I'm one of those playing WoW, because there just isn't anything better to do right now. I started playing MMOs when EQ launched back in 1999 and other than my time in SWG (pre-CU/NGE), nothing else has come close to being as enjoyable as those first couple of years in EQ.
The only other game on the market that interests me at all is EVE, but even it has its share of faults. CCP has been talking about in game avatars for years, but still hasn't added them.
I'm one of those playing WoW, because there just isn't anything better to do right now. I started playing MMOs when EQ launched back in 1999 and other than my time in SWG (pre-CU/NGE), nothing else has come close to being as enjoyable as those first couple of years in EQ.
The only other game on the market that interests me at all is EVE, but even it has its share of faults. CCP has been talking about in game avatars for years, but still hasn't added them.
I've tried the EVE trial too many times to count. On paper, it's a game I should adore. In reality, it's something that feels overwhelming at the beginning, and the starter missions alone always burn me out in a couple play sessions. Maybe it's the pace, I'm not really sure, but I've always wanted a space game that allowed me to get in and out of the cockpit, and the planetary expansions seem like an interesting meta-game, albeit one I'd probably never see.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
I'm one of those playing WoW, because there just isn't anything better to do right now. I started playing MMOs when EQ launched back in 1999 and other than my time in SWG (pre-CU/NGE), nothing else has come close to being as enjoyable as those first couple of years in EQ.
The only other game on the market that interests me at all is EVE, but even it has its share of faults. CCP has been talking about in game avatars for years, but still hasn't added them.
I've tried the EVE trial too many times to count. On paper, it's a game I should adore. In reality, it's something that feels overwhelming at the beginning, and the starter missions alone always burn me out in a couple play sessions. Maybe it's the pace, I'm not really sure, but I've always wanted a space game that allowed me to get in and out of the cockpit, and the planetary expansions seem like an interesting meta-game, albeit one I'd probably never see.
I know how you feel. I've spent a lot of time playing EVE myself and really want to stick with it, but can't due to a number of reasons. The PvE in EVE is probably the most boring content in any PvE game Ive ever played. I was excited when wormholes first came out, but other than the risk of a PvP encounter, the PvE is quite boring. PvP in EVE is probably my favorite feature due to its large scale battles, but I just could not tolerate the lag and bugs introduced with Dominion and haven't played since.
I come from a CRPG / single player RPG background. At first I didn't know what to expect from MMORPGs.
I won't say that MMOs can't be fun. They are interesting and fun until a certain point. "End game", Min/Maxing and the constant competition between players (in both PvP and PvE) are giving the genre a certain direction (e.g.. "action oriented hack n' slash ballet"). Character progression is mainly determined by increasing levels/skills and gathering better equipment. Especially the level of conformity is astonishing (maybe just like in the real world) in MMORPGs.
On the other hand a big part of the CRPGs that were published during the last 20 to 30 years were not better than today's games.
Dunno maybe I'd like to see a more PnP oriented game. Perhaps hiding the game mechanics (including all the numbers and stats) and presenting such a game rather as a "free-style" adventure game (with some combat elements, lethal and non-lethal combat) would be a different and refreshing approach.
This genre is dead and there's no decent games on the horizon.
MMOs are about to take the next step in evolution with Guild Wars 2. The trinity is gone. Quests as you know them are gone. The increasing leveling curve is gone. Grind is gone.
There's still hope.
But where is the community? Instancing the entire game relieves a MMORPG of alot of problems, but it leaves out the heart and soul of what many people made the move from console gaming to PC MMORPG games for.
If I wanted to play a game where i was the hero in my own little world....I'd play a RPG.
GW2 is fully persistent, not instanced. The only instances are dungeons and your personal story. The world is wide open for you to meet everyone.
This genre is dead and there's no decent games on the horizon.
MMOs are about to take the next step in evolution with Guild Wars 2. The trinity is gone. Quests as you know them are gone. The increasing leveling curve is gone. Grind is gone.
There's still hope.
But where is the community? Instancing the entire game relieves a MMORPG of alot of problems, but it leaves out the heart and soul of what many people made the move from console gaming to PC MMORPG games for.
If I wanted to play a game where i was the hero in my own little world....I'd play a RPG.
Player Communities in MMOs (as good as they have been in the past) have also ended up being a double edged sword as far as MMO Publishers are concerned, and some Players feel the same way to be honest. Example... the community of SWG from alpha testing through current day, it's overall and complete history.
MMOs are not run by Players, they are run by MMO Publishers and Players never have had any "rights" per se as far as protecting their interests. Only the combined effects of Players coming together as Communities offered Players any real ability to influence MMO Publishers to change things. Some Player Communities in past MMOs have had good success in "encouraging" Devs to change certain things in certain ways.
But Devs don't always like to be "encouraged" to do things if it isn't their own idea first... and neither do the Investors that own the MMO genre (even though we Players pay for the MMOs we own nothing really, not even our accounts in most MMOs). MMOs are now designed to diminish the effect Player community has upon a MMO as much as possible. The MMO Publishers just let Players *think* or *believe* they support player community when they truthfully do not.
The current Bosses of the MMO genre do not want players to form "community" in a MMO.... because they want each Player to go directly to the MMO Publisher to solve their problems. It's all about control and profits. Player Communities in MMOs are viewed as liabilities, not as we Players see them as assets. Player Community will only be a shadow of the past in new MMOs because the MMOs are being designed to limit community.
But no MMO Marketer, Developer, or Public Relations Staffer will ever admit that.
I'm not disagreeing with what your saying....infact I agree that the reason we have not seen many sandbox type MMORPG environments is because its just easier to plan and deploy content from a development standpoint when they have all the control.
However, my greatest MMORPG experiences I've had were the ones that involved doing things with other people.....more specifically friends (both ones from real life and ones that I've made in game). BUT, I decided to play MMORPGs as opposed to other games because I was looking for a deeper and more challenging game experience....something that the MMORPG genere provided that was unique among the rest of the gaming venues. That isn't the case today.
As new MMORPGs focus on dropping the barriers of entry for many players (including time and effort to establish relationships with people and forming groups), the MMORPG experience to me has be come more like a glorified single player hack n' slash one...that just so happens to allow me to occasionaly play with some strangers.
I come from a CRPG / single player RPG background. At first I didn't know what to expect from MMORPGs.
I won't say that MMOs can't be fun. They are interesting and fun until a certain point. "End game", Min/Maxing and the constant competition between players (in both PvP and PvE) are giving the genre a certain direction (e.g.. "action oriented hack n' slash ballet"). Character progression is mainly determined by increasing levels/skills and gathering better equipment. Especially the level of conformity is astonishing (maybe just like in the real world) in MMORPGs.
On the other hand a big part of the CRPGs that were published during the last 20 to 30 years were not better than today's games.
Dunno maybe I'd like to see a more PnP oriented game. Perhaps hiding the game mechanics (including all the numbers and stats) and presenting such a game rather as a "free-style" adventure game (with some combat elements, lethal and non-lethal combat) would be a different and refreshing approach.
Quoted for truth. I especially like the idea of a "stat-free" game.
Like others, besides graphics, I haven't seen any progress since old EQ. I was truly in love with that game. But I have only seen things get simpler since then.
I still play and enjoy EQ2. It's interesting that the other night I grouped with a stranger and we duoed some newbie stuff. We had fun chatting, but it was a bit of a bother, and almost boring for us to pull and kill mobs and finish quests and such. Grouping is now a pain and not a vital part of MMO play.
I understand that companies want to make more money. I understand that the more accessablee they make a game, the more money they can make. Compromises have to be made. LotRO is a wonderful for example of this. It's rough-draft version, MEO, probably wouldn't have had the recogntion, and therefore the draw. And consequently, lore-junkies like me grit our teeth when playing the game.
There is nothing wrong with sandbox games, there is nothing wrong with linear games, there is nothing wrong with raiding endgame or pvp endgame... that being said. I'm grossly disappointed with the evolution of mmos.
The problem isn't any ONE style it's that they've neglected every other style... eq1 did better than any game before it, and thus everyone copied it, wow did better than eq1 so every game copied it, etc... the "linear progression mass market mmo with raiding/pvp hybrid endgame" or subtle variations there-of have been done to death. Are they bad games? hell no, they're spectacular for WHAT THEY ARE... they've been refined, optimized, and carefully tweaked to produce a stellar experience.
Here's the problem... I'm bored. Subtle variations don't cut it anymore for a lot of people (especially the older players who've been doing this for 15+ years now.) The mmo market after wow completely stagnated. There are no new ideas (sorry aion, flying is not revolutionary and yes I've played the game) and when a new idea comes out it is so low budget it can't et any traction (and crap games shouldn't.)
The biggest issue I see off the rip is interface, everyone EXPECTS a good interface now (Final Fantasy XIV is a prefect example, its taken a huge beating over a subpar interface) and unless you provide it you're NOT going to do nearly as well in the market as you could have. Everyone expects intuitive game play or at least in game help that gets you moving off the boat so to say. Everyone expects some polish and a launch that doesn't look like the Hindenburg's last few minutes. Many of the games get one aspect right and completely fail on the rest... and go no where. They get such a bad rep at launch that even when, a year later when the game should have launched, they fix many of the problems and features they promised but didn't deliver that no one will bother to try it again (I'm looking at you conan and vanguard) so the populations dwindle and die out or the game barely breaks even.
Whatever happened to... isometric mmos (L1, LoK, Diablo1/2 Style)? first person mmos (m59, eq1 to some degree)? sandboxes (a real successor to UO anyone? anyone???) skill based rather than level based systems (asheron's call, ultima online)? real crafting systems (mmm... galaxies)? etc... these ideas haven't had even a fraction of the lessons learned from the wow clones applied to them, not one of the 'spritual successors' to these games have had a reasonable interface and polish added... and until they start down some alternate routes the genre is going to be very limited.
The simple reality is... I understand it. Development dollars follow player dollars... eq1 and wow did somethings oh so right. WoW especially made mmo's accessible to the everyday player more so than any mmo before it and to some degree kept it interesting at high levels for players who were ready to kick off the training shoes and seriously raid or pvp (It's of moderate difficulty at worst (this coming from a nethack, angband, dwarf fortress player... so I have a real good idea of how difficult a game CAN be sandbox or linear), light, fun, and appeals broadly.) What wow does it does ~spectacularly~. That being said, I believe, that the lack of development money in sandbox games since galaxies (which had a wretched interface, horrible setting time period chosen, bad controls, nerfs/live gameplay changes the level of which few other games have ever seen, and a craptacular launch to drive it into the ground) is not because players aren't interested in sandboxes... it's that the interface and initial experience of most sandbox games (like most early mmo's) are complete ass (fallen earth I'm looking at you... decent game, meh interface and start off.)
Until a developer who has a clue on how to make a modern successful mmo decides to do a sandbox and puts real time into the interface, translating lessons learned from the linear progression games, and makes it at least STARTING OUT passingly manageable for new players... there won't be any diversity in the mmo market. The hard part for finding that is simple... Risk vs Reward... right now there is more reward copying existing ideas rather than innovating and until that is no longer true we will see no real innovation in the current style of games... I want a strong sandbox game market. I want a strong linear progression market. I want a strong pvp game market. I want a strong pve game market. I want a strong skill based game market. I want a strong... because the more genetic lines there are and the more crossbreeding between them the faster and more innovation we'll see... and the better more diverse games we'll have to play...
MMo’s have converged and devolved, not evolved. From PC’s to consoles, from consoles to smart phones. From a handful of formats to one format, WoW. Great new ideas, even theme park ideas are never picked up by latter MMO’s. Meanwhile we have a F2P clone fest, I see no hope in the short term of anything else.
There is nothing wrong with sandbox games, there is nothing wrong with linear games, there is nothing wrong with raiding endgame or pvp endgame... that being said. I'm grossly disappointed with the evolution of mmos.
The problem isn't any ONE style it's that they've neglected every other style... eq1 did better than any game before it, and thus everyone copied it, wow did better than eq1 so every game copied it, etc... the "linear progression mass market mmo with raiding/pvp hybrid endgame" or subtle variations there-of have been done to death. Are they bad games? hell no, they're spectacular for WHAT THEY ARE... they've been refined, optimized, and carefully tweaked to produce a stellar experience.
Here's the problem... I'm bored. Subtle variations don't cut it anymore for a lot of people (especially the older players who've been doing this for 15+ years now.) The mmo market after wow completely stagnated. There are no new ideas (sorry aion, flying is not revolutionary and yes I've played the game) and when a new idea comes out it is so low budget it can't et any traction (and crap games shouldn't.)
The biggest issue I see off the rip is interface, everyone EXPECTS a good interface now (Final Fantasy XIV is a prefect example, its taken a huge beating over a subpar interface) and unless you provide it you're NOT going to do nearly as well in the market as you could have. Everyone expects intuitive game play or at least in game help that gets you moving off the boat so to say. Everyone expects some polish and a launch that doesn't look like the Hindenburg's last few minutes. Many of the games get one aspect right and completely fail on the rest... and go no where. They get such a bad rep at launch that even when, a year later when the game should have launched, they fix many of the problems and features they promised but didn't deliver that no one will bother to try it again (I'm looking at you conan and vanguard) so the populations dwindle and die out or the game barely breaks even.
Whatever happened to... isometric mmos (L1, LoK, Diablo1/2 Style)? first person mmos (m59, eq1 to some degree)? sandboxes (a real successor to UO anyone? anyone???) skill based rather than level based systems (asheron's call, ultima online)? real crafting systems (mmm... galaxies)? etc... these ideas haven't had even a fraction of the lessons learned from the wow clones applied to them, not one of the 'spritual successors' to these games have had a reasonable interface and polish added... and until they start down some alternate routes the genre is going to be very limited.
The simple reality is... I understand it. Development dollars follow player dollars... eq1 and wow did somethings oh so right. WoW especially made mmo's accessible to the everyday player more so than any mmo before it and to some degree kept it interesting at high levels for players who were ready to kick off the training shoes and seriously raid or pvp (It's of moderate difficulty at worst (this coming from a nethack, angband, dwarf fortress player... so I have a real good idea of how difficult a game CAN be sandbox or linear), light, fun, and appeals broadly.) What wow does it does ~spectacularly~. That being said, I believe, that the lack of development money in sandbox games since galaxies (which had a wretched interface, horrible setting time period chosen, bad controls, nerfs/live gameplay changes the level of which few other games have ever seen, and a craptacular launch to drive it into the ground) is not because players aren't interested in sandboxes... it's that the interface and initial experience of most sandbox games (like most early mmo's) are complete ass (fallen earth I'm looking at you... decent game, meh interface and start off.)
Until a developer who has a clue on how to make a modern successful mmo decides to do a sandbox and puts real time into the interface, translating lessons learned from the linear progression games, and makes it at least STARTING OUT passingly manageable for new players... there won't be any diversity in the mmo market. The hard part for finding that is simple... Risk vs Reward... right now there is more reward copying existing ideas rather than innovating and until that is no longer true we will see no real innovation in the current style of games... I want a strong sandbox game market. I want a strong linear progression market. I want a strong pvp game market. I want a strong pve game market. I want a strong skill based game market. I want a strong... because the more genetic lines there are and the more crossbreeding between them the faster and more innovation we'll see... and the better more diverse games we'll have to play...
anyways ill shut up now.
Another great post....very well put.
As fast as these F2P games can prop up a good looking top down 2.5D environment, with borrowed mechanics from every other AAA MMO out there.......you'd think that someone would take a shot at doing the same with a EVE or Ultima Online ruleset. Sandbox fans are more interested in the game play and the meta game more than how cool looking their armor is anyway.
Ive actually been thinking about it lately, and I think Im pretty much done with MMOs. I mean, Ive played a ton of them, and a few too a good capacity. But its not like the days of EQ when you have anyone stick around more than a few months before running to the next game that would fail. Developers are selling people utter trash these days. At some point I am going to have to just cut the chord. Ive had lots of fun, but with the last release of FFXIV i seriously have lost all faith in the MMO market exept WoW which I feel gives their players more than their moneys worth and works hard to keep people happy.
MMOs started out as a niche market which all fields do. Everyone was relatively happy because everyone who was into that field like those games. Small group everyone knew each other. While it wasn't all roses it was closely knit. Then WoW came out and it basically introduced a whole ton load of new people. People who were just discovering this genre. You smash a ton of people into a niche genre and it gets interesting real fast. You got the people who just came in with the recent edition of MMOs, jammed in with the WoW era people, smashed in with the UO/EQ era people. This is where the community problems comes in. The UO/EQ people think they know how a game works because they've been in the genre the longest and "understand" how things work because they've seen everything. The WoW era thinks they know because they started with the game that was the biggest success. Now you got the new era coming in and they think they know how to do it best because this is how things are progressing and if it was wrong they wouldn't be going that way. Everyone thinks they are right and they think everyone else is misguided, in short, a mess.
As for the games themselves, when UO came out it brought MMos to peoples attention but it was still isometric. Then came EQ. That brought MMOs into the 3d 1st/3rd person perspective and got even more people interested, then came WoW that made it possible for everyone to play. in about 10 years from the time UO came out the genre speed up so fast (too fast in my opinion), now everyone is in the mentality that it should get bigger and better faster. Theres nothing wrong with that idea but to put it into practice is another. All the companies are trying to do what they know works so they don't make anyone mad, but aren't sure how to do that without copying what has been done already. Thus alot of them state they are new and the next big thing when they are not.
Most of these companies are trying to cash in on the buck without knowing quite how. There are 3 different types of people now playing this genre and you really need all three to succeed. The problem is all 3 are looking for something different. The EQ/UO crowd is looking for great expansive worlds you can live in. The WoW era is looking for early fun and polished games. The new era wants the product completely done and no bugs and easy to understand at launch.
This can all be done in one MMO if a company takes a step back and does it. But your not going to please everyone and you still got to have that new and fresh feel while keeping things near as to other MMOs as possible (14 tried a new interface and we saw how well that did on these forums). I feel this genre is still progerssing really fast, so we are going to hit bumps along the way until they figure out how to do it right. The biggest problem is that every company wants to succeed and right now the mentality is that the player wants a WoW like experience. Polished with easy to understand content. So thats what we will keep getting. If we really dont want that. then we as the player have to show otherwise. Stop playing the games we don't like and start playing the games we do like. Same goes for the type we want to see. Companies are going to go where the dollar is. If they see alot of people playing sandbox games and not themepark you'll start seeing alot of sandbox games, the problem comes in that we say we don't want WoW like games but we keep playing WoW like games, thats a mixed message to the company and they lean on the side where your money is going.
Some companies are getting more "brave" (for lack of a better word) with this by adding story instead of just lore and risking losing the people who like to make up their own stories. It's something new that we haven't really seen before in this genre which is great, if done well.
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.
Sadly I have a too specific taste about what kind of MMORPG I would like to play.
As nobody gets any near that kind of game, I'm not gonna find a new MMO any soon.
In the meantime I can have some fun with SWTOR and World of Darkness [Online?], but those are definitely no MMOs I would want to play for years to come.
Maybe I should elaborate, I want:
- Subscription based and no goldselling or item shop or any other such crap whatsoever. Everyone has the same conditions, except for different skill and different time buffers.
- Huge gameworld without instancing. Able to get mounts early.
- No level grind. Preferably no xp for killing mobs whatsoever. Give me xp through quests alone.
- Graphics lowend so it can handle hundreds of characters on the screen at the same time.
- Realistic viewing distances, dynamic loading with no load screens whatsoever.
- Characters either in beautiful asian Manga style, or realistic style. Definitely not ugly WoW comic style.
- Classic fantasy setting, including elves and my beloved darkelves and nobody forces me to be evil, dammit
- Good classes (and no classless crap, thank you very much) with clearly defined group tasks (Tank/Healer/DPS)
- Class balance is in order - PvP is balanced, healers not just passive, everyone gets mobs to solo on them
- Group play is better than Solo play, Guilds and Alliances can archieve even more
- High customization - individual characters, individual looks, individual skilling.
- Highly customizeable item crafting, with item properties vary individually to the crafter.
- You can always get better - i.e. enchant items even higher (with chance of breaking them)
- Slow leveling. Give me 100+ total gameplay days to actually reach maxlevel. Or even better, have no maxlevel at all.
- Raiding at any level, not just maxlevel. Small and large group raids.
- No racial pvp dammit. PvP between guilds and alliances, inside the arena, or by playerkillers who have marked themselves as bandits (and can no longer enter normal player cities, only special bandit outposts).
- Dynamic world, influenceable by player. Especially castle sieges and housing, ideally much more (player build cities, player conquered areas, ...)
- Ideally quests created at random from quest templates, so you never know what will come and nobody but you will have the same quest.
Vanguard fulfilled many of these conditions. No PvP part though. But really great Raid dungeon (Ancient Port Warehouse), and the classes are very fun, too.
Comments
Satisfied? Not at all.
I'm one of those playing WoW, because there just isn't anything better to do right now. I started playing MMOs when EQ launched back in 1999 and other than my time in SWG (pre-CU/NGE), nothing else has come close to being as enjoyable as those first couple of years in EQ.
The only other game on the market that interests me at all is EVE, but even it has its share of faults. CCP has been talking about in game avatars for years, but still hasn't added them.
I've tried the EVE trial too many times to count. On paper, it's a game I should adore. In reality, it's something that feels overwhelming at the beginning, and the starter missions alone always burn me out in a couple play sessions. Maybe it's the pace, I'm not really sure, but I've always wanted a space game that allowed me to get in and out of the cockpit, and the planetary expansions seem like an interesting meta-game, albeit one I'd probably never see.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
I know how you feel. I've spent a lot of time playing EVE myself and really want to stick with it, but can't due to a number of reasons. The PvE in EVE is probably the most boring content in any PvE game Ive ever played. I was excited when wormholes first came out, but other than the risk of a PvP encounter, the PvE is quite boring. PvP in EVE is probably my favorite feature due to its large scale battles, but I just could not tolerate the lag and bugs introduced with Dominion and haven't played since.
evolution? What evolution? Besides serialized quests what have we gotten?
we've lost :
sense of accomplishment
sense of exploration
treasure hunters
originality.
F2P will kill it for me though. What a scam.
I come from a CRPG / single player RPG background. At first I didn't know what to expect from MMORPGs.
I won't say that MMOs can't be fun. They are interesting and fun until a certain point. "End game", Min/Maxing and the constant competition between players (in both PvP and PvE) are giving the genre a certain direction (e.g.. "action oriented hack n' slash ballet"). Character progression is mainly determined by increasing levels/skills and gathering better equipment. Especially the level of conformity is astonishing (maybe just like in the real world) in MMORPGs.
On the other hand a big part of the CRPGs that were published during the last 20 to 30 years were not better than today's games.
Dunno maybe I'd like to see a more PnP oriented game. Perhaps hiding the game mechanics (including all the numbers and stats) and presenting such a game rather as a "free-style" adventure game (with some combat elements, lethal and non-lethal combat) would be a different and refreshing approach.
GW2 is fully persistent, not instanced. The only instances are dungeons and your personal story. The world is wide open for you to meet everyone.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I'm not disagreeing with what your saying....infact I agree that the reason we have not seen many sandbox type MMORPG environments is because its just easier to plan and deploy content from a development standpoint when they have all the control.
However, my greatest MMORPG experiences I've had were the ones that involved doing things with other people.....more specifically friends (both ones from real life and ones that I've made in game). BUT, I decided to play MMORPGs as opposed to other games because I was looking for a deeper and more challenging game experience....something that the MMORPG genere provided that was unique among the rest of the gaming venues. That isn't the case today.
As new MMORPGs focus on dropping the barriers of entry for many players (including time and effort to establish relationships with people and forming groups), the MMORPG experience to me has be come more like a glorified single player hack n' slash one...that just so happens to allow me to occasionaly play with some strangers.
Quoted for truth. I especially like the idea of a "stat-free" game.
Like others, besides graphics, I haven't seen any progress since old EQ. I was truly in love with that game. But I have only seen things get simpler since then.
I still play and enjoy EQ2. It's interesting that the other night I grouped with a stranger and we duoed some newbie stuff. We had fun chatting, but it was a bit of a bother, and almost boring for us to pull and kill mobs and finish quests and such. Grouping is now a pain and not a vital part of MMO play.
I understand that companies want to make more money. I understand that the more accessablee they make a game, the more money they can make. Compromises have to be made. LotRO is a wonderful for example of this. It's rough-draft version, MEO, probably wouldn't have had the recogntion, and therefore the draw. And consequently, lore-junkies like me grit our teeth when playing the game.
I could ramble for hours...
TSW, LotRO, EQ2, SWTOR, GW2, V:SoH, Neverwinter, ArchAge, EQ, UO, DAoC, WAR, DDO, AoC, MO, BDO, SotA, B&S, ESO,
There is nothing wrong with sandbox games, there is nothing wrong with linear games, there is nothing wrong with raiding endgame or pvp endgame... that being said. I'm grossly disappointed with the evolution of mmos.
The problem isn't any ONE style it's that they've neglected every other style... eq1 did better than any game before it, and thus everyone copied it, wow did better than eq1 so every game copied it, etc... the "linear progression mass market mmo with raiding/pvp hybrid endgame" or subtle variations there-of have been done to death. Are they bad games? hell no, they're spectacular for WHAT THEY ARE... they've been refined, optimized, and carefully tweaked to produce a stellar experience.
Here's the problem... I'm bored. Subtle variations don't cut it anymore for a lot of people (especially the older players who've been doing this for 15+ years now.) The mmo market after wow completely stagnated. There are no new ideas (sorry aion, flying is not revolutionary and yes I've played the game) and when a new idea comes out it is so low budget it can't et any traction (and crap games shouldn't.)
The biggest issue I see off the rip is interface, everyone EXPECTS a good interface now (Final Fantasy XIV is a prefect example, its taken a huge beating over a subpar interface) and unless you provide it you're NOT going to do nearly as well in the market as you could have. Everyone expects intuitive game play or at least in game help that gets you moving off the boat so to say. Everyone expects some polish and a launch that doesn't look like the Hindenburg's last few minutes. Many of the games get one aspect right and completely fail on the rest... and go no where. They get such a bad rep at launch that even when, a year later when the game should have launched, they fix many of the problems and features they promised but didn't deliver that no one will bother to try it again (I'm looking at you conan and vanguard) so the populations dwindle and die out or the game barely breaks even.
Whatever happened to... isometric mmos (L1, LoK, Diablo1/2 Style)? first person mmos (m59, eq1 to some degree)? sandboxes (a real successor to UO anyone? anyone???) skill based rather than level based systems (asheron's call, ultima online)? real crafting systems (mmm... galaxies)? etc... these ideas haven't had even a fraction of the lessons learned from the wow clones applied to them, not one of the 'spritual successors' to these games have had a reasonable interface and polish added... and until they start down some alternate routes the genre is going to be very limited.
The simple reality is... I understand it. Development dollars follow player dollars... eq1 and wow did somethings oh so right. WoW especially made mmo's accessible to the everyday player more so than any mmo before it and to some degree kept it interesting at high levels for players who were ready to kick off the training shoes and seriously raid or pvp (It's of moderate difficulty at worst (this coming from a nethack, angband, dwarf fortress player... so I have a real good idea of how difficult a game CAN be sandbox or linear), light, fun, and appeals broadly.) What wow does it does ~spectacularly~. That being said, I believe, that the lack of development money in sandbox games since galaxies (which had a wretched interface, horrible setting time period chosen, bad controls, nerfs/live gameplay changes the level of which few other games have ever seen, and a craptacular launch to drive it into the ground) is not because players aren't interested in sandboxes... it's that the interface and initial experience of most sandbox games (like most early mmo's) are complete ass (fallen earth I'm looking at you... decent game, meh interface and start off.)
Until a developer who has a clue on how to make a modern successful mmo decides to do a sandbox and puts real time into the interface, translating lessons learned from the linear progression games, and makes it at least STARTING OUT passingly manageable for new players... there won't be any diversity in the mmo market. The hard part for finding that is simple... Risk vs Reward... right now there is more reward copying existing ideas rather than innovating and until that is no longer true we will see no real innovation in the current style of games... I want a strong sandbox game market. I want a strong linear progression market. I want a strong pvp game market. I want a strong pve game market. I want a strong skill based game market. I want a strong... because the more genetic lines there are and the more crossbreeding between them the faster and more innovation we'll see... and the better more diverse games we'll have to play...
anyways ill shut up now.
Shadus
MMo’s have converged and devolved, not evolved. From PC’s to consoles, from consoles to smart phones. From a handful of formats to one format, WoW. Great new ideas, even theme park ideas are never picked up by latter MMO’s. Meanwhile we have a F2P clone fest, I see no hope in the short term of anything else.
Another great post....very well put.
As fast as these F2P games can prop up a good looking top down 2.5D environment, with borrowed mechanics from every other AAA MMO out there.......you'd think that someone would take a shot at doing the same with a EVE or Ultima Online ruleset. Sandbox fans are more interested in the game play and the meta game more than how cool looking their armor is anyway.
Ive actually been thinking about it lately, and I think Im pretty much done with MMOs. I mean, Ive played a ton of them, and a few too a good capacity. But its not like the days of EQ when you have anyone stick around more than a few months before running to the next game that would fail. Developers are selling people utter trash these days. At some point I am going to have to just cut the chord. Ive had lots of fun, but with the last release of FFXIV i seriously have lost all faith in the MMO market exept WoW which I feel gives their players more than their moneys worth and works hard to keep people happy.
MMOs started out as a niche market which all fields do. Everyone was relatively happy because everyone who was into that field like those games. Small group everyone knew each other. While it wasn't all roses it was closely knit. Then WoW came out and it basically introduced a whole ton load of new people. People who were just discovering this genre. You smash a ton of people into a niche genre and it gets interesting real fast. You got the people who just came in with the recent edition of MMOs, jammed in with the WoW era people, smashed in with the UO/EQ era people. This is where the community problems comes in. The UO/EQ people think they know how a game works because they've been in the genre the longest and "understand" how things work because they've seen everything. The WoW era thinks they know because they started with the game that was the biggest success. Now you got the new era coming in and they think they know how to do it best because this is how things are progressing and if it was wrong they wouldn't be going that way. Everyone thinks they are right and they think everyone else is misguided, in short, a mess.
As for the games themselves, when UO came out it brought MMos to peoples attention but it was still isometric. Then came EQ. That brought MMOs into the 3d 1st/3rd person perspective and got even more people interested, then came WoW that made it possible for everyone to play. in about 10 years from the time UO came out the genre speed up so fast (too fast in my opinion), now everyone is in the mentality that it should get bigger and better faster. Theres nothing wrong with that idea but to put it into practice is another. All the companies are trying to do what they know works so they don't make anyone mad, but aren't sure how to do that without copying what has been done already. Thus alot of them state they are new and the next big thing when they are not.
Most of these companies are trying to cash in on the buck without knowing quite how. There are 3 different types of people now playing this genre and you really need all three to succeed. The problem is all 3 are looking for something different. The EQ/UO crowd is looking for great expansive worlds you can live in. The WoW era is looking for early fun and polished games. The new era wants the product completely done and no bugs and easy to understand at launch.
This can all be done in one MMO if a company takes a step back and does it. But your not going to please everyone and you still got to have that new and fresh feel while keeping things near as to other MMOs as possible (14 tried a new interface and we saw how well that did on these forums). I feel this genre is still progerssing really fast, so we are going to hit bumps along the way until they figure out how to do it right. The biggest problem is that every company wants to succeed and right now the mentality is that the player wants a WoW like experience. Polished with easy to understand content. So thats what we will keep getting. If we really dont want that. then we as the player have to show otherwise. Stop playing the games we don't like and start playing the games we do like. Same goes for the type we want to see. Companies are going to go where the dollar is. If they see alot of people playing sandbox games and not themepark you'll start seeing alot of sandbox games, the problem comes in that we say we don't want WoW like games but we keep playing WoW like games, thats a mixed message to the company and they lean on the side where your money is going.
Some companies are getting more "brave" (for lack of a better word) with this by adding story instead of just lore and risking losing the people who like to make up their own stories. It's something new that we haven't really seen before in this genre which is great, if done well.
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.
Sadly I have a too specific taste about what kind of MMORPG I would like to play.
As nobody gets any near that kind of game, I'm not gonna find a new MMO any soon.
In the meantime I can have some fun with SWTOR and World of Darkness [Online?], but those are definitely no MMOs I would want to play for years to come.
Maybe I should elaborate, I want:
- Subscription based and no goldselling or item shop or any other such crap whatsoever. Everyone has the same conditions, except for different skill and different time buffers.
- Huge gameworld without instancing. Able to get mounts early.
- No level grind. Preferably no xp for killing mobs whatsoever. Give me xp through quests alone.
- Graphics lowend so it can handle hundreds of characters on the screen at the same time.
- Realistic viewing distances, dynamic loading with no load screens whatsoever.
- Characters either in beautiful asian Manga style, or realistic style. Definitely not ugly WoW comic style.
- Classic fantasy setting, including elves and my beloved darkelves and nobody forces me to be evil, dammit
- Good classes (and no classless crap, thank you very much) with clearly defined group tasks (Tank/Healer/DPS)
- Class balance is in order - PvP is balanced, healers not just passive, everyone gets mobs to solo on them
- Group play is better than Solo play, Guilds and Alliances can archieve even more
- High customization - individual characters, individual looks, individual skilling.
- Highly customizeable item crafting, with item properties vary individually to the crafter.
- You can always get better - i.e. enchant items even higher (with chance of breaking them)
- Slow leveling. Give me 100+ total gameplay days to actually reach maxlevel. Or even better, have no maxlevel at all.
- Raiding at any level, not just maxlevel. Small and large group raids.
- No racial pvp dammit. PvP between guilds and alliances, inside the arena, or by playerkillers who have marked themselves as bandits (and can no longer enter normal player cities, only special bandit outposts).
- Dynamic world, influenceable by player. Especially castle sieges and housing, ideally much more (player build cities, player conquered areas, ...)
- Ideally quests created at random from quest templates, so you never know what will come and nobody but you will have the same quest.
Vanguard fulfilled many of these conditions. No PvP part though. But really great Raid dungeon (Ancient Port Warehouse), and the classes are very fun, too.