Most of the Grognards here were in love with the games of yesteryear because those games gave them something that they needed. That "something" is different for everyone, and could be friendships, romances, a feeling of adventure (requiring more than a little bit of imagination), a sense of accomplishment or prowess, etc.
Now that need either no longer exists, or cannot be filled due to your status and age in life. I personally think that imagination is one of these fleeting ephemeral parts of our mind that diminish when we age, but still feels all too real when wrapped in the emotions of nostalgia.
Most of the Grognards here were in love with the games of yesteryear because those games gave them something that they needed. That "something" is different for everyone, and could be friendships, romances, a feeling of adventure (requiring more than a little bit of imagination), a sense of accomplishment or prowess, etc.
Now that need either no longer exists, or cannot be filled due to your status and age in life.
I was with you until this part. If you think that MMOs haven't changed you are completely delusional and out of touch with reality.
I know what I like, as the indie MMOs, and the old MMOs I play, still give it to me. But AAA MMOs have changed.
Most of the Grognards here were in love with the games of yesteryear because those games gave them something that they needed. That "something" is different for everyone, and could be friendships, romances, a feeling of adventure (requiring more than a little bit of imagination), a sense of accomplishment or prowess, etc.
Now that need either no longer exists, or cannot be filled due to your status and age in life.
I was with you until this part. If you think that MMOs haven't changed you are completely delusional and out of touch with reality.
I know what I like, as the indie MMOs, and the old MMOs I play, still give it to me. But AAA MMOs have changed.
The whole of gaming has changed, but if you say MMOs have changed we get the nostalgia argument rolled out every time. Just one example, supposedly old MMOs were not that good at giving you a feeling of adventure (you needed more than a bit of imagination). Are we supposed to believe that modern easyMMOde MMOs give more of a sense of adventure? I think not.
There no since of discovery left there is always a big map and flashing arrows were for you to go next, Its always level to max run the dungeon get the loot next dungeon get the loot repeat. I think for MMO to become more then what they are they need add a random world generator and come up way have thousand of player play on one, but don't get me wrong a familiar place is also what we want.
Its like life you get tired of place you live and same scenery so want take a trip, but if your vacation to long you might get home sick.
There is a fix to this staleness but depends on someone to think outside the box, than maybe start a kickstarter or propose game to a company. But when thinking outside the box its more like research and may not turn out the best results or might need more funding. But point always is to TRY.
Everyone has ideas most of us just to scared to use them.
At some point developers will realize that the perfect mmorpg is the one that people in NEVER RAISE AN ALTER.
I was like 3 years playing UO, never raised an alter, like 5 years playing EQ, never raised an alter. Now tell me I am looking at that games with rose colored glasses...
Stop making us follow a story you invented for my char like if you know what I want to be in a virtual world and focus on me just going everywhere I want, trying to kill whoever PC or NPC I want, all with its consequences and in that moment you will be creating a succeful mmorpg.
I remember playing Runes of magic when it first came out - it had (along with other earlier games) a death penalty as well as weapon/gear degrade. Logging off next to a mob was a no no. Getting disconnected was a pain but...
Death these days is just 'opps' and no bad effect. (When I played LOTRO, death was just a 10min debuff).
People also talked and helped each other - at least on the servers I was on. From memory, leveling took longer that it does now.
These days, PVE based games are just a race to the end with quests like
kill 10 dogs
kill 10 guards
kill dog leader
then repeat that over 50/60 levels.
Player actions don't have any lasting effect. Be nice if some actions I took in a quest had a impact later in the games - even if that meant some NPCs did not like/trust you.
Well what i do sorely miss in nowadays MMORPG's is a challenge.
How am i supposed to identify with a character that takes a week, 2 weeks or such to hit endgame.
It started with WoW, games have become easier and cheaper.
I play MMO's for a long time now, when many of us oldschool MMO'ers started games like Ultima Online, Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, they took forever to reach endgame. And guess what, some of them are even still around, until a short while ago where even still subscription based and running well. With Blizzards World of Warcraft, when MMO's hit the big pot and the major market, they started to produce clones, to dumb down games on player request. When Everquest 2 launched you still had to work hard even to just get the class you wanted. No instant buttom and there you where.
It was a challenge. And it helps building a living and thriving community when the majority of players take some time to get to the endgame. Also makes people proficient in their class.
They practice it long enough and most either learned what to do, or switched to a class that suited their gameplay.
People nowadays are crying about grind. Yes i say we need more of it. Because that is where you learn the basics, and where you have time and opportunity to socialize.
Give us more classes, not just 4 or 6 basic classes. Diversify the gameplay. Make endcontent hard ass challenging so people really need to master their classes, to master all aspects and gather groups and have to think about how to build those groups. Make crowdcontrol inmportant once more.
I play FFXIV right now, and hell i meet tanks who don't know what aggro is, or how to hold it, but think they are the best. They never learned their class due to way too fast leveling that is customary nowadays.
Yes please dear developers concentrate on a few major things, instead of promising us things and then in the end, fail to provide them
One of the worst failures Age of Conan. where is your siege, where can you build your own cities as you promised?
Originally posted by VikingGamer One thing that most newer games don't have much or any of is a real sense of discovery.
Do you remember in some of the older games when you might find an NPC in an odd location with maybe a short quest line that you would have never run into if you hadn't been snooping around? Games don't have much or any content that is outside the beaten path anymore. There are no more "neat" things to find. Modern games have become either linear or at least predictable. Everything you are intended to find is made easy to find.
This is pretty understandable. Content takes time to create so if you are a developer you naturally don't want any wasted effort. You want to lay things out in such a way that people will find all of it and be entertained as completely as possible. The problem is that real worlds are not like this. Real worlds are jumbled and messy and have to be sorted through. If you create worlds this way players stand the real chance of not finding everything that you made for them. You might waste some of your effort.
Developers need to get over it, because you can't create a sense of "real" discovery without the "real" possibility of someone walking right past it. This is why people love Easter eggs so much. They are neat to find and share with others precisely because you could so easily miss them. If the devs want to recapture possibly the neatest aspect of some of the older games they need to be willing to make worlds that are not so crisp and perfect. They need to be willing to make a world that has content that can be missed. This doesn't mean part of a main story needs to be hidden but it does mean that they need to be willing to work on side stories and short quest lines that could be missed because they are in out of the way places. Quest givers that only spawn once in a while.
I want to play a game for a couple of years, level up several characters though the same areas and on my fifth time though I want to discover something that I had never run into before. I want to discover something that makes me say, "Wow, I never knew that was here."
Totally agree. something EQ2 did quite well when it added shineys so you could be in the middle of nowhere and find a rare shiney which makes up your collection which could be sometimes exchanged for something really cool .
Well what i do sorely miss in nowadays MMORPG's is a challenge.
How am i supposed to identify with a character that takes a week, 2 weeks or such to hit endgame.
It started with WoW, games have become easier and cheaper.
I play MMO's for a long time now, when many of us oldschool MMO'ers started games like Ultima Online, Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, they took forever to reach endgame. And guess what, some of them are even still around, until a short while ago where even still subscription based and running well. With Blizzards World of Warcraft, when MMO's hit the big pot and the major market, they started to produce clones, to dumb down games on player request. When Everquest 2 launched you still had to work hard even to just get the class you wanted. No instant buttom and there you where.
It was a challenge. And it helps building a living and thriving community when the majority of players take some time to get to the endgame. Also makes people proficient in their class.
They practice it long enough and most either learned what to do, or switched to a class that suited their gameplay.
People nowadays are crying about grind. Yes i say we need more of it. Because that is where you learn the basics, and where you have time and opportunity to socialize.
Give us more classes, not just 4 or 6 basic classes. Diversify the gameplay. Make endcontent hard ass challenging so people really need to master their classes, to master all aspects and gather groups and have to think about how to build those groups. Make crowdcontrol inmportant once more.
I play FFXIV right now, and hell i meet tanks who don't know what aggro is, or how to hold it, but think they are the best. They never learned their class due to way too fast leveling that is customary nowadays.
Yes please dear developers concentrate on a few major things, instead of promising us things and then in the end, fail to provide them
One of the worst failures Age of Conan. where is your siege, where can you build your own cities as you promised?
Seriously try Wurm online. I always go back to that game for the challenge. If anything it might be to challenging hehe :P Especially as a new player. But I can highly reccommend it!
Frankly, I feel games are controlled too much by the players. Yes, I know, we pay for it, blah, blah. But the fact is, the creators have something in mind and they want to put it out there for us to enjoy, but when they give in too much to all the whining babies about every little thing, the games wind up becoming useless junk and are nothing like originally intended. Whatever happened to buying a game because you liked what it looked like it was going to be, and then playing it just as it was intended to be played? You either enjoy it, or you don't. Buy it, or don't. But stop ruining the original design of games just because you want to whine like a little kid who wants to take his ball and go home. I say let the designers create a dang game and then play it as it was intended to be played.
Of course there will be little tweaks here and there, and maybe something didn't work in the manner it was supposed to, so yes, they need the input of the gamers playing the game so that matters can be fixed, but totally changing games to the point that they are no longer what the developers had in mind is just ridiculous. No matter what a game has or doesn't have, I'm going to play it if I really want to. That's how it should be. People need to stop whining about nerfing stuff or about making a game what it isn't intended for. The developers should be able to focus on putting out a game that they came up with, that they designed, and they should be able to have you ungrateful people enjoy it for what it is.
I used to be into crafting - I won't go into detail - but I sewed items and created stuff that my heart felt like creating. People either bought it or they didn't, and I appreciated those that truly saw my vision and enjoyed it for what it was. I didn't like to take orders that wanted this done this way and that done that way, because then it became their design, not mine. I say, developers, game creators, just do what you enjoy and create something that means something to you, and then fix the minor thing that might be wrong with it, like an npc that's not performing properly or whatever, but stop giving into all these whiners just for the marketing value of something, and create what you love! Don't mess it up because everyone else wants it differently. People have different opinions on what they like or not, so you can't please everybody.
We wouldn't be so excited about games like ESO if you hadn't created something we loved to begin with. We wouldn't have the lore to love if you hadn't given it to us in the first place! Let the designers and developers design and develop. Stop trying to be game makers. If you don't like the way a game is made, then go make one yourself! Then you'll see just how difficult it is and how ridiculous it is for people to expect you to completely change it! And how much it hurts to have something you love destroyed and turned into something else completely!
Comments
Reason why MMOs disappoint the masses here?
Most of the Grognards here were in love with the games of yesteryear because those games gave them something that they needed. That "something" is different for everyone, and could be friendships, romances, a feeling of adventure (requiring more than a little bit of imagination), a sense of accomplishment or prowess, etc.
Now that need either no longer exists, or cannot be filled due to your status and age in life. I personally think that imagination is one of these fleeting ephemeral parts of our mind that diminish when we age, but still feels all too real when wrapped in the emotions of nostalgia.
Why does every MMO disappoint you?
You've changed.
I was with you until this part. If you think that MMOs haven't changed you are completely delusional and out of touch with reality.
I know what I like, as the indie MMOs, and the old MMOs I play, still give it to me. But AAA MMOs have changed.
The whole of gaming has changed, but if you say MMOs have changed we get the nostalgia argument rolled out every time. Just one example, supposedly old MMOs were not that good at giving you a feeling of adventure (you needed more than a bit of imagination). Are we supposed to believe that modern easyMMOde MMOs give more of a sense of adventure? I think not.
Free to live, Free to play!
There no since of discovery left there is always a big map and flashing arrows were for you to go next, Its always level to max run the dungeon get the loot next dungeon get the loot repeat. I think for MMO to become more then what they are they need add a random world generator and come up way have thousand of player play on one, but don't get me wrong a familiar place is also what we want.
Its like life you get tired of place you live and same scenery so want take a trip, but if your vacation to long you might get home sick.
There is a fix to this staleness but depends on someone to think outside the box, than maybe start a kickstarter or propose game to a company. But when thinking outside the box its more like research and may not turn out the best results or might need more funding. But point always is to TRY.
Everyone has ideas most of us just to scared to use them.
At some point developers will realize that the perfect mmorpg is the one that people in NEVER RAISE AN ALTER.
I was like 3 years playing UO, never raised an alter, like 5 years playing EQ, never raised an alter. Now tell me I am looking at that games with rose colored glasses...
Stop making us follow a story you invented for my char like if you know what I want to be in a virtual world and focus on me just going everywhere I want, trying to kill whoever PC or NPC I want, all with its consequences and in that moment you will be creating a succeful mmorpg.
But, but, but he attacked me when I was low life!
Yes, HE DID, why you cant do the same to him?
Uf that will take me a lot of time...
HERE IS YOUR QUEST!
I remember playing Runes of magic when it first came out - it had (along with other earlier games) a death penalty as well as weapon/gear degrade. Logging off next to a mob was a no no. Getting disconnected was a pain but...
Death these days is just 'opps' and no bad effect. (When I played LOTRO, death was just a 10min debuff).
People also talked and helped each other - at least on the servers I was on. From memory, leveling took longer that it does now.
These days, PVE based games are just a race to the end with quests like
then repeat that over 50/60 levels.
Player actions don't have any lasting effect. Be nice if some actions I took in a quest had a impact later in the games - even if that meant some NPCs did not like/trust you.
Well what i do sorely miss in nowadays MMORPG's is a challenge.
How am i supposed to identify with a character that takes a week, 2 weeks or such to hit endgame.
It started with WoW, games have become easier and cheaper.
I play MMO's for a long time now, when many of us oldschool MMO'ers started games like Ultima Online, Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, they took forever to reach endgame. And guess what, some of them are even still around, until a short while ago where even still subscription based and running well. With Blizzards World of Warcraft, when MMO's hit the big pot and the major market, they started to produce clones, to dumb down games on player request. When Everquest 2 launched you still had to work hard even to just get the class you wanted. No instant buttom and there you where.
It was a challenge. And it helps building a living and thriving community when the majority of players take some time to get to the endgame. Also makes people proficient in their class.
They practice it long enough and most either learned what to do, or switched to a class that suited their gameplay.
People nowadays are crying about grind. Yes i say we need more of it. Because that is where you learn the basics, and where you have time and opportunity to socialize.
Give us more classes, not just 4 or 6 basic classes. Diversify the gameplay. Make endcontent hard ass challenging so people really need to master their classes, to master all aspects and gather groups and have to think about how to build those groups. Make crowdcontrol inmportant once more.
I play FFXIV right now, and hell i meet tanks who don't know what aggro is, or how to hold it, but think they are the best. They never learned their class due to way too fast leveling that is customary nowadays.
Yes please dear developers concentrate on a few major things, instead of promising us things and then in the end, fail to provide them
One of the worst failures Age of Conan. where is your siege, where can you build your own cities as you promised?
Totally agree. something EQ2 did quite well when it added shineys so you could be in the middle of nowhere and find a rare shiney which makes up your collection which could be sometimes exchanged for something really cool .
Seriously try Wurm online. I always go back to that game for the challenge. If anything it might be to challenging hehe :P Especially as a new player. But I can highly reccommend it!
Free to live, Free to play!
Frankly, I feel games are controlled too much by the players. Yes, I know, we pay for it, blah, blah. But the fact is, the creators have something in mind and they want to put it out there for us to enjoy, but when they give in too much to all the whining babies about every little thing, the games wind up becoming useless junk and are nothing like originally intended. Whatever happened to buying a game because you liked what it looked like it was going to be, and then playing it just as it was intended to be played? You either enjoy it, or you don't. Buy it, or don't. But stop ruining the original design of games just because you want to whine like a little kid who wants to take his ball and go home. I say let the designers create a dang game and then play it as it was intended to be played.
Of course there will be little tweaks here and there, and maybe something didn't work in the manner it was supposed to, so yes, they need the input of the gamers playing the game so that matters can be fixed, but totally changing games to the point that they are no longer what the developers had in mind is just ridiculous. No matter what a game has or doesn't have, I'm going to play it if I really want to. That's how it should be. People need to stop whining about nerfing stuff or about making a game what it isn't intended for. The developers should be able to focus on putting out a game that they came up with, that they designed, and they should be able to have you ungrateful people enjoy it for what it is.
I used to be into crafting - I won't go into detail - but I sewed items and created stuff that my heart felt like creating. People either bought it or they didn't, and I appreciated those that truly saw my vision and enjoyed it for what it was. I didn't like to take orders that wanted this done this way and that done that way, because then it became their design, not mine. I say, developers, game creators, just do what you enjoy and create something that means something to you, and then fix the minor thing that might be wrong with it, like an npc that's not performing properly or whatever, but stop giving into all these whiners just for the marketing value of something, and create what you love! Don't mess it up because everyone else wants it differently. People have different opinions on what they like or not, so you can't please everybody.
We wouldn't be so excited about games like ESO if you hadn't created something we loved to begin with. We wouldn't have the lore to love if you hadn't given it to us in the first place! Let the designers and developers design and develop. Stop trying to be game makers. If you don't like the way a game is made, then go make one yourself! Then you'll see just how difficult it is and how ridiculous it is for people to expect you to completely change it! And how much it hurts to have something you love destroyed and turned into something else completely!