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General: The Bores of End-Game
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
For some, the "end game" is one of the worst aspects of many MMO. For some, the bad comes in the form of excessive emphasis on grinding and equipment acquisition. In his column this week, MMORPG.com Lead Writer Bill Murphy talks about alts, end-game boredom and more. Check out Bill's thoughts and then let us know what you think about the end game in MMOs in the comments below.
Essentially, I’m going to use this week’s column as a way to whine and moan about the gear treadmill most games seem content in using and why a better way must be out there somewhere… even if I have little clue as to what that might be.
Read more Bill Murphy's The Bores of End-Game.
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Comments
Great topic! I find myself in the same boat- raiding and the "gear treadmill" do nothing for me. In many games once I hit the level cap it's time to find a new game.
The problem is instancing and lack of randomness. Of course PvP gets boring if you have like 3 arenas/battlegrounds available, each team starts in same location, the tactic is generally the same and team is composed of close-to-optimum playable classes. Now, if you add more sandboxy elements, like territory control, base construction or something, suddenly the PvP encounters become less stale and more unpredictable. Unpredictable = you can't really do what you always do, you have to think on the spot how to deal with the situation.
Same with PvE. Maybe devs should stop worrying about meaningless item progression and instead add some interesting mechanics that never end by design (in worst case they become boring, but never end).
Does anyone actually know what MMORPG stands for these days?
Massive Mulitplayer Online Role-Playing Game
WoW isnt a MMORPG, does anyone who plays actually care about the storyline? I know when I played I sure as hell didnt lol.
Infact, I dont really care about WoW at all anymore, I saw it for what it was, a pointless exercise of getting armor and weps.
That all WoW is, you pvp or pve to get weps and armor, the new content is just better weps and armor that you pvp or pve to get. Over and over and over and over for 5 years!
Life isnt just about materialistic things, its also about experiences, and sharing these experiences with others, otherwise whats the point of experiencing experiences if you have no one to share them with.
Confused.com yet?
As for the clue of content that there could be, its simple.
People want to take part in HUGE events that actually change the MMO world there in, content is supposed to be storyline. The problem with non MMo's is that they finish, and you replay them till youre bored of that game, whereas MMO's we was promised a storyline that would continue forever based around the universe of the MMO.
It never got delievered.
SWG did attempt this with live events, "the battle of Talus".
So did Matrix Online with "finding morpheus and Neo".
But did they fail because it wasnt what people wanted, or because the game in a whole was bugged, lagged and have too many broken unbalanced classes.
Also was the content fluidly produced and enough? I mean its not ongoing content if you have to wait a year for the next chapter to begin lol. By then your bored of the game and its bye bye suscription.
The endgame is what a company gives you to do after you've already done everything worth doing. Of course that's going to be boring.
Alternatively, the idea of an endgame is that it should be something to occupy players for a tremendous amount of time, while requiring little development time to create. That keeps the appropriate type of player busy and paying a monthly subscription for a long time after he's exhausted all of the game's real content. It's a business thing, not a good game design thing. Of course, if you've played online games for a decade, you've caught on that getting epics in a game that you're going to quit in a few months isn't that special; people whose first MMORPG is WoW might not have figured that out yet, so they'll sometimes be more into it.
If you don't like the gear grind of endgame, then there are games that do other things. Some games such as A Tale in the Desert, Puzzle Pirates, Uncharted Waters Online, or EVE Online don't have a clear demarcation of, now you're in the endgame. You play until you get bored and quit, and then you move on. Those, of course, aren't the traditional MMORPG designs that you might be looking for.
Another approach is that of Guild Wars. Basically, you get perfect gear pretty quickly, and likely before you even finish the game in the first place. Then the endgame is that you switch to hard mode and do whatever content you like, in whatever order you like. Hard mode bumps up the difficulty enough to be an appreciably different experience. And it's not grinding for gear, because you're not getting better gear, though you might use your loot to buy fancier looking gear that is functionally equivalent to what you had before.
I'd key in on the "multiplayer" of the MMORPG acronym pointing. For me end-game is about reaching a goal with a group of people, end stop. Leveling is just the beginning...in the end comes the rep grind, crafting grind, honor grind, token grind, etc etc...which is a mixed bag of what ppl find as "fun", or most fine boring.
To me being in a raid with a group of people I Iike, all trying to co-ordinate a fight and having lots of fun / shenanigans while do so, is a fun for which no other genre can ever compete with. I can grind in any game, but one man's "end game gear grind" is another's "opportunity to gear the raid". Now in the end of course content is finite and after a few months, with a skillful fun group, you run dry of goals...but as long as content continues to stream in every few months to meet that wall, I'll be at least content for years to come.
I hope in the future developers focus on making end-content again for those who want a challenge. For those who want to hack at it with a group, deal with gear checks and work together as a guild...but in the end every game will become unfortunately dumbed down to the point of no return...and MMO jumping to & fro really isn't the end of the world anywho, gives you a good resume to judge new games on
I think it's simply a case of players (including the author) not knowing what they want.
Don't make the progress to the level cap such a long grind!!! Even though hitting max level is the worst thing that can happen to a character, and we immediately reroll an alt to start grinding again.
Stop putting us on obvious treadmills!!! Even though we feel like quitting the instant you stop telling us what to do.
Just make the endgame fun!!! Even though we can't describe what is fun, and everyone has a different opinion, and anything gets boring as enough time passes.
Probably the most bizarre request is that endgame be so chock full of extraordinary content. I have two reasons for why I find that bizarre. First is probably the more obvious reason: any content that comes at the end of the game will be experienced by the fewest number of players. Unlike Mr. Murphy who has capped out dozens of characters, MMOs are filled with players who don't ever reach the level cap. My brother just got his first character to the level cap in WoW last month. He's been playing the game on and off for three years. Even in a game where the race to max level is comparatively short, a substantial percent of the subscribers will never get there. Designing interesting content for the far end of the progress meter shouldn't be a priority until the game's at least a year or two old.
The second reason is maybe a little less obvious. People are always calling for more content. By content, they mean that they want to do something that's different than what they have done before. The takes the form of: new expansion/dungeon, awesome!, *raid* *raid* *raid*, this isn't much fun anymore, *raid* *raid* *raid*, now I'm completely sick of it, wait for new expansion, repeat. Why doesn't the rest of the game follow this formula? Meaning, why don't you remain on the early-game and mid-game content until you're sick of it?
The trend nowadays is to have quest hubs that give so much experience that you're too high level to be in that area by the time you're on the last quest. Forget about ever being forced to kill some unquested mobs for a little while, let alone forming a group to break up the monotony. It seems to be a big waste of content, because you don't repeat those parts until you're sick of them, you just immediately move on before it even starts to get old. Excited to learn Flame Javelin II? Well, don't get too excited because by tomorrow you'll have Flame Javelin III to replace it with. Thrilled about hitting 47 and getting to equip that Ring of Haste? It'll be your lowest level piece of gear by the weekend.
I'm dying to know if I'm the only one who finds this strange and contradictory. Basically, you have demands for more new stuff to do but at the same time demands for less time spent doing new stuff at midgame.
Hmm, couldn't edit, but it cut off my last comment. In response to your last quote, I meant to say:
That's why it's so important to play with others - so you don't burn out on grind. I'm lucky that my fiance is as big a geek as me and loves MMOs - our experiences are defined by us playing together, experiencing content both themepark and sometimes otherwise, and remembering all the silly things that happen.
You do realize there are entire communities that follow the lore not just on the official forums (which itself has a Story AND Role Playing forum) but on other sites right? Just becuase YOU didn't follow it doesn't mean many many others don't.
While I do think endgame can get pretty boring.... everytime I step into a raid with a guild and we start working on progressing through content I remember while I enjoy it so much. Raiding with a great guild and being a part of a dedicated team of raiders that will push themselves to down content, there is nothing like it and it really makes the difference between endgame being fun and mind numbingly boring.
Setting goals as a guild and challenging yourselves is what its all about imo, if you look at it as "grinding gear" or "grinding reputation" then youve already lost sight of the journey, that being improving your character and working toward greater endgame challenges.
HEAVEN OR HELL
Duel 1
Lets ROCK!
At first I thought this thread was going to be about wild boars that every mmo has at end game. It's not but then again it is^^
good post.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
I guess it depends upon what type of gamer you are. The folks who are primarly "achiever" types are always going to need some new achievment to chase after...otherwise they run out of fun.
As some-one who is mostly a "rp-er" type, I guess I'm lucky in that all I really need is other folks to RP with...and the imagination to come up with new RP scenerios.
The End-Game problem is a product of two big issues that may not be so obvious (and I think the 2nd one is more important than the first):
1) Content is consumed too quickly - Developers cannot, no matter how good their tools are, produce content faster than players can consume it. User generated content helps but as mentioned its ametuer content. This is an age old problem and hard to solve.
2) It's all about the Community Stupid - Even if you could crank out content as fast as the fastest player consumes it, we still have a problem. MMORPGs are progressive providing that much content will just further divide the user base in more and more grandular level bubbles (1-10, 10-15, 15-20, etc). Players want to play the content that every other player is playing! Read that last sentence again.
This is the reason video games are discounted to 50-90% 6-12 months after release, its why 2 year old movies are 5$ in the discount dvd bin, its why we feel pressure to "catch up" when we get behind in this genre. WE ARE SOCIAL BEINGS. We like to play togeather even if its solo or parralell. This genre thrives a bit on the concept of seperation for benefit of relitive achievement, but ultimatly this is a community destructive concept. The more people that are playing the content we are playing the greater our enjoyment is. It's a popularity/buzz thing.
Gear grinds aren't any different than level grinds. It causes seperation and stratification between player groups the same way. If you can't play X content because you don't have the gear you might as well not have the level since the outcome is the same (you can't play).
The fist MMORPG that figures out how to keep 90-95% of their player base playing the same content week after week wins. Perhaps Content shouldn't be released in the large Expansion size chunks. Maybe smaller monthly sized chunks would be better. Catch everyone up to that content and let everyone play.
Perhaps MMORPGs should attempt to emulate the TV show model. Catch new viewers up but everyone sees/plays the same content week after week.
Wild boar on a spit ... hmmmmm tasty
Im so happy that im not the only one who dinged 60 in Wow and stood outside the bank thinking WTF do I do now?
Making alts is end game to me, its good coz you learn how other classes play and it can make me more tolerant of others because I understand why they run out of mana or whatever, nothing teaches like getting in and doing it yourself.
"I also feel that this argument need not be addressed in regards to sandbox MMOs for which there is no real “end-game”. " -Bill Murphy
.... Umm... why? I think it's quite lame when people say things like this. What about the subject of "the bores of endgame" make it so there's no need to bring up sandbox MMO's?
That sounds like "I'm tired of walking, but we don't need to bring up cars. Let's just talk about how much walking sucks and come up with a plan to remedy this... No, don't talk about cars."
IMO you already have the problem solved if you let yourself indulge in "what needs not to be addressed""
This is not a troll, flame, or anything else worth banning me over. It is simply my pure opinion, and I have a right to share it.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say. It is in the nature of themepark games to always have arrows pointing you in the direction of the goal you should be striving for, even after you have achieved the main goal of reaching the level cap. It is in the nature of sandbox games to completely lack those arrows. Did you misunderstand what is meant by "sandbox MMO" or is there some other meaning in your post that I missed?
For me... I know there is no rush to the end of the game...as there is no end of the game. Sure you can get "Firsties" but then what...and really who cares. For me, I try to pace my play time and to keep things fresh. I'll leave one MMO for a while and go do something else.
Finally...part of the "what do I do now?" problem, is something MMO companies want to avoid. They don't want you to be done, or quit, rather companies use MMO's as cash cows. So the longer they can keep you coming back, or playing the better. Heres a cool article on addiction strategies in MMO games:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html
so they introduce, PVP systems, rated BGs, Achievement systems, server firsts, tiers of gear, multiple currency systems, crafting systems, mount progressions, patch content, expansion content, random drops, Ding affects that make you feel good and more. Additionally that uber gear you have..ya its uber till the next patch, or expansion and you you you have to have it...
*ding*
No, I think we are both reading and understanding the same except what I didn't see or read anywhere on Bill's post is where he stated that sandbox MMO's don't count and why. Yes themeparks have arrows and handholding and endgame and treadmills and carrots on a stick, and sandboxes don't, so, if that's understood and excepted, why not switch from themeparks to sandboxes instead of posting this? I don't mean to sound like a prick, I really don't...
It's just that I agree with what the OP is saying, I just do not understand why he's saying it and trying to figure out the 'problem solver' here when we all seem to know that themeparks are themeparks and sandboxes are sandboxes.
OP - Dr. It hurts when I do this.... (im tired of endgame and gear chasing)
DR - Then don't do that. (go play in a sandbox.)
This is not a troll, flame, or anything else worth banning me over. It is simply my pure opinion, and I have a right to share it.
I believe that the newer games are making it too easy for solo players to level and get items. Therfore you get bored easily and like you said "nowhere to go " syndrom kicks in. In eq1 and a few others you could not solo as fast and there were a lot of content that you needed a group to conquer. If you soloed to high levels it was by doing the easier mobs repeatedly.The nes games need more Big bosses to keep you interested and grouped. Remember EQ1 had a lot of content and zones you needed a tight group to finish. And a lot of bosses took a day or long night to beat.They need to make the games a little harder to get though or interest will wain.
I wholeheartedly agree and endorse this thread.
I really don't care about gear, I will admit though that if an item is pretty and I really want it then I will move mountains to get it. But that never has a thing to do with stats, it is only if I love the appearance of it :P hehe
Sadly so many games have terrible endgames, I am constantly drawn back to Eve Online due simply to the fact it is a sandbox. The one game that had the endgame right for me was SWG, keep in mind I am only saying for me on that. I am not sure how it was for others but for me as a Bio-Engineer it was darn near perfect.
DaoC pre-ToA was also very great as an endgame. Problem with games like Warhammer is gear > skill when it comes to winning, so many games are that way now.. gear, gear, gear, sighhhhhhsss
Good article.
uhm, something's wrong in here. Current games' end game is boring just because you need to be capped to do something cool and fresh content (by fresh I mean original) can't be added as fast as players demand it.
Why should I spend X time grinding or doing boring stuff before I get to the best part? I've already paid the game and I pay a fee every month, I don't need/want to pay even more (expecially in terms of time).
Give a game in which I have something interesting to do during °all the time° I level and not only at the end, I assure you I'm willing to spend even a couple of years of /played to reach the level cap.
I so hate end game gear grind, lucky most of the times it takes some time to get to the end game, but new games like DCUO is just to short.
I Hate the idea that you have to keep doing the same stuff over and over againg until you have the gear you need so you can do the next "stuff" over and over againg to replace the gear you just got.
You had me until you started to add DCUO into this discussion. Really, that game doesn't even come close to offering me a persistent online "world" mmorpg experience. But anyway, to sum up how I feel. Endgame in most MMOs needs innovation in the worst possible way.
I wish I had the resources to make games, that's all I can really add.
Godspeed my fellow gamer
Go play Maplestory