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what really makes a good mmorpg in your opinion?
rawville
Member Posts: 7
hey everybody,
this is my 1st post, and i'm only really posting it so i can get enough points to rank the games i've played.
as a wise man once said "opinions are like assholes. everybody has one"
this is mine... if you don't like it... wipe your nose off and stfu :P
SO WHAT MAKES A GOOD MMORPG IN YOUR OPINION?
1st and foremost, i have to say with out a doubt it's the community of players who play it. in truth, most of the different games that have come out over the years have probably had "good" communities. i say "good", because really it's only good if you find a place where you fit, and if they're are at least several 1000 people playing a game, then at least some of those have probably found a nice little niche they enjoy.
example: a "carebear" buys a theoretical game with the most unforgiving full-pvp known to man (eg. perma-death). after a couple days of getting "abused" in every form and fashion and having "nothing" to show for it, this player decided to leave because "the community sucks". On the other hand, the people who stay must have a reason right?
well, in this case it's probably the competition. sure the conditions are severe, but so is the satisfaction for those of a more competitive nature. and yes, they may not have anything solid to show, but what do you have to show after watching a good movie? the memories of a great adventure or story.
i may sound a bit biased, but that only because i am. :P
what really is the deciding factor to how much a person will enjoy a MMO, is wether or not they will find that group of players that they can have fun playing with, or against.
if you enjoy crafting, then of course you would enjoy a game where you could custom build every single piece of your armor/ship/racecar etc. and not have to worry about some "kid" throwin a grenade at you. but if your the "kid" who just wants to throw a grenade at someone, and this game doesn't allow you to do that, then by all means "it sucks".
people still have imaginations. i mean, adults may not have the same caliber of imagination that they had as a child playing with plastic action figures for hours on end, but if you take those adults and put them in a community of people with simlar intrests and fantasies, then give them some sort of means to act them out, you'll see how much imagination people really have, regardless of age (that was a serious run-on sentence).
graphics? yeah they matter, but not nearly as much as nVidia and ATI would want you to believe. UO's graphic are butt. even when it first came out they weren't that good. but i will still swear to this day that when UO first came out (before the days of felluca and trammel), i have never had a more emersive gaming experience in my life. lag yes, bugs yes, exploiters yes, griefers yes, one of the best communities ever....yes. i haven't played that game in over 5 years, but i'll have fond memories of it for the rest of my life.
what do i play now? WoW and EVE. i play WoW because, well i don't know why i play WoW (truthfully it pisses me off), but i know why i play EVE. EVE has quite possibly one of the best MMO communities ever. I would say it ranks up there with UO's original community and SWG's community (during the 1st year or so).
EVE's graphics? they look ok, but IMHO, they are far from anything to brag about. and at first i was VERY unimpressed with my "character". for god's sake, you can't even change the picture once your created. as time went on though these concerns faded away and i realized they were just things the MMO market has led me to believe i needed over the years.
it's all about the community... nothing more nothing less
it's all about the community... nothing more nothing less
it's all about the community... nothing more nothing less
no matter how good the graphics are, how 7.1 the sound is, how smooth the controls are, how lag free the servers are.......... if you can't have fun with the other people who are playing, the MMO will never be good to you.
period
Comments
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
hence the reason i said "what make a good MMO" not what makes a good single player RPG like morrowind
Gorukha-
ok mr. one liner.... define gameplay... and what makes it either good or bad (keep the MMO aspect in mind)
What I said is directed at just that. There are a lot of quiet and less social players out there who enjoy exploring a large world full of other people. You can't get that same experience in a game like Oblivion.
I agree that community can make or break a game. I used to play a MUD that was all about community. The game really stunk, but the ooc, and rp channels were busy and interesting, and mud website was lively. I played it for two years. I think that there is too much spent on the first M of MMORPG. It would be better if the 2-3k people playing had a better sense of who the other 2-3k people were.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
IdesofMarch-
truthfully you are right, there probably are some anti-social people who want to explore a fantasy world populated by other real people and not npc's.... but i really have trouble believin that they would play any type of MMO for an extended amount of time.... mainly because an MMO isn't what they are really lookin for. i think they just want an extremely interactive and unpredictable single player game. one where the npc's don't know who chuck norris is, but can give you a specific answer to any question you ask. how do you program a game like this? i have no f-ing clue, but that's what anti-social MMO players are lookin for :P
How much fun it is. I think a good community overall (or actually just a good guild/clan/corporation that complements your style of play*) helps that hugely but it might not be the end-all and be-all of it. Like how people get bored of WoW's raiding. Even if they were with a good group of people that they liked, eventually they could get tired of raiding for Epics. A good group in the framework of a fun game really is great.
*Even in community driven games like EVE you've got people who were in corps they didn't like. Being in a "good corp" is something a lot of fans of EVE cite as important. I also don't think that overall community matters as much as the groups of people you associate and play with. I've met people I really liked playing RuneScape. If its possible there, its possible anywhere.
The ability to keep players dreaming and happy.
Thereby, every activity that remove from dreaming should be altered in order to keep players dreaming.
A typical example that I bring forward often is the Raiding enforcement. Not only does this prevent the majority of players from dreaming, but it make players who can't dream angry and leaving, often cursing and shouting something such as: "I will never play a MMO ever again". While in fact, these players, they really mean, they will never bear raiding again.
Some devs might argue that raiding help their MMO. But these devs fail to grasp their situation with a global scope. Yes, in the short term, some players who would have left the game "bored but happy" will now remain. However, raiding acts as a DoT on the player population and the general emotional level toward the MMO, the longer raiding has been enforced, the more players will have left angry and cursing.
You don't believe in this? Let's take Blizzard for example. Prior WoW, forums trolls trashing Blizzard where extremely rares. Peoples would be teasing, saying stuff like Blizzard never make any real RPG or other stuff, but it was good natured. Since WoW, the trolls bashing the game are growing in numbers!
Still don't believe me, let's take SoE as an example. SoE has been enforcing raiding for the longest time. As a result, SoE have more haters and bashers than anyone else. Did we see a lot of "MS" bashing? Far less than Blizzard or SoE bashing. Same with EA. Someone can say that SoE main hatred come from SWG...but most of these trolls, they also happen to have been playing EQ before and have found solace in SWG, to see it crumbles and destroyed. The reason is simple, despite all the "evils" MS and EA did in the past, they never enforce raiding on players. Raiding is a "trolls furnace".
But no, devs rather toss this aside and enforce raiding further more. Enforcing a lame gameplay such as raiding ruins your fanbase, permanently, as a DoT. It is a little like in old classic D&D, a wizard COULD bind a Pit Fiends to do his bidding, but it is extremely short sighted, because the Pit Fiend will come back, planning a revenge in the long term (here it is less long term than a Pit Fiend life, since players don't have centuries, still...) It is short sighted, yes the Pit Fiend is strong and helps a lot...is it worth it in the long run? Nope.
Again, the ability to keep players dreaming is primordial, and not betraying this with enforcing a lame gameplay is vital. Happy dreaming-players are always a great community, while unhappy players always turn to be a sour and nasty community.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
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