Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Are we getting "dumber"?
FrostWyrm
Member Posts: 1,036
I was just thinking to myself how much I used to love Everquest. I began to realize how it started to lose its appeal to me once SoE began "dumbing it down" to suit the masses that ultimately found haven with games like WoW.
I then took a look at the situation with WoW today. Those same masses that SoE "dumbed down" EQ to try and please I now often see complaining about WoW because because Blizzard has "dumbed down" the game to suit a new set of masses.
So it just makes me wonder, will today's MMORPGs be "dumbed down" even further in the future? Will today's masses complain about how easy the games have become 8 or 10 years from now? Just how "dumb" can MMORPGs get before the masses begin to desire the opposite?
FYI: Before anyone starts flaming, this is not a troll thread. I use quotes around "dumb" because I dont mean it as an insult to anyone's intelligence, merely as a reference to the term "dumbing down".
Comments
Na FrostWyrm it has nothing to do with "dumber" and everything to do with a generation of "fast and easy".
But thats part of what I mean. "Fast and easy" to my generation has become "Slow and Grindy" to the current generation. So, I cant help but wonder if this trend will continue to go downhill. Will this generation's "Fast and easy" become "Slow and Grindy" to the next? What about the generaton after that? When does it end?
People's tastes change as they age. That's an important consideration to make.
People seem more distracted with their gadgets. It creates an ADHD mindset.
yes.
when i was a small mini i liked toys,toy piano ,when i got older i like real piano and now different pianos ,software ,plugins what not.
MMOs are going opposite direction,first there was a piano with all cool stuff and now theres toy piano for tiny minis.
Let's internet
Yes, "they" are when it comes to opening their wallets. I do not fall into this category due to the fact I thoroughly research anything prior to purchasing. I refuse to buy and or support any sub standard products wether it be games or other items or services.
Life IS Feudal
This thread is actually confusing 'dumb' with 'grindy'.
Games are a lot more complex now then it was before back in EQ days.
From a mechanical point of view, WoW raid bosses now are leaps more complex than anything EQ had back in the day.
However, EQ was a lot more 'grindy'.
I always wonder why MMO players confuse 'grindy' with 'hard' but meh, facts are facts.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
an you will keep wondering that for the rest of your life if you dont try RPGs.
its not about grind or how some boss makes dancemoves.
Let's internet
I think there are some game design decision makers who don't understand all the wants ,needs,the experience level of the gamer base.To deliver a certain size consumer base to their investors they try to find that sweet spot .A sweet spot of appearance...of depth....of difficulty etc. In doing so they are failing to hold(they may get trial) an increasingly large segment who don't fall into the mass market they THINK theyare appealing to.
I think it really boils down to making the games more fun. It's really difficult to balance, though. When things take too long to do, people will get sick of it. On the other hand if it's too fast, people will also get bored. I also feel that the amount of time it takes to do something is not necessarily what makes something fun, and devs are confused about that.
I'm not sure which generation of player I fall into, but I'm 31 (first MMO was FFXI). I just don't want to do boring tasks for hours on end. Call me dumb, but at the time I thought what WoW did was an improvement over many aspects of FFXI. The problem is these new devs don't realize what made people like WoW. It's not because they made everything easier, they improved on aspects of other games that might be considered a hassle.
I perceive intelligence as a variable rather than a constant so it goes up and down in scale at times, especially when factors like environment can affect thinking, stress, etc, plus a dollop of natural ability. I do think some games are aiming for the lowest common denominator of that scale these days, to appeal to as much of the masses as possible for marketing and money making reasons, the 'mainstream'.
The day i start gauging my level of dumbness and intelligence through video games is the day i am really dumb.
Can't get dumber unless it has a trail to follow and puts a big circle around the mobs you have to kill and tells you when to press the button.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
The Devs are giving people what they want, i have noticed in the years of playing MMOs that people want these dumbed down games.
people allways complain about leveling takeing to long so they make it easyer, people dont want to be punished for dieing so now death means nothing in these games ( infact in many new games its easyer to just die to get some where than it is to run there ).
people dont want to actually use their brains when playing so all quest are easy mode now, talk to the NPC open map go to the big X kill 10 rats.
when a game starts to cater to the masses this is what happens, i see the same thing in Battlefield. BF use to be alot different than its dumbed down counter part CoD. now its almost the same thing...
As sad as it is. I don't think we will ever see another game with the difficulty level of pre-luclin EQ.
Short answer: Yes.
The hour and a half answer lies here:
Idiocracy
just watch this.. seriously it explains everything
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icmRCixQrx8&feature=related part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8rhIZJAdd0&feature=relmfu part 2
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
we think alike....however, I have the entire reason in my link
There's a game called Darkfall. You want slow and grindy? Want a challenge with death penalties? Go ahead and play it.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Everquest, Ultima Online, Asherons Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Age Of Camelot were not hard games at all this notion that they were hard is only in the heads of players. Those games had no tutorials, no guides in the early days, no direction of what to do, no quests or in fact content you stood in a spot and grinded your tits off. Those games had to be learned by trial and error or asking other players what the bloody hell you were doing. They extended the level curve to keep players playing because they had no idea of what to give players when they did eventually reach cap or maxed skills. If I try to build a PC with no prior knowledge of what to do it would seem hard but if I learn how to do it it becomes damn easy thats all that happened to the MMO sphere you learened what to do and that makes it seem that games are easier nowadays. Games have always been about learning THE TRICK ever since I started playing in the 70's once you learn THE TRICK they become much easier.
What the early games did have was an eager RPG player base that took to them because this was a whole new way to RP and their imagination ran riot thinking of what MMO's could become in the future. They formed communities, helped each other out, roleplayed, hung out with their ingame friends and had a good time having adventures that were fresh and new to them but now as with all technology those original dreams of virtual worlds with ingame player wars, player made factions and economies just fell by the wayside and a new type of game evolved, maybe one day a development company will release one thats hits the spot for many old vets but I wouldn't hold your breath, because you as a gamer have changed as much as the games themselves. The genre has moved on and leans more to games than simulators but games have never really been hard ever, its all about learning THE TRICK and thats it.
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.
I find it ironic that you mention one game out of hundreds, kind of makes the OP's point.
Dark Fall, EVE, Fallen Earth, Xyson, Mortal Online, FFXI, Ryzom..shall i go on?
ok.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-3ZZGccgek
that game is still running,do what he did,i give you 5 years because its so easy,but im pretty sure you cant,why ? because even building that character needs real skills.
skills do exists in games.
but it can be dumbed down,so you can build that character with pressing 1 mouse button ofcourse,but dumbing down doesnt exists i forgot.
Let's internet
It has more to do with pandering to the Instant Gratification crowd, than anything else. Those whose lack of patience, and sense of entitlment is legendary at this point. I suspect we've only seen the start of this trend. Where it will end (if it does) is any ones guess. Perhaps in a world like Idiocracy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy