thanks for going off topic to promote your anti-level crap.
It's not off topic at all. If you consume a piece of the "world" and move on to the next piece, then it's not a world. It's just leveling zones. Even if they're all shiny and seamless, you literally have no need to ever revisit the 1-20 playfield after you're level 90. That, quite fucking simply, isn't a world.
In an MMO World, there would be something for your character to do in every place they go irrespective of their power level.
Get rid of the ancient, moldy, 1970's era Gary Gygax AD&D model and move into the 21'st century where characters should have hundreds of points of definition, and then you can start building worlds instead of leveling zones.
What's wrong with AD&D? (though I preferred 2nd Ed. myself) There were no levelling zones, you could easily bump into a troll wiping out everyone - especially if you took from the GMs snack
Gygax made a great game (and a form of gaming), it's not RPG's fault that the new kidz only care about combat and the action... this whole "how's the combat system" craze could be fine for action games, but for RPGs it's pretty dumb... can you imagine back in the days: "Hey, there's a new RPG, just bought the book, it's about... - Who cares dude, just show me the roll charts and the numbers, that's the only important part" but of course on a second thought, nowadays cRPGs are more and more action games themselves, sadly.
And this led to what OP says. If the combat is the main goal, for those players the world is just an obstacle and a nuisance gating them from their precccious combat, thus taking up their time. Instant action, skirmishes, teleport-to-dungeons from hub, quick travels everywhere, or auto-pathing... all is there to reduce the world's importance within the game. Since these players are the vast majority nowadays, this won't change... but until those elements are not mandatory (so it's not a strictly hub-based game and I have the option to walk around and exploring), personally I'm fine, I guess.
Originally posted by sunandshadow Somebody hold a contest where we all can submit MMO world designs, I want to enter.
You could always use one of the rent-an-engines and build your own to order.
Sometimes I think it's the only way some of our users (non vos) will ever see all of the game features they want (or don't want)--to build a custom game of their own.
Originally posted by immodium Compared to the old MMO's the new MMO worlds are far more interesting to explore than the old ones.
Pssh. Why because they're prettier? Theres nothing to explore. At least in EQ, when I went roaming I found interesting and unique things. Not just mobs, the environment actually told a story without having to lead me around by the nose. Wander out into the wilderness, mind the random dangerous monsters that actually roamed around. Look, a strange faction of halflings congregating around a monument or shrine of some sort... and they don't like me even though I'm a fellow hobbit? Why is that? Oh that worship a different god? Look, a mob that is different than the others, and whats this, it drops rare items or offers rare quests? That kind of thing has been completely lost. Modern games are so generic, they couldn't give you depth unless they created a 500 foot crater in the middle of a map.
I just got done playing FF14 for the first time, and every single area for the first 20-30 levels looked the same, every monster was just used and reused throughout every zone, and every last one of them was static, had no other purpose than to be slaughtered. Each area surgically sectioned off with mobs increasing gradually in level from one spot to the next. No danger, no roamers, oh no! cant have that!!! Can't have anyone dying now can we?! Sure, the graphics and scenery are beautiful, what little you can actually explore that isn't partitioned off by invisible walls.
Only players who can pretend the game is a real world could make use of the game world.
Actually it turns out the world is used anytime it's used, not just when people pretend it's a real world. All that leveling, sight-seeing, and exploration is usage.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Pssh. Why because they're prettier? Theres nothing to explore. At least in EQ, when I went roaming I found interesting and unique things. Not just mobs, the environment actually told a story without having to lead me around by the nose. Wander out into the wilderness, mind the random dangerous monsters that actually roamed around. Look, a strange faction of halflings congregating around a monument or shrine of some sort... and they don't like me even though I'm a fellow hobbit? Why is that? Oh that worship a different god? Look, a mob that is different than the others, and whats this, it drops rare items or offers rare quests? That kind of thing has been completely lost. Modern games are so generic, they couldn't give you depth unless they created a 500 foot crater in the middle of a map.
I just got done playing FF14 for the first time, and every single area for the first 20-30 levels looked the same, every monster was just used and reused throughout every zone, and every last one of them was static, had no other purpose than to be slaughtered. Each area surgically sectioned off with mobs increasing gradually in level from one spot to the next. No danger, no roamers, oh no! cant have that!!! Can't have anyone dying now can we?! Sure, the graphics and scenery are beautiful, what little you can actually explore that isn't partitioned off by invisible walls.
Far more interesting my ass.
Compared with ESO:
Environment which tells a story: check. (Argonians having mud huts for houses, in part because the places they live are lower in resources (which makes it difficult to establish technology and culture) and situated around swamps.)
Mysterious factions encountered: check. (A faction promising a cure for a plague, where the cure turns people into ferocious zombies. You do several quests where it seems like the faction is good and helpful, but eventually through some detective work you discover the cure isn't actually helping people.)
Different mobs which drop items or quests: check. (Between the daedra you randomly encounter, the anchors you solve, and the mobs carrying instructions from higher-ups which leads to a quest to track down and stop them)
So in spite of his list being things found in existing MMORPGs, Dullahan wrongfully claims these things are "completely lost".
It's very difficult to discuss things with people who are willfully ignorant of the reality around them.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They can be and should be a big part of the genre. But right now the genre is single story content focused. The world is designed to make that experience as convenient as possible.
Originally posted by immodium Compared to the old MMO's the new MMO worlds are far more interesting to explore than the old ones.
Pssh. Why because they're prettier? Theres nothing to explore. At least in EQ, when I went roaming I found interesting and unique things. Not just mobs, the environment actually told a story without having to lead me around by the nose. Wander out into the wilderness, mind the random dangerous monsters that actually roamed around. Look, a strange faction of halflings congregating around a monument or shrine of some sort... and they don't like me even though I'm a fellow hobbit? Why is that? Oh that worship a different god? Look, a mob that is different than the others, and whats this, it drops rare items or offers rare quests? That kind of thing has been completely lost. Modern games are so generic, they couldn't give you depth unless they created a 500 foot crater in the middle of a map.
I just got done playing FF14 for the first time, and every single area for the first 20-30 levels looked the same, every monster was just used and reused throughout every zone, and every last one of them was static, had no other purpose than to be slaughtered. Each area surgically sectioned off with mobs increasing gradually in level from one spot to the next. No danger, no roamers, oh no! cant have that!!! Can't have anyone dying now can we?! Sure, the graphics and scenery are beautiful, what little you can actually explore that isn't partitioned off by invisible walls.
Far more interesting my ass.
You should try ESO. Then you may realize how pathetic in comparison EQ world is.
And to OP. SWG worlds are up there as the most bland to explore within the genre.
Mobs, NPCs, and dev written story. Where is the MMO here? In fact you can find the same things in most singleplayer games. And they are made so much better. MMO is not about the exploration. You cannot have unique experience in a game where thousands of other players do the same. AA is a very good example, Your character climbs on the top of some unapproachable mountains to find a farm and other player walking around. The only unique experience you may have in MMOs is that related to the other players.
ESO has a giant shared world where you regularly see 40+ people in town and 24-man content too. In town I regularly interact with those 40+ others via trading, guild-trading, and chat.
So those things establish the game as an MMO. I'm sure you're a rational person and wouldn't claim that the presence of any solo content somehow magically makes a game cease being an MMO.
Beyond that why would it even matter? Solo PVE games are probably the single most commonly enjoyed category of game, so the implication that it's somehow a mark against a game to not be an MMO is wrong.
As for unique experiences, players have unique experiences in every game, even the completely solo ones. As a designer I've designed a lot of games, some with more decision tree breadth than others, and even in the narrowest of those games there is considerable variation between players. Everyone is having a unique experience. Only when we willfully ignore the details and ridiculously oversimplify ("all players chose a class -- they all did the same thing, so nobody is unique!") could we claim players' experiences aren't unique -- and we wouldn't do that since we understand ignorance isn't a good thing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What makes a MMO is the world and interacting with other players.
Far too many MMOs lately have failed creating the wonder and exploration a player should feel when walking in the gameworld. This is partly due to the fact that MMOs tend to have pretty small worlds today and that too few add small bobuses for explorers, it can just be a pretty view or something else that makes it worth the effort to find and go to a place that is hidden.
Too much focus on shuffling players from one quest to the next do hurt the genre.
Mobs, NPCs, and dev written story. Where is the MMO here? In fact you can find the same things in most singleplayer games. And they are made so much better. MMO is not about the exploration. You cannot have unique experience in a game where thousands of other players do the same. AA is a very good example, Your character climbs on the top of some unapproachable mountains to find a farm and other player walking around. The only unique experience you may have in MMOs is that related to the other players.
ESO has a giant shared world where you regularly see 40+ people in town and 24-man content too. In town I regularly interact with those 40+ others via trading, guild-trading, and chat.
So those things establish the game as an MMO. I'm sure you're a rational person and wouldn't claim that the presence of any solo content somehow magically makes a game cease being an MMO.
Beyond that why would it even matter? Solo PVE games are probably the single most commonly enjoyed category of game, so the implication that it's somehow a mark against a game to not be an MMO is wrong.
As for unique experiences, players have unique experiences in every game, even the completely solo ones. As a designer I've designed a lot of games, some with more decision tree breadth than others, and even in the narrowest of those games there is considerable variation between players. Everyone is having a unique experience. Only when we willfully ignore the details and ridiculously oversimplify ("all players chose a class -- they all did the same thing, so nobody is unique!") could we claim players' experiences aren't unique -- and we wouldn't do that since we understand ignorance isn't a good thing.
I've been playing ESO for the last two weeks, and I'm already ready to put it away. It's not an mmo.
Almost all dungeon instances are solo. The party ones (very very few of them) take hours to find a party.
All gear worth anything is binded and not resellable.
um except for the best sets in the game, then there's the crafting sets that are all viable in end game and throughout the entire levelling process. Then ofc there is crafting and reusing or selling the other bound stuff.
You can hit Lv 60 (max level) in 3 days (Although I did it in 7, and I know solo rpg's that take longer to hit max level), and the white-knights will tell you to stop rushing through the content. You level extremely fast doing pvp. You can repeat the solo dungeons trying to get the rng gear drops for your level which also levels you fast. Or you can quest through the states which you will most like never enter again (because there will be no reason to once you out level the area.
More fool you for rushing. took me 350 hours of unique content to reach max level. You want to rush pas content, then don't blame the content for not being there for you.
I've been in 1 party up to 60. That party was a match making one for a lvl 35 party dungeon. And in that party (even though nobody died), all I heard was this kid foaming at the mouth while this content was so easy I could play through it while texting on my phone. That experience alone has made me question the quality of players on this game.
Join guilds, you can join 5 - thats up to 2500 members. Then there's pugs for the end game dungeons, guild raids and WvW that allwaus has pugs and lfg.
I've sincerely made an attempt to try to play with others. I bought shout items looking for group with 0 responses. I made a few posts:
also with 0 response offers, or negative responses...
My advice is if you are looking for that open world feeling and interaction with other players, ESO is not the game for you. If you are looking for a game to solo content and kill a week with, then go for it.
Your approach to mmo's is to rush through, doubt many mmorpg players who socialise are into that. friendships and groups take time to form, just like the old days. Rush and you reap what you sow.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I've been playing ESO for the last two weeks, and I'm already ready to put it away. It's not an mmo.
Almost all dungeon instances are solo. The party ones (very very few of them) take hours to find a party.
All gear worth anything is binded and not resellable.
You can hit Lv 60 (max level) in 3 days (Although I did it in 7, and I know solo rpg's that take longer to hit max level), and the white-knights will tell you to stop rushing through the content. You level extremely fast doing pvp. You can repeat the solo dungeons trying to get the rng gear drops for your level which also levels you fast. Or you can quest through the states which you will most like never enter again (because there will be no reason to once you out level the area.
I've been in 1 party up to 60. That party was a match making one for a lvl 35 party dungeon. And in that party (even though nobody died), all I heard was this kid foaming at the mouth while this content was so easy I could play through it while texting on my phone. That experience alone has made me question the quality of players on this game.
I've sincerely made an attempt to try to play with others. I bought shout items looking for group with 0 responses. I made a few posts:
also with 0 response offers, or negative responses...
My advice is if you are looking for that open world feeling and interaction with other players, ESO is not the game for you. If you are looking for a game to solo content and kill a week with, then go for it.
Those 40+ players I interact with are why it's an MMO. You can say it's not an MMO you enjoy, but you can't pretend it isn't an MMO.
We just covered how irrational it is to say something isn't an MMO just because it has solo content. The group content exists though
Everyone learned unbound gear was a bad design like a decade ago. If you don't understand why I'd be happy to explain.
Who cares how fast you hit max level? Are you playing games just to hit max level, or do you care about the gameplay and the journey? Whether someone levels slowly or fast doesn't matter as long as they're enjoying their time.
Your decision to group only 1 time is strange. If I cared about grouping as much as you claim to, I would've grouped far more than the ~5 times I've grouped so far (just at level 44). Grouping is a choice, and you seem to really care a lot about whether a game involves grouping and yet you're unwilling to make the choice to actually group. Why would you deliberately sabotage your own ability to have fun, knowing how much you care about grouping?
And then we reach the point in your post where you're apparently talking about EOS (not ESO.) Hilarious. But everything still applies that I've said above (with the possible exception of whether the game has the same 40+ shared spaces to make it a MMO; I know nothing about EoS.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Mobs, NPCs, and dev written story. Where is the MMO here? In fact you can find the same things in most singleplayer games. And they are made so much better. MMO is not about the exploration. You cannot have unique experience in a game where thousands of other players do the same. AA is a very good example, Your character climbs on the top of some unapproachable mountains to find a farm and other player walking around. The only unique experience you may have in MMOs is that related to the other players.
ESO has a giant shared world where you regularly see 40+ people in town and 24-man content too. In town I regularly interact with those 40+ others via trading, guild-trading, and chat.
The problem with ESO is it feels fake, you feel like you're on a ride and being pushed through. It's like what WoW feels like today, only with far fewer places to go, something that MMOs never used to feel like as they tried to build the world first.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the point, the genre first started to create online worlds. Yes players are important, but they make online games, the genre exists for the world, without it you have another genre. I just feel like no MMO since Vanilla WoW has got it right (out of the big ones), they all just create levels you have to get through as fast as possible.
we all know this topic isn't even about "the world" but about bad games.
Just see the list of sanbox games released in the past 10 years. There is a bunch. But people always find some reason not to play those games.
For example, Archage... "Oh that game will be the best game if not P2W...".
Which is kind of ironic because 90% of the games coming from asia is P2W. I'm not sure what's the surprise.
If WoW is to die today. Every single one would be complaining about new games too... Arh why can't those new themepark game be like WoW. WoW do everything so much better. We are expecting WoW with better graphic... What's with this crap. That sums up the themepark market right now.
What makes a MMO is the world and interacting with other players.
Far too many MMOs lately have failed creating the wonder and exploration a player should feel when walking in the gameworld. This is partly due to the fact that MMOs tend to have pretty small worlds today and that too few add small bobuses for explorers, it can just be a pretty view or something else that makes it worth the effort to find and go to a place that is hidden.
Too much focus on shuffling players from one quest to the next do hurt the genre.
I love to explore but companies consider that overproduction. Lean world building approach is how it comes off to me.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I even thought vanilla wow was too easy. I remember my roomate trying to pull me away from lineage 2 and got me to try it. After 3 days I hit 60, did end game raids which I thought were way to easy.
I had went back to L2 (a game which I had already been playing for over a year and still not close to max level).
I remember saying wow has no challange, players suck and cannot play their class because the game design is just too easy. Make players work for their levels, skills, and gear and you will see less incompetent famous leroy jenkins. BTW, in L2 if anyone tried that, the entire group would have just stood there and let the guy go die by himself, then rezzed him afterwords. Most people didn't do that because dieing actually mattered. Nobody wanted to lose exp = to 4 hours of grinding, or worse de-level. So people didn't play so stupid.
As far as game design for skills, what L2 did was force a player to kill over a million mobs for the near end levels. After having that sort of experience + time in skill usage, you know the high level players were at least competent enough to be reliable to do raids with (because the ones who never made it there have already left the game). They have already made the following mistakes:
Group Parties.
Healers healed to much in train parties, pulled agro, and wiped the whole party.
Nukers slipped on their sleep timer and wiped the whole party.
Tanks pulled more than the party could handle and wiped the whole party.
Archers didn't get enough distance or kite enough before pulling agro and killing themselves.
Daggers didn't save their mp for their skills when it mattered the most and killed themselves when they needed it.
Dancers and Singers forgot to do song and dances, or missed a second of doing them together and wiped the whole party.
Buffers didn't keep the timer on buffes, let them roll off and wiped the whole party.
After players had made these mistakes and costed themselves (and the party) lots of exp grind time. They learn very quickly how to play more carefully and less retarded.
Consider no one plays Lineage 2 besides asian players. I dont' think that system is that good right?
I agree with the op on some of his points ... And there really does feel to be a difference in this generation of MMOs (and i use that term loosely for some of them ) Most dev teams and attached publishers are just doing ti for the qwik cash grab .. One exception seems to be FF14 , great world.. and it is having great success..
Devs from the original crop of mmos were doing it for the love of the game, of building a world that lives and breathes for you, to live or die in , true artists that believe in there vision , and they all had success with it..
Like many of the original groundbreakers created this genre, Garriot and Long with UO wanted to create a world to mold "your story" or Brad McQuaid with EQ remember "You are in our World Now " slogan , and you were, it was a dream a vision of love for these guys, a true adventure for them just building it, Im sure,And Turbine with AC , we were all just blown away by this living World to discover ,explore and die in .. All labors of love , true imagination and creativity , now all the devs use there imagination and creativity to find new and faster ways into your wallet , with cheap heartless money grab games ...
The only thing that makes an MMO is the amount of people playing the game together. Thats it. Nothing else. Massively Multiplayer Online. Nothing else. Not team work, persistence, RPG elements, nothing... just how many people are playing together.
I even thought vanilla wow was too easy. I remember my roomate trying to pull me away from lineage 2 and got me to try it. After 3 days I hit 60, did end game raids which I thought were way to easy.
I had went back to L2 (a game which I had already been playing for over a year and still not close to max level).
I remember saying wow has no challange, players suck and cannot play their class because the game design is just too easy. Make players work for their levels, skills, and gear and you will see less incompetent famous leroy jenkins. BTW, in L2 if anyone tried that, the entire group would have just stood there and let the guy go die by himself, then rezzed him afterwords. Most people didn't do that because dieing actually mattered. Nobody wanted to lose exp = to 4 hours of grinding, or worse de-level. So people didn't play so stupid.
As far as game design for skills, what L2 did was force a player to kill over a million mobs for the near end levels. After having that sort of experience + time in skill usage, you know the high level players were at least competent enough to be reliable to do raids with (because the ones who never made it there have already left the game). They have already made the following mistakes:
Group Parties.
Healers healed to much in train parties, pulled agro, and wiped the whole party.
Nukers slipped on their sleep timer and wiped the whole party.
Tanks pulled more than the party could handle and wiped the whole party.
Archers didn't get enough distance or kite enough before pulling agro and killing themselves.
Daggers didn't save their mp for their skills when it mattered the most and killed themselves when they needed it.
Dancers and Singers forgot to do song and dances, or missed a second of doing them together and wiped the whole party.
Buffers didn't keep the timer on buffes, let them roll off and wiped the whole party.
After players had made these mistakes and costed themselves (and the party) lots of exp grind time. They learn very quickly how to play more carefully and less retarded.
Consider no one plays Lineage 2 besides asian players. I dont' think that system is that good right?
The state of the game now is trash. What it was before, would have beaten WoW in subscriptions if it didn't loose all it's customers due to the takeover of bots and the corruption of the company (NCsoft).
The only thing you will get close to playing what it used to be like is here - http://2old2play.eu/
In today's market with kids complaining about the grind in today's mmorpg's, and having a mind of instant gratification, I will agree with you this type of game would not do well in the western market. However, I do not consider myself one of these gamers, and I believe I am not alone. I think there is a large crowd (most mainly who have given up completely after waiting many years), who would still like to see an mmorpg world type game.
Not surprisingly. Consider everyone is botting on the asian server. It just take sometime for the bots to reach the US server.
And I don't think people are even discussing asian grinders. I think taking long to level like in EQ is quite different from asian grinder. So people aren't even talking about the same thing here.
Originally posted by immodium Compared to the old MMO's the new MMO worlds are far more interesting to explore than the old ones.
Pssh. Why because they're prettier? Theres nothing to explore. At least in EQ, when I went roaming I found interesting and unique things. Not just mobs, the environment actually told a story without having to lead me around by the nose. Wander out into the wilderness, mind the random dangerous monsters that actually roamed around. Look, a strange faction of halflings congregating around a monument or shrine of some sort... and they don't like me even though I'm a fellow hobbit? Why is that? Oh that worship a different god? Look, a mob that is different than the others, and whats this, it drops rare items or offers rare quests? That kind of thing has been completely lost. Modern games are so generic, they couldn't give you depth unless they created a 500 foot crater in the middle of a map.
I just got done playing FF14 for the first time, and every single area for the first 20-30 levels looked the same, every monster was just used and reused throughout every zone, and every last one of them was static, had no other purpose than to be slaughtered. Each area surgically sectioned off with mobs increasing gradually in level from one spot to the next. No danger, no roamers, oh no! cant have that!!! Can't have anyone dying now can we?! Sure, the graphics and scenery are beautiful, what little you can actually explore that isn't partitioned off by invisible walls.
Far more interesting my ass.
You should try ESO. Then you may realize how pathetic in comparison EQ world is.
And to OP. SWG worlds are up there as the most bland to explore within the genre.
I disagree 100%. Yes ESO is far graphically more sophisticated, but EQ1 world is far more interesting as there's real feeling of danger - you can't just run straight through the mobs without fear of dying. EQ1 might look like crap, but the world has a real sense of challenge and danger which ESO does not.
Mobs in ESO leash, in EQ1 they didn't, a single 35 giant could wtfpwn a raid geared level 50 warrior solo. In ESO you can waltz through open world mobs without a care.
These things are true, but its way beyond just the challenge. It was real mystery. Mystery you had to seek out to learn, or not. Mystery involving what mobs would be where, as they commonly moved about, appeared at certain times of the day, or were triggered by other events. Mystery in rare spawns, and rare drops and rare quests and lore, all of which you had to find or research on your own and were always off the beaten path. There was no suggested path of progression, no obvious hinting of what you should do, it was just open, free and promoted real exploration with risk versus reward.
And yes, I've played ESO. It most definitely did not have the things which I speak of. Not even close.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the point, the genre first started to create online worlds. Yes players are important, but they make online games, the genre exists for the world, without it you have another genre. I just feel like no MMO since Vanilla WoW has got it right (out of the big ones), they all just create levels you have to get through as fast as possible.
It did start out that way, yes.
But then developers realized (and not for the first time) players prefer games over simulations. The focus of a game is to provide interesting decisions (which is the heart of the most common way players have fun in games) while the focus of a simulation is creating an authentic-feeling world.
The genre exists for players. Players want games. Far fewer players feel worlds trump gameplay, and so fewer games were made for that group. That's not to say everything was awesome -- 80% of everything is crap (as always.)
Vanilla WOW represented the biggest step away from timesink-heavy simulation towards gameplay. It was the game that finally made MMORPG an enjoyable genre. That was one of the biggest factors behind its success.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I feel like a lot of people are missing the point, the genre first started to create online worlds. Yes players are important, but they make online games, the genre exists for the world, without it you have another genre. I just feel like no MMO since Vanilla WoW has got it right (out of the big ones), they all just create levels you have to get through as fast as possible.
It did start out that way, yes.
But then developers realized (and not for the first time) players prefer games over simulations. The focus of a game is to provide interesting decisions (which is the heart of the most common way players have fun in games) while the focus of a simulation is creating an authentic-feeling world.
The genre exists for players. Players want games. Far fewer players feel worlds trump gameplay, and so fewer games were made for that group. That's not to say everything was awesome -- 80% of everything is crap (as always.)
Vanilla WOW represented the biggest step away from timesink-heavy simulation towards gameplay. It was the game that finally made MMORPG an enjoyable genre. That was one of the biggest factors behind its success.
I believe you could some this up in that most people have no interest in solving problems in a game these days. They are playing a game to relax. Most people who played MMOs during the early days had a lot of time to play around in a virtual world. To really have meaningful decisions you need things in the world of which people interact. Things like fighting over mob spawns. Having to share dungeons with others. Getting together in large groups to barter items. Having to ask other players around for teleports. Basically heavily encouraged interaction with other people. Now you are heavily encouraged to play alone with the option to play with others once in if you want.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the point, the genre first started to create online worlds. Yes players are important, but they make online games, the genre exists for the world, without it you have another genre. I just feel like no MMO since Vanilla WoW has got it right (out of the big ones), they all just create levels you have to get through as fast as possible.
It did start out that way, yes.
But then developers realized (and not for the first time) players prefer games over simulations. The focus of a game is to provide interesting decisions (which is the heart of the most common way players have fun in games) while the focus of a simulation is creating an authentic-feeling world.
The genre exists for players. Players want games. Far fewer players feel worlds trump gameplay, and so fewer games were made for that group. That's not to say everything was awesome -- 80% of everything is crap (as always.)
Vanilla WOW represented the biggest step away from timesink-heavy simulation towards gameplay. It was the game that finally made MMORPG an enjoyable genre. That was one of the biggest factors behind its success.
This is partly true but what lead to WoW's success is the graphics and how it apealed to a younger crowed plus the way is was marketed, Finally an easy mmo James can play with his 11year old son and they can finally have something in common. AC Everquest and the like previously werent advertised much this all goes back to how WoW mainstreamed MMO's and it was the worst thing that ever happened to the genre because it caused a huge flow of lazy development.
You can say WoW copied other games all you want but really all it copied was the basic ideas and made them easier with childish graphics. But the time is over for clones and we have some good mmos on the horizon that have some great new ideas and look quite immersive and please no more LFG tabs I want to actually go out and meet people again I really miss that.
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What's wrong with AD&D? (though I preferred 2nd Ed. myself) There were no levelling zones, you could easily bump into a troll wiping out everyone - especially if you took from the GMs snack
Gygax made a great game (and a form of gaming), it's not RPG's fault that the new kidz only care about combat and the action... this whole "how's the combat system" craze could be fine for action games, but for RPGs it's pretty dumb... can you imagine back in the days: "Hey, there's a new RPG, just bought the book, it's about... - Who cares dude, just show me the roll charts and the numbers, that's the only important part"
but of course on a second thought, nowadays cRPGs are more and more action games themselves, sadly.
And this led to what OP says. If the combat is the main goal, for those players the world is just an obstacle and a nuisance gating them from their precccious combat, thus taking up their time. Instant action, skirmishes, teleport-to-dungeons from hub, quick travels everywhere, or auto-pathing... all is there to reduce the world's importance within the game. Since these players are the vast majority nowadays, this won't change... but until those elements are not mandatory (so it's not a strictly hub-based game and I have the option to walk around and exploring), personally I'm fine, I guess.
You could always use one of the rent-an-engines and build your own to order.
Sometimes I think it's the only way some of our users (non vos) will ever see all of the game features they want (or don't want)--to build a custom game of their own.
Pssh. Why because they're prettier? Theres nothing to explore. At least in EQ, when I went roaming I found interesting and unique things. Not just mobs, the environment actually told a story without having to lead me around by the nose. Wander out into the wilderness, mind the random dangerous monsters that actually roamed around. Look, a strange faction of halflings congregating around a monument or shrine of some sort... and they don't like me even though I'm a fellow hobbit? Why is that? Oh that worship a different god? Look, a mob that is different than the others, and whats this, it drops rare items or offers rare quests? That kind of thing has been completely lost. Modern games are so generic, they couldn't give you depth unless they created a 500 foot crater in the middle of a map.
I just got done playing FF14 for the first time, and every single area for the first 20-30 levels looked the same, every monster was just used and reused throughout every zone, and every last one of them was static, had no other purpose than to be slaughtered. Each area surgically sectioned off with mobs increasing gradually in level from one spot to the next. No danger, no roamers, oh no! cant have that!!! Can't have anyone dying now can we?! Sure, the graphics and scenery are beautiful, what little you can actually explore that isn't partitioned off by invisible walls.
Far more interesting my ass.
Actually it turns out the world is used anytime it's used, not just when people pretend it's a real world. All that leveling, sight-seeing, and exploration is usage.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Compared with ESO:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
You should try ESO. Then you may realize how pathetic in comparison EQ world is.
And to OP. SWG worlds are up there as the most bland to explore within the genre.
ESO has a giant shared world where you regularly see 40+ people in town and 24-man content too. In town I regularly interact with those 40+ others via trading, guild-trading, and chat.
So those things establish the game as an MMO. I'm sure you're a rational person and wouldn't claim that the presence of any solo content somehow magically makes a game cease being an MMO.
Beyond that why would it even matter? Solo PVE games are probably the single most commonly enjoyed category of game, so the implication that it's somehow a mark against a game to not be an MMO is wrong.
As for unique experiences, players have unique experiences in every game, even the completely solo ones. As a designer I've designed a lot of games, some with more decision tree breadth than others, and even in the narrowest of those games there is considerable variation between players. Everyone is having a unique experience. Only when we willfully ignore the details and ridiculously oversimplify ("all players chose a class -- they all did the same thing, so nobody is unique!") could we claim players' experiences aren't unique -- and we wouldn't do that since we understand ignorance isn't a good thing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What makes a MMO is the world and interacting with other players.
Far too many MMOs lately have failed creating the wonder and exploration a player should feel when walking in the gameworld. This is partly due to the fact that MMOs tend to have pretty small worlds today and that too few add small bobuses for explorers, it can just be a pretty view or something else that makes it worth the effort to find and go to a place that is hidden.
Too much focus on shuffling players from one quest to the next do hurt the genre.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Those 40+ players I interact with are why it's an MMO. You can say it's not an MMO you enjoy, but you can't pretend it isn't an MMO.
We just covered how irrational it is to say something isn't an MMO just because it has solo content. The group content exists though
Everyone learned unbound gear was a bad design like a decade ago. If you don't understand why I'd be happy to explain.
Who cares how fast you hit max level? Are you playing games just to hit max level, or do you care about the gameplay and the journey? Whether someone levels slowly or fast doesn't matter as long as they're enjoying their time.
Your decision to group only 1 time is strange. If I cared about grouping as much as you claim to, I would've grouped far more than the ~5 times I've grouped so far (just at level 44). Grouping is a choice, and you seem to really care a lot about whether a game involves grouping and yet you're unwilling to make the choice to actually group. Why would you deliberately sabotage your own ability to have fun, knowing how much you care about grouping?
And then we reach the point in your post where you're apparently talking about EOS (not ESO.) Hilarious. But everything still applies that I've said above (with the possible exception of whether the game has the same 40+ shared spaces to make it a MMO; I know nothing about EoS.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The problem with ESO is it feels fake, you feel like you're on a ride and being pushed through. It's like what WoW feels like today, only with far fewer places to go, something that MMOs never used to feel like as they tried to build the world first.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the point, the genre first started to create online worlds. Yes players are important, but they make online games, the genre exists for the world, without it you have another genre. I just feel like no MMO since Vanilla WoW has got it right (out of the big ones), they all just create levels you have to get through as fast as possible.
we all know this topic isn't even about "the world" but about bad games.
Just see the list of sanbox games released in the past 10 years. There is a bunch. But people always find some reason not to play those games.
For example, Archage... "Oh that game will be the best game if not P2W...".
Which is kind of ironic because 90% of the games coming from asia is P2W. I'm not sure what's the surprise.
If WoW is to die today. Every single one would be complaining about new games too... Arh why can't those new themepark game be like WoW. WoW do everything so much better. We are expecting WoW with better graphic... What's with this crap. That sums up the themepark market right now.
I love to explore but companies consider that overproduction. Lean world building approach is how it comes off to me.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Consider no one plays Lineage 2 besides asian players. I dont' think that system is that good right?
I agree with the op on some of his points ... And there really does feel to be a difference in this generation of MMOs (and i use that term loosely for some of them ) Most dev teams and attached publishers are just doing ti for the qwik cash grab .. One exception seems to be FF14 , great world.. and it is having great success..
Devs from the original crop of mmos were doing it for the love of the game, of building a world that lives and breathes for you, to live or die in , true artists that believe in there vision , and they all had success with it..
Like many of the original groundbreakers created this genre, Garriot and Long with UO wanted to create a world to mold "your story" or Brad McQuaid with EQ remember "You are in our World Now " slogan , and you were, it was a dream a vision of love for these guys, a true adventure for them just building it, Im sure,And Turbine with AC , we were all just blown away by this living World to discover ,explore and die in .. All labors of love , true imagination and creativity , now all the devs use there imagination and creativity to find new and faster ways into your wallet , with cheap heartless money grab games ...
The only thing that makes an MMO is the amount of people playing the game together. Thats it. Nothing else. Massively Multiplayer Online. Nothing else. Not team work, persistence, RPG elements, nothing... just how many people are playing together.
MMO is not a genre.
Not surprisingly. Consider everyone is botting on the asian server. It just take sometime for the bots to reach the US server.
And I don't think people are even discussing asian grinders. I think taking long to level like in EQ is quite different from asian grinder. So people aren't even talking about the same thing here.
These things are true, but its way beyond just the challenge. It was real mystery. Mystery you had to seek out to learn, or not. Mystery involving what mobs would be where, as they commonly moved about, appeared at certain times of the day, or were triggered by other events. Mystery in rare spawns, and rare drops and rare quests and lore, all of which you had to find or research on your own and were always off the beaten path. There was no suggested path of progression, no obvious hinting of what you should do, it was just open, free and promoted real exploration with risk versus reward.
And yes, I've played ESO. It most definitely did not have the things which I speak of. Not even close.
It did start out that way, yes.
But then developers realized (and not for the first time) players prefer games over simulations. The focus of a game is to provide interesting decisions (which is the heart of the most common way players have fun in games) while the focus of a simulation is creating an authentic-feeling world.
The genre exists for players. Players want games. Far fewer players feel worlds trump gameplay, and so fewer games were made for that group. That's not to say everything was awesome -- 80% of everything is crap (as always.)
Vanilla WOW represented the biggest step away from timesink-heavy simulation towards gameplay. It was the game that finally made MMORPG an enjoyable genre. That was one of the biggest factors behind its success.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I believe you could some this up in that most people have no interest in solving problems in a game these days. They are playing a game to relax. Most people who played MMOs during the early days had a lot of time to play around in a virtual world. To really have meaningful decisions you need things in the world of which people interact. Things like fighting over mob spawns. Having to share dungeons with others. Getting together in large groups to barter items. Having to ask other players around for teleports. Basically heavily encouraged interaction with other people. Now you are heavily encouraged to play alone with the option to play with others once in if you want.
This is partly true but what lead to WoW's success is the graphics and how it apealed to a younger crowed plus the way is was marketed, Finally an easy mmo James can play with his 11year old son and they can finally have something in common. AC Everquest and the like previously werent advertised much this all goes back to how WoW mainstreamed MMO's and it was the worst thing that ever happened to the genre because it caused a huge flow of lazy development.
You can say WoW copied other games all you want but really all it copied was the basic ideas and made them easier with childish graphics. But the time is over for clones and we have some good mmos on the horizon that have some great new ideas and look quite immersive and please no more LFG tabs I want to actually go out and meet people again I really miss that.