Kano, enough with the drama. Why are you berating two lines of text that I used to describe "me" and where I stand with MMORPGs? You troll'n me? It's hard to tell what angle you're coming at me.
Pantheon is the only MMORPG I'm looking forward to. So if I don't like it, then I conclude that perhaps I don't enjoy MMORPGs anymore. Does that really seem over the top? Ten years of downloading and immediately uninstalling the trash that has been offered as "F! it, it's free, and for a fee it can be less unfinished!", but when someone says "Nah, I would rather do anything as a hobby than this shit for another 10 years"; it's over the top? Well my friend, if you truly believe that, then maybe you're subterranean, because it seems perfectly sensible to walk away from up here. I don't know how far an Ostrich has to bury its head to view this as an ultimatum.
I know, I don't post a lot, but I read these forums. I have read some of the dumbest shit imaginable when it comes to what players want in their MMORPGs. Combine that with knowing there's a kid, maybe even man or woman, out in the world right now with their eyes locked to their phone walking into traffic looking for a damn Pokemon - and it seems we're almost to the point that we'll start watering plants with Brawndo, because it's what they crave.
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Of course p2p won't work under the current paradigm, these games only provide a burst of entertainment value and then flatline while milking their hardcores thru cash shops until they can create the next expansion fix.
MMO(RPGs) are my favorite genre of all time! If the hype is dying down a little bit, then I don't mind. I hated being part of a trend or "fad", because I've been playing MMOs before MMOs were cool! Plus, to me it means that only dedicated devs will choose the genre for their games, and less generic crap will be spewed my way, which is always nice.
I think we're going through a phase where games have multiplied too far and too fast, relying on set formulas that have worked before, while upgrading graphics, tweaking gameplay a little here and there, and adding bells and whistles. And you're right, it's been too easy to make people happy enough playing solo and not bothering with complications.
I, for one, not only miss the friendly, easy team-ups I enjoyed playing City of Heroes, but I'm no longer interested in the standard formula of kill things and go on quests that mostly depend on killing things. Sure, some games have pets, mounts, crafting, mining, fishing, etc., but all too often these are totally unrealistic, not much of a challenge, not really needed by you or anyone else, and all cut-and-dried and cookie-cutter, what you do is the same as everyone else, you can't make a living and advance in the game doing it. And the things you kill just respawn, the quests have been done by untold numbers before and will be done by many after, you might even "farm" the same thing over and over...
I think the next generation of games is going to find ways to have huge worlds, world-sized worlds, through procedural generation and data compression/storage techniques, and with such large worlds, there will be different things for everybody to do, and once you do it, it will stay done, or be re-set slowly and naturally, as animal populations bounce back after being reduced by hunting. The so-called "open" and "sandbox" games of today will be put to shame when players are in worlds where they can go for miles in any direction, and do all sorts of different things and something like fishing will be like real fishing and it might be the thing that keeps you alive, and you might build or buy a ship and go out catching larger fish, and out deeper there would be larger sea creatures... Or you might go mining, and you might find some ore that nobody else has found, and not by random placement but seeking in the right formation or geologic feature high in the mountains or deep in a canyon or simply digging deeper and deeper ... Or you might take the ores and other materials that others have found and make things of them, not by following senseless "recipes" but by studying their properties and combining them with the proper techniques or machines, perhaps discovering an alloy that nobody else has, or improving on the latest gunpowder formula you found on a wiki or by talking to another player/character...
The genre "evolved" into a playstyle I dont care for but lately some newer ones such as Albion Online have caught my interest.
This for me also. I'M playing a game from a small company that remembers that games should be fun too. I'M all done with the kick starter, AAA game companies when it comes to mmo's. I only last one or two months in those games because of all the gimmicky crap added in them. And everyone here complains about f2p games and cash shops but you never hear them complain about AAA games with a f2p option along with a sub and a cash shop. I think this generation of players helped sink this genre into what it is today with their constant demands. I don't just blame it on the devs.
The fallacy of what are saying is that you equate P2P with $15/mo. Yes that is how it HAS been but perhaps not what the future holds.
A mere 200,000 players equates to $5,000,000 per month revenue at $25...
Are there 200,000 players that would pay $25/mo for a game they like? I believe so but of course only the future will tell.
You dont have to wait for the future. Look at Eve and how many players have multiple accounts. I think so many of them paying $30 to $60 per month for a game they like more than proves your point.
It wont be long before some small indy company comes up with an MMO that can attract enough people at $25 a pop to sustain itself and grow over time like CCP did.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
Setting aside the much of the bullshit monetization stuff entirely. The games are shit. Mechanically and fundamentally, MMOs have never been able to offer the same quality of experience in certain areas as games designed for a single player, but computers get better and internet connections get better as MMOs still offer the same stale experiences they always have.
Hotbar combat is shit, except when Blade and Soul does it. Threat table enemy behavior is shit served on boiled shit with shit sprinkled on top. MMO quest writing is shit, except when Elder Scrolls Online does it. Instanced dungeons are generally okay once, but they're never intended to just be played through once. After the fifth time, they're shit.
The exceptions are great. I truly enjoyed combat in B&S and question in ESO because you could see their developers chose to put resources into those aspects of their game. Set up combat in the first one and quest writing in the second against any other game at the time and nobody would fail to tell you which developer chose to spend more money one each aspect. The problem is the willingness to devote resources to aspects of their games that many devs just auto pilot through didn't extend to all aspects of their games.
MMOs may never be able to offer experiences that match up with the cutting edge stuff that studios are doing in single player games but they should damn well stop giving us the same thing they did a decade and a half ago.
The fallacy of what are saying is that you equate P2P with $15/mo. Yes that is how it HAS been but perhaps not what the future holds.
A mere 200,000 players equates to $5,000,000 per month revenue at $25...
Are there 200,000 players that would pay $25/mo for a game they like? I believe so but of course only the future will tell.
You dont have to wait for the future. Look at Eve and how many players have multiple accounts. I think so many of them paying $30 to $60 per month for a game they like more than proves your point.
It wont be long before some small indy company comes up with an MMO that can attract enough people at $25 a pop to sustain itself and grow over time like CCP did.
Hmm, if EVE is doing so good why are they moving to a freemium model? Your entire point is past tense, Dm's is about today...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The fallacy of what are saying is that you equate P2P with $15/mo. Yes that is how it HAS been but perhaps not what the future holds.
A mere 200,000 players equates to $5,000,000 per month revenue at $25...
Are there 200,000 players that would pay $25/mo for a game they like? I believe so but of course only the future will tell.
You dont have to wait for the future. Look at Eve and how many players have multiple accounts. I think so many of them paying $30 to $60 per month for a game they like more than proves your point.
It wont be long before some small indy company comes up with an MMO that can attract enough people at $25 a pop to sustain itself and grow over time like CCP did.
Hmm, if EVE is doing so good why are they moving to a freemium model? Your entire point is past tense, Dm's is about today...
despite what many think the F2P model is extremely lucrative
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
The genre is now tiny, boxed in wow clones, with focus on selling barbie dressup rather than improving the game. I define wow clones as games that have a low max level that is hit within a month or two, tiny zones with artificial borders everywhere, gear based instead of skill based, narrow levelling trees that box people into specific roles, and 5 "endgame" dungeons to repeat forever just to get better gear to fight those same 5 dungeons again. Add in the barbie dressup shop. Not interested in what it has become.
the lack of upcoming AAA MMO’s combined with the rise of the MOBA is testament to that.
It should be noted. There are plenty of AAA MMOs being developed and releasing soon. Just not, perhaps, from Western developers.
Though what makes a game AAA? Is there a number attached to the AAA moniker? How much has Lord British made off of SotA selling pixel castles? How much has Camelot Unchained raised? $4 million plus? Is the number $20 million? $50?
Tripple A to me means a large complex game. The budget has no meaning. The game offering a tremendous amount of content with a plethora of systems and avenues of progression are what make it AAA in my book.
I pretty much agree with this article 100%. As for what the solution is, I'm not sure. I think it's finding a way to bring back the things that made MMORPGs unique and special, while crafting them around a viable business model. Which is not really an easy task. It's something that has to be created along side the game from the very start.
I agree with much of this article, also. I have been playing MMOs for a long while, but they are no longer my primary source of gaming entertainment, and for one of the main reasons this piece mentioned: for many of us, the days of unique experiences and real social interaction in MMOs are history.
Technically speaking, the genre is in a good place; graphics and so forth are obviously far more advanced than they used to be. However, I believe that is the only area in which MMOs have progressed. The constant wailing of the Entitlement Clan that is so noisy here in the West - you know, the folks who really believe that they "deserve" everything for free - has been horribly damaging to the industry, if you ask me. We are inundated with awful F2P games to the point that they have become spam as developers and publishers find that huge portions of players are no longer willing to pay for quality.
I hate to say it, but I doubt we will see anything new and unique enough to revitalize what has become a struggling genre, at least in terms of quality. Sure, there are 588,000 F2P crapfests out there, and if you add them all up they represent tons of players and lots of money spent on those lockboxes, but sheer numbers do NOT accurately represent quality or longevity. How many of those crapfests have lasted more than six months? More than one year? I hear crickets.
It's mostly either P2W now, or cookie-cutter grinder, or the latest "technical marvel!" that enjoys months of pre-launch hype before showing its true colors and hemorrhaging players once it launches. It's the same old story, or a variant of it, time and time again.
"We are all as God made us, and many of us much worse." - Don Quixote
Even if dev find a new formula to hold on to players the damage is already done.. Play nice rule, Group/Team practices are out the window..
I have read most saying there is not enough time.. no is not theres is not enough time to do time sink games.. mostly is that player community base majority want sure win situations where they get top loot and in vast quantities in short amount of time spent..
Back in the days before I became disable.. I played from 7pm to 1am.. most doing quest going lfg and what not now that I can play longer times I did more in game during that time then I do now.. and most of all I see is people going off on pvp and wanting sure win instance runs.. If the run gets complicated for whatever reason they drop it.. even if is one those 1 time a day/weekly quest they will drop it..If is not a secure complete win people are gonna drop it.. the same excuse we don't have time or I rather do something else that can get me loot.. Yet again as someone point out this people also run more then 1 account at the same time.. or are playing more then 1 game loaded on their pc.. In the end some people including me end up stuck in quest cause other cant measure their time correctly and think that everybody plays at the same level as they do.. or they are playing too many games at once and claim they don't have enough time..
I started playing MMO's cause of the wide challenges it gave rather then a cartridge console game and made the determination rather spent 15 a month for a variable game play time.. then 80 for a single game that will beat it in a month or 2.. Now a days most of this challenges are crappie..I have yet to find an mmo that would give me the same feel as EQ/EQ2/Vanguard did ..
Yet today current problems in mmo came from the insane demand to developers when games are on alpha/beta stages where some outspoken player base dictate what the game contents should be like or how it should be played out.. I join forums of games during developing stages and is a nightmare.. Yet most of this people are who dev listen when trying to develop their games.. Much of the outspoken player base lately has been on pvp so most titles have a great influence over pvp and f2p.
Game developers no longer present an idea to be played.. they are creating what player base community already dictated a game should be like cause if is not to their liking they would not play..
A few years ago the in thing to do was cry for free to play. More recently the in thing to do was to cry for more sandbox games. The current thing to do now is to say we need more group content. Throughout all of this has been the argument back and forth that it's the fault of casuals or it's the fault of the hard core. People thinking they are better than other people.../smh. There are too many lemmings, both in the industry, but most especially among the gamers.
Pretty much LOL.. When subs were around players were wanting f2p... now they got f2p that became p2w..
What we got so far in the mmo world has been cause some outspoken community threaten dev if they dont get their way they will not play the game and boycott the game.. They got what they wished more f2p that became a nightmare call p2w..
Yeah I remember forums where people were claiming hard core gamers for the the harshness of the games.. now a days games quest are too freaking easy just point and click.. making vast contents generic and trite..
If anybody is to blame are the idiots who claim this what the game needs and dev's ended up making it a reality.. before WoW people were wanting an easier game to play cause it was too hard to play current mmo's of that era ..well they got their wish.. too bad it has ruin all current mmo titles who now prioritize in making money fast..rather then good playable contents..
Who are to blame for bots, gold spammers, cash shop the player base community.. cause most dev now a days listen to them. Its no different when people claim x class is too hard or has too much power nerf them.. What we got right now is what some people wish for devs to make/get at one point in time..
I would recommend looking into Pantheon, the developers are seriously trying to get back to the social and group interaction ideals that originally made mmo's great
I would recommend looking into Pantheon, the developers are seriously trying to get back to the social and group interaction ideals that originally made mmo's great
I have my doubts about Pantheon's success, but let's not forget that "the social and group interaction ideals that originally made mmo's great" wasn't anything the games really did. A chat interface, a few classes with rudimentary dependence on others, and a few emotes. The games themselves really had no mechanisms beyond these the basic group functions (and basic guild management). That was the implementation of those ideals.
Rather, the success of EQ and UO (and AC) was more about the lack of a competitive alternative game. Loads of people had outgrown their weekly face-to-face D&D campaign and wanted the visual feedback of something beyond a MUD to continue their habit. MMORPGs allowed people to game together for the first time, continuing those fantasy driven exploits of the D&D craze. Pantheon won't be entering the same waters that DAoC, EQ2 and WoW jumped into. There's a lot of competition these days, including the same EQ1 that Pantheon seems to be recreating. No matter what Pantheon delivers (or doesn't deliver), the gaming community has experienced communal gaming before. It won't be new, or even unique.
The first gen MMORPGs managed to convert a large number of pen-and-paper gamers and CRPG devotees to mass connectivity, allowing communities to form. There doesn't appear to be any large group of people who haven't experienced a communal MMORPG before, so they won't be appealing to new customers with the same innocence as we approached the genre in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The first gen games stumbled onto this large population of players who wanted something new, and those first generation MMORPGs were close enough to what the players wanted to play. That isn't going to happen again, for Pantheon, Crowfall, Camelot Unchained, or any other upcoming games that are trying to recapture those old "ideals" again.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You hit the nail on the head. This is the thing that many people seem to forget. Old school mmos did absolutely nothing special outside of existing. The original three (UO/EQ/AC) had success because of the nerdy legions of tabletop fans that wanted more interactions outside of their weekly group. MUDs scratched the itch for awhile, but we wanted more, and we got it.
Much of the interdependence that was generated in the old school mmos came from basically lack of overall design in a digital world. These games were created to be mostly MUDs with actual graphics than traditional videogames. These games also had some super glaring design flaws that worked for awhile, but would absolutely flop in this day and age. There's far too much competition in the digital space to really go back to the classic mmo.
The other thing I think many forget is that mmos didn't evolve into a largely single player experience because no one wanted it. On the contrary. There were calls for more solo friendly activities in mmos for as long as I can remember. Hell, Asheron's Call was extremely solo friendly. If the mostly silent majority didn't want what was being offered, an mmo like WoW would've crashed and burned long ago, but nope it still has extreme success despite being 12 years old.
The original days of the MMO were absolutely magical for anyone that was present. We were witnesses to the birth of an entirely new genre of gaming. Now that the genre has been around for 20 years, it's lost the magic since it's literally just another genre of videogames.
Ironically, singleplayer and multiplayer survival games have more in common with the classic mmo than modern mmos do.
I'm tired of the same thing over and over i'm waiting for something fresh and new , too many people trying to copy what WoW did and with the zombie rave that happened uhhhh just so stale right now . but i have hope for some that are in the works.
I have played MMORPGs since the their dawning back in the late 90's I have watched them come and go.
I have played over 50 different ones and have watched them go to crap over the last 10 years.
The good MMOs like Star Wars Galaxy got killed by the developers.
The mediocre MMOs like WoW got dumbed down.
The Crappy MMOs became locked behind cash walls.
Everything became clones of other games.. little to no originality .
Then there came an enlightenment, Game Developer Companies like MMOMagic, and RSI became unsettled by the stagnant MMORPG genre and started developing the future off MMORPGs, bringing new graphics, new development tools, new content development procedures, and most of all listened to the players.
As it sits right now the MMORPG genre is stagnant, catalog quests, mediocre graphics, retarded NPCs, Small worlds, Massive instancing, and boring themepark content.
Its about time someone decided to give the genre a swift kick in the back side and at least two companies are doing just that.
There is a third company working on Chronicles of Elyria... sounds interesting, but will wait until I see further development before i fully support it.
I have been so disgusted with current AAA MMORPGs that I've now started a SWG emulator, SWGCHOICE. ESO going to lockboxes iced the cake for me with commercial MMORPGs. I doubt I'll ever go back no matter what's put out next.
Gamer ran servers seem to be where MMORPGs have gone for me. No cash grabs, no stores, no pay-walls, no P2W, just people who care about the game, itself. I'm willing to wait a bit more than 30 days for the next DLC for volunteer devs as long as the game (and some MMORPG site editors) has no completion and ending quest (or column) telling me "I've won, now shut up, quit complaining, and go spend some more money".
While I like that these tiny indie studios have some unique, non linear quest hub themeparks in mind. I'm concerned that they will not have the manpower or the money to make a full and somewhat finished MMO. We will see if one of them actually does it. I don't think we've seen any released yet?
Overall, I'm concerned for the genre. Maybe technology will eventually make creating large games easier...but I don't think we are there yet.
While I like that these tiny indie studios have some unique, non linear quest hub themeparks in mind. I'm concerned that they will not have the manpower or the money to make a full and somewhat finished MMO. We will see if one of them actually does it. I don't think we've seen any released yet?
Overall, I'm concerned for the genre. Maybe technology will eventually make creating large games easier...but I don't think we are there yet.
I have found for reasons that defy all logic in my mind that small indie teams deliver more content and features then AAA games do and for less money. I do not understand how its possible or why its just a repeatable pattern but I see it happen often.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
To be honest I'm one of those that just wants to log in and start killing stuff, but I like the social aspect of MMOs as well, playing solo and chatting with others. I don't want to have to wait ages for a group to get together to do a quest or instance. I'll play multiple classes and multiple crafts so I am self sufficient and don't have to rely on others to make items for me.
So basically I am a soloist that likes playing in a MMO world.
My only gripe about MMO genre is it is too samey now, it's gone too far towards the level up as fast as you can type of gamer. Some games should have stuck with their original platform.
I'm still waiting for a new game to blow my mind away.
Comments
Of course p2p won't work under the current paradigm, these games only provide a burst of entertainment value and then flatline while milking their hardcores thru cash shops until they can create the next expansion fix.
/smh
MMOs have never been AAA other than maybe Star Wars The Old Republic and Star Citizen.
As for High Quality mmos they have never stopped coming and there are many on the way.
I, for one, not only miss the friendly, easy team-ups I enjoyed playing City of Heroes, but I'm no longer interested in the standard formula of kill things and go on quests that mostly depend on killing things. Sure, some games have pets, mounts, crafting, mining, fishing, etc., but all too often these are totally unrealistic, not much of a challenge, not really needed by you or anyone else, and all cut-and-dried and cookie-cutter, what you do is the same as everyone else, you can't make a living and advance in the game doing it. And the things you kill just respawn, the quests have been done by untold numbers before and will be done by many after, you might even "farm" the same thing over and over...
I think the next generation of games is going to find ways to have huge worlds, world-sized worlds, through procedural generation and data compression/storage techniques, and with such large worlds, there will be different things for everybody to do, and once you do it, it will stay done, or be re-set slowly and naturally, as animal populations bounce back after being reduced by hunting. The so-called "open" and "sandbox" games of today will be put to shame when players are in worlds where they can go for miles in any direction, and do all sorts of different things and something like fishing will be like real fishing and it might be the thing that keeps you alive, and you might build or buy a ship and go out catching larger fish, and out deeper there would be larger sea creatures... Or you might go mining, and you might find some ore that nobody else has found, and not by random placement but seeking in the right formation or geologic feature high in the mountains or deep in a canyon or simply digging deeper and deeper ... Or you might take the ores and other materials that others have found and make things of them, not by following senseless "recipes" but by studying their properties and combining them with the proper techniques or machines, perhaps discovering an alloy that nobody else has, or improving on the latest gunpowder formula you found on a wiki or by talking to another player/character...
This for me also. I'M playing a game from a small company that remembers that games should be fun too. I'M all done with the kick starter, AAA game companies when it comes to mmo's. I only last one or two months in those games because of all the gimmicky crap added in them. And everyone here complains about f2p games and cash shops but you never hear them complain about AAA games with a f2p option along with a sub and a cash shop. I think this generation of players helped sink this genre into what it is today with their constant demands. I don't just blame it on the devs.
It wont be long before some small indy company comes up with an MMO that can attract enough people at $25 a pop to sustain itself and grow over time like CCP did.
Hotbar combat is shit, except when Blade and Soul does it. Threat table enemy behavior is shit served on boiled shit with shit sprinkled on top. MMO quest writing is shit, except when Elder Scrolls Online does it. Instanced dungeons are generally okay once, but they're never intended to just be played through once. After the fifth time, they're shit.
The exceptions are great. I truly enjoyed combat in B&S and question in ESO because you could see their developers chose to put resources into those aspects of their game. Set up combat in the first one and quest writing in the second against any other game at the time and nobody would fail to tell you which developer chose to spend more money one each aspect. The problem is the willingness to devote resources to aspects of their games that many devs just auto pilot through didn't extend to all aspects of their games.
MMOs may never be able to offer experiences that match up with the cutting edge stuff that studios are doing in single player games but they should damn well stop giving us the same thing they did a decade and a half ago.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Tripple A to me means a large complex game. The budget has no meaning. The game offering a tremendous amount of content with a plethora of systems and avenues of progression are what make it AAA in my book.
Technically speaking, the genre is in a good place; graphics and so forth are obviously far more advanced than they used to be. However, I believe that is the only area in which MMOs have progressed. The constant wailing of the Entitlement Clan that is so noisy here in the West - you know, the folks who really believe that they "deserve" everything for free - has been horribly damaging to the industry, if you ask me. We are inundated with awful F2P games to the point that they have become spam as developers and publishers find that huge portions of players are no longer willing to pay for quality.
I hate to say it, but I doubt we will see anything new and unique enough to revitalize what has become a struggling genre, at least in terms of quality. Sure, there are 588,000 F2P crapfests out there, and if you add them all up they represent tons of players and lots of money spent on those lockboxes, but sheer numbers do NOT accurately represent quality or longevity. How many of those crapfests have lasted more than six months? More than one year? I hear crickets.
It's mostly either P2W now, or cookie-cutter grinder, or the latest "technical marvel!" that enjoys months of pre-launch hype before showing its true colors and hemorrhaging players once it launches. It's the same old story, or a variant of it, time and time again.
I have read most saying there is not enough time.. no is not theres is not enough time to do time sink games.. mostly is that player community base majority want sure win situations where they get top loot and in vast quantities in short amount of time spent..
Back in the days before I became disable.. I played from 7pm to 1am.. most doing quest going lfg and what not now that I can play longer times I did more in game during that time then I do now.. and most of all I see is people going off on pvp and wanting sure win instance runs.. If the run gets complicated for whatever reason they drop it.. even if is one those 1 time a day/weekly quest they will drop it..If is not a secure complete win people are gonna drop it.. the same excuse we don't have time or I rather do something else that can get me loot.. Yet again as someone point out this people also run more then 1 account at the same time.. or are playing more then 1 game loaded on their pc.. In the end some people including me end up stuck in quest cause other cant measure their time correctly and think that everybody plays at the same level as they do.. or they are playing too many games at once and claim they don't have enough time..
I started playing MMO's cause of the wide challenges it gave rather then a cartridge console game and made the determination rather spent 15 a month for a variable game play time.. then 80 for a single game that will beat it in a month or 2.. Now a days most of this challenges are crappie..I have yet to find an mmo that would give me the same feel as EQ/EQ2/Vanguard did ..
Yet today current problems in mmo came from the insane demand to developers when games are on alpha/beta stages where some outspoken player base dictate what the game contents should be like or how it should be played out.. I join forums of games during developing stages and is a nightmare.. Yet most of this people are who dev listen when trying to develop their games.. Much of the outspoken player base lately has been on pvp so most titles have a great influence over pvp and f2p.
Game developers no longer present an idea to be played.. they are creating what player base community already dictated a game should be like cause if is not to their liking they would not play..
What we got so far in the mmo world has been cause some outspoken community threaten dev if they dont get their way they will not play the game and boycott the game.. They got what they wished more f2p that became a nightmare call p2w..
Yeah I remember forums where people were claiming hard core gamers for the the harshness of the games.. now a days games quest are too freaking easy just point and click.. making vast contents generic and trite..
If anybody is to blame are the idiots who claim this what the game needs and dev's ended up making it a reality.. before WoW people were wanting an easier game to play cause it was too hard to play current mmo's of that era ..well they got their wish.. too bad it has ruin all current mmo titles who now prioritize in making money fast..rather then good playable contents..
Who are to blame for bots, gold spammers, cash shop the player base community.. cause most dev now a days listen to them. Its no different when people claim x class is too hard or has too much power nerf them.. What we got right now is what some people wish for devs to make/get at one point in time..
Rather, the success of EQ and UO (and AC) was more about the lack of a competitive alternative game. Loads of people had outgrown their weekly face-to-face D&D campaign and wanted the visual feedback of something beyond a MUD to continue their habit. MMORPGs allowed people to game together for the first time, continuing those fantasy driven exploits of the D&D craze. Pantheon won't be entering the same waters that DAoC, EQ2 and WoW jumped into. There's a lot of competition these days, including the same EQ1 that Pantheon seems to be recreating. No matter what Pantheon delivers (or doesn't deliver), the gaming community has experienced communal gaming before. It won't be new, or even unique.
The first gen MMORPGs managed to convert a large number of pen-and-paper gamers and CRPG devotees to mass connectivity, allowing communities to form. There doesn't appear to be any large group of people who haven't experienced a communal MMORPG before, so they won't be appealing to new customers with the same innocence as we approached the genre in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The first gen games stumbled onto this large population of players who wanted something new, and those first generation MMORPGs were close enough to what the players wanted to play. That isn't going to happen again, for Pantheon, Crowfall, Camelot Unchained, or any other upcoming games that are trying to recapture those old "ideals" again.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You hit the nail on the head. This is the thing that many people seem to forget. Old school mmos did absolutely nothing special outside of existing. The original three (UO/EQ/AC) had success because of the nerdy legions of tabletop fans that wanted more interactions outside of their weekly group. MUDs scratched the itch for awhile, but we wanted more, and we got it.
Much of the interdependence that was generated in the old school mmos came from basically lack of overall design in a digital world. These games were created to be mostly MUDs with actual graphics than traditional videogames. These games also had some super glaring design flaws that worked for awhile, but would absolutely flop in this day and age. There's far too much competition in the digital space to really go back to the classic mmo.
The other thing I think many forget is that mmos didn't evolve into a largely single player experience because no one wanted it. On the contrary. There were calls for more solo friendly activities in mmos for as long as I can remember. Hell, Asheron's Call was extremely solo friendly. If the mostly silent majority didn't want what was being offered, an mmo like WoW would've crashed and burned long ago, but nope it still has extreme success despite being 12 years old.
The original days of the MMO were absolutely magical for anyone that was present. We were witnesses to the birth of an entirely new genre of gaming. Now that the genre has been around for 20 years, it's lost the magic since it's literally just another genre of videogames.
Ironically, singleplayer and multiplayer survival games have more in common with the classic mmo than modern mmos do.
I have played over 50 different ones and have watched them go to crap over the last 10 years.
The good MMOs like Star Wars Galaxy got killed by the developers.
The mediocre MMOs like WoW got dumbed down.
The Crappy MMOs became locked behind cash walls.
Everything became clones of other games.. little to no originality .
Then there came an enlightenment, Game Developer Companies like MMOMagic, and RSI became unsettled by the stagnant MMORPG genre and started developing the future off MMORPGs, bringing new graphics, new development tools, new content development procedures, and most of all listened to the players.
As it sits right now the MMORPG genre is stagnant, catalog quests, mediocre graphics, retarded NPCs, Small worlds, Massive instancing, and boring themepark content.
Its about time someone decided to give the genre a swift kick in the back side and at least two companies are doing just that.
There is a third company working on Chronicles of Elyria... sounds interesting, but will wait until I see further development before i fully support it.
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
I have been so disgusted with current AAA MMORPGs that I've now started a SWG emulator, SWGCHOICE. ESO going to lockboxes iced the cake for me with commercial MMORPGs. I doubt I'll ever go back no matter what's put out next.
Gamer ran servers seem to be where MMORPGs have gone for me. No cash grabs, no stores, no pay-walls, no P2W, just people who care about the game, itself. I'm willing to wait a bit more than 30 days for the next DLC for volunteer devs as long as the game (and some MMORPG site editors) has no completion and ending quest (or column) telling me "I've won, now shut up, quit complaining, and go spend some more money".
Overall, I'm concerned for the genre. Maybe technology will eventually make creating large games easier...but I don't think we are there yet.
I do not understand how its possible or why its just a repeatable pattern but I see it happen often.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
So basically I am a soloist that likes playing in a MMO world.
My only gripe about MMO genre is it is too samey now, it's gone too far towards the level up as fast as you can type of gamer. Some games should have stuck with their original platform.
I'm still waiting for a new game to blow my mind away.