There's one thing that amazes me in these threads, which is at the end of the day, the main difference between old games and new, is new MMORPGs have story (quest) content, old games had mob grinding. Neither leads to longevity... Things like raiding, dungeons, etc.. have always been there at late game levels of play, so that's not different.. Some games like SWG had city building, yet even that isn't exactly something to keep many occupied for years.
So what is truly missing? What is truly the key to longevity? Is it lack of other gaming options? IS there a lack of players who care about community or is it something else?
All I can say for me personally is, I haven't wanted to stick around long, I don't blame the games for that though, I just get my fill of them and leave.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Why do new games have so little longevity? Simple. They are being designed to not have it. If you remove the grind completly and cater to the casual segment of the population there is no possible way for the devs in a themepark style mmo to create content fast enough for the player base. Below is an example.
Old School MMOs
1) weekly content consist of 55hrs a week scheduled with the guild (Primary Progression based content only) 2) Contently Life span 1-5 yrs depending on the content 3) Time to level 1 job to cap: 3months to 2yrs depending on how long you play everyday. 4) 90% Group Content / 10% Solo content 5) No Party Finder 6) Rare Drops (Required you to kill something numerous times) 7) Average endgame group size was 25-40+ ppl 8) Cannot buy anything that progresses you faster (Applies to some mmos) 9) Average dungeon/boss fight was 1-2hrs 10) Guild Focused with detailed loot distribution rules 11) Endgame content is primarily done with your guild/static 12) more horizontal structure (no Ilvls, no/less tiered raiding (Some games rare low level drops are still valid at endgame)) 13) Community Centric games. You needed others to progress. 14) Complexity in builds and mechanics (Complex job builds, weaknesses and strengths, 1 build is not optimal on everything, Healer/dps/CC/Support/Healing)
New School MMO
1) Weekly content consist of 10-15hrs of primary progression 2) Content life span 3-6months (life defined here as how long gear is top tier or equivalent) 3) Time to level 1 job to cap: 5 days to 1 month depending on how long you play everyday 4) 75% Solo content / 25% group content (the whole leveling process is solo based typically) 5) Party Finder (quickly get groups to progress quicker 6) Gear hand out, you kill this not only do you get a BIS piece garenteed everytime you get a token to buy BIS piece after a few runs. 7) Average Group size is about 5 now in the mmo world it seems. endgame raids between 4-20 depending on the game 8) Can buy Booster pots and sometimes endgame/entree endgame gear (applies to some mmos) 9) Average dungeon/boss fight is 15-20mins 10) Designed where guild have no impact on loot distribution. 11) Pugging endgame content is the norm 12) Vertical structure (Item Levels, and tiered raiding) 13) "Me" Centric Gaming. The game is about you and makes sure you can progress without others holding you back. 14) Ultra Simplistic Mechanics. (To the point in some games they have removed tanks and to a degree healers ,and all classes use 1 primary stat and that is about it. All jobs are = in all situations)
To note that when Devs shifted to quest based leveling with the new age of mmo... it is very very apparently that most of the developement is on the massive 400+ quest and lower level content each expansion. Combine this with the themepark linear progression model ALMOST EVERY MMO HAS ADOPTED...... and the fact the devs are trying thier hardest to remove all grind. You end up with a game where you can get to endgame in say 2 weeks. Then you have 1 thing to do for the next 2.5-6 months. <= This is why games do not hold people they are built upside down.
Why? Because the gaming companies produce nothing but casual friendly "might as well be a facebook game" MMO's. They have stopped trying to provide better and more and to innovate. It's just more theme park MMO's with pvp and different graphics accompanies by maybe a gimmick or two to seem different in game play.
Asking for a bit much there, aren't ya? It's so much easier when people only quote snippets of articles that reaffirm their opinion rather than acknowledge that there is more information out there or a bigger picture that it fits into.
It's the responsibility of someone making a claim to post evidence backing it. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not on the person doubting the claim.
As warbly an argument as ever. He gave reference in GDC articles by PWE on free to play gaming. Burden of proof has nothing to do with that, so mindlessly linking wikipedia about it is entirely inconsequential. Make a valid argument.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Asking for a bit much there, aren't ya? It's so much easier when people only quote snippets of articles that reaffirm their opinion rather than acknowledge that there is more information out there or a bigger picture that it fits into.
It's the responsibility of someone making a claim to post evidence backing it. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not on the person doubting the claim.
As warbly an argument as ever. He gave reference in GDC articles by PWE on free to play gaming. Burden of proof has nothing to do with that, so mindlessly linking wikipedia about it is entirely inconsequential. Make a valid argument.
lmao .. gettin some popcorn to see how this one ends .. Its a vicious cycle but all end the same when a certain poster gets involved and feels the need to flex his epeen in every thread , along with his backhanded passive/aggresive insults... best to /ignore such posters...
I preferentially never put people on ignore, I'd much rather just get to a point of enough clarification that others can at least see where the errors are.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
There are a LOT of experts here with no doubt that it's the rapid leveling leaving the player with nothing to do at max level resulting in boredom...
but, most of the time the majority of people that leave an MMO early in their development, never achieve maximum level. They get bored along the way, so level speed and community never even enter in to the question of longevity.
It's true that the majority do leave before reaching max level. That's a big reason why the early experience matters a lot (and a tighter reward loop (aka fast leveling) tends to work better for keeping those players.)
However let's not go crazy with the hyperbole in claiming there are fast-level games with "nothing" to do at endgame. Even if we broaden that to a more subjective "not enough", the actual number of players hitting the true end of endgame in these games is extremely small (and so the number of people subjectively feeling there isn't enough to do is very small as well.)
That doesn't capture the 'destination-only' players though. Those players measure their experience solely based on the destination (max level) rather than the journey (playing the game) and they think there's "not enough" content in spite of the loads of content that exists, because their definition of content isn't journey, but leveling.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In part, I think it has to do with the state of our culture today. We have become a society which like things is short bursts. Binge watch something and move on. Jump into this fad or that fad and move on. Don't read news stories, but take a quick glance at summaries and move on. Same holds true for games. Get in, rush to finish, and move on.
"Modern" mmo's do not have deep immersive worlds, where you really feel like you are part of something. Everything is build for convenience and speed. With that build, no one feels any real connection to their character or the game it's self. Thus it is very easy to walk away from.
Tied in with this is the ability to play "Modern" mmo's virtually 100% solo, thus no bonds are formed keeping you tied to those games. This has been an ongoing problem, pointed out many times, yet ignored by dev's and players alike.
Competition. More games are available so players can pick which game they feel like playing today. Back in the day I had a dial-up modem and my connections to games were limited. Now I have broadband access and can have multiple games up, if I wanted to. So more games and better access make for more choices, and the b2p/f2p model makes it easier to login and play for a day or days for nothing.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Super fast leveling, super easy content, super soloable. Basically when you "beat" the game after 2 weeks (like I did in GW2), there is nothing else to do but quit.
Developers still don't get this simple equation.........if they want to retain players, they need to slow down the rate at which they eat through content. After all, if the donkey eats the dangling carrot in front of him, he stops moving. Same for players, if they eat their carrot too early, they stop playing. Simple but predictable human behaviour.
Its cause the market is geared to the casuals that will spend alot of money to by pass any leveling system/gear grind or in some cases P2W. I prefer the combat orientation the genre is heading for with FPS combat, but everything else has taken a back seat to shallowness.
I prefer games that don't have exceedingly long grinds and rather the content/features fill that void, but alot of games basically force you to get to max level to actually do anything instead of giving a rich fullfilling experience the whole way.
This has been a problem for as long as I can think really. The themeparks get boring very fast, once you've hit max-level and got all your epic equipment. The earlier ones took longer to achieve this, so people stayed for longer, but it's not making a difference really.
The only MMORPGs I've played longer are sandboxes with good open world PvP, territorial warfare or GvG. DAoC (2 years), Neocron (1+ year), EvE Online (10+ years and counting). Inbetween I've played every other subscription based MMO available, but as I'm a rather competitive player it didn't take me too long to play through the available content and get bored. WoW BC took me only three month to level up two characters to LvL 60 and get them fully equipped in T6, and that's when I left. The same applies for STO, SWTOR, AOC, TSW, etc. And no, I don't play MMORPGs which have a F2P-model, as I think they're a ripoff to begin with.
Bottom line, we need more MOMRPGs like EvE Online. A couple have tried to resemble it, but they all failed due to blatant design-mistakes like Darkfall or Mortal Online.
Competition. More games are available so players can pick which game they feel like playing today. Back in the day I had a dial-up modem and my connections to games were limited. Now I have broadband access and can have multiple games up, if I wanted to. So more games and better access make for more choices, and the b2p/f2p model makes it easier to login and play for a day or days for nothing.
I would say that this is probably one of the largest determining factors. There are so many games out there that serve specific needs, the traditional "jack-of-all-trades" mmos have fallen out of favor. Want PvP? Play a MOBA or FPS. FPS games even have progression systems now. Want a good crafting game? There's a ton of sandbox games that have superior crafting systems that also allow you to literally change the world around you, and they all pretty much have multiplay so you can hang out with your friends too. Want endless random loot in a PvE environment? Your typical ARPG does it way better than a mmo and again has multiplayer.
MMOs have fallen out of favor for a multitude of reasons, but they don't really serve a specific "need" in gaming anymore. Raiding might be the only activity that mmos do excel at, but raiding seemingly has fallen out of favor over the years. Since WoW, there's this illusion among everyone involved that a mmorpg needs to be a mutlti-million dollar project that needs to attempt to cater to all peoples. You better also get a return on that investment otherwise it's deemed a failure within days of launch.
Just now we are seeing smallish kickstarter projects cropping up and the mmos being created are attempting to cater to a specific audience. Developers know that you can make money by being specific and having a loyal audience, but investors most likely don't want to hear it. Look at how many "big names" in the genre have come together to make their own companies and make the games their way. Maybe we will see a renaissance in the mmorpg market when these kickstarter games come to fruition. Maybe we'll have to wait for a major technological upgrade. I guess I am lucky enough where I can typically find something in a mmo that I enjoy and can stick with it for a long period of time.
Super fast leveling, super easy content, super soloable. Basically when you "beat" the game after 2 weeks (like I did in GW2), there is nothing else to do but quit.
Developers still don't get this simple equation.........if they want to retain players, they need to slow down the rate at which they eat through content. After all, if the donkey eats the dangling carrot in front of him, he stops moving. Same for players, if they eat their carrot too early, they stop playing. Simple but predictable human behaviour.
That's interesting, because every player decides for themselves when they have beat the game. I've leveled every class in GW2 and still login regularly to do things. Other games Like AA I've gotten to 30 and that was it for me as that's when the pve content got bottle necked. ESO it was 50 as I don't like the notion of the Veteran levels.
It really depends on how they make leveling slower, if it feels forced or to grindy, then I'm gone. If the donkey starts to feel it's to much work to get the carrot he'll go find easier carrots, imo.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
We have a strangely monolithic view of MMOs on this website. I mean, duh, it's what this place is known for. I feel that longevity to current MMO devs is as big a problem as having too few rubies are to the Queen of England. Yes, lack of longevity (in the sense of people playing one game consistently for month after month) is something that affects the devs and publishers. But it's one they've learned to deal with and that's eclipsed by many more pressing issues. The main problem, as I see it, isn't keeping the attention of players who like the game but have run out of things to do. It's getting people to even bother with it at all and ensuring those that do have enough fun in the first few hours to consider giving it more of their time and money.
Most of the people who try these games will play for a very short period of time and drop them before they even dip their toes into the full breadth of content available. I believe most devs' focus is (and probably has to be in the current environment) on making games that have enough appeal to just get prospective players through the free trial stage, where they would be willing to spend cash. To do that you likely need to dispense with tedious grinds and time-sinks, prolonged progression that sees very little tangible sign of character improvement, inconvenient waits for putting together groups or to get past story-blocking quests, and gameplay sessions that require sitting at the keyboard for long, uninterrupted periods of time. Only once you've made your game amenable to you being able to pay your rent can you give much consideration to keeping the fickle fans up to their eyeballs in new experiences.
So what is truly missing? What is truly the key to longevity? Is it lack of other gaming options? IS there a lack of players who care about community or is it something else?
I can only speak really for EV E, since I've paid over 6 years in sub fees, more than any other game it is my yardstick.
1) Unique, off line training system, many hate it, I love it, so it keeps me paying even when playing something else sometimes. 2) Literally dozens of things to do, but no single thing I must do, I'm entirely free to pursue my own goals at any time, the freedom is almost dizzying and overwhelming at time. 3) Player interaction and conflict. It's why I play these games, and I enjoy seeing the same cast of characters year on year. Back in 2007 I was a member of a small 30 man corp, which I stuck with about 6 months and moved on. Just recently joined a null sec corp only to find out this small corp is now a much larger, multi-corp alliance and the bane of the new alliance I'm part of. Every now and then when they swing through looking for targets to kill one of them notices my corp history and says hello, even though if he caught me in a belt he'd blow me away most likely. 4) Did I mention that not only is there always something to do, but it's all relevant in the long run. I can mine, mission run, rat when I'm a new player, I can still do those as a 6 year vet, only far more profitably.
These are just some of the things that will likely keep me playing EVE until they close the game down.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I was never unhappy. Just face it. If many many people play modern games for years then they must have longevity. The only difference then is you don't like what they offer.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
There's one thing that amazes me in these threads, which is at the end of the day, the main difference between old games and new, is new MMORPGs have story (quest) content, old games had mob grinding. Neither leads to longevity... Things like raiding, dungeons, etc.. have always been there at late game levels of play, so that's not different.. Some games like SWG had city building, yet even that isn't exactly something to keep many occupied for years.
So what is truly missing? What is truly the key to longevity? Is it lack of other gaming options? IS there a lack of players who care about community or is it something else?
All I can say for me personally is, I haven't wanted to stick around long, I don't blame the games for that though, I just get my fill of them and leave.
For me it is missing character development and value.
By character development I mean going beyond just reaching max level and obtaining better gear... there should be continuous character growth.
The social aspect which I feel is lost when the games promote the solo aspect of leveling (generally I would correlate this with questing).
Guilds- There are too many that very few mean anything to you
Name/Reputation- The worst that happens is people throw you on ignore. Everybody is really just a role to fill.
Groups- With my previous point- everybody is a role to fill- its usually a standard group make up: tank, healer, dps, support. Add another dps if they add 5th slot. While the tank/healer/dps/support role is typically the majority of the groups, you use to be able to get by with alternate options. (Dps tanking, no primary healing class, kite groups, duo, trio, etc... there were options). I remember when people would be LFG denying people because they in general were bad players (rude, afkers, ninja-looters, cannot play their class, etc.) I also remember trying to make people who stood out in my past experieces fit in the group some way or another.
Gear- I always bring this up, but PvP specific gear that is comparable to high end group and raid gear hurts the game in a PvE and social standpoint. (It may not be quite as good but it works, instead of having some resist it gives resilience which only effects PvP... in the end every other stat is the same or very minuscule differences.
Every class can play every role- I understand people do not want to have to make multiple characters- but in my opinion this ruins games. I want to see a class and know what role it primarily fills. (Meaning some classes can take on more than one role (Ex. (From EQ: Warrior is a tank, but it can also be a dps, druid could either heal, off heal, dps, or some combination of the roles) Going back to the knowing a good player- you might know somebody who is the greatest tank you have ever played with... but they suck when they decide to play a healer. Well defined classes. (As a form to add additional classes, I would be for choosing a path or specialization at a higher level- but it should be a one time deal- no switching back and forth- do the research... you should know what role you intend to play.
Comments
So what is truly missing? What is truly the key to longevity? Is it lack of other gaming options? IS there a lack of players who care about community or is it something else?
All I can say for me personally is, I haven't wanted to stick around long, I don't blame the games for that though, I just get my fill of them and leave.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Old School MMOs
1) weekly content consist of 55hrs a week scheduled with the guild (Primary Progression based content only)
2) Contently Life span 1-5 yrs depending on the content
3) Time to level 1 job to cap: 3months to 2yrs depending on how long you play everyday.
4) 90% Group Content / 10% Solo content
5) No Party Finder
6) Rare Drops (Required you to kill something numerous times)
7) Average endgame group size was 25-40+ ppl
8) Cannot buy anything that progresses you faster (Applies to some mmos)
9) Average dungeon/boss fight was 1-2hrs
10) Guild Focused with detailed loot distribution rules
11) Endgame content is primarily done with your guild/static
12) more horizontal structure (no Ilvls, no/less tiered raiding (Some games rare low level drops are still valid at endgame))
13) Community Centric games. You needed others to progress.
14) Complexity in builds and mechanics (Complex job builds, weaknesses and strengths, 1 build is not optimal on everything, Healer/dps/CC/Support/Healing)
New School MMO
1) Weekly content consist of 10-15hrs of primary progression
2) Content life span 3-6months (life defined here as how long gear is top tier or equivalent)
3) Time to level 1 job to cap: 5 days to 1 month depending on how long you play everyday
4) 75% Solo content / 25% group content (the whole leveling process is solo based typically)
5) Party Finder (quickly get groups to progress quicker
6) Gear hand out, you kill this not only do you get a BIS piece garenteed everytime you get a token to buy BIS piece after a few runs.
7) Average Group size is about 5 now in the mmo world it seems. endgame raids between 4-20 depending on the game
8) Can buy Booster pots and sometimes endgame/entree endgame gear (applies to some mmos)
9) Average dungeon/boss fight is 15-20mins
10) Designed where guild have no impact on loot distribution.
11) Pugging endgame content is the norm
12) Vertical structure (Item Levels, and tiered raiding)
13) "Me" Centric Gaming. The game is about you and makes sure you can progress without others holding you back.
14) Ultra Simplistic Mechanics. (To the point in some games they have removed tanks and to a degree healers ,and all classes use 1 primary stat and that is about it. All jobs are = in all situations)
To note that when Devs shifted to quest based leveling with the new age of mmo... it is very very apparently that most of the developement is on the massive 400+ quest and lower level content each expansion. Combine this with the themepark linear progression model ALMOST EVERY MMO HAS ADOPTED...... and the fact the devs are trying thier hardest to remove all grind. You end up with a game where you can get to endgame in say 2 weeks. Then you have 1 thing to do for the next 2.5-6 months. <= This is why games do not hold people they are built upside down.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
However let's not go crazy with the hyperbole in claiming there are fast-level games with "nothing" to do at endgame. Even if we broaden that to a more subjective "not enough", the actual number of players hitting the true end of endgame in these games is extremely small (and so the number of people subjectively feeling there isn't enough to do is very small as well.)
That doesn't capture the 'destination-only' players though. Those players measure their experience solely based on the destination (max level) rather than the journey (playing the game) and they think there's "not enough" content in spite of the loads of content that exists, because their definition of content isn't journey, but leveling.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I self identify as a monkey.
The answer. Personal taste.
The content offered does not speak to you. That's it.
Tied in with this is the ability to play "Modern" mmo's virtually 100% solo, thus no bonds are formed keeping you tied to those games. This has been an ongoing problem, pointed out many times, yet ignored by dev's and players alike.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Super fast leveling, super easy content, super soloable.
Basically when you "beat" the game after 2 weeks (like I did in GW2), there is nothing else to do but quit.
Developers still don't get this simple equation.........if they want to retain players, they need to slow down the rate at which they eat through content.
After all, if the donkey eats the dangling carrot in front of him, he stops moving.
Same for players, if they eat their carrot too early, they stop playing.
Simple but predictable human behaviour.
I prefer games that don't have exceedingly long grinds and rather the content/features fill that void, but alot of games basically force you to get to max level to actually do anything instead of giving a rich fullfilling experience the whole way.
MurderHerd
The only MMORPGs I've played longer are sandboxes with good open world PvP, territorial warfare or GvG. DAoC (2 years), Neocron (1+ year), EvE Online (10+ years and counting).
Inbetween I've played every other subscription based MMO available, but as I'm a rather competitive player it didn't take me too long to play through the available content and get bored. WoW BC took me only three month to level up two characters to LvL 60 and get them fully equipped in T6, and that's when I left. The same applies for STO, SWTOR, AOC, TSW, etc. And no, I don't play MMORPGs which have a F2P-model, as I think they're a ripoff to begin with.
Bottom line, we need more MOMRPGs like EvE Online. A couple have tried to resemble it, but they all failed due to blatant design-mistakes like Darkfall or Mortal Online.
MMOs have fallen out of favor for a multitude of reasons, but they don't really serve a specific "need" in gaming anymore. Raiding might be the only activity that mmos do excel at, but raiding seemingly has fallen out of favor over the years. Since WoW, there's this illusion among everyone involved that a mmorpg needs to be a mutlti-million dollar project that needs to attempt to cater to all peoples. You better also get a return on that investment otherwise it's deemed a failure within days of launch.
Just now we are seeing smallish kickstarter projects cropping up and the mmos being created are attempting to cater to a specific audience. Developers know that you can make money by being specific and having a loyal audience, but investors most likely don't want to hear it. Look at how many "big names" in the genre have come together to make their own companies and make the games their way. Maybe we will see a renaissance in the mmorpg market when these kickstarter games come to fruition. Maybe we'll have to wait for a major technological upgrade. I guess I am lucky enough where I can typically find something in a mmo that I enjoy and can stick with it for a long period of time.
It really depends on how they make leveling slower, if it feels forced or to grindy, then I'm gone. If the donkey starts to feel it's to much work to get the carrot he'll go find easier carrots, imo.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Most of the people who try these games will play for a very short period of time and drop them before they even dip their toes into the full breadth of content available. I believe most devs' focus is (and probably has to be in the current environment) on making games that have enough appeal to just get prospective players through the free trial stage, where they would be willing to spend cash. To do that you likely need to dispense with tedious grinds and time-sinks, prolonged progression that sees very little tangible sign of character improvement, inconvenient waits for putting together groups or to get past story-blocking quests, and gameplay sessions that require sitting at the keyboard for long, uninterrupted periods of time. Only once you've made your game amenable to you being able to pay your rent can you give much consideration to keeping the fickle fans up to their eyeballs in new experiences.
1) Unique, off line training system, many hate it, I love it, so it keeps me paying even when playing something else sometimes.
2) Literally dozens of things to do, but no single thing I must do, I'm entirely free to pursue my own goals at any time, the freedom is almost dizzying and overwhelming at time.
3) Player interaction and conflict. It's why I play these games, and I enjoy seeing the same cast of characters year on year. Back in 2007 I was a member of a small 30 man corp, which I stuck with about 6 months and moved on. Just recently joined a null sec corp only to find out this small corp is now a much larger, multi-corp alliance and the bane of the new alliance I'm part of. Every now and then when they swing through looking for targets to kill one of them notices my corp history and says hello, even though if he caught me in a belt he'd blow me away most likely.
4) Did I mention that not only is there always something to do, but it's all relevant in the long run. I can mine, mission run, rat when I'm a new player, I can still do those as a 6 year vet, only far more profitably.
These are just some of the things that will likely keep me playing EVE until they close the game down.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
By character development I mean going beyond just reaching max level and obtaining better gear... there should be continuous character growth.
The social aspect which I feel is lost when the games promote the solo aspect of leveling (generally I would correlate this with questing).