POTCO (Pirates of the Caribbean online) was a perfect example of a casual MMO. It had a great easy tutorial and you could play for a long time for free. It was priced great, for a 1 year subscription it was only $7.99/mth, pretty good deal when you think of the hours you would play per month. Plus that price got your EVERYTHING, the entire unlimited membership. No online "stores" to purchase upgraded weapons, etc. It was also a great game to play while watching TV or just chatting with friends on skype while playing with them. It was also an easy game to play with anyone. They didn't need to be on the same server as you when you created your pirate. You could teleport to any server at any time and you could teleport to a friend on any server from whatever server you were on. You could even chat with friends in the game even if they were on a different server! I don't know any other MMO that does that. It made it a very friendly casual mmo with NO limitations. It also allowed high level pirates play with low level pirates. That was really helpful when you had a new pirate to level up, just crew up with a higher level pirate to help you, it didn't matter what quest you were working on or what part of the storyline quest you were at, you could play with any level player on any server anytime. What other mmo for that price allows you to do that?? Super user friendly game. And so many age groups enjoyed it, parents played with their kids, multigenerational= $ maker. And because pirates is a pretty simple lore to understand. These fantasy mmo's just don't appeal to the mass audience. I dont' want to be an orc, dwarf, or magi or whatever else creatures you have to be. Being a human being from the age of pirates was easy to figure out. Why can't disney bring this mmo back!!! I haven't found an MMO that had that much flexibility since POTCO closed.
Originally posted by Kopogero Problem is also that casual gamers preventing me from playing the game whenever I feel playing it and the dailies, weeklies, monthly events with double exp or some other non realistic mechanics like endgame raiding that only happen 1-3 times through the week for 30 min to 2-3 hours.
^ This.
They are like facebook games now, You run out of energy and you cannot continue to play.
However there are games with exceptions to this thank god.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Problem is also that casual gamers preventing me from playing the game whenever I feel playing it and the dailies, weeklies, monthly events with double exp or some other non realistic mechanics like endgame raiding that only happen 1-3 times through the week for 30 min to 2-3 hours.
Sorry, but the genre has changed.
I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but you don't matter anymore. You are no longer the target audience for mainstream MMOs. All you can look forward to is smaller, independent games that attract a smaller base. CU won't have millions of players. Either will Crowfall/SotA or any of the other games currently promising the old school experience. I'll be surprised if many of them survive at all, because the audience is just no longer there to sustain them long-term.
You will just have to get used to it. Those days are over and I highly doubt they are ever coming back.
Originally posted by kellyokidd POTCO (Pirates of the Caribbean online) was a perfect example of a casual MMO. It had a great easy tutorial and you could play for a long time for free. It was priced great, for a 1 year subscription it was only $7.99/mth, pretty good deal when you think of the hours you would play per month. Plus that price got your EVERYTHING, the entire unlimited membership. No online "stores" to purchase upgraded weapons, etc. It was also a great game to play while watching TV or just chatting with friends on skype while playing with them. It was also an easy game to play with anyone. They didn't need to be on the same server as you when you created your pirate. You could teleport to any server at any time and you could teleport to a friend on any server from whatever server you were on. You could even chat with friends in the game even if they were on a different server! I don't know any other MMO that does that. It made it a very friendly casual mmo with NO limitations. It also allowed high level pirates play with low level pirates. That was really helpful when you had a new pirate to level up, just crew up with a higher level pirate to help you, it didn't matter what quest you were working on or what part of the storyline quest you were at, you could play with any level player on any server anytime. What other mmo for that price allows you to do that?? Super user friendly game. And so many age groups enjoyed it, parents played with their kids, multigenerational= $ maker. And because pirates is a pretty simple lore to understand. These fantasy mmo's just don't appeal to the mass audience. I dont' want to be an orc, dwarf, or magi or whatever else creatures you have to be. Being a human being from the age of pirates was easy to figure out. Why can't disney bring this mmo back!!! I haven't found an MMO that had that much flexibility since POTCO closed.
Perhaps its because it wasn't popular, or at least not popular enough for the company running it, unfortunately, for you at least, and sadly for me as my own preference is geared towards a more SciFi based game, Fantasy MMO's do appeal to the mass audience, if they didn't they wouldn't be the most popular kind of MMO. Disney would in all probability have kept the game running etc, if there were enough people playing it, the trouble is, the bigger the company behind a game, the more important a certain level of profitability is.
There have been other games in the 'pirate genre' flying labs also made a game, a pretty good one, based on similar premise, named Pirates of the Burning Sea, perhaps you should check out Uncharted Waters Online, while it might not be exactly what your looking for, it might be a game you can enjoy playing.
Everyone pretty much has a game they wish had never closed, from SWG, Matrix Online, City of Heroes/Villains, Earth and Beyond to Vanguard, and now POTCO, its a list that sadly, will never get any shorter
Problem is also that casual gamers preventing me from playing the game whenever I feel playing it and the dailies, weeklies, monthly events with double exp or some other non realistic mechanics like endgame raiding that only happen 1-3 times through the week for 30 min to 2-3 hours.
Sorry, but the genre has changed.
I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but you don't matter anymore. You are no longer the target audience for mainstream MMOs. All you can look forward to is smaller, independent games that attract a smaller base. CU won't have millions of players. Either will Crowfall/SotA or any of the other games currently promising the old school experience. I'll be surprised if many of them survive at all, because the audience is just no longer there to sustain them long-term.
You will just have to get used to it. Those days are over and I highly doubt they are ever coming back.
I disagree on your statement that the "audience is not there". Audience won't be there when there aren't AAA/quality products, period. Audience/markets are created only through a great product. Blizzard with WOW did that, they created their audience/market. Sadly, that hasn't happen to non casual MMO's because there aren't really any distinctive non casual MMO's out there that separate from the rest indie, low budget, half done, rushed products. The last non casual AAA MMO's happened before WOW. Ultima Online, SWG and EVE as the most notable examples.
Ultima Online, SWG, EVE had tons of competition in their time as well with games like Everquest, Anarchy Online, Asheron Call, Lineage, Ragnarok, the list goes on and on...yet SWG reported 1 mil of boxes sold with P2P model year after WOW was launched. EVE on the other hand has co-existed as a niche MMO through the last 12 years and flourished simply because almost everyone else been copying the casual, WOW formula.
Part of the problem which wasn't covered in this was how MMO developers launch a product and then let it stagnate. I've got several examples for you but I'll mention the most recent. GW2 for example has had ongoing missing features, they now have some funding coming in and have the personnel to fix these issues but they choose not to in order to get the new shiny out but I predict what will happen is what always happens in games in which they ignore improving the old, and that is that people will be all excted until the next new shiny comes out but it won't just be because the new shiny is new it's also due to the old never improving.
WoW has had a good team keeping things up to date as much as possible in that title, it's the only reason why people keep coming back, is because Blizzard adapts and updates. LOTRO increased their population slightly when they updated combat, the same goes for SWTOR when they added new features, and Rift has had a continuous stable community for years now because they stay on top of new trends.
These other older titles out there the so called Genre changing titles, need to learn that some things like updating their games to keep up with modern quality of life expectations is a good investment and will keep players longer than coming out with a new shiny.
IMHO this trend is irreversible : 20 years ago only kids and teenagers played videogames. Now the generation born with Mario is in their 30-40, married with children and even if they still want to play, they don't have time.
Ok, but what about the NEW generation ? Surely current teenagers with lots of free time want complex games ? Probably... but because of the OLD generation, lots of casual games are produced. And we all know that human are weak: if you have the choice between easy rewards and a long, hard journey, 99% will choose the easy rewards.
Either you completely missed what happened with Wildstar, or my sensor is picking up someone living in a dream world. It has nothing to do with Hardcore being fickle, and everything to do with poor design.
How about a third option? I played Wildstar and got sick of all the bellyaching from the "hardcore" crowd that whined about getting what they said they wanted. They didn't know what to do with the game they demanded so they blamed the game just as you're doing. Wildstar isn't perfect but it's what the "hardcore" crowd demanded.
You are right about the fact that POTCO became non profitable for Disney but that was because they had stopped maintaining the game as well as adding new content on a regular basis to keep players engaged. Like most MMO companies, Disney dropped the ball on potco, it could have been a great money maker if they had put more effort into keeping it relevant.
Problem is also that casual gamers preventing me from playing the game whenever I feel playing it and the dailies, weeklies, monthly events with double exp or some other non realistic mechanics like endgame raiding that only happen 1-3 times through the week for 30 min to 2-3 hours.
Sorry, but the genre has changed.
I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but you don't matter anymore. You are no longer the target audience for mainstream MMOs. All you can look forward to is smaller, independent games that attract a smaller base. CU won't have millions of players. Either will Crowfall/SotA or any of the other games currently promising the old school experience. I'll be surprised if many of them survive at all, because the audience is just no longer there to sustain them long-term.
You will just have to get used to it. Those days are over and I highly doubt they are ever coming back.
The development landscape seems quite the opposite, actually. There aren't any "mainstream" MMORPGs in development. Can you name a single major publisher backing an MMORPG in development today? I can't name a single one off the top of my head.
It's all smaller, independent studios targeting very specific groups of gamers. And those gamers have been very willing to support these projects financially. Have to disagree with you: the mainstream doesn't matter anymore. Not to the developers in the genre that are actually making new games.
Ok, but what about the NEW generation ? Surely current teenagers with lots of free time want complex games ? Probably... but because of the OLD generation, lots of casual games are produced. And we all know that human are weak: if you have the choice between easy rewards and a long, hard journey, 99% will choose the easy rewards.
I think that complexity and how hard the game is are distinct.
Take EQ2, for example. When I played it in 2005 it was hard. Movement was slow, beating enemies was tough, there were corpse runs. 10 years forward, you can get around much faster, and it's easier. But on the other hand, in 2005 each race had a power progression, and in 2015 (and before) you now pick what that progression does, and have an AA tree, and other powers you can choose for your class. It's a lot more complex.
I don't know what to make of it. It feels like complexity and difficulty should go together, but they don't. Most games I can think of get more complex (more systems) but easier (progression) with time.
Originally posted by artemisentr4 The lack of difficulty is what I don't like. I'm not talking about group vs solo content or builds. I'm talking about being able to walk into a group of mobs and kill them all without a thought. Not having to pay attention to your surroundings at all. Having every drop needed drop on the first kill. What ever you need to find has a mark on it so no looking around or thinking isneeded at all. And knowing that it will never come back. We are stuck in this endless cycle of easy content, no brains needed, generic boring gaming. I don't see an end to it.
I agree with you. The other problem for me is that games are too bloated with information, directed objectives and hand holding. I'd like games that basically don't acknowledge us and just let us experience them. Games that just let you be free.
Originally posted by DrunkWolf dont worry its not just MMOs, I dare gamers from todays generation to go beat battletoads.
Holy shit Battletoads! I haven't heard that title mentioned in very long time. I had that game for NES, don't remember if I ever beat it.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
I always hear the excuse that gamers are too busy with life (job, family) to play "hardcore" anymore. But when I raided in WOW, all my real-life friends who also raided had full-time jobs, were married with kids. I was the only one who was single, but I stilled worked 50-60 hours a week.
Granted my raiding guilds skewed younger, but there were plenty of people with similar backgrounds. It's really not that hard to set aside 15-20 hours a week for group gaming if that's your preference. The average adult watches more TV than that. So I think the reason games have become more casual is that is what the new generation prefers, not because "hardcore" is so hard you can't have a life.
Full time job + raiding = can happen. Add a wife and kids into the equation you can forget about it since the wife requires at the leads 1 hour a day of full attention + kids require random amounts of attention throughout the day which means lots of logging in and out and afk alot.
I don't know about too casual, that's kind of a broad term. But too much hand holding is definitely an issue. Have we, as a society, really reached the point where we are too stupid to figure out how to explore a map on our own without having the map laid out for us before hand with waypoints detailing every minor thing to discover? Do we actually require an arrow pointing to the next point of interest in the area we are in. So that we can follow one after another, like we are on a guided tour in a museum?
There once was a day, where there were no maps built into the game at all. Yes you could download and print out maps online, but that was a personal choice. Instead people were encouraged to actually explore the worlds they were spending time in. Learn the in's and outs of the zones. Life in these games was as much about the journey, as it was about the leveling and combat.
Close your eyes, and look back at the last 6 mmo's you've played. Out of any of them, could you navigate from one end of the game to the other without using in game maps, waypoints, or any other means? While your imaging this, can you remember any glorious & beautiful vistas or landmarks you would pass during this trip?
16 years later, and I can still remember the trip from Feydark to Qeynos like the back of my hand. I can still remember the sights I would stop and gaze at along the way. I can't remember the last 20 vistas I gazed at in GW2. Yes the game is gorgeous, don't get me wrong. But the amount of hand holding in the game makes me forget about that which I've experienced by the time I log out.
I am not a 6 year old child, so MMO dev's, please stop treating me like I am one.
It is not that games have become too casual, but too simplified and lacking depth, variety. People are getting bored and the games have no longevity, which is why people are constantly hopping from game to game. The games are just not that good and worth putting any time into. Of course there are some good games out there, some with longevity, but the trend clearly shows the opposite. So much so that not many mainstream non indie MMOs are even on the horizon, like years passed, probably due to how poorly those other games performed.
MMOs need more than mass zerging, everyone can do everything alone and hit max in a couple days with nothing else to do if they want people to keep playing. People hitting max in a couple days doesn't mean it is a casual game, it just means it is crappy and poorly developed. The same goes for it taking a few months to hit cap only playing a few hours a day doesn't mean it is hardcore. If people are having fun, it does not matter how long it takes. Of course there has to be enough to do for people to have fun, lol.
Even MMOs with hardcore raiding, people don't really need that much time. As people mentioned before, people watch more tv a week than people raid lol. Even the so called "hardcore" games, people can play casually. I had plenty of friends who were casual in EQ, even soloers.
Since UO and EQ a lot of things have changed. Back then EQ and WoW were your social media, people would log in just to chat with others at a time when FB and text messaging did not exist, phones charged by the minute, etc. Maps were open and classes were more narrowly defined, you had to group... Social interaction was stronger then, there was always something going on ingame, weddings, battles, Dev run events, selling your phat lootz and so on. Games back then were your way to plug in with others.
Today with the multitude of ways to connect to the world, there is less need to log in behind the desktop computer keyboard. Why would you when you can carry everything you need in the palm of your hand. Want to play something, grab a tablet and head to Starbucks. With all the "connections" to the world today (and the ability to turn them off) people have become insular, more hurried as there are more things to do than there were in the past. More viable options to entertainment lead to shorter attention spans.
Perfect example in EQ groups could take an 15 min, 30 min, an hour to get moving now if the group is not going in less than 3 min you are wasting time and pop off to the next form of entertainment. DAMP lobby is just that way pop into an incomplete group count to 20, no full group, people back out.
As for the games it is no longer the love of the game for the Development team, it is the bottom line and metrics. What will return the most money with the least cost in the shortest amount of time. There is no more corporate long term strategy, it is all about money now, we will be gone at the next reorg. All the backers care about is the short term, so that is the way games are handled today.
The last point is, more and more (over years) you have seen is the concern for image. When I was a young gamer, it did not matter, I played the games I wanted to play, with no concern for the image of the game. Today, image is one of the big factors that go into if a game is played. Is it cool, popular, trending, hip and so on. This is the next (insert game here) killer, your game is lame.
There are exceptions, notably Star Citizen, how many millions in crowd funding? That is an old school following, but even then people are starting to chafe at the wait.
I put it down to developer laziness. Surely a game can offer diversity in races and classes and also provide cookie-cutter templates for casuals who want to get started right away. But by offering few choices for character creation and development, developers then don't have to consider all the permutations of class balance and any impact that future patches and fixes may have on unbalancing class balance. I guess that is MMO "evolution"; the MMOs of 10-15 years ago are unrecognizable from today's MMOs.
This is becuase of all of the "bean counters" and CEOs who want to make their money. They water the game down to get the candy-a$$ed casual to come and play. Sometimes, it's even the old bitter vets of the game that do it, too. EvE Online, for example, got rid of medical clones just because someone cried that they are an ISK sink. It hurts their wallet and their butt when they forget to upgrade clone. This MMO is suppose to be risk vs reward and I slowly see the risk going away in this harder cored MMO.
Originally posted by xmojo1 I put it down to developer laziness. Surely a game can offer diversity in races and classes and also provide cookie-cutter templates for casuals who want to get started right away. But by offering few choices for character creation and development, developers then don't have to consider all the permutations of class balance and any impact that future patches and fixes may have on unbalancing class balance. I guess that is MMO "evolution"; the MMOs of 10-15 years ago are unrecognizable from today's MMOs.
You really think Dev's have the final say in the game? I would love for you to sit in on planning meetings for EA. They called their Thursday meetings the Death Star because that is where ideas went to die. There were some great ideas laid to rest in that room, definite improvement to what is at hand. As I said before least cost, most profit, shortest time and out the door.
I don't think they all have, but the ones I'm currently playing can be played on a casual basis. I actually like this. Why do we have to put in 4-6 hours every evening playing? I do feel the further alone the genre evolves the older the average gamer will be. Many of us have lives outside of our game rooms and time is becoming more of a premium for many that once played for so many hours at a time. I am one of those folks. I spend much of my time away from my PC at home. When I'm home and my responsibilities are complete I do enjoy the relaxation of a good mmo and the people I associate with in-game!
Alyn
All I want is the truth Just gimme some truth John Lennon
Comments
^ This.
They are like facebook games now, You run out of energy and you cannot continue to play.
However there are games with exceptions to this thank god.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Becoming?
That ship sailed yearrrsss ago.
This guy, while over the top does set the example for why a particular set of people hate "hardcore" games and opt for dumbing down.
btw Im a huge battle toads fan.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Sorry, but the genre has changed.
I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but you don't matter anymore. You are no longer the target audience for mainstream MMOs. All you can look forward to is smaller, independent games that attract a smaller base. CU won't have millions of players. Either will Crowfall/SotA or any of the other games currently promising the old school experience. I'll be surprised if many of them survive at all, because the audience is just no longer there to sustain them long-term.
You will just have to get used to it. Those days are over and I highly doubt they are ever coming back.
Perhaps its because it wasn't popular, or at least not popular enough for the company running it, unfortunately, for you at least, and sadly for me as my own preference is geared towards a more SciFi based game, Fantasy MMO's do appeal to the mass audience, if they didn't they wouldn't be the most popular kind of MMO. Disney would in all probability have kept the game running etc, if there were enough people playing it, the trouble is, the bigger the company behind a game, the more important a certain level of profitability is.
There have been other games in the 'pirate genre' flying labs also made a game, a pretty good one, based on similar premise, named Pirates of the Burning Sea, perhaps you should check out Uncharted Waters Online, while it might not be exactly what your looking for, it might be a game you can enjoy playing.
Everyone pretty much has a game they wish had never closed, from SWG, Matrix Online, City of Heroes/Villains, Earth and Beyond to Vanguard, and now POTCO, its a list that sadly, will never get any shorter
I disagree on your statement that the "audience is not there". Audience won't be there when there aren't AAA/quality products, period. Audience/markets are created only through a great product. Blizzard with WOW did that, they created their audience/market. Sadly, that hasn't happen to non casual MMO's because there aren't really any distinctive non casual MMO's out there that separate from the rest indie, low budget, half done, rushed products. The last non casual AAA MMO's happened before WOW. Ultima Online, SWG and EVE as the most notable examples.
Ultima Online, SWG, EVE had tons of competition in their time as well with games like Everquest, Anarchy Online, Asheron Call, Lineage, Ragnarok, the list goes on and on...yet SWG reported 1 mil of boxes sold with P2P model year after WOW was launched. EVE on the other hand has co-existed as a niche MMO through the last 12 years and flourished simply because almost everyone else been copying the casual, WOW formula.
Part of the problem which wasn't covered in this was how MMO developers launch a product and then let it stagnate. I've got several examples for you but I'll mention the most recent. GW2 for example has had ongoing missing features, they now have some funding coming in and have the personnel to fix these issues but they choose not to in order to get the new shiny out but I predict what will happen is what always happens in games in which they ignore improving the old, and that is that people will be all excted until the next new shiny comes out but it won't just be because the new shiny is new it's also due to the old never improving.
WoW has had a good team keeping things up to date as much as possible in that title, it's the only reason why people keep coming back, is because Blizzard adapts and updates. LOTRO increased their population slightly when they updated combat, the same goes for SWTOR when they added new features, and Rift has had a continuous stable community for years now because they stay on top of new trends.
These other older titles out there the so called Genre changing titles, need to learn that some things like updating their games to keep up with modern quality of life expectations is a good investment and will keep players longer than coming out with a new shiny.
IMHO this trend is irreversible : 20 years ago only kids and teenagers played videogames. Now the generation born with Mario is in their 30-40, married with children and even if they still want to play, they don't have time.
Ok, but what about the NEW generation ? Surely current teenagers with lots of free time want complex games ? Probably... but because of the OLD generation, lots of casual games are produced. And we all know that human are weak: if you have the choice between easy rewards and a long, hard journey, 99% will choose the easy rewards.
How about a third option? I played Wildstar and got sick of all the bellyaching from the "hardcore" crowd that whined about getting what they said they wanted. They didn't know what to do with the game they demanded so they blamed the game just as you're doing. Wildstar isn't perfect but it's what the "hardcore" crowd demanded.
The development landscape seems quite the opposite, actually. There aren't any "mainstream" MMORPGs in development. Can you name a single major publisher backing an MMORPG in development today? I can't name a single one off the top of my head.
It's all smaller, independent studios targeting very specific groups of gamers. And those gamers have been very willing to support these projects financially. Have to disagree with you: the mainstream doesn't matter anymore. Not to the developers in the genre that are actually making new games.
I think that complexity and how hard the game is are distinct.
Take EQ2, for example. When I played it in 2005 it was hard. Movement was slow, beating enemies was tough, there were corpse runs. 10 years forward, you can get around much faster, and it's easier. But on the other hand, in 2005 each race had a power progression, and in 2015 (and before) you now pick what that progression does, and have an AA tree, and other powers you can choose for your class. It's a lot more complex.
I don't know what to make of it. It feels like complexity and difficulty should go together, but they don't. Most games I can think of get more complex (more systems) but easier (progression) with time.
I agree with you. The other problem for me is that games are too bloated with information, directed objectives and hand holding. I'd like games that basically don't acknowledge us and just let us experience them. Games that just let you be free.
Holy shit Battletoads! I haven't heard that title mentioned in very long time. I had that game for NES, don't remember if I ever beat it.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
I always hear the excuse that gamers are too busy with life (job, family) to play "hardcore" anymore. But when I raided in WOW, all my real-life friends who also raided had full-time jobs, were married with kids. I was the only one who was single, but I stilled worked 50-60 hours a week.
Granted my raiding guilds skewed younger, but there were plenty of people with similar backgrounds. It's really not that hard to set aside 15-20 hours a week for group gaming if that's your preference. The average adult watches more TV than that. So I think the reason games have become more casual is that is what the new generation prefers, not because "hardcore" is so hard you can't have a life.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
I don't know about too casual, that's kind of a broad term. But too much hand holding is definitely an issue. Have we, as a society, really reached the point where we are too stupid to figure out how to explore a map on our own without having the map laid out for us before hand with waypoints detailing every minor thing to discover? Do we actually require an arrow pointing to the next point of interest in the area we are in. So that we can follow one after another, like we are on a guided tour in a museum?
There once was a day, where there were no maps built into the game at all. Yes you could download and print out maps online, but that was a personal choice. Instead people were encouraged to actually explore the worlds they were spending time in. Learn the in's and outs of the zones. Life in these games was as much about the journey, as it was about the leveling and combat.
Close your eyes, and look back at the last 6 mmo's you've played. Out of any of them, could you navigate from one end of the game to the other without using in game maps, waypoints, or any other means? While your imaging this, can you remember any glorious & beautiful vistas or landmarks you would pass during this trip?
16 years later, and I can still remember the trip from Feydark to Qeynos like the back of my hand. I can still remember the sights I would stop and gaze at along the way. I can't remember the last 20 vistas I gazed at in GW2. Yes the game is gorgeous, don't get me wrong. But the amount of hand holding in the game makes me forget about that which I've experienced by the time I log out.
I am not a 6 year old child, so MMO dev's, please stop treating me like I am one.
It is not that games have become too casual, but too simplified and lacking depth, variety. People are getting bored and the games have no longevity, which is why people are constantly hopping from game to game. The games are just not that good and worth putting any time into. Of course there are some good games out there, some with longevity, but the trend clearly shows the opposite. So much so that not many mainstream non indie MMOs are even on the horizon, like years passed, probably due to how poorly those other games performed.
MMOs need more than mass zerging, everyone can do everything alone and hit max in a couple days with nothing else to do if they want people to keep playing. People hitting max in a couple days doesn't mean it is a casual game, it just means it is crappy and poorly developed. The same goes for it taking a few months to hit cap only playing a few hours a day doesn't mean it is hardcore. If people are having fun, it does not matter how long it takes. Of course there has to be enough to do for people to have fun, lol.
Even MMOs with hardcore raiding, people don't really need that much time. As people mentioned before, people watch more tv a week than people raid lol. Even the so called "hardcore" games, people can play casually. I had plenty of friends who were casual in EQ, even soloers.
Since UO and EQ a lot of things have changed. Back then EQ and WoW were your social media, people would log in just to chat with others at a time when FB and text messaging did not exist, phones charged by the minute, etc. Maps were open and classes were more narrowly defined, you had to group... Social interaction was stronger then, there was always something going on ingame, weddings, battles, Dev run events, selling your phat lootz and so on. Games back then were your way to plug in with others.
Today with the multitude of ways to connect to the world, there is less need to log in behind the desktop computer keyboard. Why would you when you can carry everything you need in the palm of your hand. Want to play something, grab a tablet and head to Starbucks. With all the "connections" to the world today (and the ability to turn them off) people have become insular, more hurried as there are more things to do than there were in the past. More viable options to entertainment lead to shorter attention spans.
Perfect example in EQ groups could take an 15 min, 30 min, an hour to get moving now if the group is not going in less than 3 min you are wasting time and pop off to the next form of entertainment. DAMP lobby is just that way pop into an incomplete group count to 20, no full group, people back out.
As for the games it is no longer the love of the game for the Development team, it is the bottom line and metrics. What will return the most money with the least cost in the shortest amount of time. There is no more corporate long term strategy, it is all about money now, we will be gone at the next reorg. All the backers care about is the short term, so that is the way games are handled today.
The last point is, more and more (over years) you have seen is the concern for image. When I was a young gamer, it did not matter, I played the games I wanted to play, with no concern for the image of the game. Today, image is one of the big factors that go into if a game is played. Is it cool, popular, trending, hip and so on. This is the next (insert game here) killer, your game is lame.
There are exceptions, notably Star Citizen, how many millions in crowd funding? That is an old school following, but even then people are starting to chafe at the wait.
You really think Dev's have the final say in the game? I would love for you to sit in on planning meetings for EA. They called their Thursday meetings the Death Star because that is where ideas went to die. There were some great ideas laid to rest in that room, definite improvement to what is at hand. As I said before least cost, most profit, shortest time and out the door.
I don't think they all have, but the ones I'm currently playing can be played on a casual basis. I actually like this. Why do we have to put in 4-6 hours every evening playing? I do feel the further alone the genre evolves the older the average gamer will be. Many of us have lives outside of our game rooms and time is becoming more of a premium for many that once played for so many hours at a time. I am one of those folks. I spend much of my time away from my PC at home. When I'm home and my responsibilities are complete I do enjoy the relaxation of a good mmo and the people I associate with in-game!
Alyn
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
If you had beat Battletoads, you would have remembered it. ;-)