I dont think they went the wrong direction, per se, though WoW leads a lot of corporate suits to believe anyone can make the next 10+ million player game. Where they've gone wrong is listening to suits, and not noticing that a lot players have evolved toward a deeper MMO experience. Those of us who had this deeper experience from the beginning have seen the industry plunge into the dark ages of contrived MMO gaming.
I really do applaud Smed for finally noticing what is missing in these themepark games. The Wildstar devs are thinking about it too now, through I don't think they are going to do enough. I could have told them a long, long time ago and saved the industry tens/dundreds of millions of dollars.. hahah.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
A lot of people say Indies never amounted to anything ...
Let me take two example indies that have been mentioned recently on MMORPG... Origins of Malu and Citadel of Sorcery.
Before the question, I preface it with this: Assume that both of those games release with exactly what they are offering (I'm being highly optimistic here because I want to see if I can cut through imagantive hype of failure)...
To support your premise you suggest a scenario that flies in the face of history, fact and logic. Do you realize that?
People have a poor view of indie MMOs because most of them are crap created by people that had no business trying to make an MMO in the first place. That's not bias, skew or hatred. It's looking at ten years of history and seeing a consistent pattern across the entire spectrum of indie MMOs, specifically among those by teams that have never released an MMO before, be they industry professionals or hobbyists. It's not 'imagantive hype of failure' - it's reality.
Look, I'd love to see Citadel of Sorcery do well. I want them to do well. I truly believe in that team's determination and, frankly, they seem to have a really professional pool of talent there. However, it's not 'imagantive hype of failure' to say that there is 1 in 20 chance it will make it to release and an even smaller chance that what is released will be of a quality that will allow it to be competitive in today's market.
"Just because the first few don't succeed doesn't mean that no other will."
Such an odd statement.
M59, EVE Online, Furcadia, Entropia, There, The Realm, Graal, Puzzle Pirates... MMOs were around before WOW, and so were indie developers.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think MMOs went in their natural direction. WoW brought in people who were more apt to normal video games than DnD and it was a bigger pool. Bigger pool, more money and other companies followed suit. You can't really blame them. Things are changing again however from more formed console like gameplay to more choose your own adventure. We'll see how it pans out.
biggest problem, to detriment of mmos imo is INSTANCING
instanced dungeons, tupperware pvp, solo story phases, multiple shards of the same world zone
these things are killing MMOS, they stop them being massive and multiplayer
im not against zoning for performance reasons, providing thoose zones are singular and persistent. but i am against instancing.
That's exactly what people want. They don't want to rely that joe snuffy the uber tank or uber healer will be top of his game (of course everyone disregards those that DPS.) That's where the beauty of instancing came to be.
To be "massively multiplayer" just for the sake of it .. is not fun.
Instance is an innovation that keep the genre alive. People do not want to write their own stories, they want to play in one that professional developers creates.
Small instances are popular for a reason.
There is no wrong direction .. just trends where players respond to.
And so what if more than 1 players go through the same story. You don't complain about that in other online multiplayer games like D3, and Borderlands. Why shouldn't MMOs take good features, and gameplay elements from other genre?
Wow...that was a lot to read through...couldn't even really dent it lol.
I have to say one thing before I get off my usual soapbox when reading things like this....Runescape = Nothing like the Wow-esc over done MMO's your used to playing...There, sorry, had to say that first so it's out of the way.
Now...
I have to say that while by-and-large I can agree that the genre has lost it's way, there are some really promising things on the horizon. In an answer to repairing the MMO genre gaming companies are turning to the idea of a sandbox MMO environment. I really feel we won't have to suffer these repetative crank outs for much longer.
I can name 2 games on the horizonthat IMO, promise to go a long way towards setting an example of how to fix this genre.
The first and likely most important is ArcheAge
Yes we will have to wait at least 2 years until everyone can access open betas and possibly 3 for full release worldwide. But, go youtube this up-comming game. It's really amazing. Look at how one thing common in most game works alone in archeage.
That ebing mounts. Your mount in ArcheAge will have will wander up to you from some bushes or something (as if it's been tailing you waiting to be used) when summmoned. You can dismount it and have it go somewhere, or have it follow you. It acts as not just transportation for you, but giving people who aren't even level enough to have a mount them selves a ride some where. You can fuight from atop it, and it has it's own combat skills that grow with you. When you hit water it doesn't diapear in a poff but swims under you 9or behind you if you are dismounted).
If you have ever thought mounts leave a lot to be desired in most MMo's and are largely only a status symbol this alone shoud show you how arche age will be different in every respect.
The approach with arhceage is not to do anything revolutionary by it's own right, but to combine all the very best most desired features of MMo's at large into one seamless blend. To do everything you thought was wrong with MMo's you played...the right way.
I seriously suggest looking into this future MMO and seing all it has to offer to restore your hope in the genre.
The second is Yogventures
I think this game will be really fun to play because of the way it is being made. Basically if your not in the know two guys have chucked money at a company that knows what they are doing and told them what they wanted. this money comes from fans on kickstarter who have supported their ideas about what an MMO should be.
So I believe this will be a rather unique and truly fun and engaging MMO experience when it releases. And it's worth taking a look at on the yogascast channel on youtube.
Wow...that was a lot to read through...couldn't even really dent it lol.
I have to say one thing before I get off my usual soapbox when reading things like this....Runescape = Nothing like the Wow-esc over done MMO's your used to playing...There, sorry, had to say that first so it's out of the way.
Now...
I have to say that while by-and-large I can agree that the genre has lost it's way, there are some really promising things on the horizon. In an answer to repairing the MMO genre gaming companies are turning to the idea of a sandbox MMO environment. I really feel we won't have to suffer these repetative crank outs for much longer.
I can name 2 games on the horizonthat IMO, promise to go a long way towards setting an example of how to fix this genre.
The first and likely most important is ArcheAge
Yes we will have to wait at least 2 years until everyone can access open betas and possibly 3 for full release worldwide. But, go youtube this up-comming game. It's really amazing. Look at how one thing common in most game works alone in archeage.
That ebing mounts. Your mount in ArcheAge will have will wander up to you from some bushes or something (as if it's been tailing you waiting to be used) when summmoned. You can dismount it and have it go somewhere, or have it follow you. It acts as not just transportation for you, but giving people who aren't even level enough to have a mount them selves a ride some where. You can fuight from atop it, and it has it's own combat skills that grow with you. When you hit water it doesn't diapear in a poff but swims under you 9or behind you if you are dismounted).
If you have ever thought mounts leave a lot to be desired in most MMo's and are largely only a status symbol this alone shoud show you how arche age will be different in every respect.
The approach with arhceage is not to do anything revolutionary by it's own right, but to combine all the very best most desired features of MMo's at large into one seamless blend. To do everything you thought was wrong with MMo's you played...the right way.
I seriously suggest looking into this future MMO and seing all it has to offer to restore your hope in the genre.
The second is Yogventures
I think this game will be really fun to play because of the way it is being made. Basically if your not in the know two guys have chucked money at a company that knows what they are doing and told them what they wanted. this money comes from fans on kickstarter who have supported their ideas about what an MMO should be.
So I believe this will be a rather unique and truly fun and engaging MMO experience when it releases. And it's worth taking a look at on the yogascast channel on youtube.
If someone who played EQ for example, still has a schedule or lack there of that would allow them to play in the same way, I think that person should reevaluate their life and not wonder what's wrong with MMos. They should wonder how on earth their life hasn't changed in that time period where they still want a game like that. Big picture:)
This question keeps coming up. The developers took MMORPGs in the exact direction that the vast majority of people wanted. If they didn't, people wouldn't have paid, and their direction would have had to of made a course correction to go in the direction that people did want.
It seems to me our bitching has been heard. There are several sandbox games and even themepark/sandbox hybrids in development. They range from pure resource based economy and skill systems to fps style combat with open ended craft systems and seemless worlds to flat out hybrids with phasing and player driven economies. They are fantasy, post-apocalyptic (a personal hate of mine though sadly ... It seems our future is destined for zombies so I want to kick developers in the face for defaulting to this each and every time now), heavy pvp or heavy pve. Hopefully in just a short couple years we will see the dramatic change in direction or at least have a few good sandbox options finally.
It wasn't that long ago that I had nearly lost all hope for the future of mmos. Now if EQNext is a steaming pile of shyte I will pretty much give up on them entirely unless a unlikely savious comes along. I do look forward to several atm though.
People do not want to write their own stories, they want to play in one that professional developers creates.
Small instances are popular for a reason.
That's because what some people think of as "stories" are not really stories but anecdotes.
Quests, instances, etc actually help to tell actual stories. depending upoin how well they do it there are character arcs, antagonists, protagonists, plot twists, or essentially Dramatic Structure. Over...
hey you know what we did last night?
what?
We camped that lowbie area and kept pk'ing all the new players until X alliance came. Then we pvp'ed for an hour
Wow sounds fun
Yeah, a great time.
This is what some people think of as "story". it's a good time and very much wanted as far as player interaction but it's not very good story.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Originally posted by ShakyMo Zylax Successful indie mmos. Uo - ea bought them later Daoc - ea bought them later EQ - Sony bought them later Eve - still is Wow - blizzard were independent at the time.
Part of this depends on your definition of "indy" but EA owned origin before UO even began development, and Verant studeos was created first within sony and then "spun off" during EQ development (which John Smedley was in charge of from day 1) then Verant was brough back into the Sony brand. So the two pioneers of the genre were run by big money/corporations from the beginning. And whil Blizzard wasn't a corporate entity or ran by a corporate entity, I don't really think they fit the term "indy" by any definition of the term that i've ever seen used. DAOC and AC were pretty "indy" at the time of their launches but neither of them were as successfull as the other two at their peaks. Oh, and CCP was pretty indy at the time of EvE's launch.
I don't think our hate speaches at MMO makers is a plea to return to the correct path so much as it is begging them to give real MMO'ers back their MMO's
The worste thing WoW ever did was open up the genre and positioon it to become an any one can play environment. The rage against WoW-escs is rage against redundant, linear, easy gameplay that just anyone and pick up and play, without a thought towards using their intelligence.
Trying not to be mean about it... But, more bluntly and directly, companies made it easy for stupid people to play, because stupid people are easier to get more money out of for less effort. And, all i think we really want with reform to the Genre is a ban on stupid people.
Trying not to be mean about it... But, more bluntly and directly, companies made it easy for stupid people to play, because stupid people are easier to get more money out of for less effort. And, all i think we really want with reform to the Genre is a ban on stupid people.
Yeah, I tend not to find a lot of credence in any group that sets itself up as "the intelligentsia" because another group doesn't embrace their ideals. I say this a lot but it comes down to plato's philosopher kings or essentially "only those who are philosphers should be kings because they are the only people who know better.
back in the original EQ days, at its height, there were plenty of of people who played who weren't the brightest bulbs in the sky. They were probably a bit nerdy or a bit misanthropic but fell into the original mmo vanguard.
there are a lot of very smart people who play modern mmo's simply because they offer a diversion or are "fun".
Heck, a friend of mine is extremely smart, PhD, can speak intelligently on many topics but her tastes in T.V. make me squint my eyes in disbelief.
I tend not to judge people on the content they take part in because time and time again that doens't really offer the full picture.
And again, there are still people who view gamers as people who are wasting their time when they can be doing somethng, anyting, that actually matters. I'm sure they might think that gamers are stupid for being gamers.
All this does is create a lot of misinformation and a lot of hate where there doesn't need to be any.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Originally posted by Helleri I don't think our hate speaches at MMO makers is a plea to return to the correct path so much as it is begging them to give real MMO'ers back their MMO'sThe worste thing WoW ever did was open up the genre and positioon it to become an any one can play environment. The rage against WoW-escs is rage against redundant, linear, easy gameplay that just anyone and pick up and play, without a thought towards using their intelligence.Trying not to be mean about it... But, more bluntly and directly, companies made it easy for stupid people to play, because stupid people are easier to get more money out of for less effort. And, all i think we really want with reform to the Genre is a ban on stupid people.
"Real MMO'ers"? You mean the small group of people who can't pay enough money to fund a single MMO? Wait, I know, it's the small group of people who cannot agree on what an MMO is. No, maybe it's the small group of people who can't agree on what an MMO should be. Are those the "Real MMO'ers"?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I remember looking at archage, when a friend showed it to me a few years back. My friend (of course being from L2) said it had the same makers from L2 and it was going to be just like it. That shows promise, but there are two things that worry me. Will cappiing top level take a week vs years like all these other games out now? And do they promise not to make it a cash shop pay 2 win game?
Those are my only questions. All the other characteristics looked good to me.
I'd be very interested to see if any new game has the same "it takes a year+ to level" idea.
I suspect that those days are (sadly) over.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The heavy focus on Solo/Single player that followed the sudden major shift to themepark model MMO's is where things have gone horribly wrong. That said more of the new MMO's want to basically kill any semblance of holy trinity & thus the one remaining cooperative aspect of MMO's dies.
End of the day it seems more & more like there are less MMO'S Coming out but a lot more crappy single player games with optional multiplayer. Which is exactly what they are designing.
Lets hope Indie devs can somehow refresh or re-invent the genre !
I remember looking at archage, when a friend showed it to me a few years back. My friend (of course being from L2) said it had the same makers from L2 and it was going to be just like it. That shows promise, but there are two things that worry me. Will cappiing top level take a week vs years like all these other games out now? And do they promise not to make it a cash shop pay 2 win game?
Those are my only questions. All the other characteristics looked good to me.
I'd be very interested to see if any new game has the same "it takes a year+ to level" idea.
I suspect that those days are (sadly) over.
Planetside 2 is said to take a year minumum but it is looking more like 4+ years to max out every certification.
Still stand by daoc, ac and eve as successful Indies though.
Also coh, was that owned by ncsoft from the start? Don't remember to be honest.
CoH was a mix of indie and NCSOFT (Paragon Studioes) I believe it was called. Over time the NCSOFT bought out paragon and many of those devs left for cryptic to work on champions .
Still stand by daoc, ac and eve as successful Indies though.
Also coh, was that owned by ncsoft from the start? Don't remember to be honest.
CoH was a mix of indie and NCSOFT (Paragon Studioes) I believe it was called. Over time the NCSOFT bought out paragon and many of those devs left for cryptic to work on champions .
There seems to be the thought process that by som people that their early bleoved games were above the whol corprotist mindset, but the 3 most popular pre-wow mmmo's were by greedy corporations.
Disagree because 99% of all innovation come from the big boys and not from starving artists.
Name me one successful indie MMO? NONE, cause they are all F2P crap, only the good stuff comes from well named studios.
Indie MMOs are all F2P crap?
Umm..
Turbine,owned by Warner Brothers, has made their games F2P. SOE has made all their MMOs F2P. NCSoft has made their major MMOs F2P. EA is changing TOR to F2P. And so on, and so on.
Last I checked, none of those companies are all "well named studios" and not "indie"
Eastern MMOs based on the F2P model are all backed by major publishers, not "small indie companies".
Here's some innovation from small indie companies for you... Small company named Id Software innovated by being the first people to successfully create a smooth-scrolling 2D side-scroller on the PC, something which had previously been thought impossible. Id Software went on to create the FPS genre, and coined the term "Deathmatch" (John Romero to be exact). Another indie guy who goes by the name "Notch" created an innovative, sandboxy type game with blocky graphics that went on to become a phenomenon. You may have heard of it, it's called Minecraft. And the list could go on.
Do some research and learn your history before posting, will ya?
Trying not to be mean about it... But, more bluntly and directly, companies made it easy for stupid people to play, because stupid people are easier to get more money out of for less effort. And, all i think we really want with reform to the Genre is a ban on stupid people.
Yeah, I tend not to find a lot of credence in any group that sets itself up as "the intelligentsia" because another group doesn't embrace their ideals. I say this a lot but it comes down to plato's philosopher kings or essentially "only those who are philosphers should be kings because they are the only people who know better.
back in the original EQ days, at its height, there were plenty of of people who played who weren't the brightest bulbs in the sky. They were probably a bit nerdy or a bit misanthropic but fell into the original mmo vanguard.
there are a lot of very smart people who play modern mmo's simply because they offer a diversion or are "fun".
Heck, a friend of mine is extremely smart, PhD, can speak intelligently on many topics but her tastes in T.V. make me squint my eyes in disbelief.
I tend not to judge people on the content they take part in because time and time again that doens't really offer the full picture.
And again, there are still people who view gamers as people who are wasting their time when they can be doing somethng, anyting, that actually matters. I'm sure they might think that gamers are stupid for being gamers.
All this does is create a lot of misinformation and a lot of hate where there doesn't need to be any.
And Forest Gump said "Stupid is as stupid does."....
Almost invariably I see the same people that are rallying for new, unique and at the very least not tired out direction to be taken with MMO's; are also the people complaining about scammers, beggars, lazy new players complaining it's hard. And people who couldn't do a quest even with a guide and someone helping them.
There is a such a thing as a stupid person. And, when I say stupid, I as do most people I know rl use it as a header term for: Those acting foolishly, those who are that stubborn sort of ignorant, those who have a sense of self entitlement that is undeserved, and people who generally want everything handed to them instead of working for it. Most of the reasons someone can be stupid in a gamr are more of a personality defect than anything else...but there are still quite a few who are simply far less intelligent then the average player, and they make the measure of their intelligence quickly apparent.
And ok, some of them are simply to young to understand things as well as older people do, some are old enough to, but can't because, they think under a constant barrage of radical chemical changes leading their rationale.
Point is stupid people exist, and they like to play games not for challenge and healthy competition, but, for almost seemingly the sole impression that it isn't real so they can act however they like. And these people are more atracted to games that let them do that more easily (as in WoW-escs, games with little sense of good storyline or real direction, mindless rapetative kill and collect questing, and strait foward fixed path leveling, that are only unforgiving to any one who is not a good sheep).
And of course there are people who play easy games because they offer stress relief, I agree... i am one of them.
As for things like the view that gamers can be people wasting time spinning their wheels in a road of life rutt...
It is not nescessarily wrong. I have seen plenty of frineds go that way. Gaming can act as an addictive, and it can cause a person to waste there life away. My use of it is as an escape. I don't even really get much actually done in games unless it involves the lore of the game. I spend more time helping people get started on games and idley chatting then anything else.
But hey, I got stuff to do. Fitting in gaming is actually sometimes an issue, like between my last post and this one I went to a memorial service for a close friend and my landlord, then out to dinner with his family. Then talked to my woman for an hour on the phone to say goodnight. So when I get back, from life. going online and gaming in general is my stress relief.
And, any one I know who does things relatively the same way, is very lazy in their gaming. I talk to any person at length who is truly epic in a game and I find out they don't really go out much, they don't have a social life, the don't have any real prospects on the horizon, and they are usually heavily emotionally damaged in some way. Not saying this is 'wrong' exactly. It's a way of coping. but, it is not a good long term solution. And the stigma around gaming is not entirely undeserved.
Like I said I help a lot of people in the games and am helping most of the ones I meet...
And I can say that in games that offer real challenge and competativness, that do something unique, and have good storyline and questing. Most people are what i would term as sharp tacks
In games that don't require little to any actual paying attention to get anything done, most the people I meet are dumb, flighty and other wise hard to help with anything.
I am not judging them on their choice of content. But, i am judging them based on how they act, and how easily they are able to grasp concepts (and every one makes judgments everyday about all aspects of their lives, it's a buig part of how we live so all that matters is that i am correctly judging them).
So, I stand by what I said
That being the rally for a change in direction is in my view really a rally for a ban on stupid people (what eevr kind of stupid you want to call it, for what ever reasons they may be that way...and not just people acting stupid occaisionally, people who are like that all the time). And it is a cry made by a small majority (I can't really even see you defending the idea that intelligent people occupy anything less then a small majority of society).
Yes. The understandable desire of the investors/publishers to make more money has led the genre to become more like fast food rather than gourmet cuisine, sacrficing the singular underlying dynamic that made the MMORPG genre a distinct thing: community.
Comments
I dont think they went the wrong direction, per se, though WoW leads a lot of corporate suits to believe anyone can make the next 10+ million player game. Where they've gone wrong is listening to suits, and not noticing that a lot players have evolved toward a deeper MMO experience. Those of us who had this deeper experience from the beginning have seen the industry plunge into the dark ages of contrived MMO gaming.
I really do applaud Smed for finally noticing what is missing in these themepark games. The Wildstar devs are thinking about it too now, through I don't think they are going to do enough. I could have told them a long, long time ago and saved the industry tens/dundreds of millions of dollars.. hahah.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
To support your premise you suggest a scenario that flies in the face of history, fact and logic. Do you realize that?
People have a poor view of indie MMOs because most of them are crap created by people that had no business trying to make an MMO in the first place. That's not bias, skew or hatred. It's looking at ten years of history and seeing a consistent pattern across the entire spectrum of indie MMOs, specifically among those by teams that have never released an MMO before, be they industry professionals or hobbyists. It's not 'imagantive hype of failure' - it's reality.
Look, I'd love to see Citadel of Sorcery do well. I want them to do well. I truly believe in that team's determination and, frankly, they seem to have a really professional pool of talent there. However, it's not 'imagantive hype of failure' to say that there is 1 in 20 chance it will make it to release and an even smaller chance that what is released will be of a quality that will allow it to be competitive in today's market.
"Just because the first few don't succeed doesn't mean that no other will."
Such an odd statement.
M59, EVE Online, Furcadia, Entropia, There, The Realm, Graal, Puzzle Pirates... MMOs were around before WOW, and so were indie developers.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
To be "massively multiplayer" just for the sake of it .. is not fun.
Instance is an innovation that keep the genre alive. People do not want to write their own stories, they want to play in one that professional developers creates.
Small instances are popular for a reason.
There is no wrong direction .. just trends where players respond to.
And so what if more than 1 players go through the same story. You don't complain about that in other online multiplayer games like D3, and Borderlands. Why shouldn't MMOs take good features, and gameplay elements from other genre?
Wow...that was a lot to read through...couldn't even really dent it lol.
I have to say one thing before I get off my usual soapbox when reading things like this....Runescape = Nothing like the Wow-esc over done MMO's your used to playing...There, sorry, had to say that first so it's out of the way.
Now...
I have to say that while by-and-large I can agree that the genre has lost it's way, there are some really promising things on the horizon. In an answer to repairing the MMO genre gaming companies are turning to the idea of a sandbox MMO environment. I really feel we won't have to suffer these repetative crank outs for much longer.
I can name 2 games on the horizon that IMO, promise to go a long way towards setting an example of how to fix this genre.
The first and likely most important is ArcheAge
Yes we will have to wait at least 2 years until everyone can access open betas and possibly 3 for full release worldwide. But, go youtube this up-comming game. It's really amazing. Look at how one thing common in most game works alone in archeage.
That ebing mounts. Your mount in ArcheAge will have will wander up to you from some bushes or something (as if it's been tailing you waiting to be used) when summmoned. You can dismount it and have it go somewhere, or have it follow you. It acts as not just transportation for you, but giving people who aren't even level enough to have a mount them selves a ride some where. You can fuight from atop it, and it has it's own combat skills that grow with you. When you hit water it doesn't diapear in a poff but swims under you 9or behind you if you are dismounted).
If you have ever thought mounts leave a lot to be desired in most MMo's and are largely only a status symbol this alone shoud show you how arche age will be different in every respect.
The approach with arhceage is not to do anything revolutionary by it's own right, but to combine all the very best most desired features of MMo's at large into one seamless blend. To do everything you thought was wrong with MMo's you played...the right way.
I seriously suggest looking into this future MMO and seing all it has to offer to restore your hope in the genre.
The second is Yogventures
I think this game will be really fun to play because of the way it is being made. Basically if your not in the know two guys have chucked money at a company that knows what they are doing and told them what they wanted. this money comes from fans on kickstarter who have supported their ideas about what an MMO should be.
So I believe this will be a rather unique and truly fun and engaging MMO experience when it releases. And it's worth taking a look at on the yogascast channel on youtube.
and EQ next of course.
I self identify as a monkey.
It seems to me our bitching has been heard. There are several sandbox games and even themepark/sandbox hybrids in development. They range from pure resource based economy and skill systems to fps style combat with open ended craft systems and seemless worlds to flat out hybrids with phasing and player driven economies. They are fantasy, post-apocalyptic (a personal hate of mine though sadly ... It seems our future is destined for zombies so I want to kick developers in the face for defaulting to this each and every time now), heavy pvp or heavy pve. Hopefully in just a short couple years we will see the dramatic change in direction or at least have a few good sandbox options finally.
It wasn't that long ago that I had nearly lost all hope for the future of mmos. Now if EQNext is a steaming pile of shyte I will pretty much give up on them entirely unless a unlikely savious comes along. I do look forward to several atm though.
You stay sassy!
That's because what some people think of as "stories" are not really stories but anecdotes.
Quests, instances, etc actually help to tell actual stories. depending upoin how well they do it there are character arcs, antagonists, protagonists, plot twists, or essentially Dramatic Structure. Over...
hey you know what we did last night?
what?
We camped that lowbie area and kept pk'ing all the new players until X alliance came. Then we pvp'ed for an hour
Wow sounds fun
Yeah, a great time.
This is what some people think of as "story". it's a good time and very much wanted as far as player interaction but it's not very good story.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Part of this depends on your definition of "indy" but EA owned origin before UO even began development, and Verant studeos was created first within sony and then "spun off" during EQ development (which John Smedley was in charge of from day 1) then Verant was brough back into the Sony brand. So the two pioneers of the genre were run by big money/corporations from the beginning. And whil Blizzard wasn't a corporate entity or ran by a corporate entity, I don't really think they fit the term "indy" by any definition of the term that i've ever seen used. DAOC and AC were pretty "indy" at the time of their launches but neither of them were as successfull as the other two at their peaks. Oh, and CCP was pretty indy at the time of EvE's launch.
I don't think our hate speaches at MMO makers is a plea to return to the correct path so much as it is begging them to give real MMO'ers back their MMO's
The worste thing WoW ever did was open up the genre and positioon it to become an any one can play environment. The rage against WoW-escs is rage against redundant, linear, easy gameplay that just anyone and pick up and play, without a thought towards using their intelligence.
Trying not to be mean about it... But, more bluntly and directly, companies made it easy for stupid people to play, because stupid people are easier to get more money out of for less effort. And, all i think we really want with reform to the Genre is a ban on stupid people.
Yeah, I tend not to find a lot of credence in any group that sets itself up as "the intelligentsia" because another group doesn't embrace their ideals. I say this a lot but it comes down to plato's philosopher kings or essentially "only those who are philosphers should be kings because they are the only people who know better.
back in the original EQ days, at its height, there were plenty of of people who played who weren't the brightest bulbs in the sky. They were probably a bit nerdy or a bit misanthropic but fell into the original mmo vanguard.
there are a lot of very smart people who play modern mmo's simply because they offer a diversion or are "fun".
Heck, a friend of mine is extremely smart, PhD, can speak intelligently on many topics but her tastes in T.V. make me squint my eyes in disbelief.
I tend not to judge people on the content they take part in because time and time again that doens't really offer the full picture.
And again, there are still people who view gamers as people who are wasting their time when they can be doing somethng, anyting, that actually matters. I'm sure they might think that gamers are stupid for being gamers.
All this does is create a lot of misinformation and a lot of hate where there doesn't need to be any.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
"Real MMO'ers"? You mean the small group of people who can't pay enough money to fund a single MMO? Wait, I know, it's the small group of people who cannot agree on what an MMO is. No, maybe it's the small group of people who can't agree on what an MMO should be. Are those the "Real MMO'ers"?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Oh fair dos with EQ and uo then.
Still stand by daoc, ac and eve as successful Indies though.
Also coh, was that owned by ncsoft from the start? Don't remember to be honest.
I'd be very interested to see if any new game has the same "it takes a year+ to level" idea.
I suspect that those days are (sadly) over.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
End of the day it seems more & more like there are less MMO'S Coming out but a lot more crappy single player games with optional multiplayer. Which is exactly what they are designing.
Lets hope Indie devs can somehow refresh or re-invent the genre !
Planetside 2 is said to take a year minumum but it is looking more like 4+ years to max out every certification.
CoH was a mix of indie and NCSOFT (Paragon Studioes) I believe it was called. Over time the NCSOFT bought out paragon and many of those devs left for cryptic to work on champions .
There seems to be the thought process that by som people that their early bleoved games were above the whol corprotist mindset, but the 3 most popular pre-wow mmmo's were by greedy corporations.
Indie MMOs are all F2P crap?
Umm..
Turbine,owned by Warner Brothers, has made their games F2P. SOE has made all their MMOs F2P. NCSoft has made their major MMOs F2P. EA is changing TOR to F2P. And so on, and so on.
Last I checked, none of those companies are all "well named studios" and not "indie"
Eastern MMOs based on the F2P model are all backed by major publishers, not "small indie companies".
Here's some innovation from small indie companies for you... Small company named Id Software innovated by being the first people to successfully create a smooth-scrolling 2D side-scroller on the PC, something which had previously been thought impossible. Id Software went on to create the FPS genre, and coined the term "Deathmatch" (John Romero to be exact). Another indie guy who goes by the name "Notch" created an innovative, sandboxy type game with blocky graphics that went on to become a phenomenon. You may have heard of it, it's called Minecraft. And the list could go on.
Do some research and learn your history before posting, will ya?And Forest Gump said "Stupid is as stupid does."....
Almost invariably I see the same people that are rallying for new, unique and at the very least not tired out direction to be taken with MMO's; are also the people complaining about scammers, beggars, lazy new players complaining it's hard. And people who couldn't do a quest even with a guide and someone helping them.
There is a such a thing as a stupid person. And, when I say stupid, I as do most people I know rl use it as a header term for: Those acting foolishly, those who are that stubborn sort of ignorant, those who have a sense of self entitlement that is undeserved, and people who generally want everything handed to them instead of working for it. Most of the reasons someone can be stupid in a gamr are more of a personality defect than anything else...but there are still quite a few who are simply far less intelligent then the average player, and they make the measure of their intelligence quickly apparent.
And ok, some of them are simply to young to understand things as well as older people do, some are old enough to, but can't because, they think under a constant barrage of radical chemical changes leading their rationale.
Point is stupid people exist, and they like to play games not for challenge and healthy competition, but, for almost seemingly the sole impression that it isn't real so they can act however they like. And these people are more atracted to games that let them do that more easily (as in WoW-escs, games with little sense of good storyline or real direction, mindless rapetative kill and collect questing, and strait foward fixed path leveling, that are only unforgiving to any one who is not a good sheep).
And of course there are people who play easy games because they offer stress relief, I agree... i am one of them.
As for things like the view that gamers can be people wasting time spinning their wheels in a road of life rutt...
It is not nescessarily wrong. I have seen plenty of frineds go that way. Gaming can act as an addictive, and it can cause a person to waste there life away. My use of it is as an escape. I don't even really get much actually done in games unless it involves the lore of the game. I spend more time helping people get started on games and idley chatting then anything else.
But hey, I got stuff to do. Fitting in gaming is actually sometimes an issue, like between my last post and this one I went to a memorial service for a close friend and my landlord, then out to dinner with his family. Then talked to my woman for an hour on the phone to say goodnight. So when I get back, from life. going online and gaming in general is my stress relief.
And, any one I know who does things relatively the same way, is very lazy in their gaming. I talk to any person at length who is truly epic in a game and I find out they don't really go out much, they don't have a social life, the don't have any real prospects on the horizon, and they are usually heavily emotionally damaged in some way. Not saying this is 'wrong' exactly. It's a way of coping. but, it is not a good long term solution. And the stigma around gaming is not entirely undeserved.
Like I said I help a lot of people in the games and am helping most of the ones I meet...
And I can say that in games that offer real challenge and competativness, that do something unique, and have good storyline and questing. Most people are what i would term as sharp tacks
In games that don't require little to any actual paying attention to get anything done, most the people I meet are dumb, flighty and other wise hard to help with anything.
I am not judging them on their choice of content. But, i am judging them based on how they act, and how easily they are able to grasp concepts (and every one makes judgments everyday about all aspects of their lives, it's a buig part of how we live so all that matters is that i am correctly judging them).
So, I stand by what I said
That being the rally for a change in direction is in my view really a rally for a ban on stupid people (what eevr kind of stupid you want to call it, for what ever reasons they may be that way...and not just people acting stupid occaisionally, people who are like that all the time). And it is a cry made by a small majority (I can't really even see you defending the idea that intelligent people occupy anything less then a small majority of society).
Agreed. Quest based leveling is pretty bad too.
Instancing is never done for performance reasons, games have been made with great performance without a stitch of instancing.
In any case. Its not the devs so much as the publishers. Once they became involved it all went to hell. Look what EA did to mythic?