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Why do so many MMO enthusiasts want to cling to outdated or bad game mechanics?

Fly666monkeyFly666monkey Member UncommonPosts: 161

Tell me if you've heard this one before: "Trammel ruined Ultima Online."

Whenever I'm asked this, I just want to retort with: "Why?" But I know the answer I'll get:

"Pre-Trammel UO was a magical place full of comradery and wonder, where there was a real sense of community and danger wherever you went. Trammel destroyed all that."

Which is funny, because I know some people who played Pre-Tram UO, and their description was a bit different:

"Pre-Tram UO was a horible place full of griefing jackoffs who spent all their time waiting outside towns and dungeons for vulnerable people to step out, kill them, and take all their hard-earned loot. Top brass PVP guilds went out of their way to ruin the game for everyone else, especially new players, and nothing could be done about it. Trammel finally did something about this, but by that time I had quit to play Everquest. Oh, and if anyone tells you that subs for UO dropped after Trammel, Everquest was why."

And it's not just the Pre-Tram crowd that irks me. Wanna know why there was no dungeon finder when SWTOR launched? Because the vocal minority asked for there not to be one. And then the non-vocal majority went "WTF?" when the game went public. And yet I still hear people complaining that "The Dungeon finder is what Ruined WoW and should never appear in another game again." Which is funny, because if the MASSIVE amout of complaining about it's absense in SWTOR (amougnst that game's many issues) is an indication, most people thought the Dungeon finder was a wonderful idea.

Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

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Comments

  • pags411pags411 Member Posts: 98

    it's all a matter of opinion, and people remember what they want to remember.  I think DAoC is the greatest MMO in the world, but I haven't played that game in almost 10 years.  At the end of the day, anyone's assertion is just their opinion.  Many people claim that WoW is a terrible game, but it's been the most successful MMO in the industry and may continue to hold that title for a long time to come.  Is that my opinion?  Maybe.  I don't really play WoW anymore.  But when I think "best" i think of the game that is played by the most people for the longest.  As with any debate, all participants need to agree on the assumptions and definitions being used. 

  • EdeusEdeus Member CommonPosts: 506

    "My opinion is better then yours."

    If you think I'm trolling, you read it wrong.

    image

    Taru-Gallante-Blood elf-Elysean-Kelari-Crime Fighting-Imperial Agent

  • SEANMCADSEANMCAD Member EpicPosts: 16,775

    very similar to what happend in Darkfall only with a slight twist. Here goes the story

    First 6 months of actual game play: 'this game has soo many problems, so many cheaters, so much lag, its terrible I am going to quit if they dont fix it! but I am not quiting today!'

    a year later: 'why dont they bring the game back to the glory days of the opening days? those were the great months of the game'

    continued every week for years: 'this game is crap, this game is crap, this game is crap, other MMOs are sooo much better, I am leaving!'

    3 years later: 'wait why are they making the new version like a themepark?'

    answer: 'because you guys s8CK and we want a different community.

    Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.

    Please do not respond to me

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    I am not one of those.

    Personally, I think LFD/LFR are great .. and i am one of those who quit TOR (there are other reasons too .. combat is not very exciting is another) because there is a lack of this feature.

    BUT ... people have different preferences. Who am i to say no if someone like to stuck in the same dungeon waiting for a boss to spawn for hours .. who am i to say no if someone like to run the same boring (to me) route to the dungeon 100 times ... who am i to say no if someone like to spend 30 min online looking for groups ..

    The market does not agree with them .. and dev follow player trends. That is exactly how the market should work. However, i don't think everyone needs to want what i want. And certainly they have the right to bitch and moan (just like i voice my opinion and vote with my wallet) on the internet. Isn't that what the internet is for?

  • dave6660dave6660 Member UncommonPosts: 2,699
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey

    Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

    Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

    Yes we do.

    Now I have a question for you.  Are the rest of us allowed to have an opinon that you don't like?

    “There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”
    -- Herman Melville

  • Fly666monkeyFly666monkey Member UncommonPosts: 161
    Originally posted by dave6660
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey

    Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

    Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

    Yes we do.

    Now I have a question for you.  Are the rest of us allowed to have an opinon that you don't like?

    Of course you are. Who am I to say you can't?

    But let me ask you: Why do you think this would make a game better? 

  • rdrakkenrdrakken Member Posts: 426
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey

    And it's not just the Pre-Tram crowd that irks me.

     People who rant about other peoples opinions irks me...you going to stop making posts like this now that you know that? No.

    Carry on.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey
    Originally posted by dave6660
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey

    Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

    Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

    Yes we do.

    Now I have a question for you.  Are the rest of us allowed to have an opinon that you don't like?

    Of course you are. Who am I to say you can't?

    But let me ask you: Why do you think this would make a game better? 

    Don't you think what makes a game "better" is personal?

    If someone likes to spend 20 min going the same boring (to me) route to the dungeon for the 100th time, it is their perogorative to spend their time as they see fit.

    I don't agree. I will never play a game that demands that kind of boredom .. but if they find it fun for whatever reason, it makes the game better FOR THEM.

  • TaiphozTaiphoz Member UncommonPosts: 353
    Originally posted by dave6660
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey

    Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

    Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

    Yes we do.

    Now I have a question for you.  Are the rest of us allowed to have an opinon that you don't like?

    +1 .

    I want an open world, with no rules, with open world pvp, a few starting safe areas to allow people to get used to the controls but after that the training wheels need to come off.

     

    People slag off facebook and farmville, but to me, wow and any other current mmo for that matter is nothing more than farmville with a little nicer on the eye graphics.

     

    Death does not matter in these games, you can run out and die a million times and lose almost nothing, and no time is not something of enough value that losing 60 seconds is supposed to hurt, its a joke and a sick one at that, the worst of it is that, that just like farmville , a social game, tons of people will play it, even tho its SHITE, so devs get it into their heads thats what people actually want, when its not.

     

    As far as I am concerned, and looking at the coming titles, only Archeage has any real substance to itself, the rest are nothing more than an evolution of single player games.

     

    Why did we go from counter stirke, 20 v 20 fps games to big open worlds, and then back to 20,10 vs 10 crap, the genre is going in reverse, all these arena's and small skirmish style maps that take people out of the real(game) world its all nails in the coffin of what a real mmo should be.

  • MurashuMurashu Member UncommonPosts: 1,386

    I agree and it's a damn shame that people are still allowed allowed to have an opinion about things they like in 2012. You would think by now that we would all have just accepted that only consensual, non-pvp, fast travel and easily accessible games are good and that everything else is bad.

     

    Thank you OP for helping us see the light.

  • ShadystuffShadystuff Member Posts: 3

    People like familiarity, and are afraid of change

    World of Warcraft 2005-2012 Veteran, WoW is fun, but dead in spirit
    Star Wars the Old Republic, dead on arrival, SWTOR is a decent RPG, but a bad MMO

  • ThorbrandThorbrand Member Posts: 1,198

    It isn't that the older gamers want outdate machanics what some of us want is depth back in MMOs. If you make the games to casual than you take away the depth of the game and essentially it isn't a MMO.

    Why do you think we no longer have perssistent open worlds any longer. Because everyone fast travels so they make zones to load into instead to try and make it like a real world. So it being so casual today you don't even need to socialize with people and the games level so fast you don't team up in areas for days with people you meet and become friends with in the game.

    To casual ruins MMOs but we don't want outdated features either. And casual isn't time played it is just making it easy to get anything right away with no effort. So the games are just boring to play and have no community which is the basis of a MMO not action combat and PvP which we also want in a MMO but not the main focus.

    Play a PnP game and you would understand.

  • Fly666monkeyFly666monkey Member UncommonPosts: 161
    Originally posted by Dvalon
    Originally posted by dave6660
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey

    Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

    Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

    Yes we do.

    Now I have a question for you.  Are the rest of us allowed to have an opinon that you don't like?

    ...the worst of it is that, that just like farmville , a social game, tons of people will play it, even tho its SHITE, so devs get it into their heads thats what people actually want, when its not.

    At least from an objective standpoint, if tons of people are playng a game, it stands to reason that, yes, it IS what the people want. Otherwise they wouldn't be playing it.

    Now, I'm not harping on the Sandbox crowd, I myself am VERY excited for archeage. However, even in AA, they have made it clear that there will be limits and rules. 

    I'm not trying to be hateful or spiteful, but from a purely objective standpoint, I have to ask why you think these things would improve the game as a whole. In what way did the Dungeon Finder ruin WoW? Why is full Loot PVP more fun? Why should games not have auction houses? Etc. Tons of people say these things will make the MMO genre better, but nobody seems to want to go into too much detail about it.

  • IrusIrus Member Posts: 774

    Outdated and bad mechanics are things like trinity, instancing, and manual grouping. What you are discussing isn't mechanics, it's more like features and styling.

  • ThorbrandThorbrand Member Posts: 1,198
    Originally posted by Irus

    Outdated and bad mechanics are things like trinity, instancing, and manual grouping. What you are discussing isn't mechanics, it's more like features and styling.

    Trinity is not a bad thing but yes it is an old mechanic.

    Instancing is new MMO feature so they don't have to make large perssistent worlds like the old days.

    Manual grouping builds a community. If you don't want to play with other people can't say anything to change that.

  • stragen001stragen001 Member UncommonPosts: 1,720

    Rose tinted goggles are why.

    The vocal minority shout very loudly all over forums about every game to try to make it how their rose tinted goggles show them their favorite game was.

    Lots of people say WTF, but then get shouted down by that vocal minority........ until the game releases and people realise that the vocal minority are clinging to the past too much. 

    This vocal minority doesnt realise that that what WAS good, is NO LONGER good. The MMO industry has moved on and changed. Some might say for the worst, but thats the way it is. If a game was released now with all the features exactly how the vocal minority want it, it would FAIL, HARD. 95% of people dont want that anymore.

    That wont stop the same people saying that everyone does want it that way though....

    Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom

  • KenFisherKenFisher Member UncommonPosts: 5,035
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey
    Originally posted by dave6660
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey

    Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

    Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

    Yes we do.

    Now I have a question for you.  Are the rest of us allowed to have an opinon that you don't like?

    Of course you are. Who am I to say you can't?

    But let me ask you: Why do you think this would make a game better? 

     

    To the people who like those things, there are reasons:

    • Fast travel speeds up pace of gameplay.  Faster pace means content is consumed more quickly.  Once out of content, a player can become bored because there's nothing more to do.  Fast paced games need more content, which given finite development resources means the quality level of content goes down as quantity goes up.
    • Auction house eliminates a need to interact with others in order to obtain goods.  Reducing interaction causes more isolation of individual players.  Isolation of players works opposite of building community.
    • Dungeon Finders cut down on the need for guilds and friends lists as a primary means to grouping.  This also is opposite of community building.
    • Battlegrounds are a mini-game embedded in the world.  They isolate PVP gameplay from the world, making the world less active.  They isolate players from each other making population seem less dense.  This also applies to instanced dungeons.  Some people believe that MMOs work better if they are not lobby-games.
    • If there is no reward to being a hardcore player, there is no reason to be a hardcore player.  Hardcore players stay in games for long periods of time which is good for subscriptions.  They also play for long hours which is good for population.

    Realistically, the old systems are far from perfect.  Both the old and new systems have problems, but they are different problems.  Preference for either is largely based on the individual.

     


    Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security.  I don't Forum PVP.  If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident.  When I don't understand, I ask.  Such is not intended as criticism.
  • IrusIrus Member Posts: 774

    I have to agree with the poster above, except for the last point (I believe hardcore players are detrimental to any game they're in).

    Originally posted by Thorbrand
    Originally posted by Irus

    Outdated and bad mechanics are things like trinity, instancing, and manual grouping. What you are discussing isn't mechanics, it's more like features and styling.

    Trinity is not a bad thing

    I disagree.

    Instancing is new MMO feature so they don't have to make large perssistent worlds like the old days.

    Well, actually, it was a "solution" to random difficulties and other things, and it's definitely outdated now.

    Manual grouping builds a community.

    In my opinion, it does the opposite. Load up GW2: everyone works together. Load up TSW: everyone competes against each other. Manual grouping is evil and is an outdated mechanic related to older styles of coding. Automatic grouping is how real life works, we build communities just fine.

    If you don't want to play with other people can't say anything to change that.

    Manual grouping supports NOT playing with others, so I seriously have no idea where you pulled this out of.

    But, hey, dinosaurs will be dinosaurs.

     

  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230

    Human memory works in a funny way remembering the good and supressing the bad. I bet this has a significant contributing effect.

    Do I have good memories from those 24 hour 30 mile marches in the military with full combat gear in the cold and rain? -Sure I do. Its only when you're standing in the starting line with that same pack in your back when you remember all the exhaustion, sleep deprivation, the cold, blisters, aches and pains.

    Nearly all games I've revisited have disappointed in one way or another even if I have cherished memories from them. Its a sign that I've changed and, in some cases, I have higher standards now.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

  • donjndonjn Member UncommonPosts: 816

    Ultima Online peaked in 2003 with over 250,000 subscribers.

    Back in the "glory" days of pvp griefing, it barely had 150,000.

    More people came then left, after Trammel.

  • MMOExposedMMOExposed Member RarePosts: 7,400
    Originally posted by Fly666monkey

    Tell me if you've heard this one before: "Trammel ruined Ultima Online."

    Whenever I'm asked this, I just want to retort with: "Why?" But I know the answer I'll get:

    "Pre-Trammel UO was a magical place full of comradery and wonder, where there was a real sense of community and danger wherever you went. Trammel destroyed all that."

    Which is funny, because I know some people who played Pre-Tram UO, and their description was a bit different:

    "Pre-Tram UO was a horible place full of griefing jackoffs who spent all their time waiting outside towns and dungeons for vulnerable people to step out, kill them, and take all their hard-earned loot. Top brass PVP guilds went out of their way to ruin the game for everyone else, especially new players, and nothing could be done about it. Trammel finally did something about this, but by that time I had quit to play Everquest. Oh, and if anyone tells you that subs for UO dropped after Trammel, Everquest was why."

    And it's not just the Pre-Tram crowd that irks me. Wanna know why there was no dungeon finder when SWTOR launched? Because the vocal minority asked for there not to be one. And then the non-vocal majority went "WTF?" when the game went public. And yet I still hear people complaining that "The Dungeon finder is what Ruined WoW and should never appear in another game again." Which is funny, because if the MASSIVE amout of complaining about it's absense in SWTOR (amougnst that game's many issues) is an indication, most people thought the Dungeon finder was a wonderful idea.

    Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

    Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

    UO to EQ1

     

    was the first major example of why Themepark MMO are and will always be more popular than Sandbox MMO.

    First big Sandbox MMO (UO) lost subs to the first big Themepark MMO (EQ1)

     

    kind of reminds me of the modern Sandbox vs Themepark aguments on this forum lately. people in those discussions overlook this historic event which is why Post EQ1, the genre took a more themepark model design.

     

    AC --->AC2------>AC3

    aka

    Sandbox ---->Sandpark---->Themepark.

     

    this is all pre WoW, so WoW wasnt the blame here like many on this forum tend to blame.

     

    this change in design started with the jump from UO to EQ1

    Philosophy of MMO Game Design

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by XAPGames
     

     

    To the people who like those things, there are reasons:

    To the people who do NOT like those things, here are the reasons.

    • Fast travel speeds up pace of gameplay.  Faster pace means content is consumed more quickly.  Once out of content, a player can become bored because there's nothing more to do.  Fast paced games need more content, which given finite development resources means the quality level of content goes down as quantity goes up.
    Replacing content with slower, tedious, REPEATED travel is not a solution to the lack of content. And fast paced does NOT need more content. You  can always finish content, unsub .. and resub when new content is out. No one says you have to play the game non-stop.
     
     
    • Auction house eliminates a need to interact with others in order to obtain goods.  Reducing interaction causes more isolation of individual players.  Isolation of players works opposite of building community.
    People don't care about community building as much as you do. Efficiency in trading is more important. Looking at how AH is a standard feature, and the popularity of it, i will say efficiency wins.
    • Dungeon Finders cut down on the need for guilds and friends lists as a primary means to grouping.  This also is opposite of community building.
    Same as the last one. Community building is not an excuse to make the players engage in tedious, unwanted part of the game. If people don't like to look for groups, do it for them. Obviously people don't play a MMO to spend 30 min to lfg.
    • Battlegrounds are a mini-game embedded in the world.  They isolate PVP gameplay from the world, making the world less active.  They isolate players from each other making population seem less dense.  This also applies to instanced dungeons.  Some people believe that MMOs work better if they are not lobby-games.
    People like pvp to be more fair, and NOT intrusive to world travel & questing. Some people believe that MMOs work better if they ARE lobby-games. In fact, many MMOs are played by a MAJORITY of players like lobby games.
    • If there is no reward to being a hardcore player, there is no reason to be a hardcore player.  Hardcore players stay in games for long periods of time which is good for subscriptions.  They also play for long hours which is good for population.
    Hard core players will play raids hard mode (which few do) to be rewarded with unique mounts, hard to get items and achievements/titles.

     

     

  • DeathageDeathage Member CommonPosts: 146

    At least from an objective standpoint, if tons of people are playng a game, it stands to reason that, yes, it IS what the people want. Otherwise they wouldn't be playing it.

    Now, I'm not harping on the Sandbox crowd, I myself am VERY excited for archeage. However, even in AA, they have made it clear that there will be limits and rules. 

    - I think in the beginning, when people were first starting to burn out on wow, and older gamers wanted to go back to single persistent worlds, players went a little overboard with their demands for freedom. Also, devs were unaware of the longer term implications that their decisions regarding the openness of their world and systems, especially PVP, would have on the way their digital societies unfolded. DF and MO are good examples of this. In this way, games themselves served as the "betas" that would lead to compromises on how free we should be allowed to be. Clearly, totally open PVP was not the way to go; there were just enough a$$holes out there to ruin games for the masses. Thus, in the next-next-generation of MMOs, games like AA, Embers of Caerus, etc will allow open pvp, but with guidelines and disencentives designed to make griefing a harder thing to profit from.

    I'm not trying to be hateful or spiteful, but from a purely objective standpoint, I have to ask why you think these things would improve the game as a whole.

    In what way did the Dungeon Finder ruin WoW?

    -It is clear that the dungeon finder killed the World in World of Warcraft. Everyone from level 15-85 would just stick in town, queue in the finder, watch some tv until they were picked up, after finishing sell loot, rinse, repeat. Having played WoW on and off for a long time, I can say that this totally negated any reason for me to explore the world. Sure, there were plenty of zones and quests that could level me just as efficiently or faster than queueing, but it was a dead world full of npc monsters. Some, especially older players, miss the open worlds where you encountered random people and made friends or enemies in your travels. For me, this game was Tibia. For many it was EQ or UO. Dont get me wrong, for a while I can appreciate the ability to simply plug and chug with a PUG (that rhymes!) but it gets stale quickly.

    Why is full Loot PVP more fun?

    -I wouldnt call losing items/skills/exp upon death more fun, but I would say that it does add a certain amount of intensity to combat. When there is the prospect of real loss in a game, you tread more carefully and are (ideally) more careful before picking fights with random people. Now, there are some serious problems with open PVP in most sandboxes (Ive only played DF) including griefers and a lack of connection/love for your items, but these things can and will be addressed in future games/versions of already existing games. It also (assuming you are in a single server open world without inter-server grouping ala dungeon finder) makes PVP more legendary. Back when I played Tibia, players could turn to legends by being good at PVP; killing other players and getting away with amazing loot.

    Why should games not have auction houses?

    -I would be hard pressed to find a person that totally wants to do away with any form of auction house, but the fact is that AH's do take away a certain social-economic aspect of gameplay. When you are forced to make a sale/purchase using a trade chat or some such system, you are forced to interact with the other players of the server. You get to know who is selling which items most often, get to know who to go to for sales first, who pays top dollar, who rips people off.. etc. It just adds a little depth to gameplay, and doesnt make combat the sole aspect of the game.

    Tons of people say these things will make the MMO genre better, but nobody seems to want to go into too much detail about it.

    -there ya go. Im sure theres more but thats all i could spew out off the top of my head.

     

    Its not that inter-server dungeon finders, global AHs or instanced pvp has no merit. Its that time has moved on, and technology now allows us to have many of the systems used in old 2.5d/isometric games, which were and are still good, in a lush, amazing 3d world. WoW/GW1/EQ2 did instancing because they had to or because they didnt want players to have to compete for dungeons. We dont HAVE to have that anymore.

    edit: of course by the time i write and submit this there are people who beat me to the punch

  • RoyalPhunkRoyalPhunk Member UncommonPosts: 174

    This thread is going to explode.

    Lol you guys are getting Trolled hard by the OP.

    well played OP well played.

  • TheocritusTheocritus Member LegendaryPosts: 10,020

         I tried UO when it was pre-Trammel and I hated the game....There were alot of griefing jerkoffs that absolutely ruined that game.....ALot of people bitched when Trammel was introduced, but IIRC UO stated that it actually increased the playerbase quite a bit and many of them stayed subbed.

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