Jean-Luc_Picard said: The Internet is greatly responsible for this, Axehilt. Being anonymous, some people make up a life which has nothing to do with their real life, just to try to look like they are experts and therefore always right.
Exactly; every time you mention (even in passing), a credentials inspection measuring contest is the very next step. Whip out your resume!
That's the internet, folks, but it's been pro forma on message boards since their birth.
Jean-Luc_Picard said: The Internet is greatly responsible for this, Axehilt. Being anonymous, some people make up a life which has nothing to do with their real life, just to try to look like they are experts and therefore always right.
Exactly; every time you mention (even in passing), a credentials inspection measuring contest is the very next step. Whip out your resume!
That's the internet, folks, but it's been pro forma on message boards since their birth.
PFFT! chest beating credential waving.......lol! Why does that even matter anyway?
I mean, if we took each argument at face value regardless of who said it, we should be able to determine the difference between subjectivity and objectivity.
Now I work in IT. I am not a developer, but I am a Technical Analyst. But before I went back to school for Technology, I worked as a Paramedic in my 20s. When I did rotations in the O.R. to learn to Intubate patients, there were always professional Pharmaceutical Reps hanging around trying to make their sales. And they would euphemistically refer to themselves as "Drug Dealers". And yet when I was on my regular shift out on the road, we would frequently come into contact with certain people on the streets. Responding to drug overdoses was not uncommon. Guess what drug dealers would refer to themselves as? You guessed it. They euphemistically referred to themselves as "Pharmaceutical Reps".
Point is, you can be anything you want in forums. And the truth about it is also highly subjective. You can be a game designer or game developer in real life. Still doesn't automatically mean you know WTF you are talking about here. What if you are new at your job? What if you are lazy or incompetent? What if your specialty has nothing to do with the board discussion. SO, Yeah, I'm a Technical Analyst and I work on Web and SQL servers. Does that mean I know everything about MMO databases? No. It doesn't even mean I even know anything about MMO databases.
Also, have you never gotten into disagreements with your supervisor? Both of you would be are specialized experts in your given fields but someone is wrong.
They hate questing because it's not like quests are a staple of RPGs or anything. They despise raiding, gear progression, grinding and all things associated with theme parks. Oh and don't even think about making a "MMO" that you can't play solo from beginning to end, because that is just silly talk! In addition, It better also be polished, balanced, free to play with no bugs and constant content releases.
My point is I think the real problem is that a lot of people that play MMOs don't really like MMOs anymore or have never really liked them.
When developers created games like EQ, UO, Shadowbane, Vanilla WoW, etc they weren't trying to please everyone they were just trying to please a small percentage of people that were into fantasy and video games. They basically started with a fantasy based environment, added some cool elements like crafting, building, etc, sold it in a box and charged a monthly fee to play it to support continued development and server costs, and we were all fine with it. There were only a few to chose from so us gamers picked our poison, created our guilds, hopped in voice comms with our guildies, quested until we reached a level previously thought unreachable and neglected our families and friends for months and years.
I feel that most of the original MMO players have either become jaded or have moved on and we are left with a bunch of people that discovered MMOs at a time when developers were chasing the WoW white rabbit and either doing everything the same but not as good as WoW or everything completely different than it, neither methodology has really progressed the genre.
I say it's time for MMOs to get back to their roots! Forget trying to be everything to everyone and just please the people that really love the genre. Charge us to buy the game and to play, make things not so easily accessible, make grouping mandatory for at least 50% of the game, make it hard to really advance if you don't have tons of time to play! This is what we fell in love with all those years ago and I honestly believe that returning to our roots is the only thing that will make it feel right again!
Whats obvious to me is that you just don't get it and you obviously haven't been listening. The modern MMO has removed approximately half of what made us addicted to the MMO world in the first place. The problem with the MMO's is that they have stopped offering what they promised to offer in exchange for prettier graphics. People want more, not less. EQ2 has some of the best housing ever created, but now, if we get it at all, we get lazy housing with "hooks" because they don't want to spend the time to allow you to put things on the x,y,z axis, turn it and put in upside down, partially into the walls, roofs, and floors, with breakout points. It's not just housing that we want, it's GOOD housing. It should be expanded. Instead, what we are usually getting is none at all. And the same can be said for every other aspect of these games. We are getting worlds built on rails, with automatic grouping (GW2), and either massive pvp or limited raiding when we reach level cap.
This genre holds so much promise, but the devs have even started complaining about how hard it has become trying to wow people with amazing graphics. They are neglecting game play to give us amazing graphics. The graphics don't NEED to be top notch. They can be EQ2 level just fine (hopefully the faces done better), but give us better game play for gods sakes. Stop taking things away.
We all keep going back to the games we loved because they offer MORE than any of the games out there right now. There is something seriously wrong when 10 year old games offer more than games released last year.
We want the old games. But we want them done better. This isn't a hard concept.
Since the early days of MMOs and MUDs there are now millions upon millions of users with very different tastes, ability and time available. None of these players is more or less valuable in my estimation than another. So what you get now are MMOs that try to give everyone something to enjoy. That open world content one person may find easy may just be the right difficulty for others. Some people may enjoy group instances where others don't and some may not mind pugging whilst some hate it. Some folks like story some want total freedom to do as they wish and make their own story. Even the graphics are important to some people for a level of immersion and others even don't mind them looking like Zelda 1986.
The list goes on and on and on and......on. That obviously needs emphasis. For some reason and I'm still not sure why (are not games more about people time than rare expensive resources) making games is expensive. To make a triple AAA game that will last it obviously needs to generate as much revenue as possible.
Excuse me but since when?
They removed innovative and involving crafting that matters (SWG had the best crafting of all time, for gods sakes) and housing (if they do offer it, it's with "hooks" and you can't move everything on the x,y,z axis upside down and turn it around like EQ2) completely even with players repeatedly asking for it. Heck, most games don't even offer the ability to dye your armor, that seems to have died with LOTRO.
The leveling system has continued with players being forced into roles that are part of the original trinity of gaming. In spite of players repeatedly asking to pretty much start a blank slate with a whole huge spate of choices in how they develop their characters. Why don't we have the ability to CHOOSE where we put our points like players have been asking for for a decade?
Why am I being forced to choose to be a cook, tailor, armorer or weaponsmith when there are so many other things that are involved in that? Why can't I be a farmer, a rancher, a cook, a dancer, a singer, a musician, a tinkerer, a smith, a weapons maker, a weaver, a tailor, a miner, a gatherer, and any combination of those two of my own choice? Why am I being forced to focus on one thing? People don't do that in real life now do they? Do you seriously only do one thing your entire life so you only have one skill? Players continually ask for more but we are given less.
Devs and publishers should have been concentrating on offering us more as have repeatedly asked. What we want is the goodness of the old games expanded into modern times, offering more, creating real involving worlds. Instead, the companies are focused on giving us as little as possible to make a quick grab for our money and move on to the next. They can do better than this with modern technology and we all know it. But they aren't.
Comments
That's the internet, folks, but it's been pro forma on message boards since their birth.
Why does that even matter anyway?
I mean, if we took each argument at face value regardless of who said it, we should be able to determine the difference between subjectivity and objectivity.
Now I work in IT. I am not a developer, but I am a Technical Analyst. But before I went back to school for Technology, I worked as a Paramedic in my 20s. When I did rotations in the O.R. to learn to Intubate patients, there were always professional Pharmaceutical Reps hanging around trying to make their sales. And they would euphemistically refer to themselves as "Drug Dealers". And yet when I was on my regular shift out on the road, we would frequently come into contact with certain people on the streets. Responding to drug overdoses was not uncommon. Guess what drug dealers would refer to themselves as? You guessed it. They euphemistically referred to themselves as "Pharmaceutical Reps".
Point is, you can be anything you want in forums. And the truth about it is also highly subjective. You can be a game designer or game developer in real life. Still doesn't automatically mean you know WTF you are talking about here. What if you are new at your job? What if you are lazy or incompetent? What if your specialty has nothing to do with the board discussion. SO, Yeah, I'm a Technical Analyst and I work on Web and SQL servers. Does that mean I know everything about MMO databases? No. It doesn't even mean I even know anything about MMO databases.
Also, have you never gotten into disagreements with your supervisor? Both of you would be are specialized experts in your given fields but someone is wrong.
They removed innovative and involving crafting that matters (SWG had the best crafting of all time, for gods sakes) and housing (if they do offer it, it's with "hooks" and you can't move everything on the x,y,z axis upside down and turn it around like EQ2) completely even with players repeatedly asking for it. Heck, most games don't even offer the ability to dye your armor, that seems to have died with LOTRO.
The leveling system has continued with players being forced into roles that are part of the original trinity of gaming. In spite of players repeatedly asking to pretty much start a blank slate with a whole huge spate of choices in how they develop their characters. Why don't we have the ability to CHOOSE where we put our points like players have been asking for for a decade?
Why am I being forced to choose to be a cook, tailor, armorer or weaponsmith when there are so many other things that are involved in that? Why can't I be a farmer, a rancher, a cook, a dancer, a singer, a musician, a tinkerer, a smith, a weapons maker, a weaver, a tailor, a miner, a gatherer, and any combination of those two of my own choice? Why am I being forced to focus on one thing? People don't do that in real life now do they? Do you seriously only do one thing your entire life so you only have one skill? Players continually ask for more but we are given less.
Devs and publishers should have been concentrating on offering us more as have repeatedly asked. What we want is the goodness of the old games expanded into modern times, offering more, creating real involving worlds. Instead, the companies are focused on giving us as little as possible to make a quick grab for our money and move on to the next. They can do better than this with modern technology and we all know it. But they aren't.