Isn't it 'funny' that it's the games with PvP (and open world PvP) that seem to invoke the most emotion?
Spellborn had it too for the same reason in the PvP zones - and there there was a sense of anticipation too. In Spellborn you had to manually draw your weapon so you could see other players and it was a very 'wild west' feel - will he draw his sword? Or wont he?... if he does I will... that was really awesome.
The only time I have ever worried and felt adreniline in a non PvP game is playing permadeath characters.
Developers take note?
By making games with limited PvP zones, making PvP by concent only, and having next to no death penalty you actually take something from your game - you lose something.
There have been MMOs I have played where I actually used 'death' as a teleport device! You know... complete quest... and die to return to the quest giver location near the respawn point? Mostly games like that don't hold my attention. The only emotion you get from that is boredom.
When I first picked up Ultima Online in 1998 it was like escape, happiness, thought provoking, and made me feel comfortable it was always exciting. I was never mad or angry with situations. As time went on and more MMOs came out I found myself gettin angry and frustrated with people or just the game itself such as EQ, DAOC, AO. When I think of AO and especially EQ I actually feel a headache coming on.
Once EVE came along I finally got another dose of excitment and happiness and at times felt really evil and that made it feel cool and unique but then boredom set in as the combat of that game puts me to sleep. Planetside made me feel excited for sure and at "awe" a lot.
WoW and Guild Wars gave me a feeling of being a part of something with the guild I was in. I actually grew an attachment to them and felt that I was a part of family. Especially in Guild Wars.
Every MMO I've played since then I haven't gotten anything from, War, Aion, Rift, have all been at best generic MMOs that are good for just turning off your brain and hitting buttons after work, like a dungeon crawler but in these you don't actually get exciting loot until 2 weeks of the same old leveling.
UO, EVE, Planetside, Guild Wars and some WoW have all provided some really strong emotional times for me and mostly positive. EQ, DAOC, AO, Rift, Aion, Warhammer just give me a headache when I think about them but they also provoked some strong negative emotions of anger, frustration, and apathy.
As the title states did you ever have an MMO gives you a strong emotional response.
What i mean by this is theres a point at the end of infamous 2 (evil side) that really made me feel bad for what i was doing. Taking down slew of citizens never effects me but the one scene at the end just before you lose control of the game to comic style cinematics really made it rough doing an action that i used to do throughout the game
In nearly all the MMOs i've ever tried, nothing in it really pulled at me, never really had the above effect. It was mostly killing monsters and getting loot. There was never any real meaning to what your doing.
The only time i ever had an MMO affect me was during EQ when i lost my 4 year long guild due to them splintering off into the mist. That made me very sad.
But the actual game itself never really invoke any sense of emotion. Sure i gather nostalgia is always a part of the game seeing things like the commonlands but i think that has more to do with familarity of the world then anything else.
So i'm curious have you guys ever had a moment where the game itself actually invoke a strong emotion?
Honeslty i think you play bad games and mmos if they never really had emotional impact on you. Mmo are very emotionals, look at the mmo forums and the way people talk about them, they are just crying from emotions.
The first time a guy res killed me, and explained me it was the most natural thing in the world i thing i was jumping and yelling.
Now if you are a softy i guess some story like one of the NWN1 was very close to the kind of sad feeling i can get from a movie, but this is a lot rarer.
Rpers also gave me a lot of emotions too.
Pve got me a lot of emotions too, i think i will always remember my old school bard in UO. But that just an exemple i have quiet more if you want i can give you some detail, i'm not very good into telling stories in english though. Like the time i released my 2years old dragon in UO, all the girls (are you a girl?) loved taming in UO, because you really could get emotionally attached if you wanted since pet had perma death.
I mean mmo are full of drama, maybe try some pvp mmo
I personally think mmo are strong on emotion, really strange to read your post TBH. Try to play games with less hand holding, they usually give better emotions, since hand holding is exactly meant to lessen your "bad" emotions; whichcalso mean they lessen your good emotions.
Vanilla WoW, late 2005, Maelstrom server. Im a level 32 troll shaman in Stranglethorn Vale, doing quests at Nessingwarys. I pick up the next quest on the tiger chain and head out. A few minutes out zone defense goes crazy, zone chat lights up. The alliance has struck! Level 60's tearing Nessingwarys apart! I breath a sigh of relief, they just missed me. I head toward the horde forward base on the coast, I know ill be safe there. I kill the tigers I need on the way and arrive, the coast is clear. I pick up a few quests, pop ghostwolf and high tail it outta there.
Seconds, and I mean literally seconds, after i leave Grom'gol the alliance strike. Its a full invasion, reports come in over zone that they even took down the NPC's. This is getting serious. I think about my options, and figure it may be safer to hearth out and smelt down the ore I gathered earlier that day. I need to work on my Engineering skills anyways.
I figure before I do that, ill head back to nessingwarys. There hasnt been any sightings reported. I double check and ask in zone, but no one answers. My brothers seem to be pulling out of STV at an alarming rate.
So I head off, still in ghostwolf form, toward nessingwarys. At a one point im so tired of the agro im pulling, I head to the main road. I think im far enough away from Grom'gol. I wasnt....
There they were, 2 alliance characters. They way they were dressed immediately caught my attention. Full epics. No wonder they were having their way in STV. Luckily when I popped out of the jungle i was in front of them. After afew seconds, which felt like an entenity, I run for it. Im just about to be out of their sight before they notice me and give chase. Great....
I run back into the jungle hoping to throw them off, but they're on my tail. I zig zag my way around, trying to avoid pulling agro and keep them guessing when i eventually lose them around tkashi ruins. The chase left me feeling physical tired. Like I had been actually running along side my character. I carefully make my way back down to mizjah ruins. I stay off the road for fear of running into my pursuers. They're fast and cover more ground than i can. I wait for 10 minutes at mizjah before I attempt one more attempt at nessingwarys. This time, its do or die.
I take to the road again, but this time theres no one. Grom'gol had been decimated, but its been some time since they've been there. NPC's have reappeared. It must be safe, the Alliance must have gotten bored.
So im off, the road stretches on and on, I cant wait till i hit 40 and get my mount i think to myself. And right after i thought that, I heard someone yell. A language I didnt recognize, those alliance scum had found me again. The chase continues......
This time I dont shoot into the jungle. The bridge is ahead, it goes toward the alliance outpost at the begining of the zone...Perfect.
By the time I reach it, they're close enough I can smell the sweat from the horses they ride one. That armor must be hot. One of the alliance, a Paladin, jumps off his horse to attack. But as he does, I fling myself off the bridge and into the water. I franticly swim towards Nessingwarys up the river. I know they're going to follow, they'll probably be splashing in the water any time now.... I turn back to see my attackers splash, to throw a frostshock in one of their faces before I die, but theres nothing. The waters still, the fish swim freely, the world seems to be at peice. Impossible.... At this point my hearts beating loudly from the chase.
I reach the shoreline of Nessingwarys. Finally, I can turn in this quest. It should make me ding! I had forgotten how close I was, running away from the alliance for an hour, or close to it. I emerge triumphantly! Shit.....
Theres 7 of them. Two appear to be dueling, and they're all in what apears to be epics. They all stop to look at me, and just stare. Im a lamb to the slaughter... As I look among them I see the two that were chasing me. The smile on their face sickens me, one day ill be able to wipe it off. The silence breaks with a charge, and its all over in just a few seconds. Death had never been so bitter. I rez, and hearth back to Org..a defeated troll.
When I spawn theres a message. A counter attack headed out to Ashenvale. If its a fight those Alliance scumbags want, then its a fight the hordes going to give; We're gonna Sac Astranaar. Revenge....will be mine.
R.I.P. Open World PvP. I miss you. /tear
Great write up, I read it all.
I think it strikes a nerve with everyone who played vanilla wow because we all went through it, especially in STV where you can get lost in the jungle and find safety in a hidden area.
Sure, we all got ganked while leveling, but the chase.... was epic. Knowing you out witted someone that couldve easily destroyed you, left you feeling an immense sense of self-satisfaction. Something modern mmos now lack, a feeling of accomplishment and self satisfaction.
It's all one emotionless quick max leveling chore to their "end-game" now.
Satisfaction: When I finished my first combat buggy in Fallen Earth. Because so many things are made better with twin-linked .50cal machine guns. I rarely play the game still, but never regret keeping the account open for just how much fun the wasteland can be to cruise around in. Still need to get my twin-linked interceptor researched...
Surprise: Black Prophecy. Because for all its "it's only a door-mission-maker" game critisim, it's at least playable, and when you look across the board at action-oriented space sims with actual 6deg movement that doesn't auto-orient you to some random surface, and basically plays like a giant-ass hosted, managed game of freelancer where they'll sell you crap if you're lazy, it delivers in spades.
Ya, nothing else really has that market covered, either in or out of the MMO space. It's not a great MMO but its a good enough space sim if you want something less complex than X3 but still with depth.
Frustration: DDO, week of launch, Delera's Tomb i believe. Very simple puzzle in the room. Theres a pool with a tunnel leading to a back room. 2 grates block the way. 2 raised switches are on either side of the pool and will raise the grates when stood on.
After 20 min of attempting to explain and then drowning because half way through they thought they should stack back up, I realized anyone who can't grasp the basics of 3D-platforming, a-la Mario 64, and understand how to move around that kind of environment sucks. Then I canceled my sub.
Boredom: EVE's combat. It's just not my thing. I'm wanting Freespace where EVE's going all MOO1/2 on things. Nothing against it, and definitely excited for DUST 514. But I still just can't get sold on the illusion of being a light-bomber, and being locked into this odd point-click interface.
Sure, capital ships, ships that carry smaller ships, etc fit fine with the boat controls, or even something closer to how PotBS does naval combat, but its just to slow for me.
Disappointment: AoC. Everyone knows where...
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
In EVE where as a new player and after weeks of play, my ship was blown up It wasn't anger. It was... dismay.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Futility: When I struggled and finally got my Cleric up to level cap in Ragnarok Online only for them to release Rebirth classes! The ability to reincarnate and level up all over again starting from level 1, and required like twice the exp from a certain level. I had no desire to do that again, I wanted to sit and enjoy my aura and help other people and just play the damn game, go back and do things I missed, hunt MVPs, etc....but noes, time to do it all over again. That's when I realized how shallow games are, and that's probably when I started to become less impressed with them. It really can't be about something as arbitrary as numbers, because the developers can always add more and pretend it's 'content'.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Extreme panic/fear. Playing EvE and moving all my wordly posessions (after 3 or so months of playing) to a new area for my new corp about 25 jumps away. Still being somewhat new and not thinking I pass through a .4 sec? maybe and encounter a pirate blockade at the jump gate. I am promtply frozen and nearly destroyed until they ask for a 50 million isk payment (which I only have 5 mil or so of).
I try to fast talk my way out of it and say I need 5 minutes to ask my corp members, all the while I log out hoping my ship dissapears before they realize that I had logged out. I go to bed without knowing whether I lost all my wordly possessions or not.
I wake up, log on and I am but a Pod flying around in space. I get an e-mail from the pirate saying that if I hadn't logged out they probably would have just let me go.
In the end after words exchanged they give me the ransom they demanded to help me get back on my feet.
Needless to say though, the initial warp drive block and me getting attacked and the fear of losing everything I had really had my heart racing.
Never really experienced anything like that in any other game besides Everquest when you had corpse runs (and I died in some pretty bad spots, especially on the PvP server)
And also in Dark age of camelot when we had some pretty epic PvP battles and I just was getting incredibly excited.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
Ye Dragim i was blocked at my first .4 attempt i was still on trial, so i told here to blow me up ;p Was short and effective, she also destroyed my pod claiming a newb would never pass in a .4; she was wrong lol
My strongest emotions came from playing WWIIONLINE. I hate the alied easymoders, and felt a rush of pleasure whenever I exploded an allied easymode tank with an 88 from 2 KM away. It was the only game I ever bought 2 accounts for, a towing account.
This manifests physically by increased heart rate, adrenaline rush, confusion and the shakes. The smaller the engagement the worse it is as the mind automatically knows that there is safety in numbers.
I remember extreme adrenaline rushs in Lineage 2 whenever PvP was involved.
I remember extreme boredom quite often. Farming in Lineage 2, harvesting and crafting in Vanguard - not really fun things to do !
I really started hating WoW, Blizzard and all that crap after the 1000th fanboi or so who again didnt stopped talking about his favorite MMO and expected me to know all kinds of facts about it.
Finally killing a hard raidboss in Vanguard was something big.
Playing a Blood Mage in Vanguard. Once you got the hang of it, that is. And I deleted my unbelievably ugly gnome and went with a beautiful Darkelf instead.
I *really* was angry when they made the arrows for the ranger in Vanguard soulbound. I had put so much work into that ... and now it was all soulbound. Pfft.
But turning into a ranged ranger was fun. No more weird mixups. Being able to kick stance from a distance = rox !
Playing my Highelf Paladin in Vanguard, she was SO DAMN PRETTY !!!!
Flying around on my Griffon once I finally got it. Getting it wasnt so fun, though. No not really.
Comments
Isn't it 'funny' that it's the games with PvP (and open world PvP) that seem to invoke the most emotion?
Spellborn had it too for the same reason in the PvP zones - and there there was a sense of anticipation too. In Spellborn you had to manually draw your weapon so you could see other players and it was a very 'wild west' feel - will he draw his sword? Or wont he?... if he does I will... that was really awesome.
The only time I have ever worried and felt adreniline in a non PvP game is playing permadeath characters.
Developers take note?
By making games with limited PvP zones, making PvP by concent only, and having next to no death penalty you actually take something from your game - you lose something.
There have been MMOs I have played where I actually used 'death' as a teleport device! You know... complete quest... and die to return to the quest giver location near the respawn point? Mostly games like that don't hold my attention. The only emotion you get from that is boredom.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
When I first picked up Ultima Online in 1998 it was like escape, happiness, thought provoking, and made me feel comfortable it was always exciting. I was never mad or angry with situations. As time went on and more MMOs came out I found myself gettin angry and frustrated with people or just the game itself such as EQ, DAOC, AO. When I think of AO and especially EQ I actually feel a headache coming on.
Once EVE came along I finally got another dose of excitment and happiness and at times felt really evil and that made it feel cool and unique but then boredom set in as the combat of that game puts me to sleep. Planetside made me feel excited for sure and at "awe" a lot.
WoW and Guild Wars gave me a feeling of being a part of something with the guild I was in. I actually grew an attachment to them and felt that I was a part of family. Especially in Guild Wars.
Every MMO I've played since then I haven't gotten anything from, War, Aion, Rift, have all been at best generic MMOs that are good for just turning off your brain and hitting buttons after work, like a dungeon crawler but in these you don't actually get exciting loot until 2 weeks of the same old leveling.
UO, EVE, Planetside, Guild Wars and some WoW have all provided some really strong emotional times for me and mostly positive. EQ, DAOC, AO, Rift, Aion, Warhammer just give me a headache when I think about them but they also provoked some strong negative emotions of anger, frustration, and apathy.
Immense sadness.
The "Darrowshire" quest line in the Eastern Plaguelands, WoW.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dTxcHulFBI
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Honeslty i think you play bad games and mmos if they never really had emotional impact on you. Mmo are very emotionals, look at the mmo forums and the way people talk about them, they are just crying from emotions.
The first time a guy res killed me, and explained me it was the most natural thing in the world i thing i was jumping and yelling.
Now if you are a softy i guess some story like one of the NWN1 was very close to the kind of sad feeling i can get from a movie, but this is a lot rarer.
Rpers also gave me a lot of emotions too.
Pve got me a lot of emotions too, i think i will always remember my old school bard in UO. But that just an exemple i have quiet more if you want i can give you some detail, i'm not very good into telling stories in english though. Like the time i released my 2years old dragon in UO, all the girls (are you a girl?) loved taming in UO, because you really could get emotionally attached if you wanted since pet had perma death.
I mean mmo are full of drama, maybe try some pvp mmo
I personally think mmo are strong on emotion, really strange to read your post TBH. Try to play games with less hand holding, they usually give better emotions, since hand holding is exactly meant to lessen your "bad" emotions; whichcalso mean they lessen your good emotions.
I'd have to say terror and suspense from FFXI. My first time in Quifm was especially memorable
Great write up, I read it all.
I think it strikes a nerve with everyone who played vanilla wow because we all went through it, especially in STV where you can get lost in the jungle and find safety in a hidden area.
Sure, we all got ganked while leveling, but the chase.... was epic. Knowing you out witted someone that couldve easily destroyed you, left you feeling an immense sense of self-satisfaction. Something modern mmos now lack, a feeling of accomplishment and self satisfaction.
It's all one emotionless quick max leveling chore to their "end-game" now.
Satisfaction: When I finished my first combat buggy in Fallen Earth. Because so many things are made better with twin-linked .50cal machine guns. I rarely play the game still, but never regret keeping the account open for just how much fun the wasteland can be to cruise around in. Still need to get my twin-linked interceptor researched...
Surprise: Black Prophecy. Because for all its "it's only a door-mission-maker" game critisim, it's at least playable, and when you look across the board at action-oriented space sims with actual 6deg movement that doesn't auto-orient you to some random surface, and basically plays like a giant-ass hosted, managed game of freelancer where they'll sell you crap if you're lazy, it delivers in spades.
Ya, nothing else really has that market covered, either in or out of the MMO space. It's not a great MMO but its a good enough space sim if you want something less complex than X3 but still with depth.
Frustration: DDO, week of launch, Delera's Tomb i believe. Very simple puzzle in the room. Theres a pool with a tunnel leading to a back room. 2 grates block the way. 2 raised switches are on either side of the pool and will raise the grates when stood on.
After 20 min of attempting to explain and then drowning because half way through they thought they should stack back up, I realized anyone who can't grasp the basics of 3D-platforming, a-la Mario 64, and understand how to move around that kind of environment sucks. Then I canceled my sub.
Boredom: EVE's combat. It's just not my thing. I'm wanting Freespace where EVE's going all MOO1/2 on things. Nothing against it, and definitely excited for DUST 514. But I still just can't get sold on the illusion of being a light-bomber, and being locked into this odd point-click interface.
Sure, capital ships, ships that carry smaller ships, etc fit fine with the boat controls, or even something closer to how PotBS does naval combat, but its just to slow for me.
Disappointment: AoC. Everyone knows where...
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
I cried when my best friend IRL hacked me. Does that count?
Any emotion I've ever felt from a game has been a result of human interaction. Or intoxication. So I guess none.
When SOE did the CU & NGE for SWG.
In EVE where as a new player and after weeks of play, my ship was blown up
It wasn't anger. It was... dismay.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Futility: When I struggled and finally got my Cleric up to level cap in Ragnarok Online only for them to release Rebirth classes! The ability to reincarnate and level up all over again starting from level 1, and required like twice the exp from a certain level. I had no desire to do that again, I wanted to sit and enjoy my aura and help other people and just play the damn game, go back and do things I missed, hunt MVPs, etc....but noes, time to do it all over again. That's when I realized how shallow games are, and that's probably when I started to become less impressed with them. It really can't be about something as arbitrary as numbers, because the developers can always add more and pretend it's 'content'.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
At first the strongest emotion was when the NGE came in swg
but it was topped by a roleplay character dieing/getting out of play only weeks later.
then I got utterly shocked by loosing a girlfriend who died at age 26 during her work , someone I first meet ingame and who became quite close to me.
Extreme panic/fear. Playing EvE and moving all my wordly posessions (after 3 or so months of playing) to a new area for my new corp about 25 jumps away. Still being somewhat new and not thinking I pass through a .4 sec? maybe and encounter a pirate blockade at the jump gate. I am promtply frozen and nearly destroyed until they ask for a 50 million isk payment (which I only have 5 mil or so of).
I try to fast talk my way out of it and say I need 5 minutes to ask my corp members, all the while I log out hoping my ship dissapears before they realize that I had logged out. I go to bed without knowing whether I lost all my wordly possessions or not.
I wake up, log on and I am but a Pod flying around in space. I get an e-mail from the pirate saying that if I hadn't logged out they probably would have just let me go.
In the end after words exchanged they give me the ransom they demanded to help me get back on my feet.
Needless to say though, the initial warp drive block and me getting attacked and the fear of losing everything I had really had my heart racing.
Never really experienced anything like that in any other game besides Everquest when you had corpse runs (and I died in some pretty bad spots, especially on the PvP server)
And also in Dark age of camelot when we had some pretty epic PvP battles and I just was getting incredibly excited.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
Ye Dragim i was blocked at my first .4 attempt i was still on trial, so i told here to blow me up ;p Was short and effective, she also destroyed my pod claiming a newb would never pass in a .4; she was wrong lol
My strongest emotions came from playing WWIIONLINE. I hate the alied easymoders, and felt a rush of pleasure whenever I exploded an allied easymode tank with an 88 from 2 KM away. It was the only game I ever bought 2 accounts for, a towing account.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lv4-hkVbY4
Shooting down allied easymode planes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHNlESYdxrg
Fear and Panic from pvp in Eve.
This manifests physically by increased heart rate, adrenaline rush, confusion and the shakes. The smaller the engagement the worse it is as the mind automatically knows that there is safety in numbers.
Its awesome lol!
I remember extreme adrenaline rushs in Lineage 2 whenever PvP was involved.
I remember extreme boredom quite often. Farming in Lineage 2, harvesting and crafting in Vanguard - not really fun things to do !
I really started hating WoW, Blizzard and all that crap after the 1000th fanboi or so who again didnt stopped talking about his favorite MMO and expected me to know all kinds of facts about it.
Finally killing a hard raidboss in Vanguard was something big.
Playing a Blood Mage in Vanguard. Once you got the hang of it, that is. And I deleted my unbelievably ugly gnome and went with a beautiful Darkelf instead.
I *really* was angry when they made the arrows for the ranger in Vanguard soulbound. I had put so much work into that ... and now it was all soulbound. Pfft.
But turning into a ranged ranger was fun. No more weird mixups. Being able to kick stance from a distance = rox !
Playing my Highelf Paladin in Vanguard, she was SO DAMN PRETTY !!!!
Flying around on my Griffon once I finally got it. Getting it wasnt so fun, though. No not really.