I don't think I ever took 8h to clear a raid in EQ like it can take in some new games. You could pretty well log only 30 minutes in EQ and enjoy it. What is so different today that makes you enjoy more of your 30 minutes online?
I have a different experience. Most of the raids I took part in during my days were the planes, from hate to fear to air. The first few visits to plane of air took days just endless wiping hopping the "islands" in the air. It was fun but unnecessarily long due to all those "recovery chores".
MMORPG should be like books and movies, entertainement something that immerse you in something new. Not cause you hate your life but simply to try something else. Thats what the RPG stands for.
Very true and actually Bioware solo games provide me with more kick than MMOs. That is why I have no sub now, after having 3-4 concurrent subs for something like 15 years.
I don't think I ever took 8h to clear a raid in EQ like it can take in some new games. You could pretty well log only 30 minutes in EQ and enjoy it. What is so different today that makes you enjoy more of your 30 minutes online?
I have a different experience. Most of the raids I took part in during my days were the planes, from hate to fear to air. The first few visits to plane of air took days just endless wiping hopping the "islands" in the air. It was fun but unnecessarily long due to all those "recovery chores".
MMORPG should be like books and movies, entertainement something that immerse you in something new. Not cause you hate your life but simply to try something else. Thats what the RPG stands for.
Very true and actually Bioware solo games provide me with more kick than MMOs. That is why I have no sub now, after having 3-4 concurrent subs for something like 15 years.
Cheers
I prolly keep better memories of EQ cause I was never in a raiding guild. I think when I quit there was still only 1 plane anyway. It was more of a social experience than a gaming one for me.
I also like Bioware stuff, TOR should gives us the RPG back just not sure about the MMO.
I don't think I ever took 8h to clear a raid in EQ like it can take in some new games. You could pretty well log only 30 minutes in EQ and enjoy it. What is so different today that makes you enjoy more of your 30 minutes online?
I have a different experience. Most of the raids I took part in during my days were the planes, from hate to fear to air. The first few visits to plane of air took days just endless wiping hopping the "islands" in the air. It was fun but unnecessarily long due to all those "recovery chores".
MMORPG should be like books and movies, entertainement something that immerse you in something new. Not cause you hate your life but simply to try something else. Thats what the RPG stands for.
Very true and actually Bioware solo games provide me with more kick than MMOs. That is why I have no sub now, after having 3-4 concurrent subs for something like 15 years.
Cheers
I prolly keep better memories of EQ cause I was never in a raiding guild. I think when I quit there was still only 1 plane anyway. It was more of a social experience than a gaming one for me.
I also like Bioware stuff, TOR should gives us the RPG back just not sure about the MMO.
Skyrim 11.11.11, that is what I am waiting for. Though I might be too busy at work by then.
I thought I was an anarchist, lol, you rocked it. Nice thoughts, great analogies and super-graphics to drive the point home.
ROFL I spent 3 days inside the entrance to a dungeon, levelled five times and had not even seen 99.9% of the dungeon. I stumbled across the place adventuring in one of those 'Death Zones', and found some mobs I could kill (if you want to call it that). After a week, I finally left the dungeon, a champion. A month later, I learned it was an epic quest dungeon (lol).
Fun times for sure... back in the day.
Another time, I completed a guild sponsored quest for an epic necklace. I missed the portal back home and had to hoof it. Exiting the dungeon, some high level mobs began pursuing me. I ran and jumped off a cliff, where I died. Well, had I died on the top, it would have taken half the guild to retrieve my body and newly acquired necklace... Instead, it took three hours of hiding ducking and running to near death to grab my original corpse (hence forth, corpse run).
The death of rpg in mmorpgs is very clearly defined by the widely accepted argument that in a cash shop vanity items are ok to sell, anything that impacts combat or char progression is not.
Right there is the generally accepted view that rpg is meaningless and hack n slash is all.
I agree with you, but you have to ask yourself, if RPG was not important, would people still be buying those things from the cash shops? They obviously are buying them, otherwise you wouldn't see them up for sale, you know?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Originally posted by Palebane Originally posted by Paradigm68 The death of rpg in mmorpgs is very clearly defined by the widely accepted argument that in a cash shop vanity items are ok to sell, anything that impacts combat or char progression is not. Right there is the generally accepted view that rpg is meaningless and hack n slash is all.
I agree with you, but you have to ask yourself, if RPG was not important, would people still be buying those things from the cash shops? They obviously are buying them, otherwise you wouldn't see them up for sale, you know?
I don't think people are buying those things for RPG. I think they just want to look 'good' or at least look affluent. It's the same reason people buy things from Abercrombie & Fitch instead of Target. The cloths are not going to last 5 times longer and they do not look 5 times better, but people are willing to pay 5 times as much for them. It's not an RPG thing, it's a status thing.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The death of rpg in mmorpgs is very clearly defined by the widely accepted argument that in a cash shop vanity items are ok to sell, anything that impacts combat or char progression is not.
Right there is the generally accepted view that rpg is meaningless and hack n slash is all.
I agree with you, but you have to ask yourself, if RPG was not important, would people still be buying those things from the cash shops? They obviously are buying them, otherwise you wouldn't see them up for sale, you know?
I don't think people are buying those things for RPG. I think they just want to look 'good' or at least look affluent. It's the same reason people buy things from Abercrombie & Fitch instead of Target. The cloths are not going to last 5 times longer and they do not look 5 times better, but people are willing to pay 5 times as much for them. It's not an RPG thing, it's a status thing.
I agree with you as well. However, a big part of RPG is status, in my opinion. The people who pay for vanity items and wear them may not use them to interact with others, but they are participating in a fundamental aspect of role-playing, from my perspective. They probably don't even realize it and may even stop buying them if they did.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Because there's more vegian then carnivore (following your drift) that plays mmo and WOW proved it? MMOs are made to make money. Balance point vegian, so you invest there. Which is sad, because I also like the risk. Not insane, pointless risk, but a real challenge.
Anyway, carnivore is a dying race, more people are leaning their diet with veggies. *sigh*
Unfortuantely, he's right.
There are for more people who want the instant gratification. They're the same people that don't like movies where if something doesn't blow up in the first 5 mintues, it's either a chick flick, or it better be a comedy. They want to be entertained, and entertained NOW.
Story? Story is so analog. Good character development? Unless it's a brief 3 minute flashback to how the guy became a ninja, what good is it?
They don't have patience, and they THINK they don't have time. And they're the majority.
People (let's face facts here, older people mostly, like myself and I suspect the author) were brought up in a different culture, where everything took time. That culture is slowly fading away - It's been replaced by a culture that measures everything by the second.
Absolutely meaningless.
There are far more people who are obese (at least in the US, which is often considered the only market that matters with only China as possible competition). Does that mean we should all quit taking care of ourselves and gorge on Hoho's? Being healthy isn't nearly as profitable to companies as being obese. When you consider all the various diet plans/supplements AND lapband purveyors AND the various diabetes drugs created by the largest pharmcological labs in the world AND the fact that healthy people spend MUCH less time in doctors' offices and hospitals than obese people, you'd think being obese is the next big thing. It's not. Likewise, faceroll MMOs like the majority of games seem to be nowadays, have problems with retention because they suck. Anyone who played EQ1 before they gutted the game's heart could tell you that there were many times that they only kept playing because of their friends ingame (or their guild). That's where the 'EverCrack' label came from. People bonded over those difficult situations that so-called MMO players now (who, by and large, are just console gamers in reality) considered time sinks. Running from Qeynos to Freeport (at low levels) was almost always done in a group, unless you were a hardcore vet who had done it dozens of times already. When Vapuk Shralock waxed your ass the moment you zoned into Highpass, your group dragged your corpse to (relative) safety (and you hoped they didn't completely loot all your stuff).
I totally agree with Coyote though. For people who think profitability should trump all, I hope you still think that when your health care provider expresses the same sentiment. The problem in this area (much as it is in healthcare) is that when one company does it and produces greater profits, EVERYONE does it to produce greater profit. Thus, you're left with a landscape sodden with games made for the "I only have an hour to play" crowd and NONE for those who want worlds and not simply online extensions of God of War. Everyone looks the same, because there's only one set of armor worth getting for every class and the game lacks difficulty so much that even the most casual of players can get it. "Waaa, I can't get the armor/weapons because I only play 15 seconds a day" so the developer capitulates with "Okay, just hail this NPC every day and after 21 hails, he'll give you the armor." Yeah, I bet welfare epics were an idea everyone's looking to copy.
OP...well said. I'm not playing ANY game. Pay or free. .I would If I could find a game worthy of my time. I would agree with the last few years games. Mindlessly unimaginative...RIFT bing the latest cop out. So I sit and wait for GW2...or Arch age....or Prime. Till then mmogs games get nothing from me...because they bring nothing but mindless following of work other have developed and we as gamers are frankly sick and tired of seeing. Rant over. Going to have fun watching football.Now thats entertaining.
LOL, Coyote, you did it! Alas, there are not as many angry replies to your post as I had hoped. I'll give it time. Also, I wish I had made some sort of effort to get into MMO's, back in the day, when there was that feeling of risk involved. I completely love a challenge and I like for games to "get scary" at times, with a sense that I could stand to really lose something if I don't bring my brain with me. Luckily, during the days of EQ1 and other risk-factor-MMO's, I got to play a lot of pnp RPG's. The GM's I knew brought lots of these types of situations into game-play, and the whole time, I was wishing that there was some kind of way to transfer this type of RP'ing to video games...I just never knew (or researched) that this had happened, plus I owned a POS PC (and a strict budget) at the time, which didn't help matters.
Maybe one day, this type of game-play will make it's way back...I dunno though. If it does, I'll have to give it shot.
LOL, Coyote, you did it! Alas, there are not as many angry replies to your post as I had hoped. I'll give it time. Also, I wish I had made some sort of effort to get into MMO's, back in the day, when there was that feeling of risk involved. I completely love a challenge and I like for games to "get scary" at times, with a sense that I could stand to really lose something if I don't bring my brain with me. Luckily, during the days of EQ1 and other risk-factor-MMO's, I got to play a lot of pnp RPG's. The GM's I knew brought lots of these types of situations into game-play, and the whole time, I was wishing that there was some kind of way to transfer this type of RP'ing to video games...I just never knew (or researched) that this had happened, plus I owned a POS PC (and a strict budget) at the time, which didn't help matters.
Maybe one day, this type of game-play will make it's way back...I dunno though. If it does, I'll have to give it shot.
Thats because the mods are just deleting the posts that disagree and issuing warnings/suspensions/bans with some bullshit made up reason.
LOL, Coyote, you did it! Alas, there are not as many angry replies to your post as I had hoped. I'll give it time. Also, I wish I had made some sort of effort to get into MMO's, back in the day, when there was that feeling of risk involved. I completely love a challenge and I like for games to "get scary" at times, with a sense that I could stand to really lose something if I don't bring my brain with me. Luckily, during the days of EQ1 and other risk-factor-MMO's, I got to play a lot of pnp RPG's. The GM's I knew brought lots of these types of situations into game-play, and the whole time, I was wishing that there was some kind of way to transfer this type of RP'ing to video games...I just never knew (or researched) that this had happened, plus I owned a POS PC (and a strict budget) at the time, which didn't help matters.
Maybe one day, this type of game-play will make it's way back...I dunno though. If it does, I'll have to give it shot.
Thats because the mods are just deleting the posts that disagree and issuing warnings/suspensions/bans with some bullshit made up reason.
That's because the only defense those posters have are personal insults and child-like antics.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
LOL, Coyote, you did it! Alas, there are not as many angry replies to your post as I had hoped. I'll give it time. Also, I wish I had made some sort of effort to get into MMO's, back in the day, when there was that feeling of risk involved. I completely love a challenge and I like for games to "get scary" at times, with a sense that I could stand to really lose something if I don't bring my brain with me. Luckily, during the days of EQ1 and other risk-factor-MMO's, I got to play a lot of pnp RPG's. The GM's I knew brought lots of these types of situations into game-play, and the whole time, I was wishing that there was some kind of way to transfer this type of RP'ing to video games...I just never knew (or researched) that this had happened, plus I owned a POS PC (and a strict budget) at the time, which didn't help matters.
Maybe one day, this type of game-play will make it's way back...I dunno though. If it does, I'll have to give it shot.
Thats because the mods are just deleting the posts that disagree and issuing warnings/suspensions/bans with some bullshit made up reason.
That's because the only defense those posters have are personal insults and child-like antics.
Yes because saying someone who disagrees with your viewpoint doesnt know what a vagina is is so mature and non insulting. But please continue acting like you know what you're talking about, its clear facts and truth would never stand in your way of posting drivel like you just did.
LOL, Coyote, you did it! Alas, there are not as many angry replies to your post as I had hoped. I'll give it time. Also, I wish I had made some sort of effort to get into MMO's, back in the day, when there was that feeling of risk involved. I completely love a challenge and I like for games to "get scary" at times, with a sense that I could stand to really lose something if I don't bring my brain with me. Luckily, during the days of EQ1 and other risk-factor-MMO's, I got to play a lot of pnp RPG's. The GM's I knew brought lots of these types of situations into game-play, and the whole time, I was wishing that there was some kind of way to transfer this type of RP'ing to video games...I just never knew (or researched) that this had happened, plus I owned a POS PC (and a strict budget) at the time, which didn't help matters.
Maybe one day, this type of game-play will make it's way back...I dunno though. If it does, I'll have to give it shot.
Thats because the mods are just deleting the posts that disagree and issuing warnings/suspensions/bans with some bullshit made up reason.
That's because the only defense those posters have are personal insults and child-like antics.
Yes because saying someone who disagrees with your viewpoint doesnt know what a vagina is is so mature and non insulting. But please continue acting like you know what you're talking about, its clear facts and truth would never stand in your way of posting drivel like you just did.
Thank you for proving my point.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Oh god... Stop it already. The horse is dead. There is not much you can do about it.
Writing about this all makes it sound like whining.
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
Which brings me to the most flame inducing thing I've ever written: "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Or just may be. May be the tables have turned and it's not for you anymore.
You can talk about this and argue all you want, but truth is simple.
Harder stuff? Less people like it.
Less people like it? Less people play and pay for it.
Less people pay for it? You don't need a "brotherhood scribe" to tell us what happens then.
Now, if i continue this chain any longer, i risk turning into a certain captain with a cape and all.
You can call me/us/them noobz, loosers or sissies, but the fact will remain. Industry was always after our money. Now that casual gaming is the norm, and investors are always putting money where there are less risks, there are not a lot of developers who can or will risk it themselves.
Oh and before any "wow was your first online game so bla bla bla". I myself started my MMORPG journey with MUDs(close as you could get to MMORPG at that time), then moved on to Meridian and after that UO, and so on. I remember the days and it was fun while it lasted. Now the new kids are on the block and majority wins. Either join the crowd or just find something else productive to do. I know i have Peace.
Shouldnt it be possible to make a game like? On this forum there are a lot of people who want something aside the watered-down versions of mmorpg that are available today. There are games catering for various minorities already, so it seems likely there will be one for the old and disgruntled people from mmorpg.com ;-).
I really despise the argument that "this is popular so it must be good" argument.
I suppose, then, that's exactly WHY you choose to listen to Justin Bieber, right?
Exactly. The argument falls apart upon close scrutiny and is, in fact, a valueless value judgement.
If the only reason that you like a game, book or movie is because everyone else does, then I feel mighty sad for your pathetic little self.
Great article.
This is true for so, so many things in life. Just because the majority say it's a good thing or right doesn't make it so; right is right, and fun is fun. MMORPGs were once upon a time something different, something niche. Successful subscription bases were measured in tens of thousands rather than millions, and I'm afraid the money virus has infected our favorite hobby just as it has nearly everything else. It seems like game companies want to have the financial success of World of Warcraft and are willing to compromise so much of what we loved about MMORPGs, making them into something akin to single-player kid zones with chat boxes.
Very accurate rant, Coyote. I've agreed with almost everything I've read you post, and that's never been more true than today. We are losing the RPG in MMORPGs, no matter what Arenanet and Bioware may claim. The "role" we play now is generally set firmly before us upon a railway that leads to an endgame that consists of PVE gear grind so that you can PVE harder, or of a mediocre alternative of pointless PVP instances. Once upon a time, you decided what role you would play, and that didn't just mean tank, healer or damage; it meant what you would accomplish for the game's community. As I read elsewhere, even the Hard Mode instances today are just an additional 5k HP on the boss who hits for 10% more damage; it's still easy mode once you know what order to press your "action" buttons. It reminds me of using cheat codes in single-player games on SNES back in the early 90s.
I would have unlimited respect for a company that decides to transcend the dollar-mongering mentality and create a quality game that reminds of a time that once was, void of the everyone's-a-hero mindset, gear/reputation grind, and pandering to the children. MMORPGs were never intended to be child-friendly. Give me "GOB TRAIN TO ZONE!!!" again (Final Fantasy XI before the patch that caused a zoned mob to simply vanish, where before a zoned mob would return to his spawn point by walking back, remaining hostile to any players in the vicinity), give me Kithicor Forest where we have to make tactical plans in order to stay alive, give me meaningful death so that I would actually avoid it (even it you are magically resurrected every time you die, don't you imagine dying by incineration from dragon's breath or being mashed into a formless jelly puddle by an ogre is somewhat painful? Shouldn't we try to avoid such things??), and give me something at endgame that actually means something. It is pointless to grind for gear that will make grinding easier. Give me purpose, or better yet give me the tools to create my own purpose. Let me make my own role to play, and you will have earned yourself one very devoted subscriber who will go out of his way to promote your game.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -Edmund Burke
Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards. -Lois McMaster Bujold
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. -Abraham Lincoln
Quests are flawed, they should never have been implemented this way. But hey we have atleast two games aiming to mix things up a bit. GW2 will take away the quest completely and TSW will have you focus on one at a time, letting you read and focus on one quest.
I hate the whole WoW clone thing going on in the industry, but we are seeing some grand variation looking forward, GW2, TSW, Planetside 2, TERA, Prime and even KOTOR (for those who stil want wow clones).
Modern MMO's are just the equivalent of sticking a carrot on the end of a stick and holding it just infront of the donkey. The feeling of just getting to the next level to get the next skill to do the next "quest" to get the next best weapon etc etc. It's mind numbing tedium and grind grind grind.
I realise that "grinding" is used to describe killing mobs over and over but nothing has ever bored me as much as doing mundane task after mundane task just to be able to move to the next zone just to do it all over again.
I remember thinking just before Vanguard was released that I could never play it due to it's "harcore" nature and time investment but I pre-ordered and played open beta. At the time it was full of the "now now now" crowd screaming for map helpers ala WoW and fast travel - after all travelling through a world is a shitty time-sink when you should be allowed to teleport. When did travelling and actual adventuring become a chore, surely it was part of the journey? Vanguard was/is a game where you could set a goal on the map and head towards it, after a while you'd see something on the horizon, decide to take a peak and find a new dungeon, castle or something else worth exploring. At what point did "collect 10 Snouts of Suckass so I can make some Suckass soup" become more of an adventure than the discovery of something you've not seen in the game before?
Maybe I should go back to playing WWIIOL or Vanguard, I can't stomach more than two months of any MMO "RPG" released since
Although I agree wholeheartedly with the OP's sentiments, one of the major appeals to me of WoW back in the day was no corpse runs.
Unfortunately, the OP's whole rant smacks a lot of the "You kids have it too easy. Back in my day we had to walk 5 miles to school in the snow barefoot," lectures our fathers gave to us when we were growing up...and sadly, we are giving to OUR kids. Patience and the ability to stop and smell the roses, which is pretty much what we're talking about here..enjoying the trip instead of rushing to the destination, is a dying activity. As someone who has been around since the 1950's, I can tell you that this whole thing started in the early 60's with the "instant" everything phenomenon. No waiting for anything. Microwave ovens, Polaroid Cameras, instant coffee, Tang, the list goes on.
As technology is advancing, and time is being measure in nanoseconds, the level of patience people have is whitling down to nil. Just think about how irritated you get when a web page takes 5 or 10 seconds to load, instead of popping up the instant you open it. I remember when it took 30 minutes for a tape drive to load a 48k game on a Commodore 64. I thought I had died and gone to heaven the day I got my first noisy, clunky disk drive.
The pace of life is so fast today, you need 3 or 4 electronic devices to keep up. People get irritated if they can't be in constant contact with you and know intimately exactly what you are doing at any moment in the day. Facebook is the ultimate nosy neighbor's paradise. And the sad fact is, as has been mentioned a few times already, is that we, who pine for the "good ole days," are a literally dying breed. Of course, those good old days are only about 6 or 7 years back so I'm sure the majority of people in this catergory are still hale and hearty and sub 40..myself definitely NOT included in that group. But to today's pimple faced, mean-spirited, sociopathic teens, we're just grumpy old men.
But facts is facts, and this is a fact: young, casual gamers rule the roost now. Blizzard and the other developers learned that you can make a whole lot more money with 5 million casual gamers paying $15 a month than 1 million hardcore gamers paying the same $15 a month. Simple mathematics.
One simple point, I think we're all beginning to see is that, rather than telling the casual gamer, "maybe MMORPG's aren't for you" we should be asking ourselves, since most of the games we might desire to play are WoW clones and cater to the lower denominator of the gaming class, is "our MMORPG;s for US anymore?"
We can lament the passing of an era of challenging, adult oriented MMO games, but that's not going to change the fact that the dumbed down, sickly sweet, Disney World theme park, hold you by the hand and lead you to success games, are here to stay and we either accept it or refuse to play along. The choice is ours. But it's a complete waste of breath to constantly complain that things aren't the way they used to be. Shoveling sand against the tide has never been much of a successful endeavor..although you'll get pretty good biceps doing it. OH, and you'll have a bunch of us old farts cheering you on...Yeah, right on!, bro.
Although I agree wholeheartedly with the OP's sentiments, one of the major appeals to me of WoW back in the day was no corpse runs.
Unfortunately, the OP's whole rant smacks a lot of the "You kids have it too easy. Back in my day we had to walk 5 miles to school in the snow barefoot," lectures our fathers gave to us when we were growing up...and sadly, we are giving to OUR kids. Patience and the ability to stop and smell the roses, which is pretty much what we're talking about here..enjoying the trip instead of rushing to the destination, is a dying activity. As someone who has been around since the 1950's, I can tell you that this whole thing started in the early 60's with the "instant" everything phenomenon. No waiting for anything. Microwave ovens, Polaroid Cameras, instant coffee, Tang, the list goes on.
As technology is advancing, and time is being measure in nanoseconds, the level of patience people have is whitling down to nil. Just think about how irritated you get when a web page takes 5 or 10 seconds to load, instead of popping up the instant you open it. I remember when it took 30 minutes for a tape drive to load a 48k game on a Commodore 64. I thought I had died and gone to heaven the day I got my first noisy, clunky disk drive.
The pace of life is so fast today, you need 3 or 4 electronic devices to keep up. People get irritated if they can't be in constant contact with you and know intimately exactly what you are doing at any moment in the day. Facebook is the ultimate nosy neighbor's paradise. And the sad fact is, as has been mentioned a few times already, is that we, who pine for the "good ole days," are a literally dying breed. Of course, those good old days are only about 6 or 7 years back so I'm sure the majority of people in this catergory are still hale and hearty and sub 40..myself definitely NOT included in that group. But to today's pimple faced, mean-spirited, sociopathic teens, we're just grumpy old men.
But facts is facts, and this is a fact: young, casual gamers rule the roost now. Blizzard and the other developers learned that you can make a whole lot more money with 5 million casual gamers paying $15 a month than 1 million hardcore gamers paying the same $15 a month. Simple mathematics.
One simple point, I think we're all beginning to see is that, rather than telling the casual gamer, "maybe MMORPG's aren't for you" we should be asking ourselves, since most of the games we might desire to play are WoW clones and cater to the lower denominator of the gaming class, is "our MMORPG;s for US anymore?"
We can lament the passing of an era of challenging, adult oriented MMO games, but that's not going to change the fact that the dumbed down, sickly sweet, Disney World theme park, hold you by the hand and lead you to success games, are here to stay and we either accept it or refuse to play along. The choice is ours. But it's a complete waste of breath to constantly complain that things aren't the way they used to be. Shoveling sand against the tide has never been much of a successful endeavor..although you'll get pretty good biceps doing it. OH, and you'll have a bunch of us old farts cheering you on...Yeah, right on!, bro.
Some of what you're talking about in your opening paragraphs is what I've heard referred to as the "throw away" lifestyle where convenience takes precendent over, basically, all else. It was supposedly heavily supported through advertising and particularly aimed at former housewives pursuing careers of their own which left little time left for general household chores and necessities. Inevitably this kind of lifestyle is beginning to catch up to us now.
As far as the article goes, I believe Coyote intentionally parodied the "five miles barefoot" style to add more humor to the already hilarious tone of the post. I could be wrong of course and maybe it just seems that way. I think he was spot on when he wrote about original EQ's scaling difficulty in zones and use of a day/night cycle in Kithicor to add another element of depth and challenge to the game. This is the kind of thing I feel alot of newer mmorpg games are missing and the lack is apparent to those of us who played the earlier titles of this genre.
You're correct in that the older generation of gamers can't ever hope to have as "loud a voice" within the market as the current generation of mmorpg players that, mainly, started with WoW. Still, there are alot of gamers stuck in game limbo, wherein many new games just don't appeal or have no real lasting appeal for them. Surely such a significant segment of gamers can't go ignored continually.
Comments
Cheers
I prolly keep better memories of EQ cause I was never in a raiding guild. I think when I quit there was still only 1 plane anyway. It was more of a social experience than a gaming one for me.
I also like Bioware stuff, TOR should gives us the RPG back just not sure about the MMO.
Skyrim 11.11.11, that is what I am waiting for. Though I might be too busy at work by then.
Wow! (not WoW)...
I thought I was an anarchist, lol, you rocked it. Nice thoughts, great analogies and super-graphics to drive the point home.
ROFL I spent 3 days inside the entrance to a dungeon, levelled five times and had not even seen 99.9% of the dungeon. I stumbled across the place adventuring in one of those 'Death Zones', and found some mobs I could kill (if you want to call it that). After a week, I finally left the dungeon, a champion. A month later, I learned it was an epic quest dungeon (lol).
Fun times for sure... back in the day.
Another time, I completed a guild sponsored quest for an epic necklace. I missed the portal back home and had to hoof it. Exiting the dungeon, some high level mobs began pursuing me. I ran and jumped off a cliff, where I died. Well, had I died on the top, it would have taken half the guild to retrieve my body and newly acquired necklace... Instead, it took three hours of hiding ducking and running to near death to grab my original corpse (hence forth, corpse run).
Great post!!!
TYVM
I agree with you, but you have to ask yourself, if RPG was not important, would people still be buying those things from the cash shops? They obviously are buying them, otherwise you wouldn't see them up for sale, you know?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I don't think people are buying those things for RPG. I think they just want to look 'good' or at least look affluent. It's the same reason people buy things from Abercrombie & Fitch instead of Target. The cloths are not going to last 5 times longer and they do not look 5 times better, but people are willing to pay 5 times as much for them. It's not an RPG thing, it's a status thing.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I agree with you as well. However, a big part of RPG is status, in my opinion. The people who pay for vanity items and wear them may not use them to interact with others, but they are participating in a fundamental aspect of role-playing, from my perspective. They probably don't even realize it and may even stop buying them if they did.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Absolutely meaningless.
There are far more people who are obese (at least in the US, which is often considered the only market that matters with only China as possible competition). Does that mean we should all quit taking care of ourselves and gorge on Hoho's? Being healthy isn't nearly as profitable to companies as being obese. When you consider all the various diet plans/supplements AND lapband purveyors AND the various diabetes drugs created by the largest pharmcological labs in the world AND the fact that healthy people spend MUCH less time in doctors' offices and hospitals than obese people, you'd think being obese is the next big thing. It's not. Likewise, faceroll MMOs like the majority of games seem to be nowadays, have problems with retention because they suck. Anyone who played EQ1 before they gutted the game's heart could tell you that there were many times that they only kept playing because of their friends ingame (or their guild). That's where the 'EverCrack' label came from. People bonded over those difficult situations that so-called MMO players now (who, by and large, are just console gamers in reality) considered time sinks. Running from Qeynos to Freeport (at low levels) was almost always done in a group, unless you were a hardcore vet who had done it dozens of times already. When Vapuk Shralock waxed your ass the moment you zoned into Highpass, your group dragged your corpse to (relative) safety (and you hoped they didn't completely loot all your stuff).
I totally agree with Coyote though. For people who think profitability should trump all, I hope you still think that when your health care provider expresses the same sentiment. The problem in this area (much as it is in healthcare) is that when one company does it and produces greater profits, EVERYONE does it to produce greater profit. Thus, you're left with a landscape sodden with games made for the "I only have an hour to play" crowd and NONE for those who want worlds and not simply online extensions of God of War. Everyone looks the same, because there's only one set of armor worth getting for every class and the game lacks difficulty so much that even the most casual of players can get it. "Waaa, I can't get the armor/weapons because I only play 15 seconds a day" so the developer capitulates with "Okay, just hail this NPC every day and after 21 hails, he'll give you the armor." Yeah, I bet welfare epics were an idea everyone's looking to copy.
OP...well said. I'm not playing ANY game. Pay or free. .I would If I could find a game worthy of my time. I would agree with the last few years games. Mindlessly unimaginative...RIFT bing the latest cop out. So I sit and wait for GW2...or Arch age....or Prime. Till then mmogs games get nothing from me...because they bring nothing but mindless following of work other have developed and we as gamers are frankly sick and tired of seeing. Rant over. Going to have fun watching football.Now thats entertaining.
LOL, Coyote, you did it! Alas, there are not as many angry replies to your post as I had hoped. I'll give it time. Also, I wish I had made some sort of effort to get into MMO's, back in the day, when there was that feeling of risk involved. I completely love a challenge and I like for games to "get scary" at times, with a sense that I could stand to really lose something if I don't bring my brain with me. Luckily, during the days of EQ1 and other risk-factor-MMO's, I got to play a lot of pnp RPG's. The GM's I knew brought lots of these types of situations into game-play, and the whole time, I was wishing that there was some kind of way to transfer this type of RP'ing to video games...I just never knew (or researched) that this had happened, plus I owned a POS PC (and a strict budget) at the time, which didn't help matters.
Maybe one day, this type of game-play will make it's way back...I dunno though. If it does, I'll have to give it shot.
Two thumbs up !!
Thats because the mods are just deleting the posts that disagree and issuing warnings/suspensions/bans with some bullshit made up reason.
That's because the only defense those posters have are personal insults and child-like antics.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Couldn't agree more, a truly great article.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Yes because saying someone who disagrees with your viewpoint doesnt know what a vagina is is so mature and non insulting. But please continue acting like you know what you're talking about, its clear facts and truth would never stand in your way of posting drivel like you just did.
This post almost made me cry! So true... I miss those days..
Thank you for proving my point.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Oh god... Stop it already. The horse is dead. There is not much you can do about it.
Writing about this all makes it sound like whining.
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
Which brings me to the most flame inducing thing I've ever written: "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Or just may be. May be the tables have turned and it's not for you anymore.
You can talk about this and argue all you want, but truth is simple.
Harder stuff? Less people like it.
Less people like it? Less people play and pay for it.
Less people pay for it? You don't need a "brotherhood scribe" to tell us what happens then.
Now, if i continue this chain any longer, i risk turning into a certain captain with a cape and all.
You can call me/us/them noobz, loosers or sissies, but the fact will remain. Industry was always after our money. Now that casual gaming is the norm, and investors are always putting money where there are less risks, there are not a lot of developers who can or will risk it themselves.
Oh and before any "wow was your first online game so bla bla bla". I myself started my MMORPG journey with MUDs(close as you could get to MMORPG at that time), then moved on to Meridian and after that UO, and so on. I remember the days and it was fun while it lasted. Now the new kids are on the block and majority wins. Either join the crowd or just find something else productive to do. I know i have
Peace.
Great read, thanks!
Shouldnt it be possible to make a game like? On this forum there are a lot of people who want something aside the watered-down versions of mmorpg that are available today. There are games catering for various minorities already, so it seems likely there will be one for the old and disgruntled people from mmorpg.com ;-).
Norden
This is true for so, so many things in life. Just because the majority say it's a good thing or right doesn't make it so; right is right, and fun is fun. MMORPGs were once upon a time something different, something niche. Successful subscription bases were measured in tens of thousands rather than millions, and I'm afraid the money virus has infected our favorite hobby just as it has nearly everything else. It seems like game companies want to have the financial success of World of Warcraft and are willing to compromise so much of what we loved about MMORPGs, making them into something akin to single-player kid zones with chat boxes.
Very accurate rant, Coyote. I've agreed with almost everything I've read you post, and that's never been more true than today. We are losing the RPG in MMORPGs, no matter what Arenanet and Bioware may claim. The "role" we play now is generally set firmly before us upon a railway that leads to an endgame that consists of PVE gear grind so that you can PVE harder, or of a mediocre alternative of pointless PVP instances. Once upon a time, you decided what role you would play, and that didn't just mean tank, healer or damage; it meant what you would accomplish for the game's community. As I read elsewhere, even the Hard Mode instances today are just an additional 5k HP on the boss who hits for 10% more damage; it's still easy mode once you know what order to press your "action" buttons. It reminds me of using cheat codes in single-player games on SNES back in the early 90s.
I would have unlimited respect for a company that decides to transcend the dollar-mongering mentality and create a quality game that reminds of a time that once was, void of the everyone's-a-hero mindset, gear/reputation grind, and pandering to the children. MMORPGs were never intended to be child-friendly. Give me "GOB TRAIN TO ZONE!!!" again (Final Fantasy XI before the patch that caused a zoned mob to simply vanish, where before a zoned mob would return to his spawn point by walking back, remaining hostile to any players in the vicinity), give me Kithicor Forest where we have to make tactical plans in order to stay alive, give me meaningful death so that I would actually avoid it (even it you are magically resurrected every time you die, don't you imagine dying by incineration from dragon's breath or being mashed into a formless jelly puddle by an ogre is somewhat painful? Shouldn't we try to avoid such things??), and give me something at endgame that actually means something. It is pointless to grind for gear that will make grinding easier. Give me purpose, or better yet give me the tools to create my own purpose. Let me make my own role to play, and you will have earned yourself one very devoted subscriber who will go out of his way to promote your game.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -Edmund Burke
Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards. -Lois McMaster Bujold
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. -Abraham Lincoln
Quests are flawed, they should never have been implemented this way. But hey we have atleast two games aiming to mix things up a bit. GW2 will take away the quest completely and TSW will have you focus on one at a time, letting you read and focus on one quest.
I hate the whole WoW clone thing going on in the industry, but we are seeing some grand variation looking forward, GW2, TSW, Planetside 2, TERA, Prime and even KOTOR (for those who stil want wow clones).
Alot of posts here. But what I can guess is that alot of you are not even trying to contribyte to the rpg in random mmorpg
Just try it out even if it feels silly
Modern MMO's are just the equivalent of sticking a carrot on the end of a stick and holding it just infront of the donkey. The feeling of just getting to the next level to get the next skill to do the next "quest" to get the next best weapon etc etc. It's mind numbing tedium and grind grind grind.
I realise that "grinding" is used to describe killing mobs over and over but nothing has ever bored me as much as doing mundane task after mundane task just to be able to move to the next zone just to do it all over again.
I remember thinking just before Vanguard was released that I could never play it due to it's "harcore" nature and time investment but I pre-ordered and played open beta. At the time it was full of the "now now now" crowd screaming for map helpers ala WoW and fast travel - after all travelling through a world is a shitty time-sink when you should be allowed to teleport. When did travelling and actual adventuring become a chore, surely it was part of the journey? Vanguard was/is a game where you could set a goal on the map and head towards it, after a while you'd see something on the horizon, decide to take a peak and find a new dungeon, castle or something else worth exploring. At what point did "collect 10 Snouts of Suckass so I can make some Suckass soup" become more of an adventure than the discovery of something you've not seen in the game before?
Maybe I should go back to playing WWIIOL or Vanguard, I can't stomach more than two months of any MMO "RPG" released since
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Although I agree wholeheartedly with the OP's sentiments, one of the major appeals to me of WoW back in the day was no corpse runs.
Unfortunately, the OP's whole rant smacks a lot of the "You kids have it too easy. Back in my day we had to walk 5 miles to school in the snow barefoot," lectures our fathers gave to us when we were growing up...and sadly, we are giving to OUR kids. Patience and the ability to stop and smell the roses, which is pretty much what we're talking about here..enjoying the trip instead of rushing to the destination, is a dying activity. As someone who has been around since the 1950's, I can tell you that this whole thing started in the early 60's with the "instant" everything phenomenon. No waiting for anything. Microwave ovens, Polaroid Cameras, instant coffee, Tang, the list goes on.
As technology is advancing, and time is being measure in nanoseconds, the level of patience people have is whitling down to nil. Just think about how irritated you get when a web page takes 5 or 10 seconds to load, instead of popping up the instant you open it. I remember when it took 30 minutes for a tape drive to load a 48k game on a Commodore 64. I thought I had died and gone to heaven the day I got my first noisy, clunky disk drive.
The pace of life is so fast today, you need 3 or 4 electronic devices to keep up. People get irritated if they can't be in constant contact with you and know intimately exactly what you are doing at any moment in the day. Facebook is the ultimate nosy neighbor's paradise. And the sad fact is, as has been mentioned a few times already, is that we, who pine for the "good ole days," are a literally dying breed. Of course, those good old days are only about 6 or 7 years back so I'm sure the majority of people in this catergory are still hale and hearty and sub 40..myself definitely NOT included in that group. But to today's pimple faced, mean-spirited, sociopathic teens, we're just grumpy old men.
But facts is facts, and this is a fact: young, casual gamers rule the roost now. Blizzard and the other developers learned that you can make a whole lot more money with 5 million casual gamers paying $15 a month than 1 million hardcore gamers paying the same $15 a month. Simple mathematics.
One simple point, I think we're all beginning to see is that, rather than telling the casual gamer, "maybe MMORPG's aren't for you" we should be asking ourselves, since most of the games we might desire to play are WoW clones and cater to the lower denominator of the gaming class, is "our MMORPG;s for US anymore?"
We can lament the passing of an era of challenging, adult oriented MMO games, but that's not going to change the fact that the dumbed down, sickly sweet, Disney World theme park, hold you by the hand and lead you to success games, are here to stay and we either accept it or refuse to play along. The choice is ours. But it's a complete waste of breath to constantly complain that things aren't the way they used to be. Shoveling sand against the tide has never been much of a successful endeavor..although you'll get pretty good biceps doing it. OH, and you'll have a bunch of us old farts cheering you on...Yeah, right on!, bro.
Some of what you're talking about in your opening paragraphs is what I've heard referred to as the "throw away" lifestyle where convenience takes precendent over, basically, all else. It was supposedly heavily supported through advertising and particularly aimed at former housewives pursuing careers of their own which left little time left for general household chores and necessities. Inevitably this kind of lifestyle is beginning to catch up to us now.
As far as the article goes, I believe Coyote intentionally parodied the "five miles barefoot" style to add more humor to the already hilarious tone of the post. I could be wrong of course and maybe it just seems that way. I think he was spot on when he wrote about original EQ's scaling difficulty in zones and use of a day/night cycle in Kithicor to add another element of depth and challenge to the game. This is the kind of thing I feel alot of newer mmorpg games are missing and the lack is apparent to those of us who played the earlier titles of this genre.
You're correct in that the older generation of gamers can't ever hope to have as "loud a voice" within the market as the current generation of mmorpg players that, mainly, started with WoW. Still, there are alot of gamers stuck in game limbo, wherein many new games just don't appeal or have no real lasting appeal for them. Surely such a significant segment of gamers can't go ignored continually.