I find it a lot easier to play small Co-Op (and even free to play games to an extent) with the friends I made playing MMOs over the years. The most important part of an MMO is the community, without it the games are soulless. Personally, I think the best way to keep a vested interest in any game is to keep in touch with friends through voice chat, emails, IRC, social networks, etc.. I feel extending relationships beyond the game is more important now than ever in MMOs because of design shifts in gameplay in a majority of new releases (more solo content, less RP tools, less player interaction).
My friends and I might not always want to play the same game all the time, but we can still hang out when we don't. That being said, I really do appreciate how a lot of MMOs are going free to play. It allows some of my friends who wouldn't normally pay 50$ for a certain game to possibly download the client and explore the game.
But you make some good points. But Im also serious, i need stuff....
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I agree with the OP. Alot of shared feelings here, I am just taking a break from MMO for a while. Playing alot of single player games, trying some hits of the past I never got to play (mostly because I was on an mmo at the time)
I miss the old days too, but I mean they are gone and never coming back. The games wont change direction suddenly, except from small indie projects (which sometimes are better then AAA titles, "Why cant i stop playing hammerfight"...? lol)
Anyway, Im waiting for Swtor to launch. Hoping and praying its as fun to play as all the vids seem.. If not ill wait around for the next title that grabs my interest..
Hope you find SOMETHING that you will enjoy, there are so many good games to play, even if the "magic" isnt there anymore..
I'm out as well. Not currently subbed to anything.
I got into MMO's for the promise of participating in a world simulator. I had assumed as is often the case as time when on, the simulatons would become better, more immersive, higher fidelity, greater scope. Clearly that didn't happen. The idea of MMO's as world simulators changed into MMO's just as video games, games you just pick up and play a bit, no big deal, no real attempt at offering players the chance to create unique characters and a deep, wide, vibrant dynamic world in which to belong, explore and develop. And for that kind of low key, low expectation play experience I can just play standalone games for MUCH cheaper and without the global chat.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Agree with paradigm. Games like UO were pure awesome because of their lack of hardcore structure. And EQ was pretty awesome because nobody led you around by the nose. You had to find your way. They didn't have teleportation travel or auto-travel. If you wanted to get somewhere you had to actually know where to turn, etc, just like you would have to in the real world. It was great! Newer games are just too 'small', in design, vision, and inspiration. Vanguard is probably the last game I played where exploration netted something. In that game you could find a little hole in the ground and BAM it was a huge friggin dungeon! ... Uh I thought this was just a little hole? lol
Darkfall could have been my new game, except the only cool thing in that whole game are the sieges and pvp combat. That's great, except I don't want to pvp all the friggin time. I like a little of everything.
nethervoid - Est. '97 [UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1 20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel
I too am currently unsubbed (except I have my pre-order on TOR) and reading this thread brings back a lot of my feelings. On one hand I have some really great memories in a lot of different games. Some I periodically go back and play, and though my nostalgia for Everquest and Diablo return often, I still find that the wait on timers is incredibly long. Especially when you are only talking to yourself in an empty zone the size of some small states. On the other is a life filled with family and responsibility and time has become limited so that some of the things I used to do I can no longer do. I remember getting the dark elf mask in Everquest II with a solid group of guildies that had already run much of the quests and they let me and a couple of others join in to finish it off. What started as a Saturday afternoon adventure turned into the early morning hours when we came up against a cooldown on a spawn that could occur anywhere in the next 24 hours. We took turns watching the spawn spot and regrouped in the afternoon on Sunday to finish out all the final stages and the turn-in.
Developers are hearing a lot of information from people. Make it faster. Let us kill each other cause I hate the whole world. Make more story but don't make it take too long. Make it harder, but the rogues are overpowered and you need to nerf them. Make it easier because my class can't kill anything. I don't want to be a developer. Period. Ever. I do love a great story though. So much so that I still play pen and paper roleplaying games on Saturday nights where we knock out 4-6 hours most every week of the year. Our current story arc is over three years in the making and none of our characters have maxed out any stats or skills. What developer or game company is given that amount of time to bring a game into fruition? Granted, if we didn't have lives, we could get together every night and we probably would have done several arcs and created a few alts to fill in the world, but that's not going to happen. Our story has time to live and breathe. We have to account for everyone's schedule and we make adjustments. At the end of it, we will have told a story that only 6 of us will know (and all of us probably don't remember everything exactly the same). Our goal is not to reach the end of the story. Our goal is to put life into our characters and allow them to have emotion and humanity so that they impact other people.
MMOs have a tough time trying to reproduce that. Newer players are so busy trying to accumulate as much shiny as possible. "Hard core" players are trying to win the slot machine and get raid gear. Only a few of us actually try to help other people, even if it interferes with what we were planning on doing (most will help someone if they get something back out of it). I miss my old guild, the Knights of the Holy Storm. We were a pretty epic bunch in Everquest until we split down the middle in trying to play EQII. I was one of the ones that moved to the new shiny-shiny. We held our own for a while and even took over Irontoes East on Monday nights in Qeynos where we had story night. I guess we did fairly well as we became a regular stop-over for Guides to bring the new trainees and show them what was different about a roleplaying server. But in the end, we all were pursuing different stories and we didn't take time to listen to each others tales and allow them to have life and breathe. We were all so focused on what we could do ourselves that we lost the big picture and fell apart.
I don't know that I'll ever find the close camraderie of our Saturday night games, but somethin in me begs me to keep looking. So year after year I try new titles or check on old ones and for a while I might find a few friends and I listen to their stories for a while, but if I don't keep up with them by spending my life in their world, they eventually move on to telling their stories to others who are too busy trying to tell their own that they do not hear each other. Perhaps someday I'll find others of like mind in a game I'm playing and we'll all get old together blowing smoke rings and sharing stories and singing drinking songs. Until then, I'll keep listening and waiting.
This is mainly to the OP, but can also apply to everyone else that has given up, or feels like MMO's lost it, i can suggest one thing, that will show you that new MMO's still are out there, that do not cater to easy mode, this game had me wowing every day i logged on, even after it was out for months, i still have it downloaded on my comp, even though i am not subbed to it, but i always stay updated and also am waiting for good updates or patches to come back to. This game is called Darkfall. This game was the wildest MMO ride i have ever had, this game redefines community, team work, and how much Loot should really matter to you. Me personally am waiting for Darkfall 2.0. So for all of you, that need a new hope, if you are ready to get some hardcore, adrenaline rushing gameplay, Go play some Darkfall. and then tell me ALL developers have failed us.
Thanks, but no thanks. Not looking for a world full of PvPers. Had my share of people making me mad for no reason working helpdesk lines. Darkfall might be the greatest game in the world, but I will never choose a PvP world again. I've done my time and paid my dues and do not see a reason to aggravate the elevated blood pressure I get from a normal day's work just so some young punk with a faster twitch can loot my corpse and camp it until I log out for the night.
I agree with the OP as I was in those early games when they first arrived but I blame the players because they are what drives the business so catering to them is the only way to make money. (or at least the kind of money they want). Ok I blame the developers too.
Yeah, I've become very apathetic about the whole thing myself. There is still a part of me hoping for some great new game to come along but that part of me has been reduced to the sort of hopeless hope that people cling to regarding things like winning a multi-state lottery. You know it isn't going to happen but you still cling to that tiny shred of hope.
I can't often find the motivation to even post here anymore. I had stopped coming to this site,....still not sure why I bothered coming back. Just something to do I guess.
For those of us who are fed up with the state of MMOs I don't see any signs of change in the near future. It sucks but that's just the way it is.
Apart of this I might occasionally play even some decent themepark but ONLY if it is P2P without microtransactions/item shop.
If F2P model will dominate (looking at Asia market that is not necessarily true as f2p coexist there with p2p games) , but if it will I will leave permanently. I cannot stomach F2P / item shops , etc anymore and I've tried.
You just need to take a break from the mmo scene for awhile and recharge your batteries. Like you mentioned, go take on some console games and when you are ready come back to us.
This /
I take a 3 month break from time to time and it helps renew my desire to play MMO's again.
You just need to take a break from the mmo scene for awhile and recharge your batteries. Like you mentioned, go take on some console games and when you are ready come back to us.
This /
I take a 3 month break from time to time and it helps renew my desire to play MMO's again.
It might work for you, but for people like me a time away really doesn't help as it's simply not a case of burnout. It's disappointment with the junk that has been released and a lack of desire to bother with them. But we keep watching and waiting, hoping that someone will finally come along and remember what this genre was all about.
I have my fingers crossed for EverQuest Next, but hey.. this is SOE we're talking about.
Honestly, story can never be done too much. As long as it's interactive, the player can take an active role, and there is combat, crafting, and other games mixed througought.
And no current MMO has succeeded at story. Considering that single player RPGs are often better than tv and movies in telling a successful engaging story, it's sad that todays MMOs are often worse than tv and movies in telling a successful engaging story. Looking at the best reason why, it seems to come down to money. It's very expensive to fully voice all of your NPCs, to fully animate them as well as NPCs are animated in single player RPGs, including facial animations. And to coordinate all of that with enough content to last months until a new expansion pack. And then do it all over again.
Since it's too expensive, current MMOs have almost no NPC facial animations, very basic NPC body animations. The NPCs will only usually speak at most the first sentence of the quest text. How can you tell an engaging story like that? Who wants to listen to an NPC who is less convincing than a sock puppet?
Im sorry but mmos and well games in general have always given you paths to take. You choose which path to go. Game has raids doesnt mean you have to raid. Game has pvp doesnt mean you have to pvp. A game has quest taking you to a certain area doesnt mean you have to go to that certain area or even do a single quest. There is plenty to splore in games you have to chose to do it. If you dont its not really the games fault but your own for thinking you have to do the things you wish not too. THe games give you the world and the tools you are who makes your adventure fun or horrible.
Im sorry but mmos and well games in general have always given you paths to take. You choose which path to go. Game has raids doesnt mean you have to raid. Game has pvp doesnt mean you have to pvp.
While this statement is true, it is not realistic.
In WoW, what else is there to do at end-game besides PvP or raid? What other content does that game have to do for people who are max level? Not a whole lot of content unless you want to RP and creating your own content.
In UO there was no "raiding" or quests to do, but even at 7xGM status there was still enough content to last for years, even for hardcore players. There was no need to make things up, content was a part of the world. You could tame dragons, search for rare ore, become a great weaponsmith unrivaled by anyone else on the server. You could create malls, be a real estate agent, sell marked runes to exotic locations, be a deep sea fisher, be a pirate, etc. The possibilities were near limitless back then.
The big difference between these two is that UO was a virtual world while WoW is just a game.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
lets face it the nature of MMO's is to be repetitive and ultimately boring unless you get into a super guild and you get along with them. The other day I broke out Vampire Masqueriade Bloodlines and could not believe how much fun I was haveing much more so than a mmo
Comments
I find it a lot easier to play small Co-Op (and even free to play games to an extent) with the friends I made playing MMOs over the years. The most important part of an MMO is the community, without it the games are soulless. Personally, I think the best way to keep a vested interest in any game is to keep in touch with friends through voice chat, emails, IRC, social networks, etc.. I feel extending relationships beyond the game is more important now than ever in MMOs because of design shifts in gameplay in a majority of new releases (more solo content, less RP tools, less player interaction).
My friends and I might not always want to play the same game all the time, but we can still hang out when we don't. That being said, I really do appreciate how a lot of MMOs are going free to play. It allows some of my friends who wouldn't normally pay 50$ for a certain game to possibly download the client and explore the game.
Can I have your stuff?
WAR, Rift, or Champions?
But you make some good points. But Im also serious, i need stuff....
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I agree with the OP. Alot of shared feelings here, I am just taking a break from MMO for a while. Playing alot of single player games, trying some hits of the past I never got to play (mostly because I was on an mmo at the time)
I miss the old days too, but I mean they are gone and never coming back. The games wont change direction suddenly, except from small indie projects (which sometimes are better then AAA titles, "Why cant i stop playing hammerfight"...? lol)
Anyway, Im waiting for Swtor to launch. Hoping and praying its as fun to play as all the vids seem.. If not ill wait around for the next title that grabs my interest..
Hope you find SOMETHING that you will enjoy, there are so many good games to play, even if the "magic" isnt there anymore..
Sounds like total burnout. Take a long break, you may find yourself missing the social interaction after a while and return.
I'm out as well. Not currently subbed to anything.
I got into MMO's for the promise of participating in a world simulator. I had assumed as is often the case as time when on, the simulatons would become better, more immersive, higher fidelity, greater scope. Clearly that didn't happen. The idea of MMO's as world simulators changed into MMO's just as video games, games you just pick up and play a bit, no big deal, no real attempt at offering players the chance to create unique characters and a deep, wide, vibrant dynamic world in which to belong, explore and develop. And for that kind of low key, low expectation play experience I can just play standalone games for MUCH cheaper and without the global chat.
I feel many vets just have a severe case of....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEuw2mgLRuQ
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Agree with paradigm. Games like UO were pure awesome because of their lack of hardcore structure. And EQ was pretty awesome because nobody led you around by the nose. You had to find your way. They didn't have teleportation travel or auto-travel. If you wanted to get somewhere you had to actually know where to turn, etc, just like you would have to in the real world. It was great! Newer games are just too 'small', in design, vision, and inspiration. Vanguard is probably the last game I played where exploration netted something. In that game you could find a little hole in the ground and BAM it was a huge friggin dungeon! ... Uh I thought this was just a little hole? lol
Darkfall could have been my new game, except the only cool thing in that whole game are the sieges and pvp combat. That's great, except I don't want to pvp all the friggin time. I like a little of everything.
nethervoid - Est. '97
[UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1
20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel
I too am currently unsubbed (except I have my pre-order on TOR) and reading this thread brings back a lot of my feelings. On one hand I have some really great memories in a lot of different games. Some I periodically go back and play, and though my nostalgia for Everquest and Diablo return often, I still find that the wait on timers is incredibly long. Especially when you are only talking to yourself in an empty zone the size of some small states. On the other is a life filled with family and responsibility and time has become limited so that some of the things I used to do I can no longer do. I remember getting the dark elf mask in Everquest II with a solid group of guildies that had already run much of the quests and they let me and a couple of others join in to finish it off. What started as a Saturday afternoon adventure turned into the early morning hours when we came up against a cooldown on a spawn that could occur anywhere in the next 24 hours. We took turns watching the spawn spot and regrouped in the afternoon on Sunday to finish out all the final stages and the turn-in.
Developers are hearing a lot of information from people. Make it faster. Let us kill each other cause I hate the whole world. Make more story but don't make it take too long. Make it harder, but the rogues are overpowered and you need to nerf them. Make it easier because my class can't kill anything. I don't want to be a developer. Period. Ever. I do love a great story though. So much so that I still play pen and paper roleplaying games on Saturday nights where we knock out 4-6 hours most every week of the year. Our current story arc is over three years in the making and none of our characters have maxed out any stats or skills. What developer or game company is given that amount of time to bring a game into fruition? Granted, if we didn't have lives, we could get together every night and we probably would have done several arcs and created a few alts to fill in the world, but that's not going to happen. Our story has time to live and breathe. We have to account for everyone's schedule and we make adjustments. At the end of it, we will have told a story that only 6 of us will know (and all of us probably don't remember everything exactly the same). Our goal is not to reach the end of the story. Our goal is to put life into our characters and allow them to have emotion and humanity so that they impact other people.
MMOs have a tough time trying to reproduce that. Newer players are so busy trying to accumulate as much shiny as possible. "Hard core" players are trying to win the slot machine and get raid gear. Only a few of us actually try to help other people, even if it interferes with what we were planning on doing (most will help someone if they get something back out of it). I miss my old guild, the Knights of the Holy Storm. We were a pretty epic bunch in Everquest until we split down the middle in trying to play EQII. I was one of the ones that moved to the new shiny-shiny. We held our own for a while and even took over Irontoes East on Monday nights in Qeynos where we had story night. I guess we did fairly well as we became a regular stop-over for Guides to bring the new trainees and show them what was different about a roleplaying server. But in the end, we all were pursuing different stories and we didn't take time to listen to each others tales and allow them to have life and breathe. We were all so focused on what we could do ourselves that we lost the big picture and fell apart.
I don't know that I'll ever find the close camraderie of our Saturday night games, but somethin in me begs me to keep looking. So year after year I try new titles or check on old ones and for a while I might find a few friends and I listen to their stories for a while, but if I don't keep up with them by spending my life in their world, they eventually move on to telling their stories to others who are too busy trying to tell their own that they do not hear each other. Perhaps someday I'll find others of like mind in a game I'm playing and we'll all get old together blowing smoke rings and sharing stories and singing drinking songs. Until then, I'll keep listening and waiting.
yep thats why im not subbed to any game right now, when i got into MMOs it was the idea of living a life in an amazing fantasy world.
now im stuck with games where the whole goal is gaining pixels with purple names. so sad how this genre has fallen.
This is mainly to the OP, but can also apply to everyone else that has given up, or feels like MMO's lost it, i can suggest one thing, that will show you that new MMO's still are out there, that do not cater to easy mode, this game had me wowing every day i logged on, even after it was out for months, i still have it downloaded on my comp, even though i am not subbed to it, but i always stay updated and also am waiting for good updates or patches to come back to. This game is called Darkfall. This game was the wildest MMO ride i have ever had, this game redefines community, team work, and how much Loot should really matter to you. Me personally am waiting for Darkfall 2.0. So for all of you, that need a new hope, if you are ready to get some hardcore, adrenaline rushing gameplay, Go play some Darkfall. and then tell me ALL developers have failed us.
Thanks, but no thanks. Not looking for a world full of PvPers. Had my share of people making me mad for no reason working helpdesk lines. Darkfall might be the greatest game in the world, but I will never choose a PvP world again. I've done my time and paid my dues and do not see a reason to aggravate the elevated blood pressure I get from a normal day's work just so some young punk with a faster twitch can loot my corpse and camp it until I log out for the night.
I agree with the OP as I was in those early games when they first arrived but I blame the players because they are what drives the business so catering to them is the only way to make money. (or at least the kind of money they want). Ok I blame the developers too.
Gotta look below the surface for the gems!
Though I do agree with most of your sentiments.
Yeah, I've become very apathetic about the whole thing myself. There is still a part of me hoping for some great new game to come along but that part of me has been reduced to the sort of hopeless hope that people cling to regarding things like winning a multi-state lottery. You know it isn't going to happen but you still cling to that tiny shred of hope.
I can't often find the motivation to even post here anymore. I had stopped coming to this site,....still not sure why I bothered coming back. Just something to do I guess.
For those of us who are fed up with the state of MMOs I don't see any signs of change in the near future. It sucks but that's just the way it is.
My one of last hope is ArcheAge.
Apart of this I might occasionally play even some decent themepark but ONLY if it is P2P without microtransactions/item shop.
If F2P model will dominate (looking at Asia market that is not necessarily true as f2p coexist there with p2p games) , but if it will I will leave permanently. I cannot stomach F2P / item shops , etc anymore and I've tried.
This /
I take a 3 month break from time to time and it helps renew my desire to play MMO's again.
It might work for you, but for people like me a time away really doesn't help as it's simply not a case of burnout. It's disappointment with the junk that has been released and a lack of desire to bother with them. But we keep watching and waiting, hoping that someone will finally come along and remember what this genre was all about.
I have my fingers crossed for EverQuest Next, but hey.. this is SOE we're talking about.
sad but true
Archage....if that doenst work out, Ill maybe leave the mmo genre as well. I have such a hard time finding something different then WoW:(
probably correct; but, if you can beat my chickens teeth I'll agree
Chins
Honestly, story can never be done too much. As long as it's interactive, the player can take an active role, and there is combat, crafting, and other games mixed througought.
And no current MMO has succeeded at story. Considering that single player RPGs are often better than tv and movies in telling a successful engaging story, it's sad that todays MMOs are often worse than tv and movies in telling a successful engaging story. Looking at the best reason why, it seems to come down to money. It's very expensive to fully voice all of your NPCs, to fully animate them as well as NPCs are animated in single player RPGs, including facial animations. And to coordinate all of that with enough content to last months until a new expansion pack. And then do it all over again.
Since it's too expensive, current MMOs have almost no NPC facial animations, very basic NPC body animations. The NPCs will only usually speak at most the first sentence of the quest text. How can you tell an engaging story like that? Who wants to listen to an NPC who is less convincing than a sock puppet?
Im sorry but mmos and well games in general have always given you paths to take. You choose which path to go. Game has raids doesnt mean you have to raid. Game has pvp doesnt mean you have to pvp. A game has quest taking you to a certain area doesnt mean you have to go to that certain area or even do a single quest. There is plenty to splore in games you have to chose to do it. If you dont its not really the games fault but your own for thinking you have to do the things you wish not too. THe games give you the world and the tools you are who makes your adventure fun or horrible.
While this statement is true, it is not realistic.
In WoW, what else is there to do at end-game besides PvP or raid? What other content does that game have to do for people who are max level? Not a whole lot of content unless you want to RP and creating your own content.
In UO there was no "raiding" or quests to do, but even at 7xGM status there was still enough content to last for years, even for hardcore players. There was no need to make things up, content was a part of the world. You could tame dragons, search for rare ore, become a great weaponsmith unrivaled by anyone else on the server. You could create malls, be a real estate agent, sell marked runes to exotic locations, be a deep sea fisher, be a pirate, etc. The possibilities were near limitless back then.
The big difference between these two is that UO was a virtual world while WoW is just a game.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
lets face it the nature of MMO's is to be repetitive and ultimately boring unless you get into a super guild and you get along with them. The other day I broke out Vampire Masqueriade Bloodlines and could not believe how much fun I was haveing much more so than a mmo