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Are We Getting Too Smart for MMOs?
fat_taddler
Member Posts: 286
I watched an interesting video the other day regarding this topic (see link below). I think it may explain to some extent why MMO's seem to feel "dumbed down" to many players these days or why so many games only keep us engaged for a month or two at best.
A lot of what made the older MMO's so much more immersive and time consuming (in a good way) was the fact that most of us had no idea what we were doing. This in and of itself was a huge part of the fun and contributed greatly to the social aspects of games.
These days, players can simply go to a website and within minutes they can see the most optimized way to play any class.
Couple this with Youtube videos on boss strats, money making techniques, etc and you've basically taken a large portion of the challenge out of any MMO.
Comments
Google didn't ruin MMO's. You were always able to search for things. EQ and UO both had their respective sites. I used UO Stratics and a few other sites when I wanted to learn something or find out where it was. I tried not to abuse it though! Back then you had maps, locations, strategies, builds, everything that you have today. Today its the MMO's that hand it all to you is the difference. Either the game points me in the right direction, or it forces me into that direction.
Nope.
Just too picky. Which is fine. Get 10 MMO players in a room, and you'd probably get 9 different thoughts on an ideal MMO.
I also think (generally) peoples expectations of the latest and greatest MMO is just a bit too far fetched.
/shrug
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA
Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others...
Currently Playing: GW2
Nytlok Sylas
80 Sylvari Ranger
That has nothing with us being to smart for mmos. The mystery and exprimentation of mmos was killed by us being 'too smart'. We designed these huge databases of information that help you make the most informed and usually best decisions possible. Too smart for our own good I'd say.
Without old players becomming loremasters to help the new the community never really solidifies like a real community would. Since you don't need anything from anyone else you never form proper relationships.
I'd argue designing an mmo that naturally opposes being able to be out in wiki form somehow would be the next step. Some kind of system or dynamic content system.
Like Theocritus said, more experienced, not smarter. And no, old MMOs weren't timeconsuming "in a good way" - far from it. Infact, they were timeconsuming the worst possible way: through extensive grind and timesinks which made people spend more time and hence pay more money in subscription fees.
Todays market is smarter than to fall for that trap. Well, most people are anyway.
Old MMOs didn't have instructions and walkthroughs on sites because no one really gave a fuck back then. MMOs were a niché market as a whole.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I wish i was playing MMOs with people who were getting too smart. Every time I see the use of words like derp or baddie, or view a converstaion in general/trade/glff/1-9/60/etc I feel like we are moving towards idiocracy.
Mike Judge is an MMORPG fan, maybe thats where he got his ispiration.
We didn't know what we were doing for maybe a couple three days. After that, your point rather loses any value as far as I can see. And you know, that first few days of total ignorance were not the fun part at all... there was a great possiblity of people giving up in frustration.
---------------------------
Rose-lipped maidens,
Light-foot lads...
It's probably more spoiled than smart. People want games exactly how they want them not how the market is spending it's money on games. The cries to makes games like ( fill in the blank ) are endless but more games are basing development on what people are buying not what people say they'll buy.
Everyone wants a challange but the easy games are where people end up in droves. That's just one example of people doing the opposite of what they say they want. If a game is hard and challenging it means you'll fail some times. If they fail the game is obviously broken and they quit.
That type of attitude isn't what I'd call " getting smarter "
Rather than being smarter now we were more excited by less back then.
Every beginning holds magic or so the saying goes nad that is true for MMOs as well.
You can only so often collect three cat tails in an MMO before getting a feeling of dumbing down.
So I would not say that modern MMOs are dumbed down for the masses, apart from the fact that you don't have to search for things that much because the interface is much more convenient.
This is not a legimate complaint of the lack of challenge in MMO because if challenge is what you want, you can easily avoid youtube videos.
Personally i think it is the opposite. Some gameplay is just too complex to be figure out by most, thus people have to go to youtube video to learn.
Do you really need to watch a video to learn, if you can figure out the optimal whatever in 5 min? I think not.
I think as a mmorpg player for over 10 years , We are just in the process of getting the next generation mmo's . And now every thing that they Drop , If its relatively Old in term System , game play or graphics the (Deja Vu) effect take place. Either we say SKIP or its crap ! There is still a few good mmo's out there, not many for sure,but its all depend on your taste realy ! They are getting wash up for sure . The HYPE lvl of those new gen mmo's is so crazy , they are getting much more buget ,promotion and exposure then the old online games. And thats huge factor of dissapointment like a lot of ppls had for GW2 and SWTOR ect.. But i am just like you in term of waiting for the next gen mmo's thats gonna blow my mind of and make me do all nighter !! My conclusion is that we are much and more Picky then before imho ! Dont belive the hype - Public Enemy !!
PS: sorry for my bad spelling and grammar ! Peace !
No, MMOs have become too simple. none of them poses any challange anymore. They are all watered down versions of the original tabletop RPGs that where the exact same thing but without computers. Just a bunch of people sitting around socializing and playing a game where actions had consequences and death was permanent (depending on individual rules).
What we now have is a fast food equivalent of these RPGs. Cheap, immediately satisfying but really bad.
I think the reason that MMOs seem to be dumbed down today is that the MMO players have higher expectations for what is "expected" in todays MMOs. In the early days games like Ultima Online were a huge step up from the single player games of Ultima and others. They had better graphics, more content, more things for the players to do on their own and with other players. They learned to form guilds to keep safe or to get advantages over solitary players because they could be in more places at one time and take what they wanted from others.
The next genration of MMOs, such as WoW and others like it (not going to name all of them) took it a step further and introduced instances and other content that player could take advantage of. The created quests that offered a continualy "better" item that raised their stats until they become baby gods in the eyes of a new player. Eventually there began a stagnation of max level characters that get bored out of their minds until the next "expansion" comes about and they gladly shell out the additional $60 and beat the next 5 levels in a few days and end up right back in the max level stagnation. They can postpone this stagnation a little while if they decide to obtain eveything new that is obtainable or decide to change their "clothing set" they use to role play with. Sound familiar?
The problem is that WoW was so successful in it's business model that every other game developer wanted to clone it and become as rich as Sony Online has become. So if these guys are so rich, why do they need to soak the public for an additional fee each time they add new content? Don't we deserve new content if we pay them a monthly fee?
Now it seems the next big phase is F2P or free to play......yes the game is free but in order to up with the next guy you still need to sink money into it or fall victim to those that do. So the story now become the "Rich will win" scenario.
Haven't we had enough of this yet? I have. I found what is sure to be the first game in the next TRUE generation of MMOs. One that provides players with all the freedom to do what they want and yet at the same time provides a challenging environment that will limit or eliminate the max level stagnation. Have I peaked your interest yet?
Go to www.trialsofascension.com and read their Features page first, then explore from there if you think the game is for you. There is a podcast created by the developers at Forged Chaos LLC and they really believe in what they have is the game we all want to play. Give yourselves a couple of hours to let some of their ideas a chance to sink in and think about what it will mean in the way that you would play the game. I think you will be very surprised at what you find.
Umm....pretty sure there was a whole website dedicated to making maps of EverQuest zones. eqmaps.com anyone?
And Allakhazam was around back then for quest guides and bestiary as well.
There was also a website available to look up current prices of the market of tradable armor and weapons, although it was rarely accurate. I don't remember that site URL, but I do remember spending quite a bit of time on it just to see what weapons were available to my class and where they came from.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA
Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others...
Currently Playing: GW2
Nytlok Sylas
80 Sylvari Ranger
Nothing to do with smarts. Everything to do associating warm fuzzy emotion with distant and fading memory.
""It's what you focus on," says Lyubomirsky. "Do you focus on how positive it was then, or that it's over now?" People who see each good experience as permanently enriching are more likely to get a mood boost. But a person who mainly focuses on the contrast between past and present damns every good experience with the attitude that nothing in the future can ever live up to it." (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200605/nostalgia-sweet-remembrance)
Is that not descriptive of the daily nostalgia-wallow alternating with doom prophecy hoedown on this message board?
Or the way my grandpa used to talk about "the war"?
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.
Not smarter. It's just much easier for people to google up everything they need to know about an encounter.
**back in my day rant comming up**
I remember back when WoW first came out, and having weekly conversations at lunch with a friend who's guild was working on MC and Ony. It was several months worth of "we got her down to stage 2 finally, then wiped. Now that we know what to expect, we should get further next week."
That stuff just can't happen anymore. Back then, about the only tool we had was Thottbot, which was a fairly crappy database of items with 4-chan quality comments about them (there were other sites, like alahazham and some goblin workshop thing, but they were all the same). I think WoWhead was the first site to really change that, even though it started as just a talen calculator. Once broadband speeds increased a bit, and Youtube took off, it was the nail in the coffin.
This is why I don't judge a game on the ammount of "end-game" content at release. It simply doesn't matter, because there is no way any ammount of content will stand up against players that prefer to read about and master an encounter before they even step foot in it. Blizzard has handled it pretty well, but just having a fairly regular release cycle of game updates, and not being shy about the fact that the end-game really is just a tier grind to prep for the next one. I think they are going too heavy with the rep grinds though, probably as further means of slowing down player progression, but eh.
You make me like charity
Yeah i remember allakhazam.
I also remember you can sell EQ gear for real money on ebay then.
And combat is a lot simpler back in EQ than modern MMOs. As a wiz, you pretty much just root and nuke with the current nuke. No CDs, no procs, none of the fun mechancis.
You mean "too smart".
(snerk, sorry)
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.
In Russia...MMO's are too smart for you!!
Oh wait...maybe they are...dunno...
There was a time when people didn't care how much SWAG your YOLO HASHTAG had.
You ever see the movie "Idiocracy"? It was supposed to be a comedy, but will become a documentary.
It is said children are our future. I see today's children, and I have no hope.
That's nice. You are the children I see.
Sorry, you're the third young person I've seen (so far) today pullng the "damn younger generation yarrr!" thing.
The sheer irony only cheers a person up the first couple of times.
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.
Sure, I'm younger than you. Does this mean I cannot be frustrated with what I see?
I sat at dinner a few weeks ago in a restaurant with my family. I overheard a conversation between two girls younger than I am. They were at the time claiming that a millisecond was the smallest unit of time, and that there were 60 of them in one second. I must have heard them use the word "like" over one hundred times during dinner, and they left well before we did.
I won a statewide spelling bee. In German. Now it seems that those younger than I am not only cannot spell their own language's words, but leave out or replace letters.
I feel like I'm in the minority for still reading books. The physical books that don't have to be powered off during airplane takeoff. At least some people pay to download their text file versions.
It just does not bode well to me for kids to spout gibberish and other youths find them more acceptable for doing that. It seems that the worse this gets, the worse it will get.
So yes, I'm younger than you. I also can see what is happening today. I hope you don't discredit my observations as being childlike imaginings though.