Modern mmo's have nothing to do with imagination, immersiveness, ingenuity, creativity, aesthetic appeal, or anything. They have become streamlined bullshit that is solely consisted of the most repetitious actives targeting the weakest aspects of human behavior.
Last I checked, the original MMOs were like that too.
Anyone remember when you met (some) old people who'd talk about how great things were back in the day? Well, half of the OP's post and most of the complaints seem to be along those lines. That's just viewing the past with rose-colored glasses. MMOs are generally better now than they were when they first arrived on the scene. That said, there has been stagnation in the industry and a lot of rushed MMOs that have then done poorly. There hasn't been a lot of innovation and gameplay hasn't improved very much. Thankfully some new games seem to be on the horizon to address that in the next few years, GW2 chief among them. So we've had a bit of a slow period, but it looks like things will get better.
Anyhow, yeah, MMOs now have a lot of problems, but it isn't like EQ, UO, or the like were any better. They even had more problems. It's invetiable that a subscription-based game is going to be grindy, since the developers have a massive incentive to stretch the fun out as much as possible (they get more money). Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't take that much money to run a server, certainly not remotely close to 15 bucks a month. Many b2p games (like SC2) have servers that are run for free for a decade or more. True, an MMO server with seemless zones does cost more to run (perhaps twice as much or so), but 15 bucks is still insanely overpriced given that other games have servers that are totally free. Let's not pretend the sub is about content either. No one is getting a new game worth of content every 4 months in ANY MMO (or 6 months if you want to pretend the sub is doing something to maintain servers). Heck, you don't even get a new game worth of content once per year. Let's not forget content is far easier to make than a new game, so really any sub game should be churning out tons and tons of content...but they don't. They'd rather pocket that money as pure profit, so they do, and most of us pretend that a lot of that money is used for servers or content because that makes us feel like the cost is justified. In reality, the game is designed to be a treadmill offering just enough to keep you paying.
Personally, I think I'm done paying for sub-based games. I'd rather have a game that designed around maximizing how much fun it is in a given timeframe than stretching that fun out as much as possible.
Try Lego Universe...it's all about saving imagination.
A good portion of your complaint is based on the player base, not the game.
It's the players that rush through the content. It's the players that aren't social. It's the players that drive the developers to input more things that make the players happy.
Take FFXIV for example. SE didn't tell the players jack on the game. The manual was basically backstory and that's it. So players had to figure the game out themselves(to an extent). So what do people do to figure it out? Open up a web browser and search everything they need to know.
FFXIV has dungeons with no purpose except to be underground repositories of mobs (and leve areas) But, people get fed up looking for the "right" place to level.
Game makers have always been in it to make money. While some (EA) are about increasing profit margins, others are about building something they would love (Darkfall, Mortal Online, etc). Sadly both usually turn out to be rubbish.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
Sadly this is someting I don't think we wil ever see again. Too many people want structured game play; logging in for an hour or two, knowing where to go and what to do for the optimum reward and then logging out again. They don't want their time 'wasted' by having to look for content. A developers seem to be happy making game to suit those sorts of players. It is a lot easier to create easy to access, repeatable content, than it would be to maintain a dynamic world.
We really only have ourselves to blame for the current state of the gaming industry.
Nice post, you pretty much summed up the way I feel about current MMORPGs as well. However, I think that the single player games have been doing much better as far as immersion and imagination.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Actually we the gamers are responsible for what is happening. We do not support games like Vanguard that have a strong community because we cannot forgive the launch. We refuse to see innovation in Anarchy Online and cannot see past the bad launch and never shadow the doorstep of said game again.
We threw ourselves on the altar of WoW me included and left the other games like EQ 2 that started out great . It had a marvelous community but since we all ran to WoW they gave up and tried to be like WoW. We are the ones who are giving these signals to the developers and telling them what we like. So can you blame the developers for trying to emulate what they see as what we want ?
Yes it is true games should not release in the state Vanguard and Anarchy Online did but would it have killed you to support the ideas and the company. Now we get what we deserve.
A good portion of your complaint is based on the player base, not the game.
It's the players that rush through the content. It's the players that aren't social. It's the players that drive the developers to input more things that make the players happy.
Don't blame the players. The games are designed to encourage that sort of behavior. How people behave in a game is all about how the game is designed. Good communities appear in games that have mechanisms that get people to be friendly to each other. Bad communities appear in games that don't have this or, worse, encourage bad behavior. You can see this in other online communities as well. Go to a forum with no moderation and you'll get the worst kind of online behavior, whereas one with good moderation has far better behavior. How people, as a group, behave is in a large part determined by the social environment, and that environment is heavily influence by game design in MMOs.
Yes it is true games should not release in the state Vanguard and Anarchy Online did but would it have killed you to support the ideas and the company. Now we get what we deserve.
Paying money for a bad product is always a bad idea. Developers learning that they can put out half-finished or otherwise crappy games and still make money would have been a far worse lesson, especially since companies have a bad tendency to encourage that sort of behavior with MMOs anyway.
It's ALWAYS the players choice on how they behave in said environment.
The game just facilitates or hinders that choice.
But it still lies with the player.
Example:
Allods had/has a beginning quest in which you need to get something from a chest. People would stand around said chest and click as fast as they could to get what they wanted.
Someone said, hey lets form a line, we will all get it...and voila...
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
Yes I know I too left it. I am just talking about cause and effect. When you do not support games that are different or try to be the result is the death of the idea and the dream for another game that might try it. Developers are whipped into shape and realise innovation may not pay.
I am not saying we should just throw the money on bad games but sometimes we have to support things that try to do things differently. We don't as a gaming community do this.
Games do not exist in a vacuum we the gamer are also responsible for the slide to mediocrity. We heralded it by showing up and playing other games while ignoring the ones that try to do anything different. They are in a business after all what do you expect developes to do just carry on trying to bang their head on the wall when they see the evidence clearly all around them what players prefer ?
Who were the ones that ran away to Trammel ? Who are the ones that pleaded for a lighter death penalty than Everquest. Who cried about the holy trinity and grouping and strong community that were built on these foundations ?
Just dismissing developers as being greedy and only trying to make a quick buck is short sighted. They do watch what the trends are. We provide the trend. We tell them what we like by leaving one game and going to another. So we are reaping what we sow now.
You had me a streamlining. Sadly, this is the new gaming culture, make the games shallow and shiny, screw challenge, give them a couple of hours of distraction, and they will lap it up. It doesnt need to be good, just enough shinies to have them ooh and ahh. Look at gaming progression, the casual gamer is the new target demographic, anything challenging, difficult, or time consuming is out, in with the shallow, mediocre, and banal.
Its a sad indictment on the gaming industry that the new developers, the gamers of old, are making this garbage, and the "Journalists" give these substandard games 7-10 out of 10 because they dont want lost access to the upcoming titles. The industry is a joke, going mainstream and recycling old ideas, its just like Hollywood, recycle old/foreign ideas, repackage them in such a way as to add mroe explosions, skin, and pretty girls, and the moron masses will consume it and make you money.
It wouldnt surprise me if all creative design positions were filled with a market study touting suit.
Keep the faith, avoid MMO's if you have to, play older games if you have to ignore the newer collection of mediocre crap that is being pushed out not ready, not tested and made for console audience (absurdly short attention span and limited reading capability) though, you may experience some nostalgia, and be reminded how far game quality has fallen in storytelling, character development and immersive capability. Sucks to be an older gamer in the era of casual mainstream.
Thanks for the response. I definitely agree. I've been quite frustrated with various gaming review sites that continue to give these crappy gaves decent ratings as well.
[Mod Edit]
Plenty of people enjoy games, which, you know, is teh entire reason for games to exist, fun and enjoyment, so if You dont LIKE these games, then merely dont play them, as theres plenty of games for anyone out there with smarts enough to actually look.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I must agree OP, your words are pretty much right on the money so to speak.
Often when someone mentions how good older MMOs where they immidiately get on the nostalgia band.
"Ohh your only saying this because of nostalgia, if you played them now you would hate them!"
I love UO, but I only played it for the first time in its proper incarnation (hint hint). II did however play a game very similar to UO when I started my MMO gaming career back in 1999. I still think that game (ashen empires) is one of the greatest I have played, some elements will be down to nostalgia, thats obvious. Its core features however I believe outrank new games considerbly.
Here is a question for you all, why is it no one goes on about how brilliant and how much better Golden Eye was than say Call of Duty MW2. Or how much better BF1942 is than BFBC2? The answer is that they are simply considerably better games.
Really guys drop this nostalgia bull. its not that we hark back to those days in fond memmories, its just that the core gaming concepts where so much better!
Dont confuse random dice rolls with attacks and skill with randomness in the world's enviroment. Items, bosses, MOBs in general, locations/map, etc.
We need GM made events as well. You cant depend on random fun all the time. Once in a while a true GM event held on each server. I still think the best people at this were in the MUDs I played in the past. The events had mystery...combat...real time strategy making.. and rare loot. Multiple server shards made this more difficult but its still do-able.
I think you should read the article from cracked.com that the OP posted - there are specific reasons why this "randomness" is part of the problem. Given, there is still variety, which can seem random (but isn't truly random), such as the dynamic events in GW2. Dynamic/changeable/interactive, is generally good, true randomness not so much.
Dynamic/changeable/interactive is probably more what I was shooting for with the idea. But remember you cant just define "random" as one idea like boss loot in wow or someone gambling. But basically we agree past the vocabulary of it
Ya that random is only based on the loot dropped by a specific boss. Its closer to playing pachinko in downtown tokyo than a random drop that I am thinking. Many many f2p games take this type of randomization as they mentioned in the article. Which you pay $5.00 to try and then you have to hope your item doesnt break and your 5 dollars goes down the drain. Basically you have to gamble to win.. let alone pay2win as they say for some f2p.
Games like WoW are themepark MMOs as many say. There are good and bad things about it. Lately most could argue as they did in the article that it has gotten really out of hand. Basically the replayability is down to upgrading 1 set of armor over and over again by killing the same bosses over and over again. In my opinion kills lots of the aspects of being an MMO and basically makes 95% of the world a waste of space.
Basically this is nothing but a dream because we wont see a system like this anytime soon.....What I am saying with these things below is that you are asking for the impossible in some ways..even though I myself would love to see it in the game.
Random as in randomly generated areas of exploration that have random. You walk along an area that you never seen before. You search for it on wiki yet no one has posted anything about it. You encounter a rare named creature and you wonder what loot it drops yet there is nothing listed on wiki since this event was randomly generated as the enviroment of the world. So there you are only knowing that this creature looks like a spider.. so may be some skills are better than others. You are forced to strategize on your toes.. not google2win.
Now people can argue things in real life are not random.. but if someone was smart enough they can find the begining of the equation and basically be able to predict the future So even with a pure sandbox randomization.. there will still be some guide.. some exploit.. some better place to find some creature. But a good system would adjust to something like that.
Pure exploration comes along with this as well. Discovery.. but for what reason? How long does an area remained discovered? A day? Week? Years? If not.. you will just find this newly discovered place on the local wiki again.
With those things in place there still needs to be some predetermined action throughout the world. After all its a game... we need action beyond just hoping something pops out.
Though that wont stop people from being obsessed. They will now be obsessed with exploring new areas and discovering new MOBs.
Now past that.. its generally something technology can hardly do correctly. Basically nothing short of the Star Trek ala Holodeck could produce the results to satisfy it.
OP: Your reasoning is flawed from the very start. You got it all wrong. You expect multimillion projects to take risks and appeal with originality to the mature crowd. You listed several overproduced games, as an example to your rant - and ever dared to call them bloodsucking capitalistic morons in your thread name. As in everything else in life, the most popular things, are usually those that appeal to mass market (IQ 100, or whatever parameter you choose).
Your raving about WoW community and game system gets along with thousands of other threads made. Nothing new there. It's Counterstrike and Blizzard's own battlenet, from where most of the WoW community comes from. If you want a deep, highly social and RPG MMO, why are you even bothering with WoW, Aion, STO, or even FF. We all know what sort of games these are.
I tend to agree. Capitaism does destroy creativity and uniqueness because it want's to make as much money as possible and thus usually creates the smallest common denominator. But that is the issue with all the modern industrial entertainment. Trash for the masses. And the bemoaning and analyzing of it isn't anything new.
See Theodor Adorno & Max Horckheimer "Dialectic of Enlightenment" - chapters about Culture Indusdry
"The theory proposes that culture not only mirrors society, but also takes an important role in shaping society through the processes of standardisation and commodification, creating objects rather than subjects. The culture industry claims to serve the consumers' needs for entertainment, and is delivering what the consumer wants. "The standardised forms, it is claimed, were originally derived from the needs of the consumers: that is why they are accepted with so little resistance. In reality, a cycle of manipulation and retroactive need is unifying the system ever more tightly". By standardising these needs, the industry is manipulating the consumers to desire what it produces. The outcome is that mass production feeds a mass market that minimises the identity and tastes of the individual consumers who are as interchangeable as the products they consume.
The rationale of the theory is to promote the emancipation of the consumer from the tyranny of the producers by inducing the consumer to question beliefs and ideologies. Adorno claims that enlightenment was supposed to bring pluralism and demystification but instead society is said to have suffered a major fall as it is corrupted by capitalist industry with exploitative motives."
Two of the greatest thinkers of modern days. IMO.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
That's such a rubbish Elikal, you should live in communism and see how much creativity there was. I can tell you, none.
In capitalism, indeed the mass market things are junk if you seek something more complex, more deep. But then you have all sorts of other projects appealing to other segments of the market. Of course with less budget, but you should expect that if you look for something different. If you think in non-capitalistic system, you've got more originality, then you're dellusional.
That's such a rubbish Elikal, you should live in communism and see how much creativity there was. I can tell you, none.
In capitalism, indeed the mass market things are junk if you seek something more complex, more deep. But then you have all sorts of other projects appealing to other segments of the market. Of course with less budget, but you should expect that if you look for something different. If you think in non-capitalistic system, you've got more originality, then you're dellusional.
Actually I *did* live in communism. Or what Americans called communism, rather. There never existed communism, only oligarchic tyranny calling itself socialism, and in reality being neither. So we don't KNOW how actual communism is. Not that I am a communist. But it is something to keep in mind before using such big words, ya know.
You see it is this false thinking that there are only two possible societies: 1950ies stone age communism or the jungle of "man-eats-man" stockholder capitalism. That is what our enemies want to make us belief. They tell us the present form is the best possible and all alternatives are stone age communism. That is just bollocks. It is their way to silence every critique against the flaws of the system that all alternatives lead to horror. It is their tool to ensure conformity, and as we can see it works. Even those pressured and enslaved by the system are now defending their own chains.
I just don't think these are the only two choices we have. There are both many forms of capitalism, socialism and in between, and likely many new forms in the future which are beyond both and new in ways we today can't as much imagine as the Medevial man could have imagined stockholder capitalism. You just have to open your mind.
EDIT: I see you are from Europe, just the same. Then I wonder even more, how you can some to such extreme thoughts. Is the modern western capitalism such a roses and daisies wonderland, that we can't evolve it into something better? Something beyond the black and white ideologies?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Yes gaming is becoming more mainstream and yes were going to get a lot of shite games. The game industry is the new music industry. In the music industry these days all you need is a pretty face and auto tune and your a star. With games all you need is pretty graphics and most people will play it.
Granted there are still the few, the proud, the indie that don't buy into the mainstream crap.. To be honest I think my latest letdown with FFXIV has kept me from trying out all AAA because now to me they are all just like POP music. Fun to play and catchy at first but then you see its just a hollow shell and there is no emotion and soul in it.
Lets hope that CCP doesn't mess up WoD cuz as of right now that game seems like my only hope.
Ninja Edit:
The big problem with the game industry its harder for Indie companies to compete with the big dogs because of the cash flow issues. But then again we saw what happened to Tabula Rasa. Indie bands can record stuff for cheap and still make it sound professional. With the gaming industry Indie companies aren't that lucky, it cost quite a chunk of change to make a game.
Another big thing that always happens with Mainstream things is once someone does something and its a hit, everyone and their mom wants to get a piece of the pie.If you just listen to the radio on some pop station and start comparing the songs, you'll find a lot of the songs have the same elements. With the game industry everyone is trying to copy WoW which it sucks for me because WoW or any game like WoW is not the game I want to play right now.. I missed out on the good sandbox games back in the day and now the market is flooded with a bunch of games that I've felt like Ive already played because its so similar to the last game I played..
EDIT: I see you are from Europe, just the same. Then I wonder even more, how you can some to such extreme thoughts. Is the modern western capitalism such a roses and daisies wonderland, that we can't evolve it into something better? Something beyond the black and white ideologies?
Sorry for my little offensive previous post.
No, never meant to say that capitalism is perfect, but it's the best we currently have. It's not the games that shape the mind of mass market consumer, it's the mass market consumer's mind that shapes the multimillion games design.
EDIT: I see you are from Europe, just the same. Then I wonder even more, how you can some to such extreme thoughts. Is the modern western capitalism such a roses and daisies wonderland, that we can't evolve it into something better? Something beyond the black and white ideologies?
Sorry for my little offensive previous post.
No, never meant to say that capitalism is perfect, but it's the best we currently have. It's not the games that shape the mind of mass market consumer, it's the mass market consumer's mind that shapes the multimillion games design.
Ah oki. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
It's sad that it takes a video with somebody breaking down the status quo of the MMO industry for people to understand the current paradigm.
So virtually, it's sad when we break down any issue relating to current trends?
I think people get what's going on, but they are still hoping that some game developer will come along and change. And as far as hoping that one of these mega publishers are going to fund a good mmo, well of course not. But smaller developers still might be able to push out something of quality. I believe that Darkfall is an overall excellent game. It doesn't offer amazing looking graphics, or well mapped dungeons, or some of the more typical elements of modern mmorpgs, but it does offer a sense of risk and reward that is not based upon random loot procedures.
Regardless of who is developing a game, we the players need to stop pushing the game to come out sooner then later. But I think game publishers will begin to realize the negative impact on rushing their developer to get the game released. Majority of recent releases have failed for this reason.
In my own opinion, I think that it is unlikely anything good is giong to come out for a long time. I don't really understand why I keep bothering watching news updates and looking for new games. As that Escapist video describes, it's likely that new forms of advertisizing will come along of some type of "credit" system that will work with other types of companies. I really don't want to be apart of that type of gaming culture.
Comments
hehe , nice read OP ... its good to get things off your chest now and then !
Last I checked, the original MMOs were like that too.
Anyone remember when you met (some) old people who'd talk about how great things were back in the day? Well, half of the OP's post and most of the complaints seem to be along those lines. That's just viewing the past with rose-colored glasses. MMOs are generally better now than they were when they first arrived on the scene. That said, there has been stagnation in the industry and a lot of rushed MMOs that have then done poorly. There hasn't been a lot of innovation and gameplay hasn't improved very much. Thankfully some new games seem to be on the horizon to address that in the next few years, GW2 chief among them. So we've had a bit of a slow period, but it looks like things will get better.
Anyhow, yeah, MMOs now have a lot of problems, but it isn't like EQ, UO, or the like were any better. They even had more problems. It's invetiable that a subscription-based game is going to be grindy, since the developers have a massive incentive to stretch the fun out as much as possible (they get more money). Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't take that much money to run a server, certainly not remotely close to 15 bucks a month. Many b2p games (like SC2) have servers that are run for free for a decade or more. True, an MMO server with seemless zones does cost more to run (perhaps twice as much or so), but 15 bucks is still insanely overpriced given that other games have servers that are totally free. Let's not pretend the sub is about content either. No one is getting a new game worth of content every 4 months in ANY MMO (or 6 months if you want to pretend the sub is doing something to maintain servers). Heck, you don't even get a new game worth of content once per year. Let's not forget content is far easier to make than a new game, so really any sub game should be churning out tons and tons of content...but they don't. They'd rather pocket that money as pure profit, so they do, and most of us pretend that a lot of that money is used for servers or content because that makes us feel like the cost is justified. In reality, the game is designed to be a treadmill offering just enough to keep you paying.
Personally, I think I'm done paying for sub-based games. I'd rather have a game that designed around maximizing how much fun it is in a given timeframe than stretching that fun out as much as possible.
To OP
Try Lego Universe...it's all about saving imagination.
A good portion of your complaint is based on the player base, not the game.
It's the players that rush through the content. It's the players that aren't social. It's the players that drive the developers to input more things that make the players happy.
Take FFXIV for example. SE didn't tell the players jack on the game. The manual was basically backstory and that's it. So players had to figure the game out themselves(to an extent). So what do people do to figure it out? Open up a web browser and search everything they need to know.
FFXIV has dungeons with no purpose except to be underground repositories of mobs (and leve areas) But, people get fed up looking for the "right" place to level.
Game makers have always been in it to make money. While some (EA) are about increasing profit margins, others are about building something they would love (Darkfall, Mortal Online, etc). Sadly both usually turn out to be rubbish.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
Sadly this is someting I don't think we wil ever see again. Too many people want structured game play; logging in for an hour or two, knowing where to go and what to do for the optimum reward and then logging out again. They don't want their time 'wasted' by having to look for content. A developers seem to be happy making game to suit those sorts of players. It is a lot easier to create easy to access, repeatable content, than it would be to maintain a dynamic world.
We really only have ourselves to blame for the current state of the gaming industry.
Nice post, you pretty much summed up the way I feel about current MMORPGs as well. However, I think that the single player games have been doing much better as far as immersion and imagination.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Actually we the gamers are responsible for what is happening. We do not support games like Vanguard that have a strong community because we cannot forgive the launch. We refuse to see innovation in Anarchy Online and cannot see past the bad launch and never shadow the doorstep of said game again.
We threw ourselves on the altar of WoW me included and left the other games like EQ 2 that started out great . It had a marvelous community but since we all ran to WoW they gave up and tried to be like WoW. We are the ones who are giving these signals to the developers and telling them what we like. So can you blame the developers for trying to emulate what they see as what we want ?
Yes it is true games should not release in the state Vanguard and Anarchy Online did but would it have killed you to support the ideas and the company. Now we get what we deserve.
Don't blame the players. The games are designed to encourage that sort of behavior. How people behave in a game is all about how the game is designed. Good communities appear in games that have mechanisms that get people to be friendly to each other. Bad communities appear in games that don't have this or, worse, encourage bad behavior. You can see this in other online communities as well. Go to a forum with no moderation and you'll get the worst kind of online behavior, whereas one with good moderation has far better behavior. How people, as a group, behave is in a large part determined by the social environment, and that environment is heavily influence by game design in MMOs.
Paying money for a bad product is always a bad idea. Developers learning that they can put out half-finished or otherwise crappy games and still make money would have been a far worse lesson, especially since companies have a bad tendency to encourage that sort of behavior with MMOs anyway.
It's ALWAYS the players choice on how they behave in said environment.
The game just facilitates or hinders that choice.
But it still lies with the player.
Example:
Allods had/has a beginning quest in which you need to get something from a chest. People would stand around said chest and click as fast as they could to get what they wanted.
Someone said, hey lets form a line, we will all get it...and voila...
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
Yes I know I too left it. I am just talking about cause and effect. When you do not support games that are different or try to be the result is the death of the idea and the dream for another game that might try it. Developers are whipped into shape and realise innovation may not pay.
I am not saying we should just throw the money on bad games but sometimes we have to support things that try to do things differently. We don't as a gaming community do this.
Games do not exist in a vacuum we the gamer are also responsible for the slide to mediocrity. We heralded it by showing up and playing other games while ignoring the ones that try to do anything different. They are in a business after all what do you expect developes to do just carry on trying to bang their head on the wall when they see the evidence clearly all around them what players prefer ?
Who were the ones that ran away to Trammel ? Who are the ones that pleaded for a lighter death penalty than Everquest. Who cried about the holy trinity and grouping and strong community that were built on these foundations ?
Just dismissing developers as being greedy and only trying to make a quick buck is short sighted. They do watch what the trends are. We provide the trend. We tell them what we like by leaving one game and going to another. So we are reaping what we sow now.
[Mod Edit]
Plenty of people enjoy games, which, you know, is teh entire reason for games to exist, fun and enjoyment, so if You dont LIKE these games, then merely dont play them, as theres plenty of games for anyone out there with smarts enough to actually look.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I must agree OP, your words are pretty much right on the money so to speak.
Often when someone mentions how good older MMOs where they immidiately get on the nostalgia band.
"Ohh your only saying this because of nostalgia, if you played them now you would hate them!"
I love UO, but I only played it for the first time in its proper incarnation (hint hint). II did however play a game very similar to UO when I started my MMO gaming career back in 1999. I still think that game (ashen empires) is one of the greatest I have played, some elements will be down to nostalgia, thats obvious. Its core features however I believe outrank new games considerbly.
Here is a question for you all, why is it no one goes on about how brilliant and how much better Golden Eye was than say Call of Duty MW2. Or how much better BF1942 is than BFBC2? The answer is that they are simply considerably better games.
Really guys drop this nostalgia bull. its not that we hark back to those days in fond memmories, its just that the core gaming concepts where so much better!
Dynamic/changeable/interactive is probably more what I was shooting for with the idea. But remember you cant just define "random" as one idea like boss loot in wow or someone gambling. But basically we agree past the vocabulary of it
Ya that random is only based on the loot dropped by a specific boss. Its closer to playing pachinko in downtown tokyo than a random drop that I am thinking. Many many f2p games take this type of randomization as they mentioned in the article. Which you pay $5.00 to try and then you have to hope your item doesnt break and your 5 dollars goes down the drain. Basically you have to gamble to win.. let alone pay2win as they say for some f2p.
Games like WoW are themepark MMOs as many say. There are good and bad things about it. Lately most could argue as they did in the article that it has gotten really out of hand. Basically the replayability is down to upgrading 1 set of armor over and over again by killing the same bosses over and over again. In my opinion kills lots of the aspects of being an MMO and basically makes 95% of the world a waste of space.
Basically this is nothing but a dream because we wont see a system like this anytime soon.....What I am saying with these things below is that you are asking for the impossible in some ways..even though I myself would love to see it in the game.
Random as in randomly generated areas of exploration that have random. You walk along an area that you never seen before. You search for it on wiki yet no one has posted anything about it. You encounter a rare named creature and you wonder what loot it drops yet there is nothing listed on wiki since this event was randomly generated as the enviroment of the world. So there you are only knowing that this creature looks like a spider.. so may be some skills are better than others. You are forced to strategize on your toes.. not google2win.
Now people can argue things in real life are not random.. but if someone was smart enough they can find the begining of the equation and basically be able to predict the future
So even with a pure sandbox randomization.. there will still be some guide.. some exploit.. some better place to find some creature. But a good system would adjust to something like that.
Pure exploration comes along with this as well. Discovery.. but for what reason? How long does an area remained discovered? A day? Week? Years? If not.. you will just find this newly discovered place on the local wiki again.
With those things in place there still needs to be some predetermined action throughout the world. After all its a game... we need action beyond just hoping something pops out.
Though that wont stop people from being obsessed. They will now be obsessed with exploring new areas and discovering new MOBs.
Now past that.. its generally something technology can hardly do correctly. Basically nothing short of the Star Trek ala Holodeck could produce the results to satisfy it.
- ya I'm here
Awesome video. Well worth watching.
All things Extra Credits is full of win.
Also the same site with Yahtzee
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
OP: Your reasoning is flawed from the very start. You got it all wrong. You expect multimillion projects to take risks and appeal with originality to the mature crowd. You listed several overproduced games, as an example to your rant - and ever dared to call them bloodsucking capitalistic morons in your thread name. As in everything else in life, the most popular things, are usually those that appeal to mass market (IQ 100, or whatever parameter you choose).
Your raving about WoW community and game system gets along with thousands of other threads made. Nothing new there. It's Counterstrike and Blizzard's own battlenet, from where most of the WoW community comes from. If you want a deep, highly social and RPG MMO, why are you even bothering with WoW, Aion, STO, or even FF. We all know what sort of games these are.
REALITY CHECK
I tend to agree. Capitaism does destroy creativity and uniqueness because it want's to make as much money as possible and thus usually creates the smallest common denominator. But that is the issue with all the modern industrial entertainment. Trash for the masses. And the bemoaning and analyzing of it isn't anything new.
See Theodor Adorno & Max Horckheimer "Dialectic of Enlightenment" - chapters about Culture Indusdry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_industry
"The theory proposes that culture not only mirrors society, but also takes an important role in shaping society through the processes of standardisation and commodification, creating objects rather than subjects. The culture industry claims to serve the consumers' needs for entertainment, and is delivering what the consumer wants. "The standardised forms, it is claimed, were originally derived from the needs of the consumers: that is why they are accepted with so little resistance. In reality, a cycle of manipulation and retroactive need is unifying the system ever more tightly". By standardising these needs, the industry is manipulating the consumers to desire what it produces. The outcome is that mass production feeds a mass market that minimises the identity and tastes of the individual consumers who are as interchangeable as the products they consume.
The rationale of the theory is to promote the emancipation of the consumer from the tyranny of the producers by inducing the consumer to question beliefs and ideologies. Adorno claims that enlightenment was supposed to bring pluralism and demystification but instead society is said to have suffered a major fall as it is corrupted by capitalist industry with exploitative motives."
Two of the greatest thinkers of modern days. IMO.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
That's such a rubbish Elikal, you should live in communism and see how much creativity there was. I can tell you, none.
In capitalism, indeed the mass market things are junk if you seek something more complex, more deep. But then you have all sorts of other projects appealing to other segments of the market. Of course with less budget, but you should expect that if you look for something different. If you think in non-capitalistic system, you've got more originality, then you're dellusional.
REALITY CHECK
Actually I *did* live in communism. Or what Americans called communism, rather. There never existed communism, only oligarchic tyranny calling itself socialism, and in reality being neither. So we don't KNOW how actual communism is. Not that I am a communist. But it is something to keep in mind before using such big words, ya know.
You see it is this false thinking that there are only two possible societies: 1950ies stone age communism or the jungle of "man-eats-man" stockholder capitalism. That is what our enemies want to make us belief. They tell us the present form is the best possible and all alternatives are stone age communism. That is just bollocks. It is their way to silence every critique against the flaws of the system that all alternatives lead to horror. It is their tool to ensure conformity, and as we can see it works. Even those pressured and enslaved by the system are now defending their own chains.
I just don't think these are the only two choices we have. There are both many forms of capitalism, socialism and in between, and likely many new forms in the future which are beyond both and new in ways we today can't as much imagine as the Medevial man could have imagined stockholder capitalism. You just have to open your mind.
EDIT: I see you are from Europe, just the same. Then I wonder even more, how you can some to such extreme thoughts. Is the modern western capitalism such a roses and daisies wonderland, that we can't evolve it into something better? Something beyond the black and white ideologies?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Yes gaming is becoming more mainstream and yes were going to get a lot of shite games. The game industry is the new music industry. In the music industry these days all you need is a pretty face and auto tune and your a star. With games all you need is pretty graphics and most people will play it.
Granted there are still the few, the proud, the indie that don't buy into the mainstream crap.. To be honest I think my latest letdown with FFXIV has kept me from trying out all AAA because now to me they are all just like POP music. Fun to play and catchy at first but then you see its just a hollow shell and there is no emotion and soul in it.
Lets hope that CCP doesn't mess up WoD cuz as of right now that game seems like my only hope.
Ninja Edit:
The big problem with the game industry its harder for Indie companies to compete with the big dogs because of the cash flow issues. But then again we saw what happened to Tabula Rasa. Indie bands can record stuff for cheap and still make it sound professional. With the gaming industry Indie companies aren't that lucky, it cost quite a chunk of change to make a game.
Another big thing that always happens with Mainstream things is once someone does something and its a hit, everyone and their mom wants to get a piece of the pie.If you just listen to the radio on some pop station and start comparing the songs, you'll find a lot of the songs have the same elements. With the game industry everyone is trying to copy WoW which it sucks for me because WoW or any game like WoW is not the game I want to play right now.. I missed out on the good sandbox games back in the day and now the market is flooded with a bunch of games that I've felt like Ive already played because its so similar to the last game I played..
Sorry for my little offensive previous post.
No, never meant to say that capitalism is perfect, but it's the best we currently have. It's not the games that shape the mind of mass market consumer, it's the mass market consumer's mind that shapes the multimillion games design.
REALITY CHECK
Ah oki. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
That was great. "hook it to my veins!"
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It's sad that it takes a video with somebody breaking down the status quo of the MMO industry for people to understand the current paradigm.
So virtually, it's sad when we break down any issue relating to current trends?
I think people get what's going on, but they are still hoping that some game developer will come along and change. And as far as hoping that one of these mega publishers are going to fund a good mmo, well of course not. But smaller developers still might be able to push out something of quality. I believe that Darkfall is an overall excellent game. It doesn't offer amazing looking graphics, or well mapped dungeons, or some of the more typical elements of modern mmorpgs, but it does offer a sense of risk and reward that is not based upon random loot procedures.
Regardless of who is developing a game, we the players need to stop pushing the game to come out sooner then later. But I think game publishers will begin to realize the negative impact on rushing their developer to get the game released. Majority of recent releases have failed for this reason.
In my own opinion, I think that it is unlikely anything good is giong to come out for a long time. I don't really understand why I keep bothering watching news updates and looking for new games. As that Escapist video describes, it's likely that new forms of advertisizing will come along of some type of "credit" system that will work with other types of companies. I really don't want to be apart of that type of gaming culture.