It's the instant gratification growd that made the MMO market as it is today and it started with WoW.
And that crowd is unfortunately a lot bigger than the old school one.
True and the same crowd are those ones who jump on every new MMO that comes along praise it to heavens and stop playing after the first free month to try the next big hit.
And the devs knows it now, they are earning money on the new buzz, the box sales, not a good MMO that last for years.
Nothing wrong with that. I praise Dead Space too, and you dont see me devote my life to it.
"Shorter" MMOs are a good thing. You have time to try more.
There's a lot wrong with that, at least from my perspective, and I'm sure for many others as well.
There are many gamers, myself included, who treat MMOs like a hobby. It's more than just being about the instant gratification go go go, win win win, epics epics epics, now now now. We don't mind spending time to advance in an MMO if it feels worthwhile to us, but there in lies the issue. If an MMO only has a staying power of about a month due to lack of content or overly lacklust/repetitive design and gameplay, then it's not worth investing our time in. If an MMO has a false sense of achievement, aka easymode, aka welfare epics, aka facerolling to victory, aka everybody and their five year old nephew can 'achieve' things, then it's not worthwhile for us.
There's a market for the 'shorter', 'easier', MMOs that offer instant gratification, that's for sure. But there's also a market for MMOs that are complex, take a decent amount of time investment, and require a good deal of planning, thought, and tactics to do well in. If there wasn't, Eve wouldn't we doing as well as it is. The laments from a number of gamers is that there isn't more options like Eve available, because there is far too much focus on creating yet another WoW clone. Ironically, there seems to be so much focus on creating more WoW clones that it seems even a lot of the more casual gamers that are being targetting by these clones are getting downright sick of them.
There's nothing wrong with having some MMOs be designed for the lowest common denominator. There is a problem however, with 95+% of them are.
When I read a book, i don't want to wait months to know the ending. When I watch a movie, i don't want to wait months to know the ending. When i play a SP video game, i don't want to wait months to finish it. Why would i want to play a MMO with no rewards for months?
Thank GOD modern MMO is not like a job that you need to work a year before you can get a bonus.
Your time must be very precious, every second of every day crammed full of exciting experiences that you simply can't bear to spend a second of it actually waiting. 100% activity all day long, not a second wasted. Phew, you must be tired when you get into bed.
Why do you need rewards in an MMO? Is it like a gambling machine? Put money in, whirl whirl whirl go the wheels, ting, cherry cherry cherry, whee, flashing lights, happy noises, have some coins, ting ting ting. I bet you stare at that screen all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, huh? Waiting.. oh no, not waiting, we don't do waiting.. rushing toward that next explosion of light and colour that signals another reward. Good puppy. Now fetch!
Seriously. I worry about the new generation of gamers.
Thank you, UsualSuspect. That post was bloody marvelous. The new generation of gamers will eventually kill the genre itself. All that will be left are a few "mmo" features that manage to find their way into other gaming genres.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
"Why do you need rewards in an MMO? Is it like a gambling machine? Put money in, whirl whirl whirl go the wheels, ting, cherry cherry cherry, whee, flashing lights, happy noises, have some coins, ting ting ting. I bet you stare at that screen all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, huh? Waiting.. oh no, not waiting, we don't do waiting.. rushing toward that next explosion of light and colour that signals another reward. Good puppy. Now fetch!
Seriously. I worry about the new generation of gamers."
lol brilliant
My son play Call of Duty, and i tell you its just like that:
run shoot die, flashy 'you died in an exciting way' reward message (addiction fix)
run shoot 2 things flashy 'OMG you shot 2 things' reward message (addiction fix).
and so on and so forth, no content just the same maps over and over and over and over..
From a parents perspective its a real worry that these games are teaching kids to not think and get addicted to this crap. If you took blizzards approach to the extreme that's what they would have you end up with.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
From a parents perspective its a real worry that these games are teaching kids to not think and get addicted to this crap. If you took blizzards approach to the extreme that's what they would have you end up with.
If you use games to "teach" kids, you are doing something wrong as parents. Games are just useless past-time (unless you make one) for my kids. They are NOT expected to get life lessons from *games* (or .. nor tv shows and movies).
don't be deliberately obtuse, that is not how i teach my children thank you, but they do learn from their environment. The point was about the gameplay (obviously)
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
From a parents perspective its a real worry that these games are teaching kids to not think and get addicted to this crap. If you took blizzards approach to the extreme that's what they would have you end up with.
If you use games to "teach" kids, you are doing something wrong as parents. Games are just useless past-time (unless you make one) for my kids. They are NOT expected to get life lessons from *games* (or .. nor tv shows and movies).
Actually several studies has shown that playing games are good from reflexes to cognitive skills, depending on what game you are playing.
The point is not to get a life lesson but to actually develop something useful and have fun at the same time. I doubt casual themeparks do the first and I dont think they even do the latter.
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
I totally agree here. I liked EQ but a lot of people tend to forget how much time was spent grinding mobs at camps and killing placeholders endlessly hoping for spawns. Not exactly thought povoking gameplay. I will say though that stuff wasn't spoon fed like a lot of info is now.
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
I totally agree here. I liked EQ but a lot of people tend to forget how much time was spent grinding mobs at camps and killing placeholders endlessly hoping for spawns. Not exactly thought povoking gameplay. I will say though that stuff wasn't spoon fed like a lot of info is now.
When are people going to learn that EverQuest was not the only MMO ever released before WOW?
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
There's camping bosses, which was obviously an exercise in being brain dead, and then there was the revelation of the EQ Epic Quest.
Each class had an epic weapon they could strive toward, and the only hint that the player base got on how to get it was to talk to soandso NPC to start it. There was no breadcrumb line that players could follow from NPC to NPC, no map or list of what items had to be gathered or who to give them to. You just talked to a guy and had to figure it out for yourself.
It tooks months of trial and error, cyphering, and leaps of logic for the community to figure this stuff out step by step. There were forum communities devoted to sharing their info and attempting to dissassemble each NPC dialogue to figure out where to go next. That took brain power. There's no mystery nowadays. Everything epic is spoonfed to you with no work involved.
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
There's camping bosses, which was obviously an exercise in being brain dead, and then there was the revelation of the EQ Epic Quest.
Each class had an epic weapon they could strive toward, and the only hint that the player base got on how to get it was to talk to soandso NPC to start it. There was no breadcrumb line that players could follow from NPC to NPC, no map or list of what items had to be gathered or who to give them to. You just talked to a guy and had to figure it out for yourself.
It tooks months of trial and error, cyphering, and leaps of logic for the community to figure this stuff out step by step. There were forum communities devoted to sharing their info and attempting to dissassemble each NPC dialogue to figure out where to go next. That took brain power. There's no mystery nowadays. Everything epic is spoonfed to you with no work involved.
And if the internet was as robust as today, the full breakdown of how to do that quest would be on about 20 websites the next day. The ONLY reason any mystery is broken is because people choose to break it. And by the way, a quest where you just had to randomly talk to 200 NPCs to find the right one is not well written or difficult. Its called taking the easy way out in the development world. Sticking boss mobs on 36 hour spawn timers didn't require any brainpower either, just no life to speak of and an alarm clock=) But kiddies thought they were being smart for "figuring" it all out. You just got suckered into thinking you were smart. How difficult do you think it is to make a quest so vague you really don't know what you're supposed to do? I'll let you figure that one out on your own, since your brain power is so superior, hehe.
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
There's camping bosses, which was obviously an exercise in being brain dead, and then there was the revelation of the EQ Epic Quest.
Each class had an epic weapon they could strive toward, and the only hint that the player base got on how to get it was to talk to soandso NPC to start it. There was no breadcrumb line that players could follow from NPC to NPC, no map or list of what items had to be gathered or who to give them to. You just talked to a guy and had to figure it out for yourself.
It tooks months of trial and error, cyphering, and leaps of logic for the community to figure this stuff out step by step. There were forum communities devoted to sharing their info and attempting to dissassemble each NPC dialogue to figure out where to go next. That took brain power. There's no mystery nowadays. Everything epic is spoonfed to you with no work involved.
And if the internet was as robust as today, the full breakdown of how to do that quest would be on about 20 websites the next day. The ONLY reason any mystery is broken is because people choose to break it. And by the way, a quest where you just had to randomly talk to 200 NPCs to find the right one is not well written or difficult. Its called taking the easy way out in the development world. Sticking boss mobs on 36 hour spawn timers didn't require any brainpower either, just no life to speak of and an alarm clock=) But kiddies thought they were being smart for "figuring" it all out. You just got suckered into thinking you were smart. How difficult do you think it is to make a quest so vague you really don't know what you're supposed to do? I'll let you figure
Calm down there, Josher, I'm not calling you dumb. I never indicated in my post that I was in any way superior, or even halfway smart for that matter. I am, but that's beside the point. Try not to project your insecurities into my statements.
It's okay to not like how EQ did things, and your opinions on the questing are valid. Some of it was just spawn camping and sometimes it did break down to hailing random NPCs and hoping to strike gold. Not always, though, and the lion's share of those quest lines had to be solved.
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
There's camping bosses, which was obviously an exercise in being brain dead, and then there was the revelation of the EQ Epic Quest.
Each class had an epic weapon they could strive toward, and the only hint that the player base got on how to get it was to talk to soandso NPC to start it. There was no breadcrumb line that players could follow from NPC to NPC, no map or list of what items had to be gathered or who to give them to. You just talked to a guy and had to figure it out for yourself.
It tooks months of trial and error, cyphering, and leaps of logic for the community to figure this stuff out step by step. There were forum communities devoted to sharing their info and attempting to dissassemble each NPC dialogue to figure out where to go next. That took brain power. There's no mystery nowadays. Everything epic is spoonfed to you with no work involved.
Those were the days. Quests felt like real quests. There were no neon signs over NPcs, you just talked to them and saw what they had to say. Now you know exactly which NPCs are filler and which are just there to send you on yet another pointless fetch quest. Follow the magical dotted line, don't worry your quest objective will sparkle like diamonds if you get close!
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
I totally agree here. I liked EQ but a lot of people tend to forget how much time was spent grinding mobs at camps and killing placeholders endlessly hoping for spawns. Not exactly thought povoking gameplay. I will say though that stuff wasn't spoon fed like a lot of info is now.
When are people going to learn that EverQuest was not the only MMO ever released before WOW?
When EQ was released, there were only TWO. And it is more than 2x the size of UO at its peak. So it is certainly representative of a LARGE chunk of the MMO market at that point.
There's camping bosses, which was obviously an exercise in being brain dead, and then there was the revelation of the EQ Epic Quest.
Each class had an epic weapon they could strive toward, and the only hint that the player base got on how to get it was to talk to soandso NPC to start it. There was no breadcrumb line that players could follow from NPC to NPC, no map or list of what items had to be gathered or who to give them to. You just talked to a guy and had to figure it out for yourself.
It tooks months of trial and error, cyphering, and leaps of logic for the community to figure this stuff out step by step. There were forum communities devoted to sharing their info and attempting to dissassemble each NPC dialogue to figure out where to go next. That took brain power. There's no mystery nowadays. Everything epic is spoonfed to you with no work involved.
Those were the days. Quests felt like real quests. There were no neon signs over NPcs, you just talked to them and saw what they had to say. Now you know exactly which NPCs are filler and which are just there to send you on yet another pointless fetch quest. Follow the magical dotted line, don't worry your quest objective will sparkle like diamonds if you get close!
Yeah, those were the bad days. Taking MONTHs to get ONE weapon? That is more like a job than entertainment.
And having to talk to a lot of NPCs to just find the right one is BAD design .. reading 1000 times "hi i am xxx, i have NOTHING important to say" is just boring and lazy design to fill up play-time.
It is not even hard or challenging. How hard it is to click on a NPC and read the same line again and again? Today's method is much better. No nonsence and you don't have to click on every NPCs if you don't want to.
Originally posted by nariusseldon And having to talk to a lot of NPCs to just find the right one is BAD design .. reading 1000 times "hi i am xxx, i have NOTHING important to say" is just boring and lazy design to fill up play-time.
Yeah, having to swing your sword and attack enemies is boring and lazy design to fill up play-time too. I want them to fall over as soon as I target them. That is more convenient.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
I totally agree here. I liked EQ but a lot of people tend to forget how much time was spent grinding mobs at camps and killing placeholders endlessly hoping for spawns. Not exactly thought povoking gameplay. I will say though that stuff wasn't spoon fed like a lot of info is now.
When are people going to learn that EverQuest was not the only MMO ever released before WOW?
When EQ was released, there were only TWO. And it is more than 2x the size of UO at its peak. So it is certainly representative of a LARGE chunk of the MMO market at that point.
Actually there were about 5 MMOs by the time EverQuest launched. And EQ came out in 1999, so what of all the dozens and dozens of MMOs that released between EQ and WoW's launch, guess that just doesn't exist? Jesus you people...
There's camping bosses, which was obviously an exercise in being brain dead, and then there was the revelation of the EQ Epic Quest.
Each class had an epic weapon they could strive toward, and the only hint that the player base got on how to get it was to talk to soandso NPC to start it. There was no breadcrumb line that players could follow from NPC to NPC, no map or list of what items had to be gathered or who to give them to. You just talked to a guy and had to figure it out for yourself.
It tooks months of trial and error, cyphering, and leaps of logic for the community to figure this stuff out step by step. There were forum communities devoted to sharing their info and attempting to dissassemble each NPC dialogue to figure out where to go next. That took brain power. There's no mystery nowadays. Everything epic is spoonfed to you with no work involved.
Those were the days. Quests felt like real quests. There were no neon signs over NPcs, you just talked to them and saw what they had to say. Now you know exactly which NPCs are filler and which are just there to send you on yet another pointless fetch quest. Follow the magical dotted line, don't worry your quest objective will sparkle like diamonds if you get close!
Yeah, those were the bad days. Taking MONTHs to get ONE weapon? That is more like a job than entertainment.
And having to talk to a lot of NPCs to just find the right one is BAD design .. reading 1000 times "hi i am xxx, i have NOTHING important to say" is just boring and lazy design to fill up play-time.
It is not even hard or challenging. How hard it is to click on a NPC and read the same line again and again? Today's method is much better. No nonsence and you don't have to click on every NPCs if you don't want to.
Nope, sorry kid, but that's not how it worked. I never spent months to get ONE weapon, but the epic quest the other person described was a huge puzzle and journey that pooled a community together and gave people to think about. That's fantastic community driven design. As for talking to NPCs, I never had to "talk to a thousand NPCs to find the right one". There were town criers who would tell you what NPcs were looking for players. There were other NPCs that would drop hints and send you to the right direction. Maybe your brain is too scrambled by new MMOs, but questing back then wasn't done as the primary activity. It was a bonus that you could do now and then if you wanted. It was an immersive experience, and since everyone and their mom didn't have a quest for you, it felt more important and epic when you did one. And no, all NPCs had something fairly important to say, just not all of them had quests. It was a far and away better system than the current task systems ruling casual MMOs. Don't try to pretend you ever tried the "old" way, because from your post its quite clear you didn't. I did, and I can speak that the old one was MUCH better.
Comments
There's a lot wrong with that, at least from my perspective, and I'm sure for many others as well.
There are many gamers, myself included, who treat MMOs like a hobby. It's more than just being about the instant gratification go go go, win win win, epics epics epics, now now now. We don't mind spending time to advance in an MMO if it feels worthwhile to us, but there in lies the issue. If an MMO only has a staying power of about a month due to lack of content or overly lacklust/repetitive design and gameplay, then it's not worth investing our time in. If an MMO has a false sense of achievement, aka easymode, aka welfare epics, aka facerolling to victory, aka everybody and their five year old nephew can 'achieve' things, then it's not worthwhile for us.
There's a market for the 'shorter', 'easier', MMOs that offer instant gratification, that's for sure. But there's also a market for MMOs that are complex, take a decent amount of time investment, and require a good deal of planning, thought, and tactics to do well in. If there wasn't, Eve wouldn't we doing as well as it is. The laments from a number of gamers is that there isn't more options like Eve available, because there is far too much focus on creating yet another WoW clone. Ironically, there seems to be so much focus on creating more WoW clones that it seems even a lot of the more casual gamers that are being targetting by these clones are getting downright sick of them.
There's nothing wrong with having some MMOs be designed for the lowest common denominator. There is a problem however, with 95+% of them are.
Thank you, UsualSuspect. That post was bloody marvelous. The new generation of gamers will eventually kill the genre itself. All that will be left are a few "mmo" features that manage to find their way into other gaming genres.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
@!!!"
"Why do you need rewards in an MMO? Is it like a gambling machine? Put money in, whirl whirl whirl go the wheels, ting, cherry cherry cherry, whee, flashing lights, happy noises, have some coins, ting ting ting. I bet you stare at that screen all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, huh? Waiting.. oh no, not waiting, we don't do waiting.. rushing toward that next explosion of light and colour that signals another reward. Good puppy. Now fetch!
Seriously. I worry about the new generation of gamers."
lol brilliant
My son play Call of Duty, and i tell you its just like that:
run, shoot - flashy 'you shot something' reward message (addiction fix)
run shoot die, flashy 'you died in an exciting way' reward message (addiction fix)
run shoot 2 things flashy 'OMG you shot 2 things' reward message (addiction fix).
and so on and so forth, no content just the same maps over and over and over and over..
From a parents perspective its a real worry that these games are teaching kids to not think and get addicted to this crap. If you took blizzards approach to the extreme that's what they would have you end up with.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
95% of the games designed for 95% of the population. What is so bad about it?
If you use games to "teach" kids, you are doing something wrong as parents. Games are just useless past-time (unless you make one) for my kids. They are NOT expected to get life lessons from *games* (or .. nor tv shows and movies).
don't be deliberately obtuse, that is not how i teach my children thank you, but they do learn from their environment. The point was about the gameplay (obviously)
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
To me, all the stuff that was available back then is available now. However, people don't want to bother sitting around role-playing. They want to quest and collect gear. There are more options now than there were before. Some people just don't like the options because now nobody wants to play with them in their odd way of playing.
Nonsense. Back then MMORPGs were much harder and nothing was spoon fed to you so you actually had to use your brain. More over there has not been a well developed sandbox game, like UO and Asherons call, released for years.
What we have now is either casual, themepark WoW clones or subpar F2P games that are really Pay To Win.
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Actually several studies has shown that playing games are good from reflexes to cognitive skills, depending on what game you are playing.
The point is not to get a life lesson but to actually develop something useful and have fun at the same time. I doubt casual themeparks do the first and I dont think they even do the latter.
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Fingers crossed that archage delivers on its promises, now that would shake the mmo market up for the better.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Something obviously, because more and more of those 95% are starting to get tired of the same old.
LOL .. you had to use your brain back then? I played EQ for a year. Most of the time you are camping and i would NOT characterize waiting to kill the boss as "using your brain".
It is more like "wasting your time" than "using your brain".
When that happens, i am sure the developers will adjust. They do marketing research, you know ... as opposed to passing personal opinions as truth.
I totally agree here. I liked EQ but a lot of people tend to forget how much time was spent grinding mobs at camps and killing placeholders endlessly hoping for spawns. Not exactly thought povoking gameplay. I will say though that stuff wasn't spoon fed like a lot of info is now.
When are people going to learn that EverQuest was not the only MMO ever released before WOW?
There's camping bosses, which was obviously an exercise in being brain dead, and then there was the revelation of the EQ Epic Quest.
Each class had an epic weapon they could strive toward, and the only hint that the player base got on how to get it was to talk to soandso NPC to start it. There was no breadcrumb line that players could follow from NPC to NPC, no map or list of what items had to be gathered or who to give them to. You just talked to a guy and had to figure it out for yourself.
It tooks months of trial and error, cyphering, and leaps of logic for the community to figure this stuff out step by step. There were forum communities devoted to sharing their info and attempting to dissassemble each NPC dialogue to figure out where to go next. That took brain power. There's no mystery nowadays. Everything epic is spoonfed to you with no work involved.
And if the internet was as robust as today, the full breakdown of how to do that quest would be on about 20 websites the next day. The ONLY reason any mystery is broken is because people choose to break it. And by the way, a quest where you just had to randomly talk to 200 NPCs to find the right one is not well written or difficult. Its called taking the easy way out in the development world. Sticking boss mobs on 36 hour spawn timers didn't require any brainpower either, just no life to speak of and an alarm clock=) But kiddies thought they were being smart for "figuring" it all out. You just got suckered into thinking you were smart. How difficult do you think it is to make a quest so vague you really don't know what you're supposed to do? I'll let you figure that one out on your own, since your brain power is so superior, hehe.
Calm down there, Josher, I'm not calling you dumb. I never indicated in my post that I was in any way superior, or even halfway smart for that matter. I am, but that's beside the point. Try not to project your insecurities into my statements.
It's okay to not like how EQ did things, and your opinions on the questing are valid. Some of it was just spawn camping and sometimes it did break down to hailing random NPCs and hoping to strike gold. Not always, though, and the lion's share of those quest lines had to be solved.
Those were the days. Quests felt like real quests. There were no neon signs over NPcs, you just talked to them and saw what they had to say. Now you know exactly which NPCs are filler and which are just there to send you on yet another pointless fetch quest. Follow the magical dotted line, don't worry your quest objective will sparkle like diamonds if you get close!
When EQ was released, there were only TWO. And it is more than 2x the size of UO at its peak. So it is certainly representative of a LARGE chunk of the MMO market at that point.
Yeah, those were the bad days. Taking MONTHs to get ONE weapon? That is more like a job than entertainment.
And having to talk to a lot of NPCs to just find the right one is BAD design .. reading 1000 times "hi i am xxx, i have NOTHING important to say" is just boring and lazy design to fill up play-time.
It is not even hard or challenging. How hard it is to click on a NPC and read the same line again and again? Today's method is much better. No nonsence and you don't have to click on every NPCs if you don't want to.
Yeah, having to swing your sword and attack enemies is boring and lazy design to fill up play-time too. I want them to fall over as soon as I target them. That is more convenient.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Actually there were about 5 MMOs by the time EverQuest launched. And EQ came out in 1999, so what of all the dozens and dozens of MMOs that released between EQ and WoW's launch, guess that just doesn't exist? Jesus you people...
Nope, sorry kid, but that's not how it worked. I never spent months to get ONE weapon, but the epic quest the other person described was a huge puzzle and journey that pooled a community together and gave people to think about. That's fantastic community driven design. As for talking to NPCs, I never had to "talk to a thousand NPCs to find the right one". There were town criers who would tell you what NPcs were looking for players. There were other NPCs that would drop hints and send you to the right direction. Maybe your brain is too scrambled by new MMOs, but questing back then wasn't done as the primary activity. It was a bonus that you could do now and then if you wanted. It was an immersive experience, and since everyone and their mom didn't have a quest for you, it felt more important and epic when you did one. And no, all NPCs had something fairly important to say, just not all of them had quests. It was a far and away better system than the current task systems ruling casual MMOs. Don't try to pretend you ever tried the "old" way, because from your post its quite clear you didn't. I did, and I can speak that the old one was MUCH better.