The quests disguised the grind for those who hadn't experienced it in an MMO before.
It's weird to say quests disguised the grind.
"Grind" is a word players use to describe a game which takes too much time while providing too little gameplay variety. Quests are variety. So they didn't disguise grind, they weren't grind.
That is no really true. Quests are mostly the same thing done over and over again. You click on ! mark. It tells you something to do. You move to X marker on the map. Follow instructions. Then you come back to the ?. There may be some variation in there, but mostly that is it. I've gone over this before, but I think taking away the GPS and including text in the quest that is essential to read in order to complete it would go a long way it making quests varied and interesting.
and would destroy any desire to Alt. ....
I used to create more alts in games with no quests then I do in games now that have lots of quests. I think that has more to do with making it difficult to choose what class you want because there are a lot that are appealing than it does to do with quests or how they work.
Think Wow was the most popular not due to word of mouth alone but more to superior gameplay for a good while over competition.
There were only a handful of MMOs out at the time and many players who were playing them were looking for something that wasn't as wearing on them. A lot of the original MMOs were very competitive and required you to play a lot to compete. WoW was the first one that allowed everyone the chance to complete all content and level both quickly and easily. The quests disguised the grind for those who hadn't experienced it in an MMO before. They even had rested experience to make sure people who weren't playing as much got to level more quickly and catch up to the ones who did play a lot. Instances and reduction in the complexity of group combat allowed everyone the ability to complete dungeons and raids if they wanted to do so.
Nothing you said does not qualify as superior gameplay to what was out at the time.
I was stating my opinion on why I thought people jumped ship at the time since I was there. I didn't think it was word of mouth or game play so much as easy of use. It did offer some measure of improved game play in terms of better targeting, but this also made it easier at the same time. The main point was people jumped ship because it was easy enough for them to compete in all aspects of the game.
This is not intended as a rant; however, I do bemoan the course the MMORPG genre has taken post-WOW.
When I largely stopped playing MMORPGs it was not a conscious decision; I did not throw down my keyboard in disgust. For some time in the late noughties and early teens, I still treated each new release with curiosity, bordering excitement. I would then buy the latest (AAA) release and find that it either felt like:
a) treading old ground. The game would be generic and derivative. Maybe "WOW-clone" is a misnomer, but a lot of games certainly did not differentiate themselves sufficiently from their forebears to hold my interest, or;
b) the game was too solo-centric. If grouping was even a requirement of the game, it would be automated in a manner that involved no actual interaction or socialization. There would be little immersion; the game design opting for maps filled with sparkly, shouty distractions, rather than maps you wanted to explore and discover. Don't get me wrong, I am a casual player, but casual is not synonymous with shallow. Or...
c) It felt like a cheap cash-grab second only to the mobile market for its mercenary monetization system. The MMORPGs that fall into this category are usually not AAA titles (although there are notable exceptions such as PWE releases). These games are often trash designed only to extract money from their customers. As a case-study for the Veblan effect these games have some worth; as MMORPGs they only damage the genre.
But, as I said, I did not storm away from the genre in disgust. Rather, I drifted away from the genre because my needs could be met more completely elsewhere. I can scratch my PVP itch with online shooters that do not rely on unfair gear or level advantages to shore up bad players. I can find better combat systems in single-player games. I can find better solo-centric stories in single-player games. I can find more innovative gameplay in single-player games. I can find more meaningful interaction in cooperative games.
Which is why I have largely left the MMORPG genre. I am left wondering; given the direction this genre has taken, what purpose does it actually serve? What itch does it scratch that can't be scratched more completely elsewhere?
Please share your thoughts.
You are simply sick of all these wow clones, so you need a sandbox, try out the new Darkfall when will come out soon. Is very different, and not a pvp arena like the old iteration, but a true new sandbox experience where you can create an empire with your friends, plays as you want and become what you want, no shitty quest, no linear progression, no grind, just ton of fun and battles in a complete player skill enviroment.
Which is why I have largely left the MMORPG genre. I am left wondering; given the direction this genre has taken, what purpose does it actually serve? What itch does it scratch that can't be scratched more completely elsewhere?
Please share your thoughts.
There are three itches that MMORPGs have traditionally scratched for me (tho, not for last 3 yrs):
1) Combat
I love tab-targetting. I love having 40+ skills to choose from. I love combat when it is essentially an intellectual exercise. Not that many MMOs have succeeded in this regard. LotRO hit the nail on the head for me and is the most amount of fun I've had in combat. It wasn't fast paced or flashy but it allowed player skill to really shine through and was designed to allow lots of emergent gameplay.
This is something I haven't been able to find in single player games. Single player RPGs tend to be more focused on the meta-game (gear stats etc) with twitchy combat. I find those sorts of games dull and get bored quickly.
2) Massively Multiplayer
This is slowly disappearing, but I love exploring open worlds and running in to 100s of other players. I love forming pug groups during initial release rush, meeting lots of other excited gamers, forming online friendships etc. Mostly though, I love objective based open world pvp (e.g. WAR, ettenmoors in lotro). These are places I can happily roam for hours, be it solo, small group or raid. I can vary my gamestyle and have fun.
This is also something I haven't been able to find in other genres. Most PvP games are arena based. Sure, some maps have a lot of players (64v64 or bigger) which, tbh, matches a lot of the mmo pvp in terms of size, but its still short-term arena pvp and usually without the combat systems that I like.
3) Guilds
A good MMORPG encourages people to form friendship groups which often lead to guilds. I've been in the same guild since 2007 and met some amazing people. With each new game we expanded our membership. We were relatively strict in accepting applications, so the result was a guild with lots of like-minded people spread all over Europe, all sharing a passion for the game and working towards shared goals. We'd level alts together, grind dungeons together, clear raids together, pvp together and craft for each other.
Gaming (in my mind) is meant to be done with friends. MMORPGs seem to be the only genre designed to foster creation of new friendships that last. Other genres have concepts of guilds / clans, but the gameplay doesn't usually help create friendships, only acquaintances of convenience.
The current trend in MMOs is moving away from skill-based combat to twitch-combat, which is part of the reason I don't play any MMOs any more. Some MMOs have kept the "massively" part, but group sizes seem to be diminishing, group content is going and world pvp seems to be a technical hurdle that half the devs can't be bothered to overcome.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
That is no really true. Quests are mostly the same thing done over and over again. You click on ! mark. It tells you something to do. You move to X marker on the map. Follow instructions. Then you come back to the ?. There may be some variation in there, but mostly that is it. I've gone over this before, but I think taking away the GPS and including text in the quest that is essential to read in order to complete it would go a long way it making quests varied and interesting.
Why are you still saying this? The facts have been explained to you several times.
In any given hour of a grind-based game, you're going to kill one type of mob for an hour.
In any given hour of a quest-based game, you're going to participate in ~10 different activities. For the most common activity type (killing), you're going to kill 10-20 different mob types.
That's variety. Variety is doing different things during gameplay. You do more different things in a quest-based game.
If you're going to ignore variety through oversimplification, why stop there? Your comments are a half-step away from "all gaming is 'just pushing buttons'. That's one thing. So all gaming lacks any variety at all."
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Doing the exact same thing to a cosmetically different mob is not variety in gameplay. Yes quests offer slightly more variety than stand and kill due to fed ex and protection and very rarely atruly unique quest comes along however the majority is still kill which is only cosmetically different.
That being said disguising the grind is better than not.
It could be theoretically different but in reality out of 20 quests, 15 are kill quests where you are using the exact same skills, approaching the mob the exact same way using the exact same rotation so again facing a different mob is only cosmetics. 3 will be gathering, 1 will be a protection and 1 will be something unique.
This is one valid beef with modern mmo's. In older mmo games you had to approach the mob differently. Some you could charge in, others had to be pulled and separated, others had to be kited. I can't remember the last game (other than EQ) where I didn't just charge in, today's games don't have the same aggro mechanic that made pulling and separating mobs even possible.
Post edited by VengeSunsoar on
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
My thought is that you and all the other people who have posted this very same thing countless times should start a support group so you can let the healing begin.
You look in my eyes And I get emotional Inside I know it's crazy but You still can touch my heart And after all this time You'd think that I Wouldn't feel the same But time melts into nothing And nothing's changed
I still believe, someday you and me Will find ourselves in love again I had a dream, someday you and me Will find ourselves in love again
That is no really true. Quests are mostly the same thing done over and over again. You click on ! mark. It tells you something to do. You move to X marker on the map. Follow instructions. Then you come back to the ?. There may be some variation in there, but mostly that is it. I've gone over this before, but I think taking away the GPS and including text in the quest that is essential to read in order to complete it would go a long way it making quests varied and interesting.
Why are you still saying this? The facts have been explained to you several times.
In any given hour of a grind-based game, you're going to kill one type of mob for an hour.
In any given hour of a quest-based game, you're going to participate in ~10 different activities. For the most common activity type (killing), you're going to kill 10-20 different mob types.
That's variety. Variety is doing different things during gameplay. You do more different things in a quest-based game.
If you're going to ignore variety through oversimplification, why stop there? Your comments are a half-step away from "all gaming is 'just pushing buttons'. That's one thing. So all gaming lacks any variety at all."
I already explained to you that is not variety. There is one thing you are doing over and over again. That is following a certain game mechanic that is virtually the same and doing it over and over again.
In a non quest based game have the option to kill the same mob over and over. You also have the option to move around and kill other mobs.
The only advantage I see is that you have deliver quests and delivery quests were actually present in older games. For instance you could turn in orc belts or someone gave you a message to deliver from Kelethin to Freeport.
The game mechanic you say has a lot of variety really boils down to following the same exact game mechanic over and over again. Basically instead of grinding mobs you are grinding the same quest mechanic over and over again to kill mobs.
Quest not grind until you get more than thousand of quests hit your face . Face the true , those quest hub game give large among of bonus exp and have lest exp require to level up.
Hunting / killing or questing , too much same **** and it become grind .
Howard Wolowitz: Really? On Dungeons and Dragons I enter a dungeon and find a dragon? Isn't that a little on the nose?
Sheldon Cooper: When you play Chutes and Ladders, do you complain about all the chutes and ladders?
This stuff you complain about IS the genre. Sure it gets tweaked here and there, and there are some great idie games that take chances. But by and large people play mmorpgs because they have the same things in them people have come to expect but that you say you hate.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I already explained to you that is not variety. There is one thing you are doing over and over again. That is following a certain game mechanic that is virtually the same and doing it over and over again.
In a non quest based game have the option to kill the same mob over and over. You also have the option to move around and kill other mobs.
The only advantage I see is that you have deliver quests and delivery quests were actually present in older games. For instance you could turn in orc belts or someone gave you a message to deliver from Kelethin to Freeport.
The game mechanic you say has a lot of variety really boils down to following the same exact game mechanic over and over again. Basically instead of grinding mobs you are grinding the same quest mechanic over and over again to kill mobs.
So basically:
Man 1 with Binoculars: "I see a tan canyon, a mountain lion, a tree, the sky, and an eagle. There are 5 things."
Man 2 with Binoculars: "No there is one thing: an indistinct mass of tan."
Yes, I covered in my last post that if you deliberately zoom way out to oversimplify things then you may as well say there's no variety in all of gaming because it's all summed up as "hit buttons to do stuff." I literally pre-empted your response here, and yet you still made it.
Why?
What possible benefit do you get from your blurry binoculars? Focus, man. Focus!
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm not going to bother quoting Axehilt for the sake of brevity, but the 'questing isn't grinding argument' is extremely subjective at best. The variety in mob type and quest type in MMOs is generally negligible within the same zone and quest level. Arguing the semantics of 'they're all nouns' doesn't invalidate anything, you are being intentionally obtuse to try to 'win' some internet argument IMO.
As for the direction of the genre, it has changed quite a lot post-WoW. The changes directly reflect the massive influx of players from a variety of games types, most notably Blizzards own games. Those games (warcraft/diablo mainly) focus on brief (< 1 hour) moments of gameplay, which mandate less depth and immersion IMO. WoW reflected this as well, with a focus on dungeons and questing, both activities that were somewhat brief compared to other MMOs and very defined in terms of beginning to end.
So, yes the genre changed from a focus on immersive world/community-building to more solo-oriented directed gameplay. This directly reflects the gaming market as a whole, there is more demand overall for that type of gameplay.
The problem lies in the fact that MMOs are insanely expensive to develop compared to other genres and developers and investors commonly feel compelled to chase the largest audience possible for the largest possible return. This has led to most MMOs employing the principles that the newer generation recognizes as simply what makes an MMO an MMO. Older players generally still believe that the older principles based around world-building are what makes an MMO an MMO, while there is now a huge part of the MMO market who believe that is just some kind of nostalgia delirium.
In my opinion the biggest problem is that there is no consensus definition of what an MMORPG even is. The term currently broadly encompasses a wide variety of game elements that have very little in common. Whether a game has levels, quests, raids, dungeons, pvp, arenas, battlegrounds, economy, etc. is irrelevant as there are plenty of games that don't have one or more of these elements and are considered MMORPGs.
That distinction is deceptively important though since MMOs are judged based on that. For instance, it is an extremely common argument on these forums that X types of MMO 'fail' because they only ever sustain Y amount of players. There are quite a lot of things wrong with that argument (one being that under that argument only a few MMOs have ever succeeded, another being that almost all of those argument crumble if you ignore WoW), but the pertinent one is that is usually comparing games that are basically different genres under the same umbrella.
I have played MMOs since UO. The genre changed, I didn't. I like MMOs that focus on world/community building and social/competitive elements; I'm not drunk with nostalgia, games that focus on the elements I like haven't been made recently (hopefully soon). MMOs are different, I didn't just get old. Games like the division have more in common with Diablo than what I consider an MMORPG. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it, it's just not the same genre (not even close) to me.
The main thing that changed was that the word MMORPG morphed from describing a more niche (but growing) segment of virtual world building to a mainstream concept of any burgeoning game that supports more than 8 players on screen at a time and has more persistence than a lobby.
So I haven't played any MMO regularly in a year or so, the experience is just too shallow atm. Trying to explain this to people on the internet is unfortunately like trying to describe why you like ahi tuna to a kid who wants nothing more than to eat McDonald's every meal for the rest of his life.
The market for virtual worlds definitely still exists, it has just taken publishers/developers a long time to realize that it's a market worth developing for. Hopefully soon we will have some games that at least begin to break away from the elements that have defined the post-WoW MMO era. I know I'm not the only person who is utterly fatigued with them.
The market for virtual worlds definitely still exists, it has just taken publishers/developers a long time to realize that it's a market worth developing for. Hopefully soon we will have some games that at least begin to break away from the elements that have defined the post-WoW MMO era. I know I'm not the only person who is utterly fatigued with them.
Although I agree with your post, overall I have to say this will not happen anytime soon. Too many casual screamers screaming for the next big casual game ready to open their wallets.
As I have said before, the only chance anything coming out of what you and I are looking for, is going to be brought by an indie company. And it will take like 10 years to develop. Honestly, I give it 10-20 years before we see anything remotely close to what pre-wow was.
There are a few things that need to happen first. ## The casual zombies screaming nay to anything encouraging grouping or long journey gameplay needs to go get hooked on the other genre's and let someone develop an mmorpg without letting criticism dictate the design of the game. ## There has to be a developer passionate about creating a game like this, and do so without some ceo-tard/manager telling him how to design the game, because it's what the customers want. ## The developer must have discipline and not be a victim of greed.
Although I must say, with the serious lack of mmorpg's, if one were to come out and done right, I agree with you there is a market for it. It would have no competition.
Nah, there really aren't any new main stream MMORPG coming out.
The market share dictated how MMORPG were made. Many MMORPG players have never experienced anything but themepark. Can clamor for what you've never had.
plot twist, there's plenty of mmorpgs that arae not cash grab/solo centric/wow clones, but OP still wont play them for what so ever reason. Just another thread of this type every day it gets booring like the wow clones.
Nah, there really aren't any new main stream MMORPG coming out.
The market share dictated how MMORPG were made. Many MMORPG players have never experienced anything but themepark. Can clamor for what you've never had.
What it's really going to take for an older-style MMO to survive in the current market is a developer who is willing to launch a game with lower numbers and grow an audience from there. It will take time for players from the last 10 years to understand what community/world-based games have to offer.
The majority of the current MMO player-base is just going to see a game that takes forever to level and doesn't have much instant gratification along the way. Some of them will grow to understand what I and others love about games like that, but it will take time and they will probably have to be talked into trying it/sticking with it.
IMO EVE could have grown like that over time if the barrier to entry for new players wasn't so unforgiving. Not that EVE hasn't been successful, it just could have been more successful if there was higher player retention. That being said, I do respect EVE for not caving on their vision totally just to sell out for temporary money and proving that a game with 500k players can be immensely successful.
Maybe if a classic style MMO is actually successful developers will remember that games that build communities retain players. Sure you may not get the locust swarm that every new themepark does and the instant cash, but there is definitely a way to be profitable for many years.
When a game like FFXI ,made for the PS2,can have buildings with insides and working doors and these other so called big titles cannot,there is something seriously wrong with what we are accepting or denouncing as Triple A games.
Thesee games should not have ONE path fro each player to follow exactly the same,that is not a rpg.Every single player shoud lbe treated differently.Those npc's should look at you different,maybe they have a quest for you,maybe they don't,maybe they give you a different quest,maybe they don't even talk to you or maybe they attack you.
That was the whole idea behind StoryBricks,an easy app that could utilize these systems to allwo for some immersion,only we don't need StoryBricks to do it.That was simply a pre-made easy idea that Smedley thought would be good to allow faster game development instead of having his team write all those scripted systems from scratch. Smedley was already on the right track,he did understand immersion but did not want to spend too much time or money to make a real good mmorpg.If you noticed he had mobs in the world sometimes fighting each other,some factions would attack you or hate you,not talk to you,we just need a lot more of that in our games and LESS yellow markers/hand holding.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If your an older gamer, who played before WOW, then realize you will never see games like that ever again. What the MMO came from and what it has evolved to are very different things.
Most old games, had loss involved, you could lose items, experience, and sometimes even your character! Now that would not ever go over with the hand-me-everything-kids. And that in itself is a shame, because that is what made these games so thrilling to play.
Now everything is pay-to-win in some form, no loss, and you are spoon fed levels and goods. Everything is auto aim, and button mash.
To put it quite simply, the MMO's today just suck balls. You see these million dollar funded games, that tank within months. Most of them usually destroy their fan base well before the game is even launched.
The old mmos were gold because they were made by gamers who knew the kind of games they wanted to make and play. Today you got a bunch of over paid soccer moms figuring out the 'fun' of your mmo experience.
We are a lot of people in the same boat. People that say that "you just don't enjoy MMORPGs anymore"; It's more like we don't enjoy TODAYS MMORPGs, since we have played it already and for many many years. The people that play MMORPGs today are probably the generation after the one that started playing online games 15 years ago, pretty much like myself.
We want new, competetive and meaningful stuff. Not some korean grinder.
I rarely play MMORPGs anymore. Most other games (the ones without cash shops) have been created to be the best game possible according to the developers available resources. MMORPGs are the same, and then throw tons of obstacles into the players path to reduce his fun unless he pays a lot of money in the cash shop.
Then add to that that most single player games have better storylines and graphics, less monotonous grind, and offer an overall better experience.
We are a lot of people in the same boat. People that say that "you just don't enjoy MMORPGs anymore"; It's more like we don't enjoy TODAYS MMORPGs, since we have played it already and for many many years. The people that play MMORPGs today are probably the generation after the one that started playing online games 15 years ago, pretty much like myself.
We want new, competetive and meaningful stuff. Not some korean grinder.
I'm not even opposed to grinding. At least in games without hub-to-hub questing there is the possibility for some meaningful interaction or exploration.
For instance: you go to camp to grind mobs and encounter other players you can. . . -compete with them for mobs (a form of non-direct social interaction) -offer to team up with them and potentially meet new people and increase efficiency -offer to team up with them and move to a higher level camp or dungeon for better rewards -go find another camp where you may not have to compete -take turns pulling (more social interaction)
And that's just an example of the most 'boring' part of old-school MMOs. To me it was infinitely more immersive than running errand after errand for NPCs on rails in a game where the entire world only exists as a space for quest objectives. It made the games feel more like a world and less like a level that I needed to beat to get to the next one.
'' A lot of the original MMOs were very competitive and required you to play a lot to compete.''
Claiming that older mmos was very competitive is quite strange argument for me. I know that a lot of people play video games from competitive perspective, ego stuff,..there are many people who play video games for the reason that video games are made - to have fun, in the case of online games, to have fun with other people, social interactions,...older mmos did offer kinda 200% more & better team play, role play, socialization,...as new mmos, they are not even focused anymore on teamplay, the only thing they really offer is shiny graphics & pvp-pk stuff, outside of this not much,everything else as solo play & PVP-Pk is more a sideshow, a race to max. lvl and to pvp!
If anyone would be able to take a few minutes to fill out my survey that would be a great help & if anyone would be able to pass it on to friends, it's for my university dissertation, a study on MMORPG's and social effects. https://www.esurveycreator.co.uk/s/acc731c all answers are anonymous. thanks!
We are a lot of people in the same boat. People that say that "you just don't enjoy MMORPGs anymore"; It's more like we don't enjoy TODAYS MMORPGs, since we have played it already and for many many years. The people that play MMORPGs today are probably the generation after the one that started playing online games 15 years ago, pretty much like myself.
We want new, competetive and meaningful stuff. Not some korean grinder.
I'm not even opposed to grinding. At least in games without hub-to-hub questing there is the possibility for some meaningful interaction or exploration.
For instance: you go to camp to grind mobs and encounter other players you can. . . -compete with them for mobs (a form of non-direct social interaction) -offer to team up with them and potentially meet new people and increase efficiency -offer to team up with them and move to a higher level camp or dungeon for better rewards -go find another camp where you may not have to compete -take turns pulling (more social interaction)
And that's just an example of the most 'boring' part of old-school MMOs. To me it was infinitely more immersive than running errand after errand for NPCs on rails in a game where the entire world only exists as a space for quest objectives. It made the games feel more like a world and less like a level that I needed to beat to get to the next one.
The matter are more than just about killing mob or questing . If you bring same system like old game back to nowadays player (aka hell levels , camping , 10% exp lose , corpse run ) then the game will be no good .
There is a fact , when the exp from mobs are more effect to raise level then player will throw away quests and just power level by killing mods . (the test done in some P*****e s****s) . It mean player don't care if it questing or hunting mobs (aka grind to some people) they will chose the way that give more exp and more casual .
And if middle content offer more contents to enjoy , a lots player will stay at middle level instead leveling to max level (cause it more trouble to get max)
I remember there was some guy here argue with me about slow travel as gaming contents . I said that if slow travel is part of contents then it acceptable , he disagree . Then later ArcheAge release with slow travel "trading contents" and it accepted by players .
IDK if it right for me call them hater , but some guy here hate "old school " to roots and don't accept anything about the old game . Because WOW are winner and old mmorpg "failed" so all "old-school" relate system are "failure" , that's why i never take them serious
They should make a sticky about "why I stopped playing MMORPGs" and enforce its usage. It would save us of such forum pollution.
Yeh I have been saying this for a awhile. They finally stickied a Solo vs Group thread and a Themepark vs Sandbox. Now all they need is a All MMOs Suck vs No They Don't thread sticked, or a This Is Why I Don't Play MMOs vs This Is Why I DO.
Comments
Crowfall - LiF: MMO - Darkfall: New Dawn
1) Combat
I love tab-targetting. I love having 40+ skills to choose from. I love combat when it is essentially an intellectual exercise. Not that many MMOs have succeeded in this regard. LotRO hit the nail on the head for me and is the most amount of fun I've had in combat. It wasn't fast paced or flashy but it allowed player skill to really shine through and was designed to allow lots of emergent gameplay.
This is something I haven't been able to find in single player games. Single player RPGs tend to be more focused on the meta-game (gear stats etc) with twitchy combat. I find those sorts of games dull and get bored quickly.
2) Massively Multiplayer
This is slowly disappearing, but I love exploring open worlds and running in to 100s of other players. I love forming pug groups during initial release rush, meeting lots of other excited gamers, forming online friendships etc. Mostly though, I love objective based open world pvp (e.g. WAR, ettenmoors in lotro). These are places I can happily roam for hours, be it solo, small group or raid. I can vary my gamestyle and have fun.
This is also something I haven't been able to find in other genres. Most PvP games are arena based. Sure, some maps have a lot of players (64v64 or bigger) which, tbh, matches a lot of the mmo pvp in terms of size, but its still short-term arena pvp and usually without the combat systems that I like.
3) Guilds
A good MMORPG encourages people to form friendship groups which often lead to guilds. I've been in the same guild since 2007 and met some amazing people. With each new game we expanded our membership. We were relatively strict in accepting applications, so the result was a guild with lots of like-minded people spread all over Europe, all sharing a passion for the game and working towards shared goals. We'd level alts together, grind dungeons together, clear raids together, pvp together and craft for each other.
Gaming (in my mind) is meant to be done with friends. MMORPGs seem to be the only genre designed to foster creation of new friendships that last. Other genres have concepts of guilds / clans, but the gameplay doesn't usually help create friendships, only acquaintances of convenience.
The current trend in MMOs is moving away from skill-based combat to twitch-combat, which is part of the reason I don't play any MMOs any more. Some MMOs have kept the "massively" part, but group sizes seem to be diminishing, group content is going and world pvp seems to be a technical hurdle that half the devs can't be bothered to overcome.
- In any given hour of a grind-based game, you're going to kill one type of mob for an hour.
- In any given hour of a quest-based game, you're going to participate in ~10 different activities. For the most common activity type (killing), you're going to kill 10-20 different mob types.
That's variety. Variety is doing different things during gameplay. You do more different things in a quest-based game.If you're going to ignore variety through oversimplification, why stop there? Your comments are a half-step away from "all gaming is 'just pushing buttons'. That's one thing. So all gaming lacks any variety at all."
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That being said disguising the grind is better than not.
It could be theoretically different but in reality out of 20 quests, 15 are kill quests where you are using the exact same skills, approaching the mob the exact same way using the exact same rotation so again facing a different mob is only cosmetics. 3 will be gathering, 1 will be a protection and 1 will be something unique.
This is one valid beef with modern mmo's. In older mmo games you had to approach the mob differently. Some you could charge in, others had to be pulled and separated, others had to be kited. I can't remember the last game (other than EQ) where I didn't just charge in, today's games don't have the same aggro mechanic that made pulling and separating mobs even possible.
You look in my eyes
And I get emotional
Inside
I know it's crazy but
You still can touch my heart
And after all this time
You'd think that I
Wouldn't feel the same
But time melts into nothing
And nothing's changed
I still believe, someday you and me
Will find ourselves in love again
I had a dream, someday you and me
Will find ourselves in love again
~~ postlarval ~~
In a non quest based game have the option to kill the same mob over and over. You also have the option to move around and kill other mobs.
The only advantage I see is that you have deliver quests and delivery quests were actually present in older games. For instance you could turn in orc belts or someone gave you a message to deliver from Kelethin to Freeport.
The game mechanic you say has a lot of variety really boils down to following the same exact game mechanic over and over again. Basically instead of grinding mobs you are grinding the same quest mechanic over and over again to kill mobs.
Face the true , those quest hub game give large among of bonus exp and have lest exp require to level up.
Hunting / killing or questing , too much same **** and it become grind .
Howard Wolowitz: Really? On Dungeons and Dragons I enter a dungeon and find a dragon? Isn't that a little on the nose?
Sheldon Cooper: When you play Chutes and Ladders, do you complain about all the chutes and ladders?
This stuff you complain about IS the genre. Sure it gets tweaked here and there, and there are some great idie games that take chances. But by and large people play mmorpgs because they have the same things in them people have come to expect but that you say you hate.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
- Man 1 with Binoculars: "I see a tan canyon, a mountain lion, a tree, the sky, and an eagle. There are 5 things."
- Man 2 with Binoculars: "No there is one thing: an indistinct mass of tan."
Yes, I covered in my last post that if you deliberately zoom way out to oversimplify things then you may as well say there's no variety in all of gaming because it's all summed up as "hit buttons to do stuff." I literally pre-empted your response here, and yet you still made it.Why?
What possible benefit do you get from your blurry binoculars? Focus, man. Focus!
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As for the direction of the genre, it has changed quite a lot post-WoW. The changes directly reflect the massive influx of players from a variety of games types, most notably Blizzards own games. Those games (warcraft/diablo mainly) focus on brief (< 1 hour) moments of gameplay, which mandate less depth and immersion IMO. WoW reflected this as well, with a focus on dungeons and questing, both activities that were somewhat brief compared to other MMOs and very defined in terms of beginning to end.
So, yes the genre changed from a focus on immersive world/community-building to more solo-oriented directed gameplay. This directly reflects the gaming market as a whole, there is more demand overall for that type of gameplay.
The problem lies in the fact that MMOs are insanely expensive to develop compared to other genres and developers and investors commonly feel compelled to chase the largest audience possible for the largest possible return. This has led to most MMOs employing the principles that the newer generation recognizes as simply what makes an MMO an MMO. Older players generally still believe that the older principles based around world-building are what makes an MMO an MMO, while there is now a huge part of the MMO market who believe that is just some kind of nostalgia delirium.
In my opinion the biggest problem is that there is no consensus definition of what an MMORPG even is. The term currently broadly encompasses a wide variety of game elements that have very little in common. Whether a game has levels, quests, raids, dungeons, pvp, arenas, battlegrounds, economy, etc. is irrelevant as there are plenty of games that don't have one or more of these elements and are considered MMORPGs.
That distinction is deceptively important though since MMOs are judged based on that. For instance, it is an extremely common argument on these forums that X types of MMO 'fail' because they only ever sustain Y amount of players. There are quite a lot of things wrong with that argument (one being that under that argument only a few MMOs have ever succeeded, another being that almost all of those argument crumble if you ignore WoW), but the pertinent one is that is usually comparing games that are basically different genres under the same umbrella.
I have played MMOs since UO. The genre changed, I didn't. I like MMOs that focus on world/community building and social/competitive elements; I'm not drunk with nostalgia, games that focus on the elements I like haven't been made recently (hopefully soon). MMOs are different, I didn't just get old. Games like the division have more in common with Diablo than what I consider an MMORPG. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it, it's just not the same genre (not even close) to me.
The main thing that changed was that the word MMORPG morphed from describing a more niche (but growing) segment of virtual world building to a mainstream concept of any burgeoning game that supports more than 8 players on screen at a time and has more persistence than a lobby.
So I haven't played any MMO regularly in a year or so, the experience is just too shallow atm. Trying to explain this to people on the internet is unfortunately like trying to describe why you like ahi tuna to a kid who wants nothing more than to eat McDonald's every meal for the rest of his life.
The market for virtual worlds definitely still exists, it has just taken publishers/developers a long time to realize that it's a market worth developing for. Hopefully soon we will have some games that at least begin to break away from the elements that have defined the post-WoW MMO era. I know I'm not the only person who is utterly fatigued with them.
The market share dictated how MMORPG were made. Many MMORPG players have never experienced anything but themepark. Can clamor for what you've never had.
The majority of the current MMO player-base is just going to see a game that takes forever to level and doesn't have much instant gratification along the way. Some of them will grow to understand what I and others love about games like that, but it will take time and they will probably have to be talked into trying it/sticking with it.
IMO EVE could have grown like that over time if the barrier to entry for new players wasn't so unforgiving. Not that EVE hasn't been successful, it just could have been more successful if there was higher player retention. That being said, I do respect EVE for not caving on their vision totally just to sell out for temporary money and proving that a game with 500k players can be immensely successful.
Maybe if a classic style MMO is actually successful developers will remember that games that build communities retain players. Sure you may not get the locust swarm that every new themepark does and the instant cash, but there is definitely a way to be profitable for many years.
When a game like FFXI ,made for the PS2,can have buildings with insides and working doors and these other so called big titles cannot,there is something seriously wrong with what we are accepting or denouncing as Triple A games.
Thesee games should not have ONE path fro each player to follow exactly the same,that is not a rpg.Every single player shoud lbe treated differently.Those npc's should look at you different,maybe they have a quest for you,maybe they don't,maybe they give you a different quest,maybe they don't even talk to you or maybe they attack you.
That was the whole idea behind StoryBricks,an easy app that could utilize these systems to allwo for some immersion,only we don't need StoryBricks to do it.That was simply a pre-made easy idea that Smedley thought would be good to allow faster game development instead of having his team write all those scripted systems from scratch.
Smedley was already on the right track,he did understand immersion but did not want to spend too much time or money to make a real good mmorpg.If you noticed he had mobs in the world sometimes fighting each other,some factions would attack you or hate you,not talk to you,we just need a lot more of that in our games and LESS yellow markers/hand holding.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Most old games, had loss involved, you could lose items, experience, and sometimes even your character! Now that would not ever go over with the hand-me-everything-kids. And that in itself is a shame, because that is what made these games so thrilling to play.
Now everything is pay-to-win in some form, no loss, and you are spoon fed levels and goods. Everything is auto aim, and button mash.
To put it quite simply, the MMO's today just suck balls. You see these million dollar funded games, that tank within months. Most of them usually destroy their fan base well before the game is even launched.
The old mmos were gold because they were made by gamers who knew the kind of games they wanted to make and play. Today you got a bunch of over paid soccer moms figuring out the 'fun' of your mmo experience.
Nahtzee had it right ->
We want new, competetive and meaningful stuff. Not some korean grinder.
I rarely play MMORPGs anymore. Most other games (the ones without cash shops) have been created to be the best game possible according to the developers available resources. MMORPGs are the same, and then throw tons of obstacles into the players path to reduce his fun unless he pays a lot of money in the cash shop.
Then add to that that most single player games have better storylines and graphics, less monotonous grind, and offer an overall better experience.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
For instance: you go to camp to grind mobs and encounter other players you can. . .
-compete with them for mobs (a form of non-direct social interaction)
-offer to team up with them and potentially meet new people and increase efficiency
-offer to team up with them and move to a higher level camp or dungeon for better rewards
-go find another camp where you may not have to compete
-take turns pulling (more social interaction)
And that's just an example of the most 'boring' part of old-school MMOs. To me it was infinitely more immersive than running errand after errand for NPCs on rails in a game where the entire world only exists as a space for quest objectives. It made the games feel more like a world and less like a level that I needed to beat to get to the next one.
There is a fact , when the exp from mobs are more effect to raise level then player will throw away quests and just power level by killing mods . (the test done in some P*****e s****s) .
It mean player don't care if it questing or hunting mobs (aka grind to some people) they will chose the way that give more exp and more casual .
And if middle content offer more contents to enjoy , a lots player will stay at middle level instead leveling to max level (cause it more trouble to get max)
I remember there was some guy here argue with me about slow travel as gaming contents . I said that if slow travel is part of contents then it acceptable , he disagree . Then later ArcheAge release with slow travel "trading contents" and it accepted by players .
IDK if it right for me call them hater , but some guy here hate "old school " to roots and don't accept anything about the old game . Because WOW are winner and old mmorpg "failed" so all "old-school" relate system are "failure" , that's why i never take them serious
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor