Totally agree with the OP, one thing is demand a better game but the % of players ruining a game before it even releases is growing with the time, i only expect that will decrease with time.
I think you misunderstood, or maybe I didn't put it in the right words, I should've worded it something like 'your statement already shows a contradiction'.
The contradiction is that if according to you and people of the same mind, the majority of the playerbase is mindless and seemingly inferior to the 'challenge seeking minority', then that majority won't change if MMORPG's are different, in the eyes of you and others like you that 'mindless majority' still makes up most of the MMO playerbase, filling up communities and servers with their mindless needs and gaming fun, doing their mindless actitivities and consistently asking devs as a majority their mindless, non-challenge-based requests that will overshout any request of the challenge seeking minority.
Since devs want to create a game that a lot of people will play, they'll listen more to the requests of that mindless majority, according to your statement, which makes them the main problem and the root cause for devs going for less-desirable design directions.
When taking a further step back, the problem becomes even more an MMO playerbase one, namely people who see most of the other MMO gamers as mindless and something inferior, for the simple reason that those people have different tastes and preferences in their gaming fun. Here we have a segment of the playerbase that looks down upon everyone who doesn't share their narrowed, limited gaming taste, who have become jaded after years of gaming, intolerant towards newer MMO game designs and those who enjoy it, and who overall have become a disgruntled, burnt out, dissatisfied, frustrated and/or overall negative group who can't enjoy most if not as good as all MMORPG's anymore that are around. A group that has become so hard to please that practically nothing in MMO gaming really pleases them anymore.
I think they're pretty much a part of the problem, ironic since it's them that see the current MMO genre as suffering big problems
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Contradiction isn't the right word. You just see the cause of the problem differently than I do. It isn't a contradiction for me to argue that the developers are the *ultimate* responsible party concerning whether a game is good or not, regardless of who or what their playerbase is composed.
Let me say it another way. The buck stops with the developers, regardless of the community their game is designed to draw, or does draw, or will draw in the future. The developers have the final say in the direction and content and crappiness of their game.
The reasons of said developers for wanting to and creating crappy games is irrelevant in my argument. If they want to pander and create crappy games because millions of people will play them and pay millions of dollars, there is still no contradiction in what I said. They decide what game to make, how to make it, and who their target audience will be. If their motivation is based on an overwhelming desire to pander to the majority to make big bucks, that still doesn't mean it's the majority players' fault. It's theirs. They have the final say in it all.
No contradiction. Semantics, semantics, semantics wrecks reasoning like you are using.
The blue part I highlighted shows the flaw in the words you are using. Devs want to listen to a certain group of people, and thus you are saying, it is the peoples' fault. That's not my argument. My argument is that, in that situation, it's still the dev's fault. They can (a) try to make a good game while also pandering to the majority, (b) could try to make a good niche game for the minority, or (c) come up with some other clever way to make a good game. Either way, the decision and responsibility is theirs alone.
No motivating factor of the devs causes any kind of contradiction in that argument, unless you define contraction to mean, "You and I have different opinions," instead of, "Your argument has ideas which are logically incongruent."
Bottom line: There is no contradiction in my argument. We just have different opinions on whether the motivation behind the developers' decisions to make crappy games determines who is most responsible for a crappy game. I say motivation is irrelevant (which is consistent with everything else I've said). You say motivation isn't irrelevant, and in fact, if the motivation is millions of idiots clamoring for a crappy game, then it is those idiots' fault for the crappy game.
If you've spent a healthy chunk of time on MMO message boards, you can always recognize the signs of disgruntled players who are simply burnt out on the game they're playing, the players who should be moving on but just cannot let go.
Although I agree, I also think there is no obligation for people to move on. MMOs actively encourage you to build a community and an illusion of ownership. You can't expect people to switch games like they were changing the channel on the tv. Even when it's obvious someone is suffering more than they are gaining, it's hard to argue they shouldn't fight for their community, for their illusionary home.
You grew apart, you went one way and the games went another, still evolving and growing up, but in a direction that you didn't expect or like. It happens in relationships as well, that's often the moment where both parties part ways, or take a period of separation from eachother to see if things feel different after that period.
The problem for me is that games got devolved while I evolved, if that makes any sense.
I can see the potential in ideas like Infinity and then I see what actually happens in nowadays games.
Old games had plenty of stuff going on and you could play them in many different ways. Some people played pre-nge swg very seriously and they never ever fought once. I knew a girl who had her clothing shop with her own designs, which had no stats whatsoever, they just looked awesome, and she was making plenty of money with it, so she was building a superfancy massive house, and that's how she was loving the game. I could go on with more examples, but I bet you get my point.
Those games had more possibilities, were more open, also deeper. Of course they were buggier, had worse graphics, were grindier, etc etc... The game engines and design mechanics have improved, altogether with the technologu used for that.
Unfortunately, what devs are providing most of the times with all that experience and technology, is small worlds with linear quest lines so you can get to level cap asap and then roll an alt or join the gear hamster wheel grind. Crafting, politics, territorial control, resource gathering, economy, player interaction, all that is just thrown in in the late stages or simply ignored.
Even when it's obvious someone is suffering more than they are gaining, it's hard to argue they shouldn't fight for their community, for their illusionary home.
Which is fine, in some moderation. But eventually "fighting for their community" seems to always turn more toward "bitter acrimony and flaming invective". The Devs become the Enemy, the Evil Empire Just Out To Ruin Our Fun...and once your burnout has reached that point, there's is just no turning back.
I'd say that, for a lot of players, a perma-ban can actually be a good thing.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
So yeah, i agree. I am the problem. I grew up, the games didn't.
You grew apart, you went one way and the games went another, still evolving and growing up, but in a direction that you didn't expect or like. It happens in relationships as well, that's often the moment where both parties part ways, or take a period of separation from eachother to see if things feel different after that period.
You could say that, although given that pretty much everything that games offer today in terms of gameplay was available 10 years ago, i wouldn't exactly call that "growing in another direction", i think "stagnation" is much more appropriate. But yeah, that's semantics.
I also don't think your relationship analogy is particularly applicable. A person feels the loss of another person, it may be a positive or negative emotion, but it's something that is intimately felt in most cases. A game or especially a game genre feels nothing when it loses a particular customer, so there is no chance for any kind of catharsis on the part of the game.
Naah, I think that's just your 'oldschool love/new MMO aversion' mindset talking
Can you elaborate what you mean by this? I did state pretty clearly (maybe it was in another thread) that i don't consider the old games (including my first - AO) to be the best on the market now. I consider that new games are better. I am just disappointed that they are not "better enough" given how much was already available to them.
quest based leveling - this is how i leveled (mostly) in AO 10 years ago when i started.
phasing, instancing - these were a large part of AO 10 years ago when i started.
instanced battlegrounds, arena pvp - i don't like PvP, but these were in an AO expansion (7-8 years ago)
mounts, flying and flying mounts - these were in AO 10 years when i started. one of my favourite experience was getting my first flying car and cruising around Rubi-Ka.
shooter based mechanics - AO wasn't FPS-based, so there was no aiming, but there were special gun functions and things like that which were more shooter-like. TR did this much better several years ago, since when it mostly faded.
public quests, dynamic PvE content - AO did not have public quests, but it did have massive dynamic events very similar to Rift's zone-events. This was 8 years ago. Again, it's not that AO's invasions were better than Rift's, it's that after 8 years, i expected them to be more than just "kinda the same, just more often".
AH, LFG tools/dungeon finder - indeed, AH was a good idea and wasn't in AO. I'm sure it's a pretty old development though. Dungeon Finder i believe was in CoH 8 or so years ago. My memory might be failing me. Anyhow, it's not a feature i like or feel is needed, but yeah, it's a feature.
cross server content - yes. although, i'd consider EVE's single-server architecture to be a much better innovation.
situational and environment-interactive combat (Vindictus) - i've no idea what this is, but environment-interactive combat was introduced in auto-assault over 7 years ago.
UGC tools (user generated content) - this is excellent. no game on the market has this properly done despite the fact that it was originally introduced many years ago in Ryzom.
Again, my disappointment is more due to that fact that this stuff was already in good workable form 10 years ago, by now it should be well fleshed out as opposed to "being introduced".
User-Created Content, Mass Dynamic Content - including raiding and questing, single-server architecture, environment-interactive combat, FPS-hybrid combat, phasing/instancing, meaningful non-combat progression, permanent world interaction, skill-based (as opposed to time dedication) endgame accessibility - all these are awesome innovations. None of these are particularly new. Yet no game currently on the market and no game in development has ALL or even a majority of them. BY NOW, some game should.
This is why i'm disappointed. Not because the new games are worse, but because by now, they should be A LOT better than they are.
If you read the quoted portion above and think "well, what he is really saying is that AO is the best game ever and he should really just go play that", then you're not getting my point. My point is that because it was on the table 10 years ago, games should be A LOT better by now. I am still buying games that are missing half the features AO had, this is fracking sad.
I have no attachment to out-dated "concepts" like corpse recovery, 20 hours camps and 200-person auto-attack raiding for a single drop. All this stuff is "old news". I don't consider these "Features" really, i consider these a natural evolution of the art form, some things just don't make sense anymore. But - clearly - dynamic content still makes sense and always has, more intense combat still makes sense and always has, better technology to accomodate mass amounts of players still makes sense and always has, etc.
Instead, what are we getting? Ooh, voice-overs! 15-16 years ago i was amused while playing "Under A Killing Moon" that all the dialogue was voiced and the RPG had real actors and everything. Telling me TODAY that this is the best feature you can throw me is an insult to my intelligence. (It's just an example, don't get attached.)
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
But - clearly - dynamic content still makes sense and always has, more intense combat still makes sense and always has, better technology to accomodate mass amounts of players still makes sense and always has, etc.
It's always bothered me a bit that scalable, dynamic content hasn't appeared much more frequently.
Yes, we know set pathwalkers and static instances are easier and faster to plop down, but their time is done. That tech's much more than a decade old now. Surely some scalability would be a fine highlight point to sell some boxes?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
OP, WoWs community =/= the entire MMORPG community. It is arguably the worst MMO community. I know that's all you're basing your opinions on because everything you stated are the main topics on the WoW forums.
Since you're clearly a pvp junkie, all your points are thrown out the window. Ganking people for no reason then getting upset when people use certain builds to beat you over and over again...and you called PvE'ers cry babies.
MMOs have not evolved. Thats the problems. Most people don't know what they want or what makes a good MMO in practice. But most people are starting to notice that MMOs are crappy genres made to drain money. They keep you playing to absorb the money rather than keep you entertained because that would be too much work.
Fill up a room with 100 hardcore mmo gamers. I'm willing to bet my LIFE that no less than 90% of them feel anger most of the time when they play their favorite MMO for more than an hour. The same can be said about death match junkies. They get super excited when they win and turn into the hulk/a 4 year old having a fit when they lose. So my point is, the devs know how to keep people playing. Why would any normal person, let alone millions of people keep playing something that makes them so angry? Because they feel like they need to. So I will agree with you that its the players fault, but only because of that fact that devs keep making these garbage games because they know people will put money into them. People love paying for mental/emotional torture apparently
MMOs try to cater to the masses which to me is a problem because that means they dumb down the content so that even a caveman can do it. The mmo genre should be diversified so that we have different style of mmos players can choose from. Almost every developer makes the same mmo these days since Everquest. Boring....
I think the jist of the OP is that a person's bias towards their first MMORPG always clouds their judgment and they will always declare their first MMORPG to be superior to any newer game, even if the newer game is clearly better in every way. The implication is that newer MMORPGs are indeed superior to older ones.
This is very tempting to believe, and it definitely has some truth to it, no doubt. I'll be the first to admit that I have some bias towards UO (my first). But then I read an article like this one, that talks about revolutionary features that will be in new MMORPGs:
1. Encouragement to actually explore the world instead of just moving forward on a quest rail.
2. No more dedicated class roles, the ability to be flexible.
3. The players' actions actually affecting the world in a meaningful way.
The crazy thing is that UO had all of these features, I also think it had the best "community building" features of any MMORPG I have ever seen (player housing and all). Was it a perfect game? God no, it had tons of problems, and newer games definitely do certain things better than UO ever did. But it is interesting that the revolutionary features of tomorrow were pretty run of the mill a decade ago.
I think part of the problem is that the genre just became too formulaic, linear, and predictable in the post-WoW era. WoW was awesome, but so many games after it just tried to imitate it and fell flat. We've come to a point where we need to take all that new-era polish that WoW gave us and mix it with some of the old-era charm that games like UO had.
Since devs want to create a game that a lot of people will play, they'll listen more to the requests of that mindless majority, according to your statement, which makes them the main problem and the root cause for devs going for less-desirable design directions.
When taking a further step back, the problem becomes even more an MMO playerbase one, namely people who see most of the other MMO gamers as mindless and something inferior, for the simple reason that those people have different tastes and preferences in their gaming fun. Here we have a segment of the playerbase that looks down upon everyone who doesn't share their narrowed, limited gaming taste, who have become jaded after years of gaming, intolerant towards newer MMO game designs and those who enjoy it, and who overall have become a disgruntled, burnt out, dissatisfied, frustrated and/or overall negative group who can't enjoy most if not as good as all MMORPG's anymore that are around. A group that has become so hard to please that practically nothing in MMO gaming really pleases them anymore.
I think they're pretty much a part of the problem, ironic since it's them that see the current MMO genre as suffering big problems
The reasons of said developers for wanting to and creating crappy games is irrelevant in my argument. If they want to pander and create crappy games because millions of people will play them and pay millions of dollars, there is still no contradiction in what I said. They decide what game to make, how to make it, and who their target audience will be. If their motivation is based on an overwhelming desire to pander to the majority to make big bucks, that still doesn't mean it's the majority players' fault. It's theirs. They have the final say in it all.
The blue part I highlighted shows the flaw in the words you are using. Devs want to listen to a certain group of people, and thus you are saying, it is the peoples' fault. That's not my argument. My argument is that, in that situation, it's still the dev's fault. They can (a) try to make a good game while also pandering to the majority, (b) could try to make a good niche game for the minority, or (c) come up with some other clever way to make a good game. Either way, the decision and responsibility is theirs alone.
No motivating factor of the devs causes any kind of contradiction in that argument, unless you define contraction to mean, "You and I have different opinions," instead of, "Your argument has ideas which are logically incongruent."
Bottom line: There is no contradiction in my argument. We just have different opinions on whether the motivation behind the developers' decisions to make crappy games determines who is most responsible for a crappy game. I say motivation is irrelevant (which is consistent with everything else I've said). You say motivation isn't irrelevant, and in fact, if the motivation is millions of idiots clamoring for a crappy game, then it is those idiots' fault for the crappy game.
Well, there's of course a clear difference in opinion, namely that you consider those games to be 'crappy' which is your opinion, while the majority of MMO gamers don't see those games as crappy.
Simply put: if they have hordes of players playing their games and still make them lots of revenues even in this heavily competitive market, then they'll keep continuing on that road. If the majority of MMO gamers have shown to love themepark style MMO's more than they showed to love non-themepark styled MMO's, then it's the voice of that majority that devs will listen to. In fact, that's what they did.
I stand with my second part, namely that one of the problems as well is the group people who talk and see other MMO gamers as 'mindless' and 'idiots', especially the level of intolerance and narrowmindedness that it shows.
If you as an MMO company can please 1-2 people that have a very specific taste and will explode if you take 1 misstep in your design and who scorn all other MMO gamers and their tastes, or 10-20 people that have the openmindedness and tastes to enjoy the games you make more than that first group, then who would you rather listen to? That toxic, bitter and jaded first minority group or the more relaxed majority group?
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Again, my disappointment is more due to that fact that this stuff was already in good workable form 10 years ago, by now it should be well fleshed out as opposed to "being introduced".
In good workable form is I think a gross exaggeration, I read that AO was a mess its first year, buggy as hell, even more so than AoC at launch, so I highly doubt everything was in 'good workable form' as you claim it is. It's certainly not the workable and evolved format that they are at now.
User-Created Content, Mass Dynamic Content - including raiding and questing, single-server architecture, environment-interactive combat, FPS-hybrid combat, phasing/instancing, meaningful non-combat progression, permanent world interaction, skill-based (as opposed to time dedication) endgame accessibility - all these are awesome innovations. None of these are particularly new. Yet no game currently on the market and no game in development has ALL or even a majority of them. BY NOW, some game should.
Sorry, but everything that was in the older MMO's wasn't particularly new as well, it already existed in single player games (Ultima series) or MUD's. Furthermore, you mentioned AO that had some of those features in 2001 (which is still in doubt to me) but forget to mention that no other MMO had them and that for some years afterwards.
A lot of those features are shared and playable in more MMO's than they were in those early days.
This is why i'm disappointed. Not because the new games are worse, but because by now, they should be A LOT better than they are.
Sure, I give you that progress has been slow the past few years, that's what I often say myself. However, it isn't as if there has been no progress and change at all in those 5-6 years. But then again, it's also pretty clear that what you're saying doesn't apply anymore when you include the MMO's and their feature list of the next upcoming year.
If you read the quoted portion above and think "well, what he is really saying is that AO is the best game ever and he should really just go play that", then you're not getting my point. My point is that because it was on the table 10 years ago, games should be A LOT better by now. I am still buying games that are missing half the features AO had, this is fracking sad.
It's a bit off to expect an MMO company to put out an MMORPG that has the equal in features as MMO's of which the makers have had 5-10 extra development years to them.
Instead, what are we getting? Ooh, voice-overs! 15-16 years ago i was amused while playing "Under A Killing Moon" that all the dialogue was voiced and the RPG had real actors and everything. Telling me TODAY that this is the best feature you can throw me is an insult to my intelligence. (It's just an example, don't get attached.)
Like I said before, take a look at the feature list of the upcoming MMO's of the next 12 months, and things like the UGC (Foundry), situational and environment-interactive combat (Vindictus, see here), and the dynamic content (Rift) of recent MMO's, and you'll see a lot more changes than just VO, and a lot more gameplay diversity than you claim doesn't exist.
The point I'm making, if you consider that there are 2 design philosophies or 'schools' for MMO design, the world focused design and the game focused design, then it may be true that there has been little development over those past 10 years in MMO's that adhered to that first design model.
History clearly shows that the main course of the MMO genre of the past 10 years has followed the 2nd design philosophy, the game oriented one, and into that direction there has been quite some progress in the past 10 years. Progress, success and popularity, as the large number of people playing MMO's adhering to that model show compared to 10 years ago.
So, sure, if you look at the current MMO market from a follower or supporter of that 1st school, of the world oriented design philosophy, then of course, you'll find that not much has changed or progressed over the years.
if you look at the current MMO scene as a supporter of that 2nd school, with the game focused model, and compare it with 10 years ago, then a hell of a lot has changed and evolved over that 10 years.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Whatever happened to us playing an MMORPG just for fun?
Blame Blizzard who turned MMORPGs into a race to the end game and the end game into a race to get the uberest gear.
MMORPGs lost the fun when they became competitive games.
When they were virtual worlds, they were fun
Darkfall is one of the latest MMO where I had genuine fun, pity that apart from PvP offers little else, but there is a sense of belonging, I felt part of Agon
A game like that with a decent PvE would be the ideal game for me
Blame Blizzard who turned MMORPGs into a race to the end game and the end game into a race to get the uberest gear.
Nope, can't blame Blizz for that one, race-to-the-cap existed long before WoW did.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Comments
Totally agree with the OP, one thing is demand a better game but the % of players ruining a game before it even releases is growing with the time, i only expect that will decrease with time.
Contradiction isn't the right word. You just see the cause of the problem differently than I do. It isn't a contradiction for me to argue that the developers are the *ultimate* responsible party concerning whether a game is good or not, regardless of who or what their playerbase is composed.
Let me say it another way. The buck stops with the developers, regardless of the community their game is designed to draw, or does draw, or will draw in the future. The developers have the final say in the direction and content and crappiness of their game.
The reasons of said developers for wanting to and creating crappy games is irrelevant in my argument. If they want to pander and create crappy games because millions of people will play them and pay millions of dollars, there is still no contradiction in what I said. They decide what game to make, how to make it, and who their target audience will be. If their motivation is based on an overwhelming desire to pander to the majority to make big bucks, that still doesn't mean it's the majority players' fault. It's theirs. They have the final say in it all.
No contradiction. Semantics, semantics, semantics wrecks reasoning like you are using.
The blue part I highlighted shows the flaw in the words you are using. Devs want to listen to a certain group of people, and thus you are saying, it is the peoples' fault. That's not my argument. My argument is that, in that situation, it's still the dev's fault. They can (a) try to make a good game while also pandering to the majority, (b) could try to make a good niche game for the minority, or (c) come up with some other clever way to make a good game. Either way, the decision and responsibility is theirs alone.
No motivating factor of the devs causes any kind of contradiction in that argument, unless you define contraction to mean, "You and I have different opinions," instead of, "Your argument has ideas which are logically incongruent."
Bottom line: There is no contradiction in my argument. We just have different opinions on whether the motivation behind the developers' decisions to make crappy games determines who is most responsible for a crappy game. I say motivation is irrelevant (which is consistent with everything else I've said). You say motivation isn't irrelevant, and in fact, if the motivation is millions of idiots clamoring for a crappy game, then it is those idiots' fault for the crappy game.
Although I agree, I also think there is no obligation for people to move on. MMOs actively encourage you to build a community and an illusion of ownership. You can't expect people to switch games like they were changing the channel on the tv. Even when it's obvious someone is suffering more than they are gaining, it's hard to argue they shouldn't fight for their community, for their illusionary home.
Which is fine, in some moderation. But eventually "fighting for their community" seems to always turn more toward "bitter acrimony and flaming invective". The Devs become the Enemy, the Evil Empire Just Out To Ruin Our Fun...and once your burnout has reached that point, there's is just no turning back.
I'd say that, for a lot of players, a perma-ban can actually be a good thing.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Again, my disappointment is more due to that fact that this stuff was already in good workable form 10 years ago, by now it should be well fleshed out as opposed to "being introduced".
User-Created Content, Mass Dynamic Content - including raiding and questing, single-server architecture, environment-interactive combat, FPS-hybrid combat, phasing/instancing, meaningful non-combat progression, permanent world interaction, skill-based (as opposed to time dedication) endgame accessibility - all these are awesome innovations. None of these are particularly new. Yet no game currently on the market and no game in development has ALL or even a majority of them. BY NOW, some game should.
This is why i'm disappointed. Not because the new games are worse, but because by now, they should be A LOT better than they are.
If you read the quoted portion above and think "well, what he is really saying is that AO is the best game ever and he should really just go play that", then you're not getting my point. My point is that because it was on the table 10 years ago, games should be A LOT better by now. I am still buying games that are missing half the features AO had, this is fracking sad.
I have no attachment to out-dated "concepts" like corpse recovery, 20 hours camps and 200-person auto-attack raiding for a single drop. All this stuff is "old news". I don't consider these "Features" really, i consider these a natural evolution of the art form, some things just don't make sense anymore. But - clearly - dynamic content still makes sense and always has, more intense combat still makes sense and always has, better technology to accomodate mass amounts of players still makes sense and always has, etc.
Instead, what are we getting? Ooh, voice-overs! 15-16 years ago i was amused while playing "Under A Killing Moon" that all the dialogue was voiced and the RPG had real actors and everything. Telling me TODAY that this is the best feature you can throw me is an insult to my intelligence. (It's just an example, don't get attached.)
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
It's always bothered me a bit that scalable, dynamic content hasn't appeared much more frequently.
Yes, we know set pathwalkers and static instances are easier and faster to plop down, but their time is done. That tech's much more than a decade old now. Surely some scalability would be a fine highlight point to sell some boxes?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
OP, WoWs community =/= the entire MMORPG community. It is arguably the worst MMO community. I know that's all you're basing your opinions on because everything you stated are the main topics on the WoW forums.
Since you're clearly a pvp junkie, all your points are thrown out the window. Ganking people for no reason then getting upset when people use certain builds to beat you over and over again...and you called PvE'ers cry babies.
MMOs have not evolved. Thats the problems. Most people don't know what they want or what makes a good MMO in practice. But most people are starting to notice that MMOs are crappy genres made to drain money. They keep you playing to absorb the money rather than keep you entertained because that would be too much work.
Fill up a room with 100 hardcore mmo gamers. I'm willing to bet my LIFE that no less than 90% of them feel anger most of the time when they play their favorite MMO for more than an hour. The same can be said about death match junkies. They get super excited when they win and turn into the hulk/a 4 year old having a fit when they lose. So my point is, the devs know how to keep people playing. Why would any normal person, let alone millions of people keep playing something that makes them so angry? Because they feel like they need to. So I will agree with you that its the players fault, but only because of that fact that devs keep making these garbage games because they know people will put money into them. People love paying for mental/emotional torture apparently
MMOs try to cater to the masses which to me is a problem because that means they dumb down the content so that even a caveman can do it. The mmo genre should be diversified so that we have different style of mmos players can choose from. Almost every developer makes the same mmo these days since Everquest. Boring....
I think the jist of the OP is that a person's bias towards their first MMORPG always clouds their judgment and they will always declare their first MMORPG to be superior to any newer game, even if the newer game is clearly better in every way. The implication is that newer MMORPGs are indeed superior to older ones.
This is very tempting to believe, and it definitely has some truth to it, no doubt. I'll be the first to admit that I have some bias towards UO (my first). But then I read an article like this one, that talks about revolutionary features that will be in new MMORPGs:
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/117/1177008p1.html
Among the revolutionary new features are:
1. Encouragement to actually explore the world instead of just moving forward on a quest rail.
2. No more dedicated class roles, the ability to be flexible.
3. The players' actions actually affecting the world in a meaningful way.
The crazy thing is that UO had all of these features, I also think it had the best "community building" features of any MMORPG I have ever seen (player housing and all). Was it a perfect game? God no, it had tons of problems, and newer games definitely do certain things better than UO ever did. But it is interesting that the revolutionary features of tomorrow were pretty run of the mill a decade ago.
I think part of the problem is that the genre just became too formulaic, linear, and predictable in the post-WoW era. WoW was awesome, but so many games after it just tried to imitate it and fell flat. We've come to a point where we need to take all that new-era polish that WoW gave us and mix it with some of the old-era charm that games like UO had.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Well, there's of course a clear difference in opinion, namely that you consider those games to be 'crappy' which is your opinion, while the majority of MMO gamers don't see those games as crappy.
Simply put: if they have hordes of players playing their games and still make them lots of revenues even in this heavily competitive market, then they'll keep continuing on that road. If the majority of MMO gamers have shown to love themepark style MMO's more than they showed to love non-themepark styled MMO's, then it's the voice of that majority that devs will listen to. In fact, that's what they did.
I stand with my second part, namely that one of the problems as well is the group people who talk and see other MMO gamers as 'mindless' and 'idiots', especially the level of intolerance and narrowmindedness that it shows.
If you as an MMO company can please 1-2 people that have a very specific taste and will explode if you take 1 misstep in your design and who scorn all other MMO gamers and their tastes, or 10-20 people that have the openmindedness and tastes to enjoy the games you make more than that first group, then who would you rather listen to? That toxic, bitter and jaded first minority group or the more relaxed majority group?
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Like I said before, take a look at the feature list of the upcoming MMO's of the next 12 months, and things like the UGC (Foundry), situational and environment-interactive combat (Vindictus, see here), and the dynamic content (Rift) of recent MMO's, and you'll see a lot more changes than just VO, and a lot more gameplay diversity than you claim doesn't exist.
The point I'm making, if you consider that there are 2 design philosophies or 'schools' for MMO design, the world focused design and the game focused design, then it may be true that there has been little development over those past 10 years in MMO's that adhered to that first design model.
History clearly shows that the main course of the MMO genre of the past 10 years has followed the 2nd design philosophy, the game oriented one, and into that direction there has been quite some progress in the past 10 years. Progress, success and popularity, as the large number of people playing MMO's adhering to that model show compared to 10 years ago.
So, sure, if you look at the current MMO market from a follower or supporter of that 1st school, of the world oriented design philosophy, then of course, you'll find that not much has changed or progressed over the years.
if you look at the current MMO scene as a supporter of that 2nd school, with the game focused model, and compare it with 10 years ago, then a hell of a lot has changed and evolved over that 10 years.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Blame Blizzard who turned MMORPGs into a race to the end game and the end game into a race to get the uberest gear.
MMORPGs lost the fun when they became competitive games.
When they were virtual worlds, they were fun
Darkfall is one of the latest MMO where I had genuine fun, pity that apart from PvP offers little else, but there is a sense of belonging, I felt part of Agon
A game like that with a decent PvE would be the ideal game for me
Nope, can't blame Blizz for that one, race-to-the-cap existed long before WoW did.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.