don't require your imagination to do much of anything, because the world your playing in is someone elses imagination. It's pretty awesome in every aspect you look at it.
I read the LoTRO vs. WoW column and when the 'Solo Play' in LoTRO was rated lower because the quests required you to group with other people that made me come to a realization. The whole point of an MMO is to interact directly and indirectly with other people that play the game and having the option to meet new people, join a guild or clan or what have you, and to have a good time. How fun was playing DnD or Diablo by yourself? Definitely not as fun as playing with your friends right? So I can in no way see why grouping with people can take away from a game and the game that encourages you to solo play would be BETTER.
I've also read the 'When did Instant Gratification Usurp Adventure?' thread and that got me thinking. Playing an MMO should make you feel like a hero on an epic adventure and along the way you collect items and gear, trophies or what have you to make you stand out from everyone else.
People are attracted to WoW because you get to the top so fast and it kind of gives the illusion that since you have all these epic items that you're awesome! But are you really? The guy next to you is wearing 6 pieces of the same gear. I guess it works but not for me or anyone else who is seeking more than some shallow gameplay and an easy reward system.
In short I think that MMOs lack a real sense of adventure and fail to make you seem like a hero. I'm not saying that grinding your ass off to feel special is the way to go either. I think that the content should be harder, and longer (I'm talking about dungeons). They should be more difficult and add a sense of adventure, therefore when you finish it and claim your reward it actually feels like you've earned it.
Comments
Adventure and a sense of heroism?
Watch this raw footage, of actual gameplay of Guild Wars 2 never before seen. 50 minutes. Turn your surround sound up or if you got headphones use them. Sound is very rich. No talker in the video.
http://vid.buffed.de/v/mvzjEXAUHA7/Guild-Wars-2/Wartower-Spotlight-GC-2010-Folge-7/
Playing now: Cities: Skyline / Ori and the Blind Forest / Banished
Yes you made some valid points and i agree with much everything you said.
The problem with trying to make sense of the MMO gaming public,is that you are trying to make sense when the majority i have run into are not true MMORPG players.
What i have found is pretty much not a secret anymore,i am sure everyone has heard the term "Social gaming".I find a lof of the players show up in games to just chat or make friends,the majority have done absolutely no homework before entering a game.This is why MOST of these players only care to speed level,this is easy to do and all they really know and understand.Every single time i rejoin EQ2,i hear peopel blabbing nonsense in chat and talking about how great all the other games are,why are they in EQ2?
These players do not care about crafting,most want nothing to do with crafting ,most do not care one bit about lore or reading the quests,they just want to know what they have to do and the fastest way to do it.I would say 99% do not care about imagination or living a ROLE within a game world,all they care about is how fast they can gain XP.
Another common question we see is people asking "How is the end game" "How much grind is there",neither of these questions should matter if you are playing a MMORPG for all the right reasons.If you want something other than a ROLE PLAYING game,then why are you hanging out in a RPG?I already mentioned it,they really do not care what game they are in as long as they can hang out ,chat and gain xp.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I'm on a weak rig and slow internet. I'll try to watch it but it lags a lot
To start your going to have two arguments one for, which will be mine and one against, I'll start with the for first.
I agree that most MMOs should be about the adventure but i also believe it should be about the story and how you fit into it that makes it important. I want a reason that i'm going after that guy or that piece of equipment and not just cause that particular bad guy has it in his hand. I believe that most encounters should require more then just yourself. If you can handle it then surely the guards in the city could have done it. Why ask you an adventurer unless it was too tough for a guard.
Now we flip to the against. This is most likely what you'll be hearing it may change flavor a bit but here we go.
Grouping, most people will come along and say that having to group for an encounter is bad because they should be able to handle it alone and not get stopped in content merely because they can't find a group or a specific type member. Some will of course try and split apart the playing with others with the multi-player aspect by saying that i'm talking to others therefore it's multi-player but i shouldn't have to play with them in order to accomplish something, and yet others will bring up the time issue saying they'd prefer to get a quick hunt in and not have to wait around a long time to do anything.
That covers the argument for grouping and instant gradification parts. Of course as i'm agreeing with you, my um defense of that side is going to be weak, but this is generally the types of arguments that come up when people start to say why things should be solo and more causal friendly.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I can see the issue with grouping. But people have an idea that you always need DPS/Heals/Tank to take down the leader of some gang or something. I don't blame them, because that's how most games are and I don't think it should always be this way.
I can't really think of a counter agruement to those people who say that 'it slows them down or I just don't want to wait around'. Because that is true and there really isn't another way around it that i can think of.
Too bad you missed out on the D&D generation. But you can still play it with your friends...if you can get them away from their online or console games long enough.
I agree with what you have said. I think about the most epic stories of our time (let's take the most well-known: The Lord of The Rings, Conan, Star Wars), and realize that they all had companions. Others with strengths to complement their weaknesses which made their quests ultimately possible.
Would Frodo have been able to get the ring into Mordor alone?
You can disagree with me but I think MMOs have been nearly ruined by the solo player. I'm not talking about the person that likes to solo most of the time, but the one that has NO inclination to group at all and gets on the games forums and complains about group quests and insists that everything be made solo-able. This is NOT in keeping with the heart and soul of the genre. If you want that kind of experience you can simply play a console game. Unfortunately, these types of players seem to be the majority as evidenced by Blizzard's subscription numbers, so I see more of this in the future.
You are very wrong about WoW.
WoW was good long before you was able to get PvP Epics.
In Vanilla WoW, most people had to fight in greens and Blues. But it wasnt so bad back then, you just would get one shot back a raider.
But WoW was still totally popular back in those days, long before Epics became the norm. So you need to rethink your theory
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Tell me the current state of WoW and what version of WoW 11.5 million people are playing. Vanilla WoW was a different game.
EDIT: I wasn't able to play WoW when I was 8 years old
You're very smart and perceptive for your age. Keep it up.
A tiny mind is a tidy mind...
If only the other billions of 14 year olds were as half as enlightened as you are, we would have better MMO's.
I suggest trying out Pre-CU SWG, that was the essence of adventuring. Building a home, filling it with trophies and other gear through out your playing. A long and very hard mission to be able to become a Jedi (The way any Star Wars game should be) Though I have to say macro harvesting was a bit boring and cheap, I still enjoyed every minute.
Ditto on the smart and perceptive part. But there's an aspect to this debate people who have strong opinions always seem to forget.
My reasons for playing may not be the same as yours. It's about multiplayer, grouping and social experiences for YOU, and for a lot of other people.
Its about being the hero for YOU. A lot of hardcore MMORPGers do *not* want to be a "golden child" or "magical girl" person. They just want to be a person. For some, constantly being singled out as the savior of the universe is anti-immersive.
Personally, I love gear-centric games because I like to tinker with different statistics to find combinations that open up different playstyles -- DIablo 1/2 were good at this. Other people want skill-heavy games. Other people want "twitch".
Not arguing with you, just offering a bit of advice. Don't assume that everyone sees these big issues the same way you do.
Oh and you didn't "miss" the P&P genre. It's still out there. Go find a game and get into it, it's a great experience.
I can also roleplay the tower in a chess game and shout "is that a peasant at the horizon I see? I will smash it I will! Oh damn I broke one of my merlons!". -- maji
Not all of us, just the majority.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Shhh... that's part of the Blizzard secret. It is not just one game. It is many games combined into one wrapper.
If you step back and look. The fact that there is an easy mode is the reason for the continued success of WoW. Easy mode pays the bills to keep such a richly detailed world running and growing.
So very true. I'm glad at least 1 in eleven million get it. I hope the current trend shifts in a way where more people realise MMORPG's are supposed to be about the community. EQ (in the beginning got that concept). Just watch Evercracked on youtube or IGN or whatever and listen to them talk about some of the concepts they wanted and didn't want in their game. I think that is why it was so successfull for its time.
Well thank you! That makes me feel all fuzzy inside. I guess? In a way?
P&P though, I know there are some stores around that hook you up with some people that are interested in that stuff. Unfortunately, I cannot drive and my mom hates DnD.
With some games, mostly WoW, Blizz tries so hard to cater to everyone and in the end they didn't end up with as good a product as they started out with. They tried to hard to change their game. If they had stuck with the game they first created it might not have 11.5 million subscribers but it would be a better game in the eyes of the ones it really matters to.
I'm trying to stay away from constantly talking about WoW but I just got done with it after playing it for 6 months. Oh yeah, I watched about 15 minutes of that GW2 gameplay and my attention has been pulled away from Rift for the time being. It had that sense of adventure, except for that arrow on the minimap, that kind of made me wonder. But it is just the start of the game so they have to have some kind of tutorial(ish) type of thing.
And as for people not seeing things the way I do.. well yes, that's understandable, I suppose that is why World of Warcraft exists (haha?). That's why devs create the games that they do. I'm just waiting for someone to get it right and I hope that game is somewhat successful and continues to get new content.
Hmmph. Well I guess we're back to square one. Run me through again how your opinion matters more than the other 11.5 million people?
Your choice of words implies an appeal to an objective standard -- as if there is some kind of obvious cosmic one-ness from which all that is correct in gaming should spring forth. From this it is determined that these things are correct and those things are incorrect, these people are doing it right and those people are doing it wrong.
Hint: There is no objective standard. Well, if there is one, I guess raw numbers and profitability come pretty close to being objective, but by that standard Blizzard has got it oh so utterly right. Now I got bored of wow after a few months, for a lot of the same reasons you've indicated, but I'm not so naive as to think it's because I'm right and those other 11.5 million people are wrong.
The world does not owe you the game of your dreams.
I can also roleplay the tower in a chess game and shout "is that a peasant at the horizon I see? I will smash it I will! Oh damn I broke one of my merlons!". -- maji
There is a way around it ... soon. GW2.
They kicked the holy trinity out... so no need to wait for that specific group cmbo.
Looks like yet another quest driven single player game. I saw no footage of people grouping up, it was another case of people in the same area doing the same thing but not talking to each other. The gameplay and graphics look nice, but if it's just another game where you spend 90% of your time soloing then I'll be disappointed. Will probably play it - I played LOTRO and that was 90% solo - but will still be disappointed on a missed opportunity.
The point here is, in themepark games (with linear progression) much of early-to-mid content gets outleveled by the majority of players very soon after launch. Thus, finding a group might become a terribly painful task: you either don't find anyone for a certain dungeon/instance run (requiring a fixed amount of people to be done at all), you find someone on his 4th or 6th alt who is just running through the content he can do blindfolded (no actual fun doing stuff that way), or find a high lvl guildmate who has some spare time to help you (even less fun with someone doing stuff for you).
In a sandbox game there is often a place for everyone in a pve activity, but when levels are involved the amount of people for a certain task becomes terribly low as the "window of opportunity" is narrowed to a few levels.
Yep, it's a major flaw of themepark games. Once you've done the quest there's no reason to go back and do it again. In a sandbox there were usually other incentives to go back into a dungeon that didn't involve a quest, themepark games the only reason to go in a dungeon IS the quest.
Themepark games need to be done away with, they add nothing to this genre and only end up making things worse..
I made a lot of long term friends, and found my first guild that I was able to stay with because we didn't separate due to levels, with the Sandbox system like this. You got to know people because you saw them frequently in the same places you were going to. Sometimes someone would heal you when you were in need, sometimes one of us would help the other get to their corpse and stuff back, different ways people "connected" and became aquaintances and then friends.
You just don't find that in these Themepark ("WoW clones") games to the same degree.
Once upon a time....
Good god the GW2 and sandbox forum warriors are out in force in this thread.
You nit the nail on the head. The grouping is an intrical part of the design but running a necro through eq solo because I was too impatient to wait for a group still provided me with the other thing missing in todays games, immersion. I personally like the immersion and I despise down time. So a solo able option is fine if there is a wait to do something else.
Take wow for example, yea insta group to dungeons...really? dps que on suramar average 15 mins alliance. I have zero to do while waiting. PVP? no can't duel que. look for raid, ok gotta be in town ready trade chat, yes trade because noone uses lfg channel. What to do while sitting in town looking for raid, qued for dungeon? nothing. get a dungeon, sweet, anoth 15 minute que.
Some people say have friends so you never wait for raid or dungeon que..ok so I have 5, 10 or 25 people I always play with so I dont have the down time which is forced on me at this wonderful thing called endgame. How freaking "Massive Multiplayer" is that?
The journey to endgame is not plagued with down time, find a group or not i can do something. The end game lack of grouping etc is a by product of a fundamental game design flaw, not the cause of an already shit design.
We are joining forces for a massive assault against WoW!
Yes, and we've spent years infiltrating WoW in preparation. Hey, we Sandboxers really didn't have anything else to do anyways.
Once upon a time....