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Death to End Game!!!
Dreamo84
Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
I'm tired of games focusing on "end game". What kind of concept is that? Why bother having a beginning or a middle game if "end game" is "where the fun is" as i've heard so many times.
Just because this concept has been shoved down our throats doesn't mean we have to accept it. I want the journey and the adventure and the fun. If I make it to max level, awesome! I hope there is still plenty more stuff to do. But it's not where I think the game should begin.
Also:
Grind grind grind
max level
Grind grind grind
Man this game is all grind! I don't even pay attention to the quests, I just kill what it says on the map.
Little hint, the game will always be boring and a grind if you don't pay attention to it.
Comments
I agree. It's a designer's lazy way to fool people into playing the MMO equivalent of Groundhog Day... same day, over and over and over. I think people like this are a) easily entertained, b) gullible, c) may as well play a FPS, d) leave the basement every now and again.
SWTOR, Rift, TERA, GW2, TSW, ect ect all pander to your tastes.
Once upon a time, there were games where end game term didnt exist. And people used to play the same game for years, without ever mentioning the 'end game' term. Thats over now tho
New mmos focus on 1-80 content, or whatever 'max lvl' might be, just to make all that content irrelevant with 1st update, because you know, anything except 'end game instances' is just a stepping stone to... fun ! and doesnt matter one bit, because end game is where fun starts.
which does sound a bit ridiculous really. So ridiculous that we could make another topic out of it. How many times we have heard ... the 'real' game starts end game. And you can even have fun and join interesting activites, if you reach infamous end game. lol really, it does sound stupid :=)
FWIW I agree. Completely. 100%. It's the journey, not the destination. The meal you eat, not the sh*t you take after it. But a significant number of other players see it differently, and that's their prerogative. They tend to be time-rich, devour content quickly and then flood developers with their demands when they get bored. That's just how it is and it isn't going to change any time soon.
ahhh... the cult of the 'end game'.
Yeah, annoying.
What the hell is 'End game' anyways and why people associate End game with only raiding? i played GW1 for years and it also has an end game, and yes it has some amazing grind too.
Does End Game just mean raiding now days? i thought end game emant, stuff to do at lvl cap, regardless of what type of task it is.
To most end game is content only for max lvl characters I mean really why even have lvling in games now adays just make a game where its like DDO where you join up and run dungeons or raids because guess what thats all that there is in most games at end game and not because we want it its because the Dev's made it that way. What I wish is for the whole game to be relavent at max lvl not just one area and a few raids and dungeons. I dont want pvp to be the only thing to do at end game ethier other wise make the whole game pvp no monsters just like and FPS but without guns and make it 32 man battles or something. This whole oh this game sucks it has no end game well games should be about content for all lvl's I spent many nights wondering why I spend so much time trying to do as much content in games as I can when all the content will be worthless once I out lvl it.
Take EQ2 has a ton of content but right now the only thing to do at max lvl is raid and do dungeons or roll another alt. I have a friend who plays it he has 22 lvl 90 toons and 5 of them are lvl 92 and they are not just lvl 90 in class but in crafting as well and he just started his next toon because he has nothing to do 3 days out of the week cause of raid timers his 5 toons are all raid gear and maxed spell and skill so he can only find raiding to do. When I asked him why does he not try a new game he say's whats the point when I would have to do this all over again in another game. I have one lvl 92 toon in EQ2 and thats all I will ever have. In most mmo's if I hear raiding is all there is to do end game I dont waste my time I find something else to do or just quit for a while till I read about something else ccoming out.
Yeah this whole endgame or nothing needs to go make it to where the whole game is used by all lvls and quit with the this area is for lvl 1-10 next area 10 - 20 and so on that is the lamist thing I ever seen. Your telling me a dragon or a group of oges will never move from where they are right and man never evolved past anything.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Channel:http://https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgYNgpFTRAl4XWz31o2emw
To me, "endgame" is "metagame", and can be done at just about any time.
If a game lacks that, it's bound to get boring at some point because the only thing to do is rehash scripted content.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
GW2 and TSW maybe.
SWTOR, Rift & TERA... not so much.
SWTOR and RIFT both follow WOW model of tier based raiding, i have no idea how that would pander to OP's need.
Every MMORPG i know, and i guess i know them all, has a kind of endgame; even sandboxes. Endgame starts, if the way you played the game changes dramatically. The way of playing and your motivation shifts.
Usually this point is reached if you run out of quest-content/story; aside from repeating daylies, which is also no new content. Another point of change is, when you run out of former vertical progression or further meaningful horizontal progression. The way of progression shifts dramatically usually from grinding XP or SP to grinding items and stats. or looking to some newer games into just having fun and no goal at all.
There are some games, where you may jump directly to endgame (e.g. EVE, GW2), but there is always an endgame in an endless MMO. Games without an endgame are called single player offline games.
Unfortunately most MMOs of the last decade had a very dull and repeating endgame. This seems to be the nature of the theme-park and we had no good sandbox since ages. Due to not existing endgame FOR ME, i had to treat these games like single player offline games. SWTOR is the best example for this type of game.
My conclusion: theme-parks have to introduce at least a sandbox endgame. A mandatory pre-condition for a versatile sandbox endgame would be at least a player driven economy. I cant see, how sandbox endgame works without it. There might be instanced theme-parkish endgame elements additionaly but just in a way to not harm the rest especially the economy.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
What gets me is the caual way the word 'grind' is used nowadays.Its like if you have to do anything at all to get something good its 'oh its such a grind!'.People want everything handed to them with little or no effort and thats one of the reasons we have solocentric mmo's.Where is that achevment of 'wooohooo that was one hell of a long quest chain that took weeks to achieve running multiple dungeons/instances (grouped),crafting or getting a crafter to make you something to finally finish and get 'insert items here' gone?
I feel the same, hate that stuff. GW2 and TSW succeeds in cracking this retarded tradition. But i think this whole topic leads to themepark vs sandbox discussion because the root of all those problems is the problems of themepark mmos. We used to play mmos to roleplay that char of us, i remember playing without fighting a single mob for days, just exploring and hanging out in the main city talking to people as if it was a chat app but had a blast, nowadays you only rush and rush and rush so that stops at the holy "level cap" which brings "end game" within.
GW2 really nailed that exploration concept with its non stress leveling curve and sidekicking system, it still may be a themepark but feels like a sandbox if played slowly (following and listening to npcs). I really dont want to plan ahead the end-game mechanics in my head anymore.
One more thing i believe that makes people rush is the sub fee. Maybe not everybody feels this way but i know some of us have that "i pay for the game, so i need to rush to make it worth the 15 bucks".
Some people will always race to max level and then want more to do and i don't think that can be stopped or even needs to be. Games should just realise there's multiple types of player and it's not impossible to compromise. It's impossible to compromise on the style of play different people like but you can cater to multiple styles in the same game i.e. you can have an optimal linear path to max level and a dev team churning out additional *vertical* content for people who like that e.g new higher raid tiers, and a more wandering figure of eight type path for people not in a hurry which has their own team adding more *horizontal* content i.e. adding different ways to level in the same zone for altoholics or different ways to spend time not levelling at all for people who like to take breaks from levelling etc.
I dont think GW2 and TSW will change the basic issue. Both have a levelling phase, an endgame and a dramatic shift in between.
What happens in GW2 if you did your personal story (which ends already at levl 30 afaik) and if you got all your skills and you saw all the DEs more than once? Unfortunately the DEs are less dynamic than expected. You will repeatingly grind PvP-Instances or PVE-Instances for cosmetics. The WvW is a bit less repating and more versatile, but it is far away from terrirorial pvp with an endless metagame. It will become boring for most of the people after a certain time. Some dont like PvP at all. So here is the shift and your boring, repeating endgame until the next expansion comes. the only difference i see, is that in GW2 you might jump directly into the pvp-part of the endgame.
Same with TSW: skill or levelbased does not matter. btw, TSW has a skillsystem but it is entirely levelbased (QL1-QL10). if your skillwheel is full which goes pretty fast due to increasing SP-rewards in the higher zones and if you made all these great quests, and if you wear QL10, you are in your personal endgame and you wait for the expnasion. if you dont like repeating instances and pvp. a theme-park has no endgame for you.
The B2P model is perhaps the better model for all these theme-parks. Pay once. Play the game as you want, and stop as soon you run out of your type of content. wait for expansion and play another game. pay again, if expansion is available. rinse and repeat.
well, THIS is not what I personally call living in an open virtual world. this is just game-hopping. i do not play a game. i live a game!
Dont get me wrong. GW2 and TSW are the best theme-parks since a decade and refreshing different. But for me, they got no endgame worth to play. perhaps they do, but i am very afraid. My only hope for GW2 is, that they will bomb us with DE-changes extremely fast, because adding new branches to a DE seems to be less effort and more feasible than impelementing ongoing new quests in an exisitng world.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
Any level progression game will eventually get top-heavy with max level characters. Once that happens, developers have very little choice but to cater to them and the game shifts priority toward endgame content.
I'd be curious to hear if any games have found ways to avoid this.
GW2 also allows you to re-visit content you outleveled - and scales your level accordingly
something I wish all MMOs would try beyond EQ2 (and soon RIFT) and maybe a few others
EQ2 fan sites
The problem is: "What happens when the journey is over?"
Here's what i think. Players don't want to grind, but, unless there's a form of slowing down people, we'll just comsume the content simply too fast. We say we want to enjoy the leveling process because it's more fun than endgame, but at the same time, we keep moving from point A to point B at lightspeed. Does anyone just stop doing quests and story to socialize with people, instead or running, walk around and see the details of the world, etc. No, it's mostly "Area 1 done, that was fun, now finish area 2". And if devs try to aplly some form of grind, the drama begins.
Also, if such a focus on combat, crafting and economy, housing or any kind of player created content, anything just goes away. So what type of stuff can we do when we reach max level (in less than 1 month)? Grind the same pvp maps and dungeon maps. Alts? Just a way to delay it. It's like cutting a game in 2 (factions) and keeping the rest of the content to the other side. Different starting areas? The same thing.
Journeys are finite and end. So, if players don't want to be slowed down and there's nothign beyong combat activities, what do you expect endgame to be?
I like GW2 and TSW, but they seem to go down this same path.
I fully agree. Basically just the metagame is really endless. Everything else is more or less repeating. There are features supporting such a metagame very well and there are games with no metagme at all (or just for very creative people who will do metagaming even in Tetris). Theme-parks are heavily based on dev-premade content, which mostly does not support metagame very well. actually some features do. so i dont say it is not possible in a theme-park. it was just not done very well so far.
some features which support metagaming in endgame have already been used partially in theme-parks, are announced or could be introduced in a specific manner:
- diplomacy systems
- terraforming
- building (best housing stone by stone like minecraft please)
- planting and breeding aka player generated objects and mobs.
- player generated dungeons
- player generated fashion / cosmetic items
- several non-combat professions aside from crafting (e.g. meaningful logistics)
actually every feature stinks a bit sandbox
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
Yes, i know. As i said:" If you made ALL DEs more than once". Also the newbie zones of other races you may have missed in the first run. People who dont like PvP and/or crafting are doing already more than one newbie zone in parallel in order to get the appropriate level for the next zone in GW2. So dont worry, it does not take too long, to run out of DEs
At least even this is not endless. However, i hope, that DEs are faster expandable and with less effort than quests. So the casuals may have a chance, to be feeded with new or changed and expanded DEs endlessly. we will see.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
Originally posted by FredomSekerZ
Does anyone just stop doing quests and story to socialize with people, instead or running, walk around and see the details of the world, etc. No, it's mostly "Area 1 done, that was fun, now finish area 2". And if devs try to aplly some form of grind, the drama begins.
Actually I do! But i am a living MMO-Fossil.
Perhaps, if we would have more interesting and meaningful metagaming right from the start, that would help, in order to disturb more people (not all) from fast-levelling. I am not surprised about fast levelling and i dont call all people stupid fast-levellers. As better the content is, as better is your drug and as faster you like to have more of this drug. So we need some better drugs beside the typical story-content in order to slow people down. But most theme-parks killed metagaming with patience since 2004.
Exactly this will become the problem with TSW and GW2: great content! People will rush thru these games as there would be no tomorrow, even if they dont believe in Mayas.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
there will always be gamers that try to rush through any game - regardless of game design
you can level to 80 in GW2 doing nothing but crafting without killing a thing
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/12/leveling-to-80-through-pure-crafting-possible-in-guild-wars-2/
alternatives to clearing hubs/zones exist in some mmos
EQ2 fan sites
When you have a journey, people race to finish it in a week and complain there's nothing to do.
Endgame doesn't exist because that's where developers want people to be racing through the journey, it's there because they can't keep up with the rate that people consume content.
(of course, if they're bound and determined to have a themepark rather than a sandbox, it would seem to make more sense to me to ensure that they produce a regular heartbeat of new episodes/zones instead of piling everything up into expansions)
I think the design flaw is that they "believe" MMORPGs are suppose to have a beginning, middle, and ending... The concept of forever is difficult to grasp it seems.
Honestly, having levels or even "leveling" skills is another example of "end game", everyone will be trying to get to max level to get that good "stuff"...
I think an mmorpg can be designed in such a way that provides a multitude of content, fun, and entertainment without ever using levels or "leveling skills".
"Does anyone just stop doing quests and story to socialize with people, instead or running, walk around and see the details of the world, etc. No, it's mostly "Area 1 done, that was fun, now finish area 2"."
I think this could be improved if the world design was laid out more as a collection of figure of eights rather than linear so the players go out and come back to the same base as they level up. So an island with four coastal starter zones would have a *circle* of zones around each rather than a linear path away from each such that if you started at that town you could level close to max from the zones around the same base (or travel to one of the other starter zones and do the same thing). I think there's something psychological about linear treadmill design that makes people more obsessive - it does that to me anyway - whereas if i was leaving and coming back to a central base i think there'd be less of a treadmill feeling and less of a rush.
"Any level progression game will eventually get top-heavy with max level characters. Once that happens, developers have very little choice but to cater to them and the game shifts priority toward endgame content."
The other good thing about a game that was designed this way is when a game has been around for a while and most of the players are high level then new players won't see empty zones as they level up. The higher level players will still be coming and going - even more so if the zones have dense multi-level content i.e. say the game is lvl 1-50, a starter zone might be level 1-12 but also has the entrance to a 12-24 dungeon and a portal for a lvl 50 god's dimension. The adjacent zone to east might have a middle lvl 12-24 section along the main travelling route west-east, some islands in the southern section with lvl 24-36 mermen and northern mountains with lvl 36-48 giants so again you get all level ranges coming and going in the zone - dense content rather than broad content.