I think the reason so many people argue with you is simply how your opinion is presented. I'm not sure if you do it intentionally, but you often come off an attitude of:
"I am right because I am the majority, and you are wrong."
Once again, if you're not intending to communicate the above sentence, then your opinion is 100% okay. If you are though, then that would be why everyone argues with you .
Oh, i know why so many argues with me. What is a forum without a little argument.
But opinions cannot be right. I love Diablo 3 .. i am unabashed and will say it. However, there is no "right' preference. Some other people here obviously hate it as much as i like it. So i am not saying "i am right and you are wrong".
However, given how many copies D3 sold, and how prevalent its style of play is in MMOs, i would say "I am in the majority". Why shouldn't i say that if i believe it is the truth?
And it is also ok if people want to argue. After all, this is an internet forum, and that is for arguing, if nothing else.
Well people part are not because I want to make friends through a game. It is just fun to do something together with others and I don't mean running through dungeon with nameless randoms from LFG tool
That's not fun.
THat is fun for me. In fact, unless you don't PUG, LFD is the better way to PUG. I hate shouting "lfg" for 15 min and get in groups that never go to the dungeon.
Fighting yes, but it has added benefit if you fight with or against people you at least know a name and after you play half a year on a server without cross-server things and easy transfers, then you know who's asshole, who is considered good in pvp and then you know fight will be good. You know who trolls and who's reliable.
I play on Battle.net .. already know a few good players and it does not matter if they play D3 or WOW, or on my server. Servers are just artificial boundaries. Hate it. X-realm is good (which is coming to WOW). People are people.
There is also politics when whole 'game world' community consist of those finite amount of people that are on a server.
I hate drama. Particularly guild/loot drama. Don't care about "politics" or "community". It boils down to if i have people to play with, and if i have fun.
Trading, exploring,etc
Dungeons & raids are ok. I even had been raid leader for a short time (semi-casual raid alliance not progression one), but that's get old if that's only or almost only thing you do
Combat in EvE can be very fun actually. Fun comes not purely from combat itself, but from all things that happen before and after a fight.
Combat itself is not fun ... forget it. Before & after .. sure. Optmization of gear is fun too. Figuring out optimal build is fun. Eve combat is NOT fun. I tried the game twice. Worse than STO. Worse than POTBS.
Yeh. And there is certainly more depth & complexity in combat than back in the EQ days.
Sure is, but when it is made at expense of everything non-combat then it is nor worth it.
Defintiely worth it. There isn't much in video games other than combat. Crafting? not interested (i will do it if i get better gear). Housig? Not interested.
Boring for you. Fun for me. Fun combat & progression is what matters to me. Doing it in a clean & convenient environemtn is added benefit.
Yeah, we're getting somewhere
Unpredicitable, surpsising and changing enviroment is what is one of best things.
One of reasons why it is so boring is cause mmorpg's are so structured and 'clean'.
Its not rose tinted glasses, older mmorpgs were a different breed from what we mainly have today. Some prefer the older style, some like the newer style.
I think the reason so many people argue with you is simply how your opinion is presented. I'm not sure if you do it intentionally, but you often come off an attitude of:
"I am right because I am the majority, and you are wrong."
Once again, if you're not intending to communicate the above sentence, then your opinion is 100% okay. If you are though, then that would be why everyone argues with you .
Oh, i know why so many argues with me. What is a forum without a little argument.
But opinions cannot be right. I love Diablo 3 .. i am unabashed and will say it. However, there is no "right' preference. Some other people here obviously hate it as much as i like it. So i am not saying "i am right and you are wrong".
However, given how many copies D3 sold, and how prevalent its style of play is in MMOs, i would say "I am in the majority". Why shouldn't i say that if i believe it is the truth?
And it is also ok if people want to argue. After all, this is an internet forum, and that is for arguing, if nothing else.
That's absolutely fine then, but let's be clear on what we're arguing about here. I am not arguing that your opinion is invalid...that would be silly.
I am arguing that your presumption that the overwhelming majority of gamers want linear, themeparkish games like WoW and SWTOR, and only a minority want sandboxy games, is wrong.
And the evidence I will use is that Minecraft sold 6.5 million copies and has the graphics of a game made in 1992. It sold 6.5 million copies because people are dying for the kind of gameplay it offers, and the industry just isn't offering it up. Terraria, also sold many copies for the same reason with SNES graphics. And then you have Day-Z, like I said before, its release has caused ARMA 2 to be #1 on Steam for like 2 months or something...that's crazy!
I have seen so many arguments claiming that no one wants sandbox games because games like Darkfall and Mortal Online are so obscure. This is the silliest argument I have ever seen. Those games didn't do well because they are bad games. Not because they are sandbox games. When a GOOD sandbox game came out, people jumped all over it.
So in light of all this, I really can't see how you can say that only a "minority" of gamers want sandbox games. Would you call 6.5 million a minority? And mind you, those 6.5 million bought a game with graphics reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D.
"I'm so disappointed with today's MMOs. Why can't they release something like those in the golden age of MMOs like UO?" and many others like this.
I just started playing MMORPGs two years ago so I'm definitely not a veteran in the genre. I'm just wondering, are those games in the "golden age" really that great or are these people just intoxicated by the feeling of nostalgia, and/or the good feeling provided by their very first MMO experience which can never be replicated no matter what developers do?
Heh , you need to understand one thing , take MMO's starting 2000 up to 2012 , the ones in the 2000's will always be better then the ones of today. Why? Because Devs think that adding realistic graphics , housing , easy mode lvl ups / boss battles will attract people. That is so wrong and why all releases for the past couple of years are such failures. Back in the day , the community was great , it was all about partying up and grinding for hours. Today it's all about solo play and ruining the fun for the community. MMORPGs will never be the same , is WoW to blame? No. WoW was suppose to be the solution but Devs decided to dumb down the whole genre. Blizzard did screw up Diablo 3 big time , you'd expect the game to last longer then 24 hours from Normal all the way to mid inferno , and the game is all about grinding gold for auction house which is so wrong , log on D3 today , barely no one is playing anymore compared to the first 2 weeks of release. D2 (old) Vs D3 (new) , you currently got more playing D2 then D3 and actually barely no botters. hehe.
On the other hand , MMORTS's are getting a major face lift thanks to End of Nations , it's like playing Red Alert 95 via Heat but a million times better! Me , my co workers and some old timers back in high school have recently hooked back up togheter and started training for End of Nations! :P
There is a reason UO is still around, the longest running mmo. There is a reason EQ is still around. There is a reason EVE online is still a beast.
These games all did something different, they didnt just copy someone else's idea and repackage it into a new box.
It is simple truth. Most of the MMO's of recent years have been trash.
It is kinda WoW's fault too. Wow showed big gaming companies that MMOs COULD make tons of money. So when a guy with an idea for a game comes to ask for money from a financeer, the financeer says "I like your idea, but make it more like WoW since that is a proven model" If a dev does actually get financing to make a game his way then he has to go to publishing companies. These are the guys that make sure it gets to the store shelves and onto Steam or other DL sites. They also force their ways onto devs as well.
A good example of this is Pirates of the Burning Sea which had a tough time getting a publishor. Eventually they settled on Sony but it was pretty late in the game. Then , out of nowhere with no warning right at the end of beta they introduced a giant patch that COMPLETELY changed the game and made it much, much more carebear and kiddy friendly. The changes were absolytely game changing and they introduced it right at the end of beta so players couldnt test it. The game released and all the beta testers(me included) erupted in disatisfaction with the changes. You have to understand, many followed this game for years and read the devs(flying labs) posts about how they wanted the game to be. It was why people liked it. It is why people wanted in the beta and why so many loved the game in beta. Then, litterally a day or 2 before the end of beta and a week or so before release they completely changed the design of the game. Most felt Sony pressured these changes onto Flying labs. Publishers are hard to find, especially ones that can distribute in North America, South America, and Europe. Flying labs had no choice but to change their wonderful niche pvp game into a "try to please everyone" carebear game.
That's absolutely fine then, but let's be clear on what we're arguing about here. I am not arguing that your opinion is invalid...that would be silly.
I am arguing that your presumption that the overwhelming majority of gamers want linear, themeparkish games like WoW and SWTOR, and only a minority want sandboxy games, is wrong.
And the evidence I will use is that Minecraft sold 6.5 million copies and has the graphics of a game made in 1992. It sold 6.5 million copies because people are dying for the kind of gameplay it offers, and the industry just isn't offering it up. Terraria, also sold many copies for the same reason with SNES graphics. And then you have Day-Z, like I said before, its release has caused ARMA 2 to be #1 on Steam for like 2 months or something...that's crazy!
I have seen so many arguments claiming that no one wants sandbox games because games like Darkfall and Mortal Online are so obscure. This is the silliest argument I have ever seen. Those games didn't do well because they are bad games. Not because they are sandbox games. When a GOOD sandbox game came out, people jumped all over it.
So in light of all this, I really can't see how you can say that only a "minority" of gamers want sandbox games. Would you call 6.5 million a minority? And mind you, those 6.5 million bought a game with graphics reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D.
Clearly in your example, what people want is the gameplay. Your other 2 examples were not failures, but merely sandboxes that catered to PvP. Hardcore I might add as well. And I think, although we have all had this argument before, that that is a smaller market.
What is needed is the Sandbox that caters to all types of gamers. Freedom to PvP. Freedome to PvE without being ganked. Freedom to explore and create. Etc Etc.
A pretty massive undertaking for any game wouldn't you say? Probably why we are waiting 5+ years for new AAA games to come out these days. People want everything, and everything doesn't come easy or cheap!!
So it may be some time I think before somebody has the vision or the bankroll and the guts to make this happen.
And in the meantime we wait.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Seems like the developer's goals have shifted from building a persistent world with a lot to draw, maintain and grow a stable community to checking off features needed to build massive hype and recoup your developement costs back in a big launch. The first of these lends itself toward the possibility of having a better product as the latter requires a hefty portion of the budget going towards marketing. It's a lot easier to feel happier about the old games when the newer ones seem bland and safe with their feature list designed only to attract initial intrest, and not keep you happy and subscribing.
With rising development costs the latter plan frankly sucks, but it's more likely we'll see less games developed instead of developers reappraising their goals and going back to the build a decent product, slowly grow your player base towards profitability route.
Well ... IMHO its not about "past", its more about quality.
Older games have been more likely programmed by motivated enthusiasts.
Todays games are programmed by underpaid workslaves of big companies. And its obvious; the games are just no fun, clones of each other, and the companies just try to make more and more money from them, at any cost.
Just check out the career of Bioware. They started by making the game they would like to play themself: Baldurs Gate 1+2. They also did some small projects before that point, but those havent had much success. Then they became big - and then they've been sold to EA. Dragon Age: Origins was planned to be finally another game like Baldurs Gate, but EA made sure it was anything but that. They removed the multiplayer part, they made console clones, and they made a successor which didnt even had a version title anymore and was a completely different game.
I think the most reasons have been said already about why people would "dwell" in the past. I do agree that there is a bit of nostalgy and truth in it. But also remember back in the days of UO the game industry was very different and people miss that as well. The community was different back than cause the lolzor kids didn't excist and no way that parents in the 90's gave their kids their credit cards (atleast not where im from) or even let them play for hours on a 56k modem that would rise the phonebill sky high. So the players you had back than where perhaps even more devoted to the MMO. And look at how loyal people are these days to their MMO. As soon as a new one comes out they massively jump ship and suddenly your server is rather quiet. That is no fun either for those who still enjoy the MMO they currently play.
Back than you didn't see a new MMORPG fast either. So the one you played really had time to develop and grow. If there where bugs or content missing than a dev didn't had to worry that their players would leave as soon as their 30 day free sub. ended. You had time to make improvements. People these days don't have patience with a MMORPG. And as old player you miss those days that people really stood behind a game. You can't blame people for leaving if a game doesn't match up their expectations, but people leave so fast these days. Also because they got way to many MMO's to choose from.
So beside the whole nostalgic trip it is also a community thing why many people have fond memories of the past and like the old MMO's better. Its like with many of today's games. The game industry has changed, many great genres have been dumbed down to please the new generation of gamer and those who loved a genre have to see with horror what has happened to their beloved series. Do games from the past have flaws? Yeah plenty of them, but if we don't look trough the pink glasses we an still see how many great mechanics from older games in no mather what genre have been removed to simplefy a game of today so the new generation of gamers aren't gonna cry that its to hard or too complex. Like Rainbow Six, it was a tactical game, you had to think, you had to plan, and you had to be careful. You wanted to clear room by room just to make sure no enemy would suprise you. You had to use tactics and not just barge into a room gunblazing cause that would be a certain death with the one shot one kill implanted. And that was only on easy mode. Today its nothing more than a light tactical game that reaches the level of the old easy mode when you play on the hardest mode today >.<
Yeah we older gamers look back trough pink glasses, but we also remember when MMO's:
1. Still offered player houses and you wouldn't hear any damn raider say "i don't see the point of having a house in a MMORPG and because i don't like it it shouldn't be implanted in it. I rather have them making the 920312398 new dungeon i can raid than that those who don't like raiding get something they want in their game".
2. When MMO's still where about exploring and getting to know the world instead of a giant arrow pointing you the way and when you open your map you see the exact locations of your objectives so you don't really go explore anymore, you just follow the arrow for 85 lvls without ever reading a single quest.
3. That you could do what ever you liked. Like the old SWG before Sony. Where players could build entire cities together, where entertainers didn't had to go out and kill mobs but could play music or dance in cantina's and lvl up that way. Like EVE online where players control the universe given to them, a player runned economy. And yeah that came is still live, but they don't make games like that anymore.
4. And when you didn't had 4 or 5 new MMO's a year next to the thousands of free to play crap pouring into the western market. The market is flooded with MMO's and they all look and play them same. When you are a MMO veteran you have seen most things already. Hell if you only been around for 5 years you already seen how one after another generic fantasy MMO gets released.
Does that mean today's MMO's have nothing to offer? Not at all, but its ironic how people hype certain MMO's for some "new" mechanics that used to be very normal in the old day MMO's but keep saying that the older MMOers shouldn't dwell in the past cause GW2 is comming out soon and it will bring all kind of new stuff....yeah great but that stuff used to be very normal in the old skool MMO's.
People argue with you because you obviously have the patience and imagination of a console gamer. Your quip about Minecraft pretty much sums up your whole philosophy on games in general - that a quick diversion is worth more than long-lasting depth and infatuation with something. I've also seen it every time you state you'd rather play a lobby-based game than anything else.
That is the complete polar opposite to the tenets this genre was founded on, and what other players tend to be attracted to.
Essentially, *you* are the enemy, and the kind of gamer that all the modern-day crap being shoveled out is aimed at.
~I want a game where I can do whatever I feel like, whatever comes to mind is an option, and that cumbersome depth is the spice of life for me. I prefer games that last a lifetime (I've played Dark Cloud 2 and Disgaea, *console games* for years at a time, respectively, and have milked Civ 4 for the last drops of it's lifeblood).
~You want a game that is fun *now*, doesn't require any thinking, nor develops any emotional attachment, and doesn't drag your attention away from the next big thing. You prefer games that last a month or so, then admittedly, you would like to move onto something else.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
"I'm so disappointed with today's MMOs. Why can't they release something like those in the golden age of MMOs like UO?" and many others like this.
I just started playing MMORPGs two years ago so I'm definitely not a veteran in the genre. I'm just wondering, are those games in the "golden age" really that great or are these people just intoxicated by the feeling of nostalgia, and/or the good feeling provided by their very first MMO experience which can never be replicated no matter what developers do?
MMo in the so-called "golden era" weren't the juggernauts that the veterans always pretend them to be...
The fact is: Those veterans are getting older and nostalgia is starting to kick in. They just have some trouble adapting to the fact that the world is changing and that they need to change as well and not get "stuck" in the past.
this: "get off my lawn, younglings!"-mentality needs to change...
"Isn't a raid plundering villages in WoW or something like that?" - Robert Desable
The fact is: Those veterans are getting older and nostalgia is starting to kick in. They just have some trouble adapting to the fact that the world is changing and that they need to change as well and not get "stuck" in the past.
I disagree, and I will use the history of the Fallout franchise as an example here.
We used to play games like the original Fallout 1 & 2, which were deep, slower-paced monsters w/ tons of choices to make. Eventually, companies saw where trends were moving and decided to make Fallout:BoS, and say "this is where things are moving". So we were stuck with a top-down isometric shooter with zero depth, and gave none of the same choices available in the past games.
Like Fallout, MMOs used to look crappy, but have an incredible amount of depth and replay value, and now it's all linear pieces of shit like what console-generation players are (mostly) used to. The idea of putting thought into anything is much harder than walking a straight line, and thusly why I can't convince any of my friends that Fallout: New Vegas is worth it for the sheer amount of stuff to do, compared to something like CoD: Black Ops, which has a linear campaign that is worth one playthrough before it's completely forgotten about and the next 6 months are spent in online multiplayer doing the exact same maps, over and over again. They actually shun new maps coming in because having to learn them all over again is too much for their feeble brains.
It's not old vs young, it's complexity vs hurrrrrrrrfffff.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
The fact is: Those veterans are getting older and nostalgia is starting to kick in. They just have some trouble adapting to the fact that the world is changing and that they need to change as well and not get "stuck" in the past.
I disagree, and I will use the history of the Fallout franchise as an example here.
We used to play games like the original Fallout 1 & 2, which were deep, slower-paced monsters w/ tons of choices to make. Eventually, companies saw where trends were moving and decided to make Fallout:BoS, and say "this is where things are moving". So we were stuck with a top-down isometric shooter with zero depth, and gave none of the same choices available in the past games.
Like Fallout, MMOs used to look crappy, but have an incredible amount of depth and replay value, and now it's all linear pieces of shit like what console-generation players are (mostly) used to. The idea of putting thought into anything is much harder than walking a straight line, and thusly why I can't convince any of my friends that Fallout: New Vegas is worth it for the sheer amount of stuff to do, compared to something like CoD: Black Ops, which has a linear campaign that is worth one playthrough before it's completely forgotten about and the next 6 months are spent in online multiplayer doing the exact same maps, over and over again. They actually shun new maps coming in because having to learn them all over again is too much for their feeble brains.
I beg to differ actually,
The problem with your argument is that the demographic of gaming shifted. The so-called gamer today is made up of a small group of "Depth"-lovers and a much larger audience consisting out of the casual "Sensational"-gamer.
This means that big budget companies have more tendency to make a game for the larger audience and thus make more of a dumbed down game that attracts the casual gamer.
But the "hardcore" Depth-addicted junkies like you and me are still here and thus there's still an another audience to please. And because there still being an audience, companies still make games for this audience. Meaning that there are still al ot of games with a lot of depth and replay value.
The endnote being that in the "golden era" these casual games did not survive because of the casual demographic not being there and the fact that Depth-addicted junkies would shun those games.
Thus if your argument is that you have to search for good games these days and wade through piles of crappy games to get to them..then yes your argument is perfectly valid. But if your argument is that good games with a lot of depth and replay value don't exist anymore..then no...you are wrong
"Isn't a raid plundering villages in WoW or something like that?" - Robert Desable
Thus if your argument is that you have to search for good games these and wade through piles of crappy games to get to them..then yes your argument is perfectly valid. But if your argument is that good games with lots of depth and replay value don't exisqt anymore..then no...you ar wrong
I have like 5 games on my desktop I cycle through, each giving me the taste of freedom I craved since playing UO and SWG.
So, I'm not hurting for things to play, but it does get me butthurt that only indie companies want to cater to my particular playstyle anymore. This has everything to do with company philosophy more than anything else, though. They don't make MMOs to build them up over time into the ultimate experience - they make them so that they can sell a million copies at launch, milk subs as long as they can, and yank all their talent off of it so that they can move them to the next project and repeat the process all over again. Nobody invests into their games like they used to, once launched, that is.
It's like the whole market has moved into 'temporary experiences', and they know it, and frankly don't care - because it pays better. If modern games even had a fragment of the choice options of games 10 years ago, they would see people stick with them for far longer than the free month of play. Again, though, they don't care about that - they recouped the investment + trickle-down profits after that, and it's all they care about.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
It's like the whole market has moved into 'temporary experiences', and they know it, and frankly don't care - because it pays better. If modern games even had a fragment of the choice options of games 10 years ago, they would see people stick with them for far longer than the free month of play. Again, though, they don't care about that - they recouped the investment + trickle-down profits after that, and it's all they care about.
I wholly agree
And can you blame them? If you, as a living, could make ugly paintings while being blindfolded and make them sell well, why would you actually put some effort into your paintings? They look rlly ugly, but they sell well so why should I care?
That's the mentality of most of the so-called "casual" companies..
The "hardcore" companies actually put some effort and depth into their games and cater to you and me but don't sell as well. Their games are like beautifull paintings though and as a result the devs of those companies actually like their own games.
The only thing we can do is convert as many ppl to our side, so the demographic shifts :O
"Isn't a raid plundering villages in WoW or something like that?" - Robert Desable
"I'm so disappointed with today's MMOs. Why can't they release something like those in the golden age of MMOs like UO?" and many others like this.
I just started playing MMORPGs two years ago so I'm definitely not a veteran in the genre. I'm just wondering, are those games in the "golden age" really that great or are these people just intoxicated by the feeling of nostalgia, and/or the good feeling provided by their very first MMO experience which can never be replicated no matter what developers do?
I'm sure part of it is nostalgia, but the core gameplay of MMORPGs has really taken a turn for the worse in the past few years. MMORPGs have been stripped of what defined the genre, in an attempt to draw in crowds from the FPS, RTS, and other genres.
The reason newer "MMORPG" players don't understand this, is because they never knew what a real mmorpg was. It's not their fault, they are just ignorant.
To add to this, even if a newer MMORPG player decided to see what the hype was all about with the old MMORPG titles, those games are either:
A. No longer around.
or
B. Have been altered greatly from their original vision and gameplay (drove original players away)
You're just not going to find any official stuff out there with the old MMORPGs with the core gameplay that made them original successes anymore. They simply don't exist. They can try doing UO, but it is not like the the original vision laid out by Richard Garriott when the game first came out.
Another thing I want to put out is that if the game changes due to additional content, that's usually of course very good. More things to do and see is great. The part where I have had major issues with and have left titles because of, is from patches / publishes that greatly alter gameplay away from the one that made me a fan to begin with. It's like pulling the "Welcome" mat from underneath someone's feet.
Originally posted by GTwander
Originally posted by Reskaillev
Thus if your argument is that you have to search for good games these and wade through piles of crappy games to get to them..then yes your argument is perfectly valid. But if your argument is that good games with lots of depth and replay value don't exisqt anymore..then no...you ar wrong
I have like 5 games on my desktop I cycle through, each giving me the taste of freedom I craved since playing UO and SWG.
So, I'm not hurting for things to play, but it does get me butthurt that only indie companies want to cater to my particular playstyle anymore. This has everything to do with company philosophy more than anything else, though. They don't make MMOs to build them up over time into the ultimate experience - they make them so that they can sell a million copies at launch, milk subs as long as they can, and yank all their talent off of it so that they can move them to the next project and repeat the process all over again. Nobody invests into their games like they used to, once launched, that is.
It's like the whole market has moved into 'temporary experiences', and they know it, and frankly don't care - because it pays better. If modern games even had a fragment of the choice options of games 10 years ago, they would see people stick with them for far longer than the free month of play. Again, though, they don't care about that - they recouped the investment + trickle-down profits after that, and it's all they care about.
It's very bad, overall.
I can still remember the wonder and possibilities of what developers could do back in 1998 and the early 2000's. The options they gave us was great, and I wondered what they could do given more time, technology, and experience in the new gaming genre.
I dreamed of how they can make the game world "ours" as a community. I used to think of how else they can allow our characters to do more in the game, provided developers had more time.
Now? The gameplay has regressed. There's far fewer options. There are some pretty game worlds out there, but you cannot do anything in them except kill NPCs there or just run through.
For a genre who's potential back in 1998 and early 2000's seemed limitless, the ceiling was eventually set really, really low.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
"I'm so disappointed with today's MMOs. Why can't they release something like those in the golden age of MMOs like UO?" and many others like this.
I just started playing MMORPGs two years ago so I'm definitely not a veteran in the genre. I'm just wondering, are those games in the "golden age" really that great or are these people just intoxicated by the feeling of nostalgia, and/or the good feeling provided by their very first MMO experience which can never be replicated no matter what developers do?
I don't believe that those games cannot be repliclated. The problem I find with MMOs is that too many changes are made to them over time, changing too many of the core aspects that make them great. My 1st online gaming experience was Ultima Online. I was instantly hooked to that game, it was just so fun. I played Ultima Online from the time of it's release untill some time into the Renaissance era. The release of the "2 worlds" for PvP and non-PvP changed the game too much for me as UO was a PvP game and should have remained that way. They later came out with factions for PvP, (PvP in the safety of a towns borders), but it had issues, on my server at least. The factions were really imbalanced. With the exception of litterally a handful of players, almost everyone was eventually on the winning team with no one to fight. My friends and I took a faction with the least amount of people because we enjoyed being the underdogs. I eventualy lost interest with UO because of this change though and then moved on to EverQuest. Like UO, I got hooked pretty quickly to the game. It was a lot different than UO, being mostly PvE (the PvP sucked) but it was challenging at times (for me anyway) and a lot of fun. I played EverQuest for about 5 years up untill the end of the "Planes of Power" expansion. Recently, I went back to give EQ another try because SOE had started what they call "Progression Servers" that follow the original timelime. Unfortunately, the game had been changed too much since the time I played. Spells and Items were way more powerful than when I 1st played, removing all the challenges I remembered. Also, the majority of players "boxed" their own groups. People have different opinions about boxing, but to me it ruins an online community where people should be playing together.
To me it seems that over time, games all seem to change to make the game more playable for everyone. Now, it's just my opinion, but I think why games change to make things easier for players is because it makes it playable for many more people. The more players = more subscriptions, which of coarse = more $ and in the end that is the goal of the gaming industry. I think a company COULD make a challenging game again but since it would likely not have the same numbers as a game such as World of Warcraft, I wouldn't expect to see one any time soon.
All the veterans of mmos that played uo, eq, ac and those games thought we would see the idea of a virtual world expanded upon by later games, not become spowopag (single player online with other people around games) type games.
my first game was asherons call. my friends had been playing for a bit and got me to try it. they were all playing on darktide (free for all pvp server). I rolled a character on darktide and zoned into the game, as soon as i zoned in I died. see there were these jerks in the game in a guild called BLOOD. All they did was run around and kill noobies in starter towns. they were you basic basement dwelling living in momma house trolls. if someone was able to fight back they would leave them alone. they just wanted to kill the lowbies and people that couldnt actually hurt them. well i died about 15 times that day as soon as i made my character. i nearly quit but once i got over the feeling of wanting to go kick puppies I vowed one day every member of blood would die. so for 3 years me and my friends fought blood wherever we saw them, we defended dungeons from blood and other pkers so people could just farm and level up. we had our own little olthoi dungeon and we were a member of a anti pk guild along with several other guilds that wouldnt kill anyone unless we were attacked first. we were the sheriffs of a lawless land.
I eventually got enough money to buy a apartment, then a house, one of my friends had a villa we could hang out at. we felt like we lived in a virtual world. we would meet up at this guys villa or one of our houses, or in town and we would go out into the wilderness and slay monsters and protect the land from blood and other rpk guilds.
now you tell me one other mmo since swg that has offered that type of gaming experience and that has not been a buggy pile of crap. none to very few and none have been mainstream. most games dont offer that world anymore. there is no reason to have world interaction between players. most interaction comes when people group up while doing a quest just so they dont compete for spawns. they moved away from creating that virtual world that the first mmos hinted at. so no its not complete nostalgi, mmos have taken a step back from what they started as, and went a totally different path. they might as well be single player online games now that allow alot of people to play them at once. they are no longer mmos and most of them arent rpgs either even the ones that are supposed to be.
Comments
LOL @ 500k copies. How many copies did the latest WOW clone sold? (Hint .. a lot more than 500k)
Oh, i know why so many argues with me. What is a forum without a little argument.
But opinions cannot be right. I love Diablo 3 .. i am unabashed and will say it. However, there is no "right' preference. Some other people here obviously hate it as much as i like it. So i am not saying "i am right and you are wrong".
However, given how many copies D3 sold, and how prevalent its style of play is in MMOs, i would say "I am in the majority". Why shouldn't i say that if i believe it is the truth?
And it is also ok if people want to argue. After all, this is an internet forum, and that is for arguing, if nothing else.
Its not rose tinted glasses, older mmorpgs were a different breed from what we mainly have today. Some prefer the older style, some like the newer style.
And if more games like Diablo 3 are made, i don't have to play MMORPGs.
Vanguard is not trying to be WoW. No one can. Way to completely miss the point kid.
That's absolutely fine then, but let's be clear on what we're arguing about here. I am not arguing that your opinion is invalid...that would be silly.
I am arguing that your presumption that the overwhelming majority of gamers want linear, themeparkish games like WoW and SWTOR, and only a minority want sandboxy games, is wrong.
And the evidence I will use is that Minecraft sold 6.5 million copies and has the graphics of a game made in 1992. It sold 6.5 million copies because people are dying for the kind of gameplay it offers, and the industry just isn't offering it up. Terraria, also sold many copies for the same reason with SNES graphics. And then you have Day-Z, like I said before, its release has caused ARMA 2 to be #1 on Steam for like 2 months or something...that's crazy!
I have seen so many arguments claiming that no one wants sandbox games because games like Darkfall and Mortal Online are so obscure. This is the silliest argument I have ever seen. Those games didn't do well because they are bad games. Not because they are sandbox games. When a GOOD sandbox game came out, people jumped all over it.
So in light of all this, I really can't see how you can say that only a "minority" of gamers want sandbox games. Would you call 6.5 million a minority? And mind you, those 6.5 million bought a game with graphics reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Heh , you need to understand one thing , take MMO's starting 2000 up to 2012 , the ones in the 2000's will always be better then the ones of today. Why? Because Devs think that adding realistic graphics , housing , easy mode lvl ups / boss battles will attract people. That is so wrong and why all releases for the past couple of years are such failures. Back in the day , the community was great , it was all about partying up and grinding for hours. Today it's all about solo play and ruining the fun for the community. MMORPGs will never be the same , is WoW to blame? No. WoW was suppose to be the solution but Devs decided to dumb down the whole genre. Blizzard did screw up Diablo 3 big time , you'd expect the game to last longer then 24 hours from Normal all the way to mid inferno , and the game is all about grinding gold for auction house which is so wrong , log on D3 today , barely no one is playing anymore compared to the first 2 weeks of release. D2 (old) Vs D3 (new) , you currently got more playing D2 then D3 and actually barely no botters. hehe.
On the other hand , MMORTS's are getting a major face lift thanks to End of Nations , it's like playing Red Alert 95 via Heat but a million times better! Me , my co workers and some old timers back in high school have recently hooked back up togheter and started training for End of Nations! :P
Because today's mmos arent as good?
There is a reason UO is still around, the longest running mmo. There is a reason EQ is still around. There is a reason EVE online is still a beast.
These games all did something different, they didnt just copy someone else's idea and repackage it into a new box.
It is simple truth. Most of the MMO's of recent years have been trash.
It is kinda WoW's fault too. Wow showed big gaming companies that MMOs COULD make tons of money. So when a guy with an idea for a game comes to ask for money from a financeer, the financeer says "I like your idea, but make it more like WoW since that is a proven model" If a dev does actually get financing to make a game his way then he has to go to publishing companies. These are the guys that make sure it gets to the store shelves and onto Steam or other DL sites. They also force their ways onto devs as well.
A good example of this is Pirates of the Burning Sea which had a tough time getting a publishor. Eventually they settled on Sony but it was pretty late in the game. Then , out of nowhere with no warning right at the end of beta they introduced a giant patch that COMPLETELY changed the game and made it much, much more carebear and kiddy friendly. The changes were absolytely game changing and they introduced it right at the end of beta so players couldnt test it. The game released and all the beta testers(me included) erupted in disatisfaction with the changes. You have to understand, many followed this game for years and read the devs(flying labs) posts about how they wanted the game to be. It was why people liked it. It is why people wanted in the beta and why so many loved the game in beta. Then, litterally a day or 2 before the end of beta and a week or so before release they completely changed the design of the game. Most felt Sony pressured these changes onto Flying labs. Publishers are hard to find, especially ones that can distribute in North America, South America, and Europe. Flying labs had no choice but to change their wonderful niche pvp game into a "try to please everyone" carebear game.
I could give other exmples...
Clearly in your example, what people want is the gameplay. Your other 2 examples were not failures, but merely sandboxes that catered to PvP. Hardcore I might add as well. And I think, although we have all had this argument before, that that is a smaller market.
What is needed is the Sandbox that caters to all types of gamers. Freedom to PvP. Freedome to PvE without being ganked. Freedom to explore and create. Etc Etc.
A pretty massive undertaking for any game wouldn't you say? Probably why we are waiting 5+ years for new AAA games to come out these days. People want everything, and everything doesn't come easy or cheap!!
So it may be some time I think before somebody has the vision or the bankroll and the guts to make this happen.
And in the meantime we wait.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Seems like the developer's goals have shifted from building a persistent world with a lot to draw, maintain and grow a stable community to checking off features needed to build massive hype and recoup your developement costs back in a big launch. The first of these lends itself toward the possibility of having a better product as the latter requires a hefty portion of the budget going towards marketing. It's a lot easier to feel happier about the old games when the newer ones seem bland and safe with their feature list designed only to attract initial intrest, and not keep you happy and subscribing.
With rising development costs the latter plan frankly sucks, but it's more likely we'll see less games developed instead of developers reappraising their goals and going back to the build a decent product, slowly grow your player base towards profitability route.
I
You can still play UO or EQ. If they are so great, you can still play it.
I try to went back and play all those old games I enjoyed when I was a kid. I still enjoy it a bit, but not as much as before.
If it's really that great, you could still be playing it.
Well ... IMHO its not about "past", its more about quality.
Older games have been more likely programmed by motivated enthusiasts.
Todays games are programmed by underpaid workslaves of big companies. And its obvious; the games are just no fun, clones of each other, and the companies just try to make more and more money from them, at any cost.
Just check out the career of Bioware. They started by making the game they would like to play themself: Baldurs Gate 1+2. They also did some small projects before that point, but those havent had much success. Then they became big - and then they've been sold to EA. Dragon Age: Origins was planned to be finally another game like Baldurs Gate, but EA made sure it was anything but that. They removed the multiplayer part, they made console clones, and they made a successor which didnt even had a version title anymore and was a completely different game.
I think the most reasons have been said already about why people would "dwell" in the past. I do agree that there is a bit of nostalgy and truth in it. But also remember back in the days of UO the game industry was very different and people miss that as well. The community was different back than cause the lolzor kids didn't excist and no way that parents in the 90's gave their kids their credit cards (atleast not where im from) or even let them play for hours on a 56k modem that would rise the phonebill sky high. So the players you had back than where perhaps even more devoted to the MMO. And look at how loyal people are these days to their MMO. As soon as a new one comes out they massively jump ship and suddenly your server is rather quiet. That is no fun either for those who still enjoy the MMO they currently play.
Back than you didn't see a new MMORPG fast either. So the one you played really had time to develop and grow. If there where bugs or content missing than a dev didn't had to worry that their players would leave as soon as their 30 day free sub. ended. You had time to make improvements. People these days don't have patience with a MMORPG. And as old player you miss those days that people really stood behind a game. You can't blame people for leaving if a game doesn't match up their expectations, but people leave so fast these days. Also because they got way to many MMO's to choose from.
So beside the whole nostalgic trip it is also a community thing why many people have fond memories of the past and like the old MMO's better. Its like with many of today's games. The game industry has changed, many great genres have been dumbed down to please the new generation of gamer and those who loved a genre have to see with horror what has happened to their beloved series. Do games from the past have flaws? Yeah plenty of them, but if we don't look trough the pink glasses we an still see how many great mechanics from older games in no mather what genre have been removed to simplefy a game of today so the new generation of gamers aren't gonna cry that its to hard or too complex. Like Rainbow Six, it was a tactical game, you had to think, you had to plan, and you had to be careful. You wanted to clear room by room just to make sure no enemy would suprise you. You had to use tactics and not just barge into a room gunblazing cause that would be a certain death with the one shot one kill implanted. And that was only on easy mode. Today its nothing more than a light tactical game that reaches the level of the old easy mode when you play on the hardest mode today >.<
Yeah we older gamers look back trough pink glasses, but we also remember when MMO's:
1. Still offered player houses and you wouldn't hear any damn raider say "i don't see the point of having a house in a MMORPG and because i don't like it it shouldn't be implanted in it. I rather have them making the 920312398 new dungeon i can raid than that those who don't like raiding get something they want in their game".
2. When MMO's still where about exploring and getting to know the world instead of a giant arrow pointing you the way and when you open your map you see the exact locations of your objectives so you don't really go explore anymore, you just follow the arrow for 85 lvls without ever reading a single quest.
3. That you could do what ever you liked. Like the old SWG before Sony. Where players could build entire cities together, where entertainers didn't had to go out and kill mobs but could play music or dance in cantina's and lvl up that way. Like EVE online where players control the universe given to them, a player runned economy. And yeah that came is still live, but they don't make games like that anymore.
4. And when you didn't had 4 or 5 new MMO's a year next to the thousands of free to play crap pouring into the western market. The market is flooded with MMO's and they all look and play them same. When you are a MMO veteran you have seen most things already. Hell if you only been around for 5 years you already seen how one after another generic fantasy MMO gets released.
Does that mean today's MMO's have nothing to offer? Not at all, but its ironic how people hype certain MMO's for some "new" mechanics that used to be very normal in the old day MMO's but keep saying that the older MMOers shouldn't dwell in the past cause GW2 is comming out soon and it will bring all kind of new stuff....yeah great but that stuff used to be very normal in the old skool MMO's.
No, you really don't.
People argue with you because you obviously have the patience and imagination of a console gamer. Your quip about Minecraft pretty much sums up your whole philosophy on games in general - that a quick diversion is worth more than long-lasting depth and infatuation with something. I've also seen it every time you state you'd rather play a lobby-based game than anything else.
That is the complete polar opposite to the tenets this genre was founded on, and what other players tend to be attracted to.
Essentially, *you* are the enemy, and the kind of gamer that all the modern-day crap being shoveled out is aimed at.
~I want a game where I can do whatever I feel like, whatever comes to mind is an option, and that cumbersome depth is the spice of life for me. I prefer games that last a lifetime (I've played Dark Cloud 2 and Disgaea, *console games* for years at a time, respectively, and have milked Civ 4 for the last drops of it's lifeblood).
~You want a game that is fun *now*, doesn't require any thinking, nor develops any emotional attachment, and doesn't drag your attention away from the next big thing. You prefer games that last a month or so, then admittedly, you would like to move onto something else.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
MMo in the so-called "golden era" weren't the juggernauts that the veterans always pretend them to be...
The fact is: Those veterans are getting older and nostalgia is starting to kick in. They just have some trouble adapting to the fact that the world is changing and that they need to change as well and not get "stuck" in the past.
this: "get off my lawn, younglings!"-mentality needs to change...
"Isn't a raid plundering villages in WoW or something like that?" - Robert Desable
I disagree, and I will use the history of the Fallout franchise as an example here.
We used to play games like the original Fallout 1 & 2, which were deep, slower-paced monsters w/ tons of choices to make. Eventually, companies saw where trends were moving and decided to make Fallout:BoS, and say "this is where things are moving". So we were stuck with a top-down isometric shooter with zero depth, and gave none of the same choices available in the past games.
Like Fallout, MMOs used to look crappy, but have an incredible amount of depth and replay value, and now it's all linear pieces of shit like what console-generation players are (mostly) used to. The idea of putting thought into anything is much harder than walking a straight line, and thusly why I can't convince any of my friends that Fallout: New Vegas is worth it for the sheer amount of stuff to do, compared to something like CoD: Black Ops, which has a linear campaign that is worth one playthrough before it's completely forgotten about and the next 6 months are spent in online multiplayer doing the exact same maps, over and over again. They actually shun new maps coming in because having to learn them all over again is too much for their feeble brains.
It's not old vs young, it's complexity vs hurrrrrrrrfffff.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I beg to differ actually,
The problem with your argument is that the demographic of gaming shifted. The so-called gamer today is made up of a small group of "Depth"-lovers and a much larger audience consisting out of the casual "Sensational"-gamer.
This means that big budget companies have more tendency to make a game for the larger audience and thus make more of a dumbed down game that attracts the casual gamer.
But the "hardcore" Depth-addicted junkies like you and me are still here and thus there's still an another audience to please. And because there still being an audience, companies still make games for this audience. Meaning that there are still al ot of games with a lot of depth and replay value.
The endnote being that in the "golden era" these casual games did not survive because of the casual demographic not being there and the fact that Depth-addicted junkies would shun those games.
Thus if your argument is that you have to search for good games these days and wade through piles of crappy games to get to them..then yes your argument is perfectly valid. But if your argument is that good games with a lot of depth and replay value don't exist anymore..then no...you are wrong
"Isn't a raid plundering villages in WoW or something like that?" - Robert Desable
I have like 5 games on my desktop I cycle through, each giving me the taste of freedom I craved since playing UO and SWG.
So, I'm not hurting for things to play, but it does get me butthurt that only indie companies want to cater to my particular playstyle anymore. This has everything to do with company philosophy more than anything else, though. They don't make MMOs to build them up over time into the ultimate experience - they make them so that they can sell a million copies at launch, milk subs as long as they can, and yank all their talent off of it so that they can move them to the next project and repeat the process all over again. Nobody invests into their games like they used to, once launched, that is.
It's like the whole market has moved into 'temporary experiences', and they know it, and frankly don't care - because it pays better. If modern games even had a fragment of the choice options of games 10 years ago, they would see people stick with them for far longer than the free month of play. Again, though, they don't care about that - they recouped the investment + trickle-down profits after that, and it's all they care about.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I wholly agree
And can you blame them? If you, as a living, could make ugly paintings while being blindfolded and make them sell well, why would you actually put some effort into your paintings? They look rlly ugly, but they sell well so why should I care?
That's the mentality of most of the so-called "casual" companies..
The "hardcore" companies actually put some effort and depth into their games and cater to you and me but don't sell as well. Their games are like beautifull paintings though and as a result the devs of those companies actually like their own games.
The only thing we can do is convert as many ppl to our side, so the demographic shifts :O
"Isn't a raid plundering villages in WoW or something like that?" - Robert Desable
Part nostalgia and part because they were far superior, as was the community playing them.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
To add to this, even if a newer MMORPG player decided to see what the hype was all about with the old MMORPG titles, those games are either:
A. No longer around.
or
B. Have been altered greatly from their original vision and gameplay (drove original players away)
You're just not going to find any official stuff out there with the old MMORPGs with the core gameplay that made them original successes anymore. They simply don't exist. They can try doing UO, but it is not like the the original vision laid out by Richard Garriott when the game first came out.
Another thing I want to put out is that if the game changes due to additional content, that's usually of course very good. More things to do and see is great. The part where I have had major issues with and have left titles because of, is from patches / publishes that greatly alter gameplay away from the one that made me a fan to begin with. It's like pulling the "Welcome" mat from underneath someone's feet.
It's very bad, overall.
I can still remember the wonder and possibilities of what developers could do back in 1998 and the early 2000's. The options they gave us was great, and I wondered what they could do given more time, technology, and experience in the new gaming genre.
I dreamed of how they can make the game world "ours" as a community. I used to think of how else they can allow our characters to do more in the game, provided developers had more time.
Now? The gameplay has regressed. There's far fewer options. There are some pretty game worlds out there, but you cannot do anything in them except kill NPCs there or just run through.
For a genre who's potential back in 1998 and early 2000's seemed limitless, the ceiling was eventually set really, really low.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Want this thread to disappear for good?
Drop the superiority complex.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I don't believe that those games cannot be repliclated. The problem I find with MMOs is that too many changes are made to them over time, changing too many of the core aspects that make them great. My 1st online gaming experience was Ultima Online. I was instantly hooked to that game, it was just so fun. I played Ultima Online from the time of it's release untill some time into the Renaissance era. The release of the "2 worlds" for PvP and non-PvP changed the game too much for me as UO was a PvP game and should have remained that way. They later came out with factions for PvP, (PvP in the safety of a towns borders), but it had issues, on my server at least. The factions were really imbalanced. With the exception of litterally a handful of players, almost everyone was eventually on the winning team with no one to fight. My friends and I took a faction with the least amount of people because we enjoyed being the underdogs. I eventualy lost interest with UO because of this change though and then moved on to EverQuest. Like UO, I got hooked pretty quickly to the game. It was a lot different than UO, being mostly PvE (the PvP sucked) but it was challenging at times (for me anyway) and a lot of fun. I played EverQuest for about 5 years up untill the end of the "Planes of Power" expansion. Recently, I went back to give EQ another try because SOE had started what they call "Progression Servers" that follow the original timelime. Unfortunately, the game had been changed too much since the time I played. Spells and Items were way more powerful than when I 1st played, removing all the challenges I remembered. Also, the majority of players "boxed" their own groups. People have different opinions about boxing, but to me it ruins an online community where people should be playing together.
To me it seems that over time, games all seem to change to make the game more playable for everyone. Now, it's just my opinion, but I think why games change to make things easier for players is because it makes it playable for many more people. The more players = more subscriptions, which of coarse = more $ and in the end that is the goal of the gaming industry. I think a company COULD make a challenging game again but since it would likely not have the same numbers as a game such as World of Warcraft, I wouldn't expect to see one any time soon.
All the veterans of mmos that played uo, eq, ac and those games thought we would see the idea of a virtual world expanded upon by later games, not become spowopag (single player online with other people around games) type games.
my first game was asherons call. my friends had been playing for a bit and got me to try it. they were all playing on darktide (free for all pvp server). I rolled a character on darktide and zoned into the game, as soon as i zoned in I died. see there were these jerks in the game in a guild called BLOOD. All they did was run around and kill noobies in starter towns. they were you basic basement dwelling living in momma house trolls. if someone was able to fight back they would leave them alone. they just wanted to kill the lowbies and people that couldnt actually hurt them. well i died about 15 times that day as soon as i made my character. i nearly quit but once i got over the feeling of wanting to go kick puppies I vowed one day every member of blood would die. so for 3 years me and my friends fought blood wherever we saw them, we defended dungeons from blood and other pkers so people could just farm and level up. we had our own little olthoi dungeon and we were a member of a anti pk guild along with several other guilds that wouldnt kill anyone unless we were attacked first. we were the sheriffs of a lawless land.
I eventually got enough money to buy a apartment, then a house, one of my friends had a villa we could hang out at. we felt like we lived in a virtual world. we would meet up at this guys villa or one of our houses, or in town and we would go out into the wilderness and slay monsters and protect the land from blood and other rpk guilds.
now you tell me one other mmo since swg that has offered that type of gaming experience and that has not been a buggy pile of crap. none to very few and none have been mainstream. most games dont offer that world anymore. there is no reason to have world interaction between players. most interaction comes when people group up while doing a quest just so they dont compete for spawns. they moved away from creating that virtual world that the first mmos hinted at. so no its not complete nostalgi, mmos have taken a step back from what they started as, and went a totally different path. they might as well be single player online games now that allow alot of people to play them at once. they are no longer mmos and most of them arent rpgs either even the ones that are supposed to be.