Ya play games 20years old is what you suggest. I like pizza but I dont like 20yr old pizza. My goodness.
Possibly a new game is fresh and exciting? I don't know what a concept that would be.
Albion Online is new. Life is Feudal was new. Project:Gorgon is new. Legends of Aria is new.
Funny how you keep pimping these trash games.
PG, ya me and 4 friends played it a few months back. This game is an MMO inventory simulator straight up. It had a few cool things going for it. But when you spend 80-90% of the time messing with your inventory its worthless. All my friends agree, non are still playing, we made it to the 5th or 6th zone there. Absolute garbage inventory simulator. Obviously I am not the only person that thinks this as it has only 200 people playing it on steam. Enough Said.
Albion Online, played it, wasn't my style, I don't like gankfest full loot pvp games in general. Although I did like UO.
I do not pimp them. I point out that the poster you replied to is right, and thanks for proving it here: that there are quite a few new games with old school mechanics that people go and reject one after another, on top of having stopped playing all the live old games (EQ, UO, DAoC, ATitD, EVE), for "reasons".
Personally I do not like P:G and I have often claimed in these forums that I do not agree when people brand it as innovative. So much for pimping. I do not call it trash, like you do though, because I can recognize that others with different tastes do enjoy it. P:G is critically acclaimed and widely recognized as a good game with favourable reviews. Albion is also a good game that plays like EVE, so it is as old school as it gets while being a new game, and not a 20 year old pizza like your analogy (Albion came out in 2016, EVE in 2003).
Learn to tell the difference between "trash" and "niche". Also learn to tell the difference between "trash" and "not my cuppa". Also learn to tell the difference between "old game/pizza" and "released in 2016".
As for the other games, Life is Feudal and Legends of Aria failed, in spite of having old school mechanics. I never said that all these games were good, that was not my point.
Well obviously its not just me. PG has 200 people on steam playing it. So its trash. Sure there are some concepts a lot of people like, but the inventory management and other time wasters in the game ruin it. A "new" game that cant even get more than 200 people to play it isn't trash to you? then what is your standard? I guess you think a game with more than 1 person is just niche and gets your recommendation?
Yah you shill for these games. Your recommendations are horrible. Do you do this with restaurants also? You hate the food, everyone else hates the food, nobody wants to eat the food because its horrible, but you recommend it to people anyway? I bet you do this with movie reviews also? I am seeing a trend. Have some pride in your recommendations! Have some standards geez!
Player count depends on many factors. The assumption that a low player count automatically indicates a game is trash fails to recognize the impact those other factors can have on the reception of the game.
Well I agree with your point that player count alone should not be the only criteria to judge a game.
But I did play PG, also friends I played with say the same, and people inside the game are saying the same thing. Basically there are some cool things about it, but as it stands today its not FUN.
Whatever other factors can account for a new PVE MMO that cant get more than 200 people to play. Considering this sad environment where there hasn't been any good PVE releases in years. There is a huge problem.
That you actually played the game for a good amount of time along with your friends before forming opinions on it is to your collective credit.
I don't know what percentage of active players shared your opinion of the game not being fun but I think it reasonable to assume that some do. It's not a game people would play by virtue of the aesthetics alone.
Basically, the cool things about it and old school nature are the only things that would draw the player to the title, as the remainder is better done elsewhere. Seeing as what people find to be cool is highly variable even if P:G greatly improved I feel it would remain a niche title regardless.
So... bad graphics, poor sound, occasional performance issues, niche appeal, a $45 CDN buy in cost, talk of an optional subscription fee down the line...
Perhaps it is a wonder they have as many players as they do rather than the game being indicative of a larger problem.
Ungood said: I could find posts crying about how EQ is dying a month after launch, hell, I recall fellow gamers taking about how EQ was buggy shit comparted Gemstone IV when it first launched... those were the days, eh!
So yah.. it's been this way for years.. since they started actually, so you have to forgive me if I take your doom and gloom with the grain of salt it so dearly deserves.
Reality check, Gamers being Doom-boi and trying to act edgy saying some game will die or whatever, have been around as long as games and gamers have been around, It's like some warped hive mind thing where gamers think being negative somehow makes them look smart and intellectual.. no idea how that ever became a thing, but, by god it is a huge thing among geeks, bigger then Kardashian ass, and for the life of me, I have no idea why, but, it is a trend that never seems to die the death it truly deserves.
Hard Truth.
MMO's have gotten much better, Graphics, Animation, World Size, Interaction, as well as resolving a lot of performance issues that old MMO's had, and being able to handle much more players, I remember back in EQ, if 40 players were in the zone there was a risk it would crash the whole zone, now we have open world battles that have hundreds of players fighting each other.
So yah, they are not in decline in any way.
So tell me.. what Actually declined?
The excessively repetitive and mostly boring grind?
Umm.. Going to have disagree with you on this.. Personally I think the overall grind has been made far more enjoyable and dynamic all things said and done.
Looking at EQ, as nothing in modern games sucks as bad as spawn camping in that game, where mobs had a 1 hour timer, with a chance for the rare to spawn, but mainly only getting a placeholder, and you could not even move from that spot lest someone jump your claim or kill steal from you.
Sure, I have some great memories of back in that day doing that crap, but, there is no way in hell I would ever want to return to that, or even consider playing a game that had such a system in place.
I mean, all MMO's are built around the idea of repetitive content, that is mainly want keeps them active and helps build social interaction, with the focus that you can do the same content hundreds of times and still get more from it, so regardless if this is your 100th run, or your 1st run, there will be people there doing it with you. This is what keeps the content active and social.
In this vein the grind is needed for MMO's to be MMO's.
Truth be told however, some modern MMO's do this far better than older ones. Case in point, GW2, with level scaling has managed to keep all it's maps and content viable and active, unlike a lot of older MMO's that had huge swaths of mid level content being total ghost towns, making a game with a million players feel like a desolate wasteland for almost all your leveling up.
Obviously this depends on the game, some games are just bad, no matter when they were made, but I think with the market where it is, with the abundance of options of fun/good games, the bad ones tend to stand out more, unlike when EQ launched and your choices were pretty much UO or EQ for as far as virtual worlds went, so players were a lot more willing to accept what they were given, unlike today, with all these MMO's, players have the convivence to be picky and petty about what they chose to play.
Like going to a pizza Party and you have a choice: Pepperoni Pizza or Plain Cheese Pizza, that's it.. Don't like? Tough Shit.
I mean really, when UO launched in 1999, if someone didn't like it, it was "Go back to your MUD Bitch and Die there!", and while I never played UO, I did play Gemstone IV/Dragonrealms, and I heard the stories from returning players and friends.
So, you will have to forgive me if I don't see the grind that people seem to fuss about.
I mean, perhaps it's due to the pacing of the game, as I said in a previous post, the pacing in modern MMO's has sped up. So perhaps it's a case where in a modern MMO, I can kill something like 50 mobs in the time it took me to kill 1 in EQ, so I guess I can see how it feels like a greater grind because you are doing more things, and getting more bank filler, but overall, but, I am also getting about the same reward (Maybe a bit more) for those 50 mobs as I would for the 1 in EQ, so, in the end of things, it's still about the same amount of game time investment, if not a little less.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
You are really stretching the imagination trying to prove MMO's are more popular than ever. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be completely oblivious to everything around me and have no concept of data. I suppose ignorance is bliss they say.
If you have such a huge selection of games to chose from that you can be a picky about what you want to play, with a demand for specific features and such.. that is the mark of massive abundance of product, not it's death.
If MMO's were truly dying, there would be a small list of MMO's to chose from, and you either play that, or nothing.
Watching MMO's players today fuss about not being able to find their perfect game is like watching some hipster, standing in NYC, surrounded by coffee shops fussing they can't get their ideal perfect cup of coffee, and all the shops around them suck for one reason or another, and go off and talk about how coffee shops are dying, meanwhile, there are people all around them enjoying their fresh hot coffee from all the various shops.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Ungood said: I could find posts crying about how EQ is dying a month after launch, hell, I recall fellow gamers taking about how EQ was buggy shit comparted Gemstone IV when it first launched... those were the days, eh!
So yah.. it's been this way for years.. since they started actually, so you have to forgive me if I take your doom and gloom with the grain of salt it so dearly deserves.
Reality check, Gamers being Doom-boi and trying to act edgy saying some game will die or whatever, have been around as long as games and gamers have been around, It's like some warped hive mind thing where gamers think being negative somehow makes them look smart and intellectual.. no idea how that ever became a thing, but, by god it is a huge thing among geeks, bigger then Kardashian ass, and for the life of me, I have no idea why, but, it is a trend that never seems to die the death it truly deserves.
Hard Truth.
MMO's have gotten much better, Graphics, Animation, World Size, Interaction, as well as resolving a lot of performance issues that old MMO's had, and being able to handle much more players, I remember back in EQ, if 40 players were in the zone there was a risk it would crash the whole zone, now we have open world battles that have hundreds of players fighting each other.
So yah, they are not in decline in any way.
So tell me.. what Actually declined?
The excessively repetitive and mostly boring grind?
Umm.. Going to have disagree with you on this.. Personally I think the overall grind has been made far more enjoyable and dynamic all things said and done.
Looking at EQ, as nothing in modern games sucks as bad as spawn camping in that game, where mobs had a 1 hour timer, with a chance for the rare to spawn, but mainly only getting a placeholder, and you could not even move from that spot lest someone jump your claim or kill steal from you.
Sure, I have some great memories of back in that day doing that crap, but, there is no way in hell I would ever want to return to that, or even consider playing a game that had such a system in place.
I mean, all MMO's are built around the idea of repetitive content, that is mainly want keeps them active and helps build social interaction, with the focus that you can do the same content hundreds of times and still get more from it, so regardless if this is your 100th run, or your 1st run, there will be people there doing it with you. This is what keeps the content active and social.
In this vein the grind is needed for MMO's to be MMO's.
Truth be told however, some modern MMO's do this far better than older ones. Case in point, GW2, with level scaling has managed to keep all it's maps and content viable and active, unlike a lot of older MMO's that had huge swaths of mid level content being total ghost towns, making a game with a million players feel like a desolate wasteland for almost all your leveling up.
Obviously this depends on the game, some games are just bad, no matter when they were made, but I think with the market where it is, with the abundance of options of fun/good games, the bad ones tend to stand out more, unlike when EQ launched and your choices were pretty much UO or EQ for as far as virtual worlds went, so players were a lot more willing to accept what they were given, unlike today, with all these MMO's, players have the convivence to be picky and petty about what they chose to play.
Like going to a pizza Party and you have a choice: Pepperoni Pizza or Plain Cheese Pizza, that's it.. Don't like? Tough Shit.
I mean really, when UO launched in 1999, if someone didn't like it, it was "Go back to your MUD Bitch and Die there!", and while I never played UO, I did play Gemstone IV/Dragonrealms, and I heard the stories from returning players and friends.
So, you will have to forgive me if I don't see the grind that people seem to fuss about.
I mean, perhaps it's due to the pacing of the game, as I said in a previous post, the pacing in modern MMO's has sped up. So perhaps it's a case where in a modern MMO, I can kill something like 50 mobs in the time it took me to kill 1 in EQ, so I guess I can see how it feels like a greater grind because you are doing more things, and getting more bank filler, but overall, but, I am also getting about the same reward (Maybe a bit more) for those 50 mobs as I would for the 1 in EQ, so, in the end of things, it's still about the same amount of game time investment, if not a little less.
I really think you might want to revisit modern, current EQ. Things have changed dramatically since your most recent experience, it seems. The spawn timers are still there, and if it was a 1 hour timer then, it's pretty much still an hour. What changes have made the biggest impact (in my opinion)? The addition of mercenaries (mercs) that pretty easily outperform a great majority of players, and the mudflation seen from years full of itemization changes. The real grinds start either at 51 for players who aren't Full Access and around 70 for All Access (the level required to level and the XP from mobs really hasn't changed much, it's just equipment upgrades hit a major upgrade gap around then. It gets better after 90 or 95, depending on who you talk to, and how tolerant they are).
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Ungood said: I could find posts crying about how EQ is dying a month after launch, hell, I recall fellow gamers taking about how EQ was buggy shit comparted Gemstone IV when it first launched... those were the days, eh!
So yah.. it's been this way for years.. since they started actually, so you have to forgive me if I take your doom and gloom with the grain of salt it so dearly deserves.
Reality check, Gamers being Doom-boi and trying to act edgy saying some game will die or whatever, have been around as long as games and gamers have been around, It's like some warped hive mind thing where gamers think being negative somehow makes them look smart and intellectual.. no idea how that ever became a thing, but, by god it is a huge thing among geeks, bigger then Kardashian ass, and for the life of me, I have no idea why, but, it is a trend that never seems to die the death it truly deserves.
Hard Truth.
MMO's have gotten much better, Graphics, Animation, World Size, Interaction, as well as resolving a lot of performance issues that old MMO's had, and being able to handle much more players, I remember back in EQ, if 40 players were in the zone there was a risk it would crash the whole zone, now we have open world battles that have hundreds of players fighting each other.
So yah, they are not in decline in any way.
So tell me.. what Actually declined?
The excessively repetitive and mostly boring grind?
Umm.. Going to have disagree with you on this.. Personally I think the overall grind has been made far more enjoyable and dynamic all things said and done.
Looking at EQ, as nothing in modern games sucks as bad as spawn camping in that game, where mobs had a 1 hour timer, with a chance for the rare to spawn, but mainly only getting a placeholder, and you could not even move from that spot lest someone jump your claim or kill steal from you.
Sure, I have some great memories of back in that day doing that crap, but, there is no way in hell I would ever want to return to that, or even consider playing a game that had such a system in place.
I mean, all MMO's are built around the idea of repetitive content, that is mainly want keeps them active and helps build social interaction, with the focus that you can do the same content hundreds of times and still get more from it, so regardless if this is your 100th run, or your 1st run, there will be people there doing it with you. This is what keeps the content active and social.
In this vein the grind is needed for MMO's to be MMO's.
Truth be told however, some modern MMO's do this far better than older ones. Case in point, GW2, with level scaling has managed to keep all it's maps and content viable and active, unlike a lot of older MMO's that had huge swaths of mid level content being total ghost towns, making a game with a million players feel like a desolate wasteland for almost all your leveling up.
Obviously this depends on the game, some games are just bad, no matter when they were made, but I think with the market where it is, with the abundance of options of fun/good games, the bad ones tend to stand out more, unlike when EQ launched and your choices were pretty much UO or EQ for as far as virtual worlds went, so players were a lot more willing to accept what they were given, unlike today, with all these MMO's, players have the convivence to be picky and petty about what they chose to play.
Like going to a pizza Party and you have a choice: Pepperoni Pizza or Plain Cheese Pizza, that's it.. Don't like? Tough Shit.
I mean really, when UO launched in 1999, if someone didn't like it, it was "Go back to your MUD Bitch and Die there!", and while I never played UO, I did play Gemstone IV/Dragonrealms, and I heard the stories from returning players and friends.
So, you will have to forgive me if I don't see the grind that people seem to fuss about.
I mean, perhaps it's due to the pacing of the game, as I said in a previous post, the pacing in modern MMO's has sped up. So perhaps it's a case where in a modern MMO, I can kill something like 50 mobs in the time it took me to kill 1 in EQ, so I guess I can see how it feels like a greater grind because you are doing more things, and getting more bank filler, but overall, but, I am also getting about the same reward (Maybe a bit more) for those 50 mobs as I would for the 1 in EQ, so, in the end of things, it's still about the same amount of game time investment, if not a little less.
I really think you might want to revisit modern, current EQ. Things have changed dramatically since your most recent experience, it seems. The spawn timers are still there, and if it was a 1 hour timer then, it's pretty much still an hour. What changes have made the biggest impact (in my opinion)? The addition of mercenaries (mercs) that pretty easily outperform a great majority of players, and the mudflation seen from years full of itemization changes. The real grinds start either at 51 for players who aren't Full Access and around 70 for All Access (the level required to level and the XP from mobs really hasn't changed much, it's just equipment upgrades hit a major upgrade gap around then. It gets better after 90 or 95, depending on who you talk to, and how tolerant they are).
Why would I want to revisit a game that I left over 15 years ago, when you have made it sound worse today than it used to be.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
You are really stretching the imagination trying to prove MMO's are more popular than ever. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be completely oblivious to everything around me and have no concept of data. I suppose ignorance is bliss they say.
If you have such a huge selection of games to chose from that you can be a picky about what you want to play, with a demand for specific features and such.. that is the mark of massive abundance of product, not it's death.
If MMO's were truly dying, there would be a small list of MMO's to chose from, and you either play that, or nothing.
Watching MMO's players today fuss about not being able to find their perfect game is like watching some hipster, standing in NYC, surrounded by coffee shops fussing they can't get their ideal perfect cup of coffee, and all the shops around them suck for one reason or another, and go off and talk about how coffee shops are dying, meanwhile, there are people all around them enjoying their fresh hot coffee from all the various shops.
I think what you are missing here is that the genre cant even gain the same popularity as 2004. I mean that's a joke. Look at the hundreds of millions if not Billions of gamers that have access to the internet that didn't before. As a percentage of people its a tiny fraction of what was playing before. Now there is mobile, consoles and just more people with PC internet then ever before by a HUGE magnitude and these games cant even rival past numbers?
Even if the genre stagnated it should have had 100 times more players by default. Yet here we are releasing 20 year old games with most being at least 7yrs old.
Imagine if in movie theaters no new movies were releasing and movies like Jurassic park were at the top of the box office week in and week out for 10 years. No new movies could even come close to the top of the charts only releases of old movies could make it. That would not indicate a problem to you of the quality of new releases?
I remember when they released the prequel star wars movies, they also played the old originals in the movie theaters. People can debate which is better, but the prequels demolished the old movies in the box office by default just by being a new movie. Releasing the old movie barely even made a dent in box office and even that could only be sustained for a couple of weeks.
What's funny is the entertainment industry might actually get there soon. They are suffering some of the same problems, with the trash they putting out.
The problem is that you are not arguing about the same things. Mmorpgs now and then have a different meaning and comparing them is impossible. You are debating mmorpgs but each has a different vision of them. The mmorpgs I loved, the gameplay I enjoyed is no longer available. I pretty much tried everything so debating graphics, systems, numbers of players, etc etc doesnt matter at all. Playing Anarchy Online for 20 hours straight with various pugs, beating dungeons, building cities, twinking, and most importantly of all never feeling like a solo player in an mmorpg world is something i cannot find anywhere. I tried everything, had fun with AOC, Eve, but the newer the game the shorter i could stand it. Finally I bought GW2 in sheer desparation 2 months ago and played it for a week. Cant effin solo anymore. I realize i am done with mmorpgs and unless i hear raving reviews about a group based mmorpg where i am not soloing to end game I will look at that. My test has become, if I am not in a group within first 10 hours in a dungeon i know the game is not for me.
I realize people dont want group based but for me sitting down to beat a dungeon with a few other people was the pinnacle of mmorpg experience, where we worked together and over came challenges. I did not mind crowded spawns, i did not mind farming the same mobs to level up in a group. These things i miss. Soloing 100s of bs quests, fullyvoiced storys etc bores me to death. I read books for that.
I agree with you for the most part, but where I disagree is that I dont think everyone wants this new easy mode content. There are a few people trying to push that agenda but they are wrong. Even Blizzard CEO said they thought classic would fail and was surprised by the numbers of subs. Blizzard doubled its subs on classic release. They are using classic money to fund new Diablo and Hearthstone releases.
Now imagine if Wow announced that Mists of Pandaria or Legion was going to be there big release this year. They would probably lose customers, certainly they wouldn't double the subs. Nobody wants that trash.
People only buy the new expansions because they are desperate to play something that they haven't already. Hoping that it will actually be good. Then within a few months they see its trash and quit.
What's funny is the entertainment industry might actually get there soon. They are suffering some of the same problems, with the trash they putting out.
Yeah I haven't found much interest in new shows lately. New movies I stopped watching entirely. Some of the Netflix series seem dry and they like to stretch out the shows with too long of gaps in between seasons, some just never come back. I thought The Umbrella Academy was good though. I have only a few favs, some docs, not worth staying subscribed all the time. I'm sure others feel the same. I though the Mandolorian was good; it's like if SWG was a TV show, that would be it; but again why stay subscribed once you finish the season?
Maybe in this technological age people are just too polarized by the world to find interest in fantasy, or maybe creativity has taken a dive. Maybe it's both.
What's funny is the entertainment industry might actually get there soon. They are suffering some of the same problems, with the trash they putting out.
Yeah I haven't found much interest in new shows lately. New movies I stopped watching entirely. Some of the Netflix series seem dry and they like to stretch out the shows with too long of gaps in between seasons, some just never come back. I thought The Umbrella Academy was good though. I have only a few favs, some docs, not worth staying subscribed all the time. I'm sure others feel the same. I though the Mandolorian was good; it's like if SWG was a TV show, that would be it; but again why stay subscribed once you finish the season?
Maybe in this technological age people are just too polarized by the world to find interest in fantasy, or maybe creativity has taken a dive. Maybe it's both.
I agree about Mandalorian its way better than the new Star Wars movies IMO. I remember in the 90's people said that fantasy movies couldn't do well. They then released LOTR and Avatar with overwhelming success shattering that theory.
I think the problem is in both industries is that the top executives running these firms either have no vision and are incapable of hiring the people that do have it. They have no clue how to release quality stuff. They say "see I told you so" when the trash they release fails.
In MMO terms, someday a AAA studio is going to release a good MMO, and the new normal will be hundreds of millions of subs not a couple million. Then you will have all these fools saying that had no clue all these potential customers were out there. Then they will try to clone that for 20 years to piggyback off its success rather than make good new material. And so the cycle repeats.
Ungood said: I could find posts crying about how EQ is dying a month after launch, hell, I recall fellow gamers taking about how EQ was buggy shit comparted Gemstone IV when it first launched... those were the days, eh!
So yah.. it's been this way for years.. since they started actually, so you have to forgive me if I take your doom and gloom with the grain of salt it so dearly deserves.
Reality check, Gamers being Doom-boi and trying to act edgy saying some game will die or whatever, have been around as long as games and gamers have been around, It's like some warped hive mind thing where gamers think being negative somehow makes them look smart and intellectual.. no idea how that ever became a thing, but, by god it is a huge thing among geeks, bigger then Kardashian ass, and for the life of me, I have no idea why, but, it is a trend that never seems to die the death it truly deserves.
Hard Truth.
MMO's have gotten much better, Graphics, Animation, World Size, Interaction, as well as resolving a lot of performance issues that old MMO's had, and being able to handle much more players, I remember back in EQ, if 40 players were in the zone there was a risk it would crash the whole zone, now we have open world battles that have hundreds of players fighting each other.
So yah, they are not in decline in any way.
So tell me.. what Actually declined?
The excessively repetitive and mostly boring grind?
Umm.. Going to have disagree with you on this.. Personally I think the overall grind has been made far more enjoyable and dynamic all things said and done.
Looking at EQ, as nothing in modern games sucks as bad as spawn camping in that game, where mobs had a 1 hour timer, with a chance for the rare to spawn, but mainly only getting a placeholder, and you could not even move from that spot lest someone jump your claim or kill steal from you.
Sure, I have some great memories of back in that day doing that crap, but, there is no way in hell I would ever want to return to that, or even consider playing a game that had such a system in place.
I mean, all MMO's are built around the idea of repetitive content, that is mainly want keeps them active and helps build social interaction, with the focus that you can do the same content hundreds of times and still get more from it, so regardless if this is your 100th run, or your 1st run, there will be people there doing it with you. This is what keeps the content active and social.
In this vein the grind is needed for MMO's to be MMO's.
Truth be told however, some modern MMO's do this far better than older ones. Case in point, GW2, with level scaling has managed to keep all it's maps and content viable and active, unlike a lot of older MMO's that had huge swaths of mid level content being total ghost towns, making a game with a million players feel like a desolate wasteland for almost all your leveling up.
Obviously this depends on the game, some games are just bad, no matter when they were made, but I think with the market where it is, with the abundance of options of fun/good games, the bad ones tend to stand out more, unlike when EQ launched and your choices were pretty much UO or EQ for as far as virtual worlds went, so players were a lot more willing to accept what they were given, unlike today, with all these MMO's, players have the convivence to be picky and petty about what they chose to play.
Like going to a pizza Party and you have a choice: Pepperoni Pizza or Plain Cheese Pizza, that's it.. Don't like? Tough Shit.
I mean really, when UO launched in 1999, if someone didn't like it, it was "Go back to your MUD Bitch and Die there!", and while I never played UO, I did play Gemstone IV/Dragonrealms, and I heard the stories from returning players and friends.
So, you will have to forgive me if I don't see the grind that people seem to fuss about.
I mean, perhaps it's due to the pacing of the game, as I said in a previous post, the pacing in modern MMO's has sped up. So perhaps it's a case where in a modern MMO, I can kill something like 50 mobs in the time it took me to kill 1 in EQ, so I guess I can see how it feels like a greater grind because you are doing more things, and getting more bank filler, but overall, but, I am also getting about the same reward (Maybe a bit more) for those 50 mobs as I would for the 1 in EQ, so, in the end of things, it's still about the same amount of game time investment, if not a little less.
I really think you might want to revisit modern, current EQ. Things have changed dramatically since your most recent experience, it seems. The spawn timers are still there, and if it was a 1 hour timer then, it's pretty much still an hour. What changes have made the biggest impact (in my opinion)? The addition of mercenaries (mercs) that pretty easily outperform a great majority of players, and the mudflation seen from years full of itemization changes. The real grinds start either at 51 for players who aren't Full Access and around 70 for All Access (the level required to level and the XP from mobs really hasn't changed much, it's just equipment upgrades hit a major upgrade gap around then. It gets better after 90 or 95, depending on who you talk to, and how tolerant they are).
Why would I want to revisit a game that I left over 15 years ago, when you have made it sound worse today than it used to be.
It could give your arguments involving current EQ1 a bit more credibility. Never hurts. You might even have some fun. I personally find the 1-60 experience a huge blast, trying to mix and match zones to hunt in. It's mostly solo, though, at those levels. Of course, I rarely play more than an hour a day, so it doesn't really get to the grinding stage.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You are really stretching the imagination trying to prove MMO's are more popular than ever. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be completely oblivious to everything around me and have no concept of data. I suppose ignorance is bliss they say.
If you have such a huge selection of games to chose from that you can be a picky about what you want to play, with a demand for specific features and such.. that is the mark of massive abundance of product, not it's death.
If MMO's were truly dying, there would be a small list of MMO's to chose from, and you either play that, or nothing.
Watching MMO's players today fuss about not being able to find their perfect game is like watching some hipster, standing in NYC, surrounded by coffee shops fussing they can't get their ideal perfect cup of coffee, and all the shops around them suck for one reason or another, and go off and talk about how coffee shops are dying, meanwhile, there are people all around them enjoying their fresh hot coffee from all the various shops.
I think what you are missing here is that the genre cant even gain the same popularity as 2004. I mean that's a joke. Look at the hundreds of millions if not Billions of gamers that have access to the internet that didn't before. As a percentage of people its a tiny fraction of what was playing before. Now there is mobile, consoles and just more people with PC internet then ever before by a HUGE magnitude and these games cant even rival past numbers?
Even if the genre stagnated it should have had 100 times more players by default. Yet here we are releasing 20 year old games with most being at least 7yrs old.
Imagine if in movie theaters no new movies were releasing and movies like Jurassic park were at the top of the box office week in and week out for 10 years. No new movies could even come close to the top of the charts only releases of old movies could make it. That would not indicate a problem to you of the quality of new releases?
I remember when they released the prequel star wars movies, they also played the old originals in the movie theaters. People can debate which is better, but the prequels demolished the old movies in the box office by default just by being a new movie. Releasing the old movie barely even made a dent in box office and even that could only be sustained for a couple of weeks.
What's funny is the entertainment industry might actually get there soon. They are suffering some of the same problems, with the trash they putting out.
Part of what irks me about the various streaming services that are trying to take over the combined cable, broadcast and movie space is that they want me to pay a monthly fee to watch content I've seen dozens and even hundreds of times. E.g., one of the most interesting features in the HBOMax lineup is the classic Warner Brothers cartoon. I've seen every single episode many times, including the highly censored and politically incorrect WWII ones. If I want to watch these, I'll simply hook up the now ancient laser disk player, find the disk, fiddle with the connection a while, invent some new profanities... aw, forget that! What channel is Boomerang, again?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I really think you might want to revisit modern, current EQ. Things have changed dramatically since your most recent experience, it seems. The spawn timers are still there, and if it was a 1 hour timer then, it's pretty much still an hour. What changes have made the biggest impact (in my opinion)? The addition of mercenaries (mercs) that pretty easily outperform a great majority of players, and the mudflation seen from years full of itemization changes. The real grinds start either at 51 for players who aren't Full Access and around 70 for All Access (the level required to level and the XP from mobs really hasn't changed much, it's just equipment upgrades hit a major upgrade gap around then. It gets better after 90 or 95, depending on who you talk to, and how tolerant they are).
Why would I want to revisit a game that I left over 15 years ago, when you have made it sound worse today than it used to be.
It could give your arguments involving current EQ1 a bit more credibility. Never hurts. You might even have some fun. I personally find the 1-60 experience a huge blast, trying to mix and match zones to hunt in. It's mostly solo, though, at those levels. Of course, I rarely play more than an hour a day, so it doesn't really get to the grinding stage.
If I wanted to talk about current EQ1 as it is today, you would be 100% correct, I should go and play it.
But I am not seeking to talk about that EQ1, I am discussing the old school game from yesteryear, the game that far too many people gaze fondly back upon with starry eyes though rose colored glasses.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
You are really stretching the imagination trying to prove MMO's are more popular than ever. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be completely oblivious to everything around me and have no concept of data. I suppose ignorance is bliss they say.
If you have such a huge selection of games to chose from that you can be a picky about what you want to play, with a demand for specific features and such.. that is the mark of massive abundance of product, not it's death.
If MMO's were truly dying, there would be a small list of MMO's to chose from, and you either play that, or nothing.
Watching MMO's players today fuss about not being able to find their perfect game is like watching some hipster, standing in NYC, surrounded by coffee shops fussing they can't get their ideal perfect cup of coffee, and all the shops around them suck for one reason or another, and go off and talk about how coffee shops are dying, meanwhile, there are people all around them enjoying their fresh hot coffee from all the various shops.
I think what you are missing here is that the genre cant even gain the same popularity as 2004. I mean that's a joke.
Eh?
I think you might want to get some facts before you say things like this, as WoW, today has more subs than all the MMO that were out in 2004 combined.
Imagine if in movie theaters no new movies were releasing and movies like Jurassic park were at the top of the box office week in and week out for 10 years. No new movies could even come close to the top of the charts only releases of old movies could make it. That would not indicate a problem to you of the quality of new releases?
Movies are a bad example, lets go with with TV shows.
The Simpson was released in 1989, and is still running. Does that means TV shows are the shits and all going to die sometime soon?
No, because, just because the Simpsons is one of the best known and longest running TV shows, does not in any means that NO NEW TV shows are being made, or that other TV shows have not seen success.
In fact, some older TV shows saw success, not because they were good, nor could they be competitive in todays TV market, but because they lacked competition. but no doubt are looked back upon through rose colored glasses as prime time best American TV .. and yes.. I am looking at you Lassie which lasted 18 years, where the whole show was about a dog that has to save a bunch of stupid humans that keep getting themselves in trouble.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I agree about Mandalorian its way better than the new Star Wars movies IMO. I remember in the 90's people said that fantasy movies couldn't do well. They then released LOTR and Avatar with overwhelming success shattering that theory.
I think the problem is in both industries is that the top executives running these firms either have no vision and are incapable of hiring the people that do have it. They have no clue how to release quality stuff. They say "see I told you so" when the trash they release fails.
In MMO terms, someday a AAA studio is going to release a good MMO, and the new normal will be hundreds of millions of subs not a couple million. Then you will have all these fools saying that had no clue all these potential customers were out there. Then they will try to clone that for 20 years to piggyback off its success rather than make good new material. And so the cycle repeats.
I very much agree with your analogy with the film industry here.
Investment is so often based on what has worked in the past, not what *could* work in the future. It is definitely the less risky investment strategy, but is subject to diminishing returns over time, as repetition leads to stagnation in the idea and apathy in the consumer.
I truly believe in the potential of MMORPGs, but that potential is almost entirely untapped. So, when a studio makes a pitch to an investor, there is a very limited pool of ideas they can point to and say "look, this is successful, give me money". New ideas are too risky for the big money.
There are three possible solutions to the problem, in my opinion.
The first is crowdfunding. I know, i know, hasn't really worked out and I don't think it will (in terms of commercial success). However, I do believe that these crowdfunded games have the ability to implement new ideas that the big studios won't take risks on. So, even if the games suck, the big studios can at least say "look, this is a new feature, this is how it works, if we polish it up then players will love it". That should increase the chance of getting investment.
The second is science. The games industry is still young, and the science behind it is still largely missing or misunderstood. We still don't really understand why some games succeed and some fail. Once the science catches up, my hope is that devs will be able to design a new feature, then present it to investors backed up by science. Hopefully, that will increase the chance of investors spending money on innovative ideas.
The third is rapid-prototyping tools. We're sort of heading in this direction already with Unity and Unreal being made easier to use, having greybox features etc. The quicker and cheaper it is to prototype a game, the easier it is for devs to take a trial-and-error approach, going through quicker iterations in the hopes of creating something fun/successful.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
The only thing making MMO's look successful at all these days are the RMTers. And most of their sales are to other RMTers in a spiraling business model.
And those "whales"? They're mostly RMTers restocking through the private auctions the game companies run.
Normal gaming is probably only 30% of the industry overall, and 10% of the revenues overall.
Just my opinion, I hope I didn't overstate the "normal gaming" part of it all.
I agree about Mandalorian its way better than the new Star Wars movies IMO. I remember in the 90's people said that fantasy movies couldn't do well. They then released LOTR and Avatar with overwhelming success shattering that theory.
I think the problem is in both industries is that the top executives running these firms either have no vision and are incapable of hiring the people that do have it. They have no clue how to release quality stuff. They say "see I told you so" when the trash they release fails.
In MMO terms, someday a AAA studio is going to release a good MMO, and the new normal will be hundreds of millions of subs not a couple million. Then you will have all these fools saying that had no clue all these potential customers were out there. Then they will try to clone that for 20 years to piggyback off its success rather than make good new material. And so the cycle repeats.
I very much agree with your analogy with the film industry here.
Investment is so often based on what has worked in the past, not what *could* work in the future. It is definitely the less risky investment strategy, but is subject to diminishing returns over time, as repetition leads to stagnation in the idea and apathy in the consumer.
I truly believe in the potential of MMORPGs, but that potential is almost entirely untapped. So, when a studio makes a pitch to an investor, there is a very limited pool of ideas they can point to and say "look, this is successful, give me money". New ideas are too risky for the big money.
There are three possible solutions to the problem, in my opinion.
The first is crowdfunding. I know, i know, hasn't really worked out and I don't think it will (in terms of commercial success). However, I do believe that these crowdfunded games have the ability to implement new ideas that the big studios won't take risks on. So, even if the games suck, the big studios can at least say "look, this is a new feature, this is how it works, if we polish it up then players will love it". That should increase the chance of getting investment.
The second is science. The games industry is still young, and the science behind it is still largely missing or misunderstood. We still don't really understand why some games succeed and some fail. Once the science catches up, my hope is that devs will be able to design a new feature, then present it to investors backed up by science. Hopefully, that will increase the chance of investors spending money on innovative ideas.
The third is rapid-prototyping tools. We're sort of heading in this direction already with Unity and Unreal being made easier to use, having greybox features etc. The quicker and cheaper it is to prototype a game, the easier it is for devs to take a trial-and-error approach, going through quicker iterations in the hopes of creating something fun/successful.
That might work for some cases, but I think the better hope for an MMORPG savior might by simply replace the crowdfunding with a modest investment, not to build a complete MMORPG game, but develop a feature that can plug into a basic game engine. That can be tested, and the idea can be floated to investors. This step would use the tools and science ideas. (I think I really like that).
From metrics derived from the science and money provided by a follow up investment, ramp up for a full game development. With working, in-hand technology components that build the new game. Kind of like a much larger scale object-oriented approach, with systems (combat, magic, healing, whatever) easily integrated into the work. And for long-time forum members, you know what excites me -- the whatever components. I'll spare you from hearing me drool over a government system, or a religious system or a organizations system, or an event planning system.... whoops, didn't spare you that much, Sorry,
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
What percent of the population would you say were gamers at 18 years old?
40 years ago
20 years ago
today
I am sure today blows the other two out of the water numbers wise......It's much easier to get into gaming now than it used to be....Phones, tablets, PCs, consoles, laptops, handhelds. etc etc etc
You are really stretching the imagination trying to prove MMO's are more popular than ever. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be completely oblivious to everything around me and have no concept of data. I suppose ignorance is bliss they say.
If you have such a huge selection of games to chose from that you can be a picky about what you want to play, with a demand for specific features and such.. that is the mark of massive abundance of product, not it's death.
If MMO's were truly dying, there would be a small list of MMO's to chose from, and you either play that, or nothing.
Watching MMO's players today fuss about not being able to find their perfect game is like watching some hipster, standing in NYC, surrounded by coffee shops fussing they can't get their ideal perfect cup of coffee, and all the shops around them suck for one reason or another, and go off and talk about how coffee shops are dying, meanwhile, there are people all around them enjoying their fresh hot coffee from all the various shops.
I think what you are missing here is that the genre cant even gain the same popularity as 2004. I mean that's a joke.
Eh?
I think you might want to get some facts before you say things like this, as WoW, today has more subs than all the MMO that were out in 2004 combined.
Imagine if in movie theaters no new movies were releasing and movies like Jurassic park were at the top of the box office week in and week out for 10 years. No new movies could even come close to the top of the charts only releases of old movies could make it. That would not indicate a problem to you of the quality of new releases?
Movies are a bad example, lets go with with TV shows.
The Simpson was released in 1989, and is still running. Does that means TV shows are the shits and all going to die sometime soon?
No, because, just because the Simpsons is one of the best known and longest running TV shows, does not in any means that NO NEW TV shows are being made, or that other TV shows have not seen success.
In fact, some older TV shows saw success, not because they were good, nor could they be competitive in todays TV market, but because they lacked competition. but no doubt are looked back upon through rose colored glasses as prime time best American TV .. and yes.. I am looking at you Lassie which lasted 18 years, where the whole show was about a dog that has to save a bunch of stupid humans that keep getting themselves in trouble.
Its not about how long its been running. People are still playing pong. The key here is what is driving the market and at the top of the charts. Yes, if all the top shows were all from 20 years ago, this would definitely indicate a problem in the industry.
Common sense says reruns from 20 years ago should not be beating all the newest shows.
They should look and say why does the customer like these 20 year old stuff more than todays stuff. Start dissecting what's driving the customers to these things, and change the new stuff accordingly.
What's funny is the entertainment industry might actually get there soon. They are suffering some of the same problems, with the trash they putting out.
Yeah I haven't found much interest in new shows lately. New movies I stopped watching entirely. Some of the Netflix series seem dry and they like to stretch out the shows with too long of gaps in between seasons, some just never come back. I thought The Umbrella Academy was good though. I have only a few favs, some docs, not worth staying subscribed all the time. I'm sure others feel the same. I though the Mandolorian was good; it's like if SWG was a TV show, that would be it; but again why stay subscribed once you finish the season?
Maybe in this technological age people are just too polarized by the world to find interest in fantasy, or maybe creativity has taken a dive. Maybe it's both.
I agree about Mandalorian its way better than the new Star Wars movies IMO. I remember in the 90's people said that fantasy movies couldn't do well. They then released LOTR and Avatar with overwhelming success shattering that theory.
I think the problem is in both industries is that the top executives running these firms either have no vision and are incapable of hiring the people that do have it. They have no clue how to release quality stuff. They say "see I told you so" when the trash they release fails.
In MMO terms, someday a AAA studio is going to release a good MMO, and the new normal will be hundreds of millions of subs not a couple million. Then you will have all these fools saying that had no clue all these potential customers were out there. Then they will try to clone that for 20 years to piggyback off its success rather than make good new material. And so the cycle repeats.
I think what made it good was the fact that the used different directors for each episode. The vision was never got stale. I could tell each episode from an artistic standpoint played differently, yet I had no idea they used multiple directors until after I had watched both seasons and started in on the documentaries.
One thing about Star Wars these developers for most games these days are missing out on is the fact that people crave the idea of playing as an unknown person and setting out to make a name for themselves in the universe. George Lucas' vision for Star Wars was always about the journey, not the destination. We kinda had a sense of the end as the story began, but the story in between is what made it interesting.
I very much agree with your analogy with the film industry here.
Investment is so often based on what has worked in the past, not what *could* work in the future. It is definitely the less risky investment strategy, but is subject to diminishing returns over time, as repetition leads to stagnation in the idea and apathy in the consumer.
I truly believe in the potential of MMORPGs, but that potential is almost entirely untapped. So, when a studio makes a pitch to an investor, there is a very limited pool of ideas they can point to and say "look, this is successful, give me money". New ideas are too risky for the big money.
There are three possible solutions to the problem, in my opinion.
The first is crowdfunding. I know, i know, hasn't really worked out and I don't think it will (in terms of commercial success). However, I do believe that these crowdfunded games have the ability to implement new ideas that the big studios won't take risks on. So, even if the games suck, the big studios can at least say "look, this is a new feature, this is how it works, if we polish it up then players will love it". That should increase the chance of getting investment.
The second is science. The games industry is still young, and the science behind it is still largely missing or misunderstood. We still don't really understand why some games succeed and some fail. Once the science catches up, my hope is that devs will be able to design a new feature, then present it to investors backed up by science. Hopefully, that will increase the chance of investors spending money on innovative ideas.
The third is rapid-prototyping tools. We're sort of heading in this direction already with Unity and Unreal being made easier to use, having greybox features etc. The quicker and cheaper it is to prototype a game, the easier it is for devs to take a trial-and-error approach, going through quicker iterations in the hopes of creating something fun/successful.
That might work for some cases, but I think the better hope for an MMORPG savior might by simply replace the crowdfunding with a modest investment, not to build a complete MMORPG game, but develop a feature that can plug into a basic game engine. That can be tested, and the idea can be floated to investors. This step would use the tools and science ideas. (I think I really like that).
From metrics derived from the science and money provided by a follow up investment, ramp up for a full game development. With working, in-hand technology components that build the new game. Kind of like a much larger scale object-oriented approach, with systems (combat, magic, healing, whatever) easily integrated into the work. And for long-time forum members, you know what excites me -- the whatever components. I'll spare you from hearing me drool over a government system, or a religious system or a organizations system, or an event planning system.... whoops, didn't spare you that much, Sorry,
I like your idea for the slow-and-steady approach, build a feature to completion, test it, then move onto the next.
I would worry about finding an engine capable of such a thing for MMOs, but im sure that can be overcome. I would also worry about designing / building systems in isolation, its the interactions between different systems that turn an mmorpg into a virtual world. However, again, im sure that can be overcome with a good design doc.
No worries about dreaming of mmo ideas! I too spend a lot of time thinking up ideas for new systems in games!
Beyond combat mechanics and horizontal progression (which i daydream about all the damn time!), current feature i dream about a lot is player structures / cities. If you've ever played planet coaster or planet zoo, I just think about using their building system but in an MMO. It's pretty easy to use, offers a decent amount of flexibility and would be (hopefully) easy enough to put into an mmo. Tie it into the economy and you're onto a winner :-)
In line with what you were saying about government systems, I also imagine having a government system where city mayors (or town planners if u want more roles) could do things like set crafting material limitations so that all walls must be brick or mud, or houses are limited to 3 stories so there are no player-made skyscrapers. Stuff to prevent towns/cities from becoming weird frankenstein creations! Players could only build on their own plots, but city mayor / town planner could do bigger things, like town halls, or walls around the settlement, stuff like that.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I very much agree with your analogy with the film industry here.
Investment is so often based on what has worked in the past, not what *could* work in the future. It is definitely the less risky investment strategy, but is subject to diminishing returns over time, as repetition leads to stagnation in the idea and apathy in the consumer.
I truly believe in the potential of MMORPGs, but that potential is almost entirely untapped. So, when a studio makes a pitch to an investor, there is a very limited pool of ideas they can point to and say "look, this is successful, give me money". New ideas are too risky for the big money.
There are three possible solutions to the problem, in my opinion.
The first is crowdfunding. I know, i know, hasn't really worked out and I don't think it will (in terms of commercial success). However, I do believe that these crowdfunded games have the ability to implement new ideas that the big studios won't take risks on. So, even if the games suck, the big studios can at least say "look, this is a new feature, this is how it works, if we polish it up then players will love it". That should increase the chance of getting investment.
The second is science. The games industry is still young, and the science behind it is still largely missing or misunderstood. We still don't really understand why some games succeed and some fail. Once the science catches up, my hope is that devs will be able to design a new feature, then present it to investors backed up by science. Hopefully, that will increase the chance of investors spending money on innovative ideas.
The third is rapid-prototyping tools. We're sort of heading in this direction already with Unity and Unreal being made easier to use, having greybox features etc. The quicker and cheaper it is to prototype a game, the easier it is for devs to take a trial-and-error approach, going through quicker iterations in the hopes of creating something fun/successful.
That might work for some cases, but I think the better hope for an MMORPG savior might by simply replace the crowdfunding with a modest investment, not to build a complete MMORPG game, but develop a feature that can plug into a basic game engine. That can be tested, and the idea can be floated to investors. This step would use the tools and science ideas. (I think I really like that).
From metrics derived from the science and money provided by a follow up investment, ramp up for a full game development. With working, in-hand technology components that build the new game. Kind of like a much larger scale object-oriented approach, with systems (combat, magic, healing, whatever) easily integrated into the work. And for long-time forum members, you know what excites me -- the whatever components. I'll spare you from hearing me drool over a government system, or a religious system or a organizations system, or an event planning system.... whoops, didn't spare you that much, Sorry,
I like your idea for the slow-and-steady approach, build a feature to completion, test it, then move onto the next.
I would worry about finding an engine capable of such a thing for MMOs, but im sure that can be overcome. I would also worry about designing / building systems in isolation, its the interactions between different systems that turn an mmorpg into a virtual world. However, again, im sure that can be overcome with a good design doc.
No worries about dreaming of mmo ideas! I too spend a lot of time thinking up ideas for new systems in games!
Beyond combat mechanics and horizontal progression (which i daydream about all the damn time!), current feature i dream about a lot is player structures / cities. If you've ever played planet coaster or planet zoo, I just think about using their building system but in an MMO. It's pretty easy to use, offers a decent amount of flexibility and would be (hopefully) easy enough to put into an mmo. Tie it into the economy and you're onto a winner :-)
In line with what you were saying about government systems, I also imagine having a government system where city mayors (or town planners if u want more roles) could do things like set crafting material limitations so that all walls must be brick or mud, or houses are limited to 3 stories so there are no player-made skyscrapers. Stuff to prevent towns/cities from becoming weird frankenstein creations! Players could only build on their own plots, but city mayor / town planner could do bigger things, like town halls, or walls around the settlement, stuff like that.
You are really stretching the imagination trying to prove MMO's are more popular than ever. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be completely oblivious to everything around me and have no concept of data. I suppose ignorance is bliss they say.
If you have such a huge selection of games to chose from that you can be a picky about what you want to play, with a demand for specific features and such.. that is the mark of massive abundance of product, not it's death.
If MMO's were truly dying, there would be a small list of MMO's to chose from, and you either play that, or nothing.
Watching MMO's players today fuss about not being able to find their perfect game is like watching some hipster, standing in NYC, surrounded by coffee shops fussing they can't get their ideal perfect cup of coffee, and all the shops around them suck for one reason or another, and go off and talk about how coffee shops are dying, meanwhile, there are people all around them enjoying their fresh hot coffee from all the various shops.
I think what you are missing here is that the genre cant even gain the same popularity as 2004. I mean that's a joke.
Eh?
I think you might want to get some facts before you say things like this, as WoW, today has more subs than all the MMO that were out in 2004 combined.
Imagine if in movie theaters no new movies were releasing and movies like Jurassic park were at the top of the box office week in and week out for 10 years. No new movies could even come close to the top of the charts only releases of old movies could make it. That would not indicate a problem to you of the quality of new releases?
Movies are a bad example, lets go with with TV shows.
The Simpson was released in 1989, and is still running. Does that means TV shows are the shits and all going to die sometime soon?
No, because, just because the Simpsons is one of the best known and longest running TV shows, does not in any means that NO NEW TV shows are being made, or that other TV shows have not seen success.
In fact, some older TV shows saw success, not because they were good, nor could they be competitive in todays TV market, but because they lacked competition. but no doubt are looked back upon through rose colored glasses as prime time best American TV .. and yes.. I am looking at you Lassie which lasted 18 years, where the whole show was about a dog that has to save a bunch of stupid humans that keep getting themselves in trouble.
Its not about how long its been running. People are still playing pong. The key here is what is driving the market and at the top of the charts. Yes, if all the top shows were all from 20 years ago, this would definitely indicate a problem in the industry.
Common sense says reruns from 20 years ago should not be beating all the newest shows.
They should look and say why does the customer like these 20 year old stuff more than todays stuff. Start dissecting what's driving the customers to these things, and change the new stuff accordingly.
I really don't get you, or your view on things, MMO are IMHO long haul games, where you seem to be fussing about always needing a new shiny, almost as if you are treating MMO's like they are Single Player RPG's and that they have a limited Shelf Life. I don't see MMO's as that kind of game.
For me, I have been watching the Simpsons since their inception, I also enjoy Walking Dead, because they are always putting out new content that I enjoy watching, and I will often watch re-runs as well, because some of them were epic.
I look at MMO's the same way. That I would rather an MMO I am enjoying to be provided Expansions and Content Updates (which I am happy to pay for) to keep the game growing and improving. Even Graphic Overhauls, Massive Updates, and all that kind of stuff is welcome to me, as it shows the endurance of the game itself to be continually updated, and as long as it plays well, I see no reason to abandon it.
But I suppose I am different than you are, as I also won't just trade in my car because it's old, as long as it's running well, I have no reason not to keep driving it, my bang around Jeep just turned 29 this year, and I have a newer jeep, as I like jeeps, but I have no reason to give up my old one as it's running great, some of my friends feel that they need to trade in their jeep every 3 years to keep current and for status and what not, but that is not how I roll.
I don't see the problem an MMO lasting 20 years, or players playing the same MMO for 8 years, or 12 years, like or whatever, in fact that is the whole point IMHO of making a virtual world, or staying with the MMO they like right to the bitter end. Because that is what a world feels like.. you enjoy being in it.
If you always thirst for some new world, then two things have happened.
1) The First world did not placate you, so remaking it won't hold you a second time, and thus not worth the investment to attract your demographic.
2) Perhaps MMO's, which are typically designed to be long haul games are not really for you, and RPG's might be more your style.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
The problem is that you are not arguing about the same things. Mmorpgs now and then have a different meaning and comparing them is impossible. You are debating mmorpgs but each has a different vision of them. The mmorpgs I loved, the gameplay I enjoyed is no longer available. I pretty much tried everything so debating graphics, systems, numbers of players, etc etc doesnt matter at all.
There is a difference between "I cannot find an MMORPG I like" and "the genre is dead". Also, many of the old games still exist, and some are still updated (UO, EQ, ATitD, Rise of Agon in place of DF). New ones are still made with old school mechanics. For PVP games, Albion was made for someone that wants a fresh EVE Online experience. For PVE games, I am not an expert but I hear that P:G is really good. None of them are high production value, because the player base that wants old school MMOs is apparently small (and from what I read, it was always like this).
That's what the past few pages in this thread were about anyway, we are repeating ourselves at this point.
By the way, this is the "they don't make them like they used to" stereotype that you can see everywhere, from games to music to movies to houses to cars to chairs. Who feels old?
I agree with Pala. It is very much like modern day sports. I'm a fan of American Football. The rules have changed so much, and thus strategies, that comparing a Quarterback or Wide Receiver today to Quarterbacks and Wide Receiver 100 years ago is simply silly. Passing was unheard of until the 1940's.
Those "old MMOs still around today" argument I see all the time (warning: pet peeve incoming) are NOT the same games of yesteryore. EQ id nowhere near what it once was. Neither is UO. The others I have no experience with. EQ has mercenaries now. No need for "other players." Their cash shop sells XP potions to help with the "horrid" grind. They have maps for goodness sake
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
The problem with trying to get into these decades old games NOW, is that they are all on EZ mode now. Its hard just to get back involved, the leveling zones are all dead, so they compensate by making it extremely ez to solo and group.
Me and a few friends tried to come back to wow and make characters in Wow retail, the community is different, its on super ez mode. Running dungeons people are burning the dungeons so fast you cant even get a hit in before the boss is dead, let alone try to loot. You are running through leaving loot behind just to keep up. Where is the challenge.
Its not just Wow, we tried so many MMO's, its always the same EZ mode, no challenge, no community.
Sometimes an MMO just needs a reboot. So people can explore and challenge themselves again. I dont play MMO's to be on autopilot.
Challenge and community are some of the things I miss the most of old school MMO's.
But I suppose I am different than you are, as I also won't just trade in my car because it's old, as long as it's running well, I have no reason not to keep driving it, my bang around Jeep just turned 29 this year, and I have a newer jeep, as I like jeeps, but I have no reason to give up my old one as it's running great, some of my friends feel that they need to trade in their jeep every 3 years to keep current and for status and what not, but that is not how I roll.
I don't see the problem an MMO lasting 20 years, or players playing the same MMO for 8 years, or 12 years, like or whatever, in fact that is the whole point IMHO of making a virtual world, or staying with the MMO they like right to the bitter end. Because that is what a world feels like.. you enjoy being in it.
Your car analogy is way off base. I see a car as a tool, not an experience, maybe the first time is an experience but after that its not. Where you go with the car is more appropriate. So lets say your favorite spot to visit is a lake or something, how many times every single day can you visit and still enjoy it the same? 10 days in a row? 100? 1000? 10000? 100000? There is a point where your enjoyment diminishes greatly doing the same things day in day out.
My family travels all around the world. However some vacations we like stay near home and jet ski. We do that a few times a year. I couldn't imagine doing that 365 days a year for 10 years. I would be bored within a few weeks.
You obviously like repetitive tasks more than I do, which is why you can last longer in a game doing the exact same content everyday.
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Basically, the cool things about it and old school nature are the only things that would draw the player to the title, as the remainder is better done elsewhere. Seeing as what people find to be cool is highly variable even if P:G greatly improved I feel it would remain a niche title regardless.
So... bad graphics, poor sound, occasional performance issues, niche appeal, a $45 CDN buy in cost, talk of an optional subscription fee down the line...
Perhaps it is a wonder they have as many players as they do rather than the game being indicative of a larger problem.
Looking at EQ, as nothing in modern games sucks as bad as spawn camping in that game, where mobs had a 1 hour timer, with a chance for the rare to spawn, but mainly only getting a placeholder, and you could not even move from that spot lest someone jump your claim or kill steal from you.
Sure, I have some great memories of back in that day doing that crap, but, there is no way in hell I would ever want to return to that, or even consider playing a game that had such a system in place.
I mean, all MMO's are built around the idea of repetitive content, that is mainly want keeps them active and helps build social interaction, with the focus that you can do the same content hundreds of times and still get more from it, so regardless if this is your 100th run, or your 1st run, there will be people there doing it with you. This is what keeps the content active and social.
In this vein the grind is needed for MMO's to be MMO's.
Truth be told however, some modern MMO's do this far better than older ones. Case in point, GW2, with level scaling has managed to keep all it's maps and content viable and active, unlike a lot of older MMO's that had huge swaths of mid level content being total ghost towns, making a game with a million players feel like a desolate wasteland for almost all your leveling up.
Obviously this depends on the game, some games are just bad, no matter when they were made, but I think with the market where it is, with the abundance of options of fun/good games, the bad ones tend to stand out more, unlike when EQ launched and your choices were pretty much UO or EQ for as far as virtual worlds went, so players were a lot more willing to accept what they were given, unlike today, with all these MMO's, players have the convivence to be picky and petty about what they chose to play.
Like going to a pizza Party and you have a choice: Pepperoni Pizza or Plain Cheese Pizza, that's it.. Don't like? Tough Shit.
I mean really, when UO launched in 1999, if someone didn't like it, it was "Go back to your MUD Bitch and Die there!", and while I never played UO, I did play Gemstone IV/Dragonrealms, and I heard the stories from returning players and friends.
So, you will have to forgive me if I don't see the grind that people seem to fuss about.
I mean, perhaps it's due to the pacing of the game, as I said in a previous post, the pacing in modern MMO's has sped up. So perhaps it's a case where in a modern MMO, I can kill something like 50 mobs in the time it took me to kill 1 in EQ, so I guess I can see how it feels like a greater grind because you are doing more things, and getting more bank filler, but overall, but, I am also getting about the same reward (Maybe a bit more) for those 50 mobs as I would for the 1 in EQ, so, in the end of things, it's still about the same amount of game time investment, if not a little less.
If MMO's were truly dying, there would be a small list of MMO's to chose from, and you either play that, or nothing.
Watching MMO's players today fuss about not being able to find their perfect game is like watching some hipster, standing in NYC, surrounded by coffee shops fussing they can't get their ideal perfect cup of coffee, and all the shops around them suck for one reason or another, and go off and talk about how coffee shops are dying, meanwhile, there are people all around them enjoying their fresh hot coffee from all the various shops.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I think what you are missing here is that the genre cant even gain the same popularity as 2004. I mean that's a joke. Look at the hundreds of millions if not Billions of gamers that have access to the internet that didn't before. As a percentage of people its a tiny fraction of what was playing before. Now there is mobile, consoles and just more people with PC internet then ever before by a HUGE magnitude and these games cant even rival past numbers?
Even if the genre stagnated it should have had 100 times more players by default. Yet here we are releasing 20 year old games with most being at least 7yrs old.
Imagine if in movie theaters no new movies were releasing and movies like Jurassic park were at the top of the box office week in and week out for 10 years. No new movies could even come close to the top of the charts only releases of old movies could make it. That would not indicate a problem to you of the quality of new releases?
I remember when they released the prequel star wars movies, they also played the old originals in the movie theaters. People can debate which is better, but the prequels demolished the old movies in the box office by default just by being a new movie. Releasing the old movie barely even made a dent in box office and even that could only be sustained for a couple of weeks.
What's funny is the entertainment industry might actually get there soon. They are suffering some of the same problems, with the trash they putting out.
I agree with you for the most part, but where I disagree is that I dont think everyone wants this new easy mode content. There are a few people trying to push that agenda but they are wrong. Even Blizzard CEO said they thought classic would fail and was surprised by the numbers of subs. Blizzard doubled its subs on classic release. They are using classic money to fund new Diablo and Hearthstone releases.
Now imagine if Wow announced that Mists of Pandaria or Legion was going to be there big release this year. They would probably lose customers, certainly they wouldn't double the subs. Nobody wants that trash.
People only buy the new expansions because they are desperate to play something that they haven't already. Hoping that it will actually be good. Then within a few months they see its trash and quit.
I think the problem is in both industries is that the top executives running these firms either have no vision and are incapable of hiring the people that do have it. They have no clue how to release quality stuff. They say "see I told you so" when the trash they release fails.
In MMO terms, someday a AAA studio is going to release a good MMO, and the new normal will be hundreds of millions of subs not a couple million. Then you will have all these fools saying that had no clue all these potential customers were out there. Then they will try to clone that for 20 years to piggyback off its success rather than make good new material. And so the cycle repeats.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
But I am not seeking to talk about that EQ1, I am discussing the old school game from yesteryear, the game that far too many people gaze fondly back upon with starry eyes though rose colored glasses.
I think you might want to get some facts before you say things like this, as WoW, today has more subs than all the MMO that were out in 2004 combined.
Movies are a bad example, lets go with with TV shows.
The Simpson was released in 1989, and is still running. Does that means TV shows are the shits and all going to die sometime soon?
No, because, just because the Simpsons is one of the best known and longest running TV shows, does not in any means that NO NEW TV shows are being made, or that other TV shows have not seen success.
In fact, some older TV shows saw success, not because they were good, nor could they be competitive in todays TV market, but because they lacked competition. but no doubt are looked back upon through rose colored glasses as prime time best American TV .. and yes.. I am looking at you Lassie which lasted 18 years, where the whole show was about a dog that has to save a bunch of stupid humans that keep getting themselves in trouble.
And most of their sales are to other RMTers in a spiraling business model.
And those "whales"?
They're mostly RMTers restocking through the private auctions the game companies run.
Normal gaming is probably only 30% of the industry overall, and 10% of the revenues overall.
Just my opinion, I hope I didn't overstate the "normal gaming" part of it all.
Once upon a time....
That might work for some cases, but I think the better hope for an MMORPG savior might by simply replace the crowdfunding with a modest investment, not to build a complete MMORPG game, but develop a feature that can plug into a basic game engine. That can be tested, and the idea can be floated to investors. This step would use the tools and science ideas. (I think I really like that).
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Common sense says reruns from 20 years ago should not be beating all the newest shows.
They should look and say why does the customer like these 20 year old stuff more than todays stuff. Start dissecting what's driving the customers to these things, and change the new stuff accordingly.
For me, I have been watching the Simpsons since their inception, I also enjoy Walking Dead, because they are always putting out new content that I enjoy watching, and I will often watch re-runs as well, because some of them were epic.
I look at MMO's the same way. That I would rather an MMO I am enjoying to be provided Expansions and Content Updates (which I am happy to pay for) to keep the game growing and improving. Even Graphic Overhauls, Massive Updates, and all that kind of stuff is welcome to me, as it shows the endurance of the game itself to be continually updated, and as long as it plays well, I see no reason to abandon it.
But I suppose I am different than you are, as I also won't just trade in my car because it's old, as long as it's running well, I have no reason not to keep driving it, my bang around Jeep just turned 29 this year, and I have a newer jeep, as I like jeeps, but I have no reason to give up my old one as it's running great, some of my friends feel that they need to trade in their jeep every 3 years to keep current and for status and what not, but that is not how I roll.
I don't see the problem an MMO lasting 20 years, or players playing the same MMO for 8 years, or 12 years, like or whatever, in fact that is the whole point IMHO of making a virtual world, or staying with the MMO they like right to the bitter end. Because that is what a world feels like.. you enjoy being in it.
If you always thirst for some new world, then two things have happened.
1) The First world did not placate you, so remaking it won't hold you a second time, and thus not worth the investment to attract your demographic.
2) Perhaps MMO's, which are typically designed to be long haul games are not really for you, and RPG's might be more your style.
Those "old MMOs still around today" argument I see all the time (warning: pet peeve incoming) are NOT the same games of yesteryore. EQ id nowhere near what it once was. Neither is UO. The others I have no experience with. EQ has mercenaries now. No need for "other players." Their cash shop sells XP potions to help with the "horrid" grind. They have maps for goodness sake
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Me and a few friends tried to come back to wow and make characters in Wow retail, the community is different, its on super ez mode. Running dungeons people are burning the dungeons so fast you cant even get a hit in before the boss is dead, let alone try to loot. You are running through leaving loot behind just to keep up. Where is the challenge.
Its not just Wow, we tried so many MMO's, its always the same EZ mode, no challenge, no community.
Sometimes an MMO just needs a reboot. So people can explore and challenge themselves again. I dont play MMO's to be on autopilot.
Challenge and community are some of the things I miss the most of old school MMO's.
Your car analogy is way off base. I see a car as a tool, not an experience, maybe the first time is an experience but after that its not. Where you go with the car is more appropriate. So lets say your favorite spot to visit is a lake or something, how many times every single day can you visit and still enjoy it the same? 10 days in a row? 100? 1000? 10000? 100000? There is a point where your enjoyment diminishes greatly doing the same things day in day out.
My family travels all around the world. However some vacations we like stay near home and jet ski. We do that a few times a year. I couldn't imagine doing that 365 days a year for 10 years. I would be bored within a few weeks.
You obviously like repetitive tasks more than I do, which is why you can last longer in a game doing the exact same content everyday.