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Unfortunate State of MMOG's
Khraiven
Member Posts: 11
Where do we go from here? A look at Massively Multiplayer Online Games from the end-users perspective.
For the full article: http://www.intensereviews.com/doc/?doc=unfortunate-state-of-mmogs
Comments
yea yea yea we all know it by now.
All MMOs suck, heading in the wrong direction, end of the genre blah blah etc.
I think you three are taking some of these games out of context. Why would you expect a game targeted towards casual PVE to have great PVP? Judge a game for what it is, not what you think it should be.
I enjoy doing many different things in MMORPGs. I hope that future games support many different playstyles.
All three of you seem to like the same playstyle. The site and the entire MMOG community would be better served if you had three people with different playstyles. Where is the person representing casual PVE or PVE raiding?
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."
Certain games were mentioned, but the article wasnt actually specific to any game, but rather a look at MMOG's as a whole.
I have to disagree with the article and the tone in which it was written.
But, as Balladar puts it, I'm probably just one of the millions of "morons" and "idiots" that like the existing MMOGs.
................................
My current Guild Wars character:
Dauthix The Avenger (Paragon/Ranger)
Well, the first place we go is not taking seriously the subjective rantings of some try-hard-to-be-cool 'extreme dudes' who do not represent the masses, only themselves.
Why do MMORPGs, and yes I said MMORPGs and not just MMOGs, have to be anything else then what they are? Why do they have to become hybrid FPS or strategy games to justify their existence? Whats wrong with accepting that there is a massive audience for the pure model that exists right now and a gradual evolution based on that is very ok?
The evolutions we should be seeing in MMORPGs are wider more open dynamic worlds, more advanced NPC AIs, structured sandbox elements, personalised achievement, meaningful PvP, whatever. Hybriding the genre with other game types isnt , imo, the way we should be heading and will only lead to the genre being watered down and lost to arcade style play.
In short, all that potentiol we once dreamt of in virtual fantasy worlds will be lost to attention deficit, fast food, shallow drop in games. I understand that the majority of players have 'come in late' to the hobby and don't have a clue what I am talking about, but this genre was once so exciting and promising... It sounds naive now, but we used to sit around in the pub talking about where these virtual worlds would be in 5 or 10 years time. Do people still do that, or has the promise been lost?
We will see in the next few years where this genre goes, but personally I am hoping that a dev out there recognises the need for a pure MMORPG at the core of this hobby.
The focus or vision of mmo's has become lost I think to a certain extent. Its no longer about making a truely great game, its now about making a game that will net the most profit. Maybe it always was.. It seems now there are so many choices out there that a company can ill afford to take risks in the gameplay of thier product.
Back when EQ was king, there really wasnt a whole lot of competition so they could take risks with content because there wasnt anything else out there for gamers to go to.
I myself am playing WoW cause frankly there isnt anything else out there that isnt deserted or full of bugs. I played DAoC for a long time and really enjoyed it, but with the dwindling numbers I might as well play a single player game. WoW might be kiddie themed but at least there I can get a group and interact with others and thats why we play MMOs in the first place isnt it?
VG might hold some hope once once the majority of the bugs are squished and they quit screwing around with all the classes. Really sad in its current state with all the changes, bugs and empty promises. I tell ya that game isnt the same one as it was in beta.
For now I will hold out hope for WAR and probably play Hellgate London.
People moan about lag in twitch based mmorpgs but Planetside never had any lag and done it...
Vesavius I find it odd that you call what was in the article "subjective rantings of blah blah blah" When in another post you echo what was stated in the article. It does not apply to just Vanguard and if you say otherwise then you are no better then the "Vanbois" you slam.
*shrug* I guess you can be point fingures and saying the article is subjective until the point someone finds where you reiterate the same words from the article.
[quote]
I agree, but the Vanbois will continue defending this turd. They guard the turd and water it, and it is just a mushy turd. The horrible player numbers, bugs, lag fest, grind fest is making a bunch of us laugh. We all knew this game was headed for the crapper and the same vanbois make excuses, die already Vanguard! EQ1 succeeded solely due to no competition, WoW proved that..
[/quote]
I was at least expecting a somewhat professional review, but this article looks more like three gamers/geeks/nerds got buzzed sharing a sixpack and wrote down whatever was recorded to some WAV-file in a "too-cool-for-school" style. That site desperately needs a touch-up, by the way. Unfortunate indeed. (No, I didn't bother to ready the whole article)
Ah, look! 3 idiots who mistake their opinion for The Truth(tm)
They should follow their own advice and, as they so colourfully put it, bite a bullet.
They make a couple of good points but, sadly, it's lost between all the garbage they spew out.
Edit: Yes, I did read the whole thing.
Vesavius I find it odd that you call what was in the article "subjective rantings of blah blah blah" When in another post you echo what was stated in the article. It does not apply to just Vanguard and if you say otherwise then you are no better then the "Vanbois" you slam.
*shrug* I guess you can be point fingures and saying the article is subjective until the point someone finds where you reiterate the same words from the article.
[quote]
I agree, but the Vanbois will continue defending this turd. They guard the turd and water it, and it is just a mushy turd. The horrible player numbers, bugs, lag fest, grind fest is making a bunch of us laugh. We all knew this game was headed for the crapper and the same vanbois make excuses, die already Vanguard! EQ1 succeeded solely due to no competition, WoW proved that..
[/quote]
Whats odd?
'Ranting' is a term to describe method of delivery, not the wortheness of the content. If I say it in the manner of the artical, thats a rant, if I deliver it in a clear, reasoned way, then thats not... And didnt you know that any point of view, and thats all they express there, is subjective? So, subjective rant? Yep.
While I don't necessarily disagree with everything they say, I just didnt like the way in which they said it, and personally I wouldnt hold up any 1 piece of amateur blogging as an example and ask 'where do we go now?'. No matter if I happened to agree with it or not.
I happen to believe that evolution, not revolution, in all the ways I have mentioned here, is best for MMORPGs. Not the bland, uninspired, boring, no risk, cookie cutterness of LotR etc, but something way more interesting that hasnt been delivered yet.
Hope that clears up any confusion?
Please link the post you are refering to?
I don't see why everyone is on their case about posting their opinions on a website... Anyways I agree with a lot of what they say. I would rather hear what the general public has to say about these things than what some yuppi who is getting paid $60k a year to write about how awesome every game is thats coming out. We know from the movie industry that REAL critics don't know jack **** about what people actually like.
If you want to read reviews that are all positive that whats the ****ing point of having a review in the first place.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
My bad Ves your profile for the "quick blurb" truncated the post and it actually cut off what YOU said and showed what someoen else said :-/
Sorry about that. Guess i should have followed the link instead of just quoting what was listed as your replies blah.
I get your point. That said, this "article" is more of a poorly written interview or outtakes from a discussion with some curse words thrown in. I expect more.
I hate to break it to you, but while EQ 1 didn't have any competition, the main reason why it was so successful was the playing options. Find me another game that with its original release had 12 (I think) races to choose from, and 13 (or so) classes. If EQ1 was to be re-released as from day 1 (or maybe after the kunark expansion) I think that you would find it doing well among gamers. The nice thing about EQ was that they promoted a classic fantasy game. If you look at the kind of games that have done well over the years before the internet was around you are looking at games like FF or Ultima. Those kind of games had basically one thing in common, and that is the amount of options you got, backed with a great storyline. I also feel that EQ could have done more to revamp/upgrade older levels to help spread out the gaming community it had. For instance when I was playing EQ I used to love going to LGuk with a passion (don't ask me why). after SOV came out the entire place was practically obsolete. Hell before SOV came out there where alot of zones on Kunark that where pretty much obsolete. So everyone flocked to the same three or four zones. While EQ1 was a learning experience of how to do a MMOG, I would love to find one about to come out that game more options to beginning players, and backed them up with multiple servers with different levels of PvP elements. Personally I have always been more of a PvE kind of guy.
The downfall with EQ was the overloading of expansions, the lack of content for anyone that wasn't a top lever power raider type, lack of customer service. When EQ2 was announced that it was going to come out Sony seemed to abandoned EQ.
with all of the kind of chars you thought about when you thought of a RPG. The problem I have found with the new games has been the lack of options.
Not a prob, it happens
Its going to take a brave company to break the mold. Right now everything is copying everything else of fear for profits. If something new is thought up these companies are sweating trying to see if it might make a profit and make shareholders happy. We won't see any true inovation for at least another 5 years because companies are putting massive amounts of money on the line to make a game. They need to be assured 100% that it will make some kind of profit, they will do this by integrating ideas into their games that mimic other successful games.
Look forward to a few more years of basically clones of each other with small different things here and there...
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
I can't even call what I just read an actual article. It offered no fact or truth simply over opinionated drivel from three kids who need their mouth washed out with soap. Although I think its valid to say there's not been a great deal of innovation in the last few years of MMORPG's thats not to say its not been tried. Its just those that have tried either never made it off the ground or flopped face first when they did come out. To offer up that PVP in the fashion of Shadowbane is the only way to go to innovate is purely the opinion of the three that were interviewed and not even good opinion at that since only a small niche market of players would actually pay money to get killed on sight just trying to figure out the game. If the 'article' had offered up opinions of different player types it would of atleast offered some light on whats going on in the heads of many different players and not just the elitist ignorant rants we had to shortly suffer through in the mentioned article.
There are millions of people in the world, millions of different playstyles and each one even as corny and crappy as some might be to us old time MMORPGers they are still valid playstyles. While I'll never call WOW innovative (because its not, everything wow has someone else did first, they just happened to grab the 'easy to play' market first and thats it) I can not call WOW a step backwards either. WoW for all its good and bad points was simply no step at all it just appeared with alot of false promises and a whole lot of flashiness.
One thing I just want to smack all three of them over is their comments towards Age of Conan and Warhammer. While both are building on already done market styles they are both offering up some evolution, they're bold enough to offer up something for both pvp and pve styles of play without wow o fying how its done is to me a huge step in the right direction. A gradual way to keep the genre's fun and lively without risking alienating everything and thus their game going down the tube is sound finicial advise (game programmers can't live off nothing you know and some actually have families to take care of!). To say a company needs to risk millions of dollars by doing something so super revolutionary is the only way to go is in all honesty completely ignorate of how reality works. Its not only a risk to the game itself surviving launch but a risk to the people employed at that company and a risk to us players of having wasted 50 bucks on a game that dies within a month or two of its launch.
While currently safe to say MMO's evolution has been slow if not a bit stagnant since the release of WoW I think the future is bright. Thats just one old gamer's opinion.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
You shouldve been a little more blunt
Seriously though, its hard to argue with most of those points. Actually, I agree, I just wouldnt put it that way.
IMO, what was said about making the development process more accessible to smaller companies is a really good point. It seems like, if we're ever going to see innovative and exciting MMOs, they'll most likely come from the smaller companies.
LOL, great response.