Why all the crazy long replies? The only thing that can really be said about this topic that actually means anything is something along the lines of "That shiat be whack."
I found the repetative nature of WoWs early leveling process to be so mindlessly boring that there were times that I literally wanted to beat my head into the monitor to see if I could possibly find more enjoyment than that.
Wow fun from the beginning? I don't understand how the following is fun
Run
Target Mob
Press various attack buttons in a boringly slow paced combat sequence
continue pressing buttons until monster is dead
Repeat
Thats the first how many levels of the game?
oh I suppose theres a little more to it, if you ahve a skill like, skinning, and leather working.
I found the repetative nature of WoWs early leveling process to be so mindlessly boring that there were times that I literally wanted to beat my head into the monitor to see if I could possibly find more enjoyment than that.
Wow fun from the beginning? I don't understand how the following is fun
Run Target Mob Press various attack buttons in a boringly slow paced combat sequence continue pressing buttons until monster is dead Repeat
Thats the first how many levels of the game? oh I suppose theres a little more to it, if you ahve a skill like, skinning, and leather working.
then you simply add Collect loot/skin mob make leather repeat from Run
wow fun? sorry I'm confused
You just described every non sandbox MMO out there.
It comes down the individual, their personality and their style of play. Imagine if AC or EQ came out this year with the same 'game philosophy', 'risk reward system' and the 'actions have consequences' methodology. These games would be completely shunned, overlooked and criticized at every level of the game design.
To me EQ was the bench mark for MMORPG games, even the name of the genre has been shortened. Part of the mentality bears a close resemblance to real life, as technology advances and the more mechanisms that do the work or thinking for us the lazier we will become. Our expectation level rises and our time to be gratified will be ever increasing to meet with even more instantaneousness.
Its not necessarily the lack of fun in a game, but the lack of desire to be burdened by what is perceived to be laborious, repetitive, over penalizing and a general inconvenience. There are reasons why you start out a level 1 and work your way up, its called 'earning' and 'learning'.
Most people will find that the beginning of the game is the most rewarding because things are new, you're making discovery, you're accomplishing goals, you're building and developing. All these elements or depth are what make the games fun. Its about enjoying the ride than reaching the destination. The destination will come, in time, however some of the new generation of players simply want that instant sense of accomplishment, power, ability and big payoff rewards.
The Old Timers Guild Laid back, not so serious, no drama. All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
It comes down the individual, their personality and their style of play. Imagine if AC or EQ came out this year with the same 'game philosophy', 'risk reward system' and the 'actions have consequences' methodology. These games would be completely shunned, overlooked and criticized at every level of the game design. To me EQ was the bench mark for MMORPG games, even the name of the genre has been shortened. Part of the mentality bears a close resemblance to real life, as technology advances and the more mechanisms that do the work or thinking for us the lazier we will become. Our expectation level rises and our time to be gratified will be ever increasing to met with even more instantaneousness. Its not necessarily the lack of fun in a game, but the lack of desire to be burdened by what is perceived to be laborious, repetitive, over penalizing and a general inconvenience. There are reasons why you start out a level 1 and work your way up, its called 'earning' and 'learning'. Most people will find that the beginning of the game is the most rewarding because things are new, you're making discovery, you're accomplishing goals, you're building and developing. All these elements or depth are what make the games fun. Its about enjoying the ride than reaching the destination. The destination will come, in time, however some of the new generation of players simply want that instant sense of accomplishment, power, ability and big payoff rewards.
Most people will find that the beginning of the game is the most rewarding because things are new, you're making discovery, you're accomplishing goals, you're building and developing. All these elements or depth are what make the games fun. Its about enjoying the ride than reaching the destination. The destination will come, in time, however some of the new generation of players simply want that instant sense of accomplishment, power, ability and big payoff rewards.
Which MMORPG has this feature?
I can't come up with one in my head atm... Maybe guild wars.
Originally posted by Orca Originally posted by BuzWeaverMost people will find that the beginning of the game is the most rewarding because things are new, you're making discovery, you're accomplishing goals, you're building and developing. All these elements or depth are what make the games fun. Its about enjoying the ride than reaching the destination. The destination will come, in time, however some of the new generation of players simply want that instant sense of accomplishment, power, ability and big payoff rewards.
Which MMORPG has this feature?
I can't come up with one in my head atm... Maybe guild wars.
EDIT: And SWG, sorry
I would agree there is a lack of depth in some games now and there seems to be less attention on crafting and its intricacies which is something I personally enjoy in every MMO I've played. As far as new I suppose this also depends on perception, I say new as in a new game versus a new concept or generation of game.
Perhaps AOC will have some substantive depth to it since it has an origin and a lot of lore, unlike LOTRO which did have a lot of lore, but felt constrained because things had to fit with the Tolkien lore. Warhammer seems to be meeting the expectation of instant action, which I don't necessarily object to, however I have a wait and see approach to it.
The Old Timers Guild Laid back, not so serious, no drama. All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
I so agree with Anofalye . Unlimited levels with level capped areas. Keep the soloers happy and keep the groupers happy.
content for all.
Though I don't understand games that you have to play for many months or even years to get to the content that is supposed to be the selling point of game.
I loved the look and feel of Linage II but I don't have the time or the desire to spend 1 to 2 years to start to siege castles which does look really fun.
I played and trained for nearly a year in EVE online and found I could do nothing exciting unless I joined a corp and even then I wasn't valued.
Asheron's Call, Champions Online, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, EverQuest, Lineage 2, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft.Waiting for SWTOR
at least some mmos ive seen are now realising you dont need all high level content at launch, the only ptroblem is scheduling that future content t ocompete with the leveling speed of your playerbase
If a game introduces new content too slowly, it will not hold the interest of the players. I like to use Chaos Legion and Sword of the New World for these examples.
Chaos Legion had you repeating the same 4 or 6 hit combo over and over and only using 1 ability from each of your minions. You spent about 2 hours of gameplay (through lvl 1 - 3) doing this. By this time people put the controler down and considered the game horrid. Funny thing is after that the game becomes like a Devil May Cry in combat, and Dynasty Warriors in level setup and mobs. It was beautifule the amount of abilities the character had......but they brought it out too slowly.
Sword of the New World had this interesting system of having 3 characters played at once. The intro levels to the game were great because you had quest to do and three different types of classes to explore and level up. The look and sound of the game had lots of style. But somewhere around lvl 6 of the game, you realize that the developers didn't have much in the way of quest and content lined up for the player. You finished alll the quest for you level in about 3 hours and had to spend 6+ hours grinding just to reach the next level and get a few more quest. As your level got higher, the grinds got longer. Somewhere arouned level 20, a crafting system was instroduced. Around level 25 an advanced PvP system was also introduced, but it tooks weeks to get to these key features.
WoWs enjoyment will either come from lvling up or end game raiding. I liked the leveling up content, good stories, a large variety of missions in comparision to other MMOs, and great worlds to explore. There were so many quest in WoW that a person could level up four characters at once in and prevent each character from entering the same zone and recieving the same quest. The typical player would reach end game only completely about 45% of the games quest.
I left WoW during the Burning Crusade end game content. I was forced to raid and I had to raid the dungeons in a specific order. I had to schedule for these raids because they were way tooo difficult for a pick up group to handle. My life is too random for scheduling game time. I could not gear up for the raids, even with heroic instance gear I found myself lacking. PvP was fun for about 4 months after BC launch but after that gear differences were too great and took fun out of PvP. Gear become more powerful than skill. The worst thing of all, all the gear in BC was uncreative in stats. Everything just added big numbers and nothing had anything special. I love having characters with off the wall abilities granted to me through items. WoW stopped providing that.
WoW, Eve, and CoH are the only MMO games that had a complete feel to them. The rest looked like betas when they first launched.
Games have become extremely dull at the beginning mainly restricted by the speed of new content. Imagine if one company took a huge chance and released a game where they employ hundreds of developers to constantly produce content.
Imagine if you could do a new raid every friday night? Imagine if you could do a new raid every night? If you didnt play for a day youd instantly create a choice between two new raids! This is extreme obviously but it shows how I think games should be run.
WoW for example - people follow a stringent guide just like a very mundane job until they hit 70 blinded by the possibility that the game will be fun. In the meantime 70s are quitting saying that end-game is still boring as the content is too slow. What if you had raiding tiers instead of levels. The game is released with 50 raids each progressively harder and a new one is released each week? If you had one char at raid lvl 50 you could just raid a second set for your alt instead of being punished to repeat 50 raids.
My point: Levelling up is mis-advertising. You work for months to hit max level under the premise that you'll encounter a completely different game at the end. You cant be telling me that a level 5 instance is as fun as end-game raiding? Its a ploy to buy more time from release while they make more content when they could have just made raid content instead of levelling content.
-- Note: PlayNC will refuse to allow you access to your account if you forget your password and can't provide a scanned image of the product key for the first product you purchased..... LOL
I guess I have a different take on all this, or maybe it's the game developer in me, but with most games: single, player, multiplayer, and persistent multiplayer; I almost always have the most fun at the begining. There is a sense of wonder, of "I don't know what's going to happen next". Should I venture out from the starting spot, or will there be one hit agro in that spot? Who knows, I haven't been there before. What are the death penalties like? Before I know, I am very careful just to be sure. What kind of skills can I level up and how does it all work etc.
Once I learn the systems and see what the game has to offer first hand, then it starts to grow dull to me.
So no, I have the most fun at the begining, and have never seen this mythical "end game" which is so often talked about. I have grown bored of the game long before I am mid-way through. Then I move onto something else.
If it DOESN'T give me that new game smell of wonder in the beginning, I don't play for more than an hour.
The key to making a blockbuster game of any genre is to give gamers a reason not to quit in the first 5 minutes, then up the ante every half hour or so.
My brother tells me that COH gets fun at lvl 30. I tell him that it needs to be fun from start to finish.
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
If the player doesnt like the advancement/leveling game, then it's understandable that they would say something like that -- to them it is fun being at max level, when the process of leveling is behind them, and they can "just have fun" with their character. Of course, a good game designer will give you something other than levels to grind at max level, but that's another story.
One of the design elements of WoW that contributed to its success was its fast pacing. This made the game fun for many users from the beginning of the game until leveling began to slow in the 40s (pre-2.3 changes). It wasn't fun for the EQ1 crowd, because they found it too easy and lacking in depth, but for the average player Blizzard was aiming at the pacing -- fairly fast, giving people regular cookies, keeping people on the move to new environments -- helped make the leveling game less tedious the first time around.
Games have become extremely dull at the beginning mainly restricted by the speed of new content. Imagine if one company took a huge chance and released a game where they employ hundreds of developers to constantly produce content. Imagine if you could do a new raid every friday night? Imagine if you could do a new raid every night? If you didnt play for a day youd instantly create a choice between two new raids! This is extreme obviously but it shows how I think games should be run. WoW for example - people follow a stringent guide just like a very mundane job until they hit 70 blinded by the possibility that the game will be fun. In the meantime 70s are quitting saying that end-game is still boring as the content is too slow. What if you had raiding tiers instead of levels. The game is released with 50 raids each progressively harder and a new one is released each week? If you had one char at raid lvl 50 you could just raid a second set for your alt instead of being punished to repeat 50 raids. My point: Levelling up is mis-advertising. You work for months to hit max level under the premise that you'll encounter a completely different game at the end. You cant be telling me that a level 5 instance is as fun as end-game raiding? Its a ploy to buy more time from release while they make more content when they could have just made raid content instead of levelling content.
Interesting opinion. Not one I can call wrong, except to say that it certainly does not apply to me.
Using Wow as the example: I have 3 level 70s and two in their 60s and I certainly DO NOT look forward to them hitting level 70. Why? Because then they'll be forced to do one of two things I dislike; PvP or raid. I really dislike raiding, I hate the predetermined boss-fight strategies, I hate that I can go through all of Kara and not get a single upgrade, I hate being told "stand here, do this when this happens, do this if this happens".
So, for me, Yes! that level 5 instance is more fun than end-game raiding. By a lot! I tend to either quit or roll an alt when I reach max level because the Wow end-game is nothing like the 1-70 game. Give me more of that! More stuff I can explore and do on my own, with slow but steady improvements to my character thru better gear or skills.
What I really can't understand is why every single one of these games does not have a massive randomized dungeon. One that is virtually bottomless, with progression getting tougher at every level. Have it scale (or have separate pathways) dependant on party-size, so a soloer or team of x number of players can enjoy it. Give me something to do at the top level that doesn't need a group! Almost every MMO I've played then quit is because of this reason.
Comments
I found the repetative nature of WoWs early leveling process to be so mindlessly boring that there were times that I literally wanted to beat my head into the monitor to see if I could possibly find more enjoyment than that.
Wow fun from the beginning? I don't understand how the following is fun
Run
Target Mob
Press various attack buttons in a boringly slow paced combat sequence
continue pressing buttons until monster is dead
Repeat
Thats the first how many levels of the game?
oh I suppose theres a little more to it, if you ahve a skill like, skinning, and leather working.
then you simply add
Collect loot/skin mob
make leather
repeat from Run
wow
fun?
sorry I'm confused
You just described every non sandbox MMO out there.
Thats exactly why we dont want more non-sandbox games. They suck!
But ... since you mention the to do list at the first levels... the same could be said about the high-end conttetns.
1. Spend 2 hours getting the right size of the raid team
.2 spend another 2 hours coordinating the attack
3. get killed while the rest of the raid team finishes the mob, making u out in the cold not getting loot
4. repeat
or the pvp version
1. be all exciting about your character and your new shiny sword
2. get killed within 2 seconds, due to all ganging up on you or due to a pvp-bug you didnt know about
3. repeat
Subscriptions, Yes. Just something I wanted to point out to everyone.
Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community
Correcting people since birth.
It comes down the individual, their personality and their style of play. Imagine if AC or EQ came out this year with the same 'game philosophy', 'risk reward system' and the 'actions have consequences' methodology. These games would be completely shunned, overlooked and criticized at every level of the game design.
To me EQ was the bench mark for MMORPG games, even the name of the genre has been shortened. Part of the mentality bears a close resemblance to real life, as technology advances and the more mechanisms that do the work or thinking for us the lazier we will become. Our expectation level rises and our time to be gratified will be ever increasing to meet with even more instantaneousness.
Its not necessarily the lack of fun in a game, but the lack of desire to be burdened by what is perceived to be laborious, repetitive, over penalizing and a general inconvenience. There are reasons why you start out a level 1 and work your way up, its called 'earning' and 'learning'.
Most people will find that the beginning of the game is the most rewarding because things are new, you're making discovery, you're accomplishing goals, you're building and developing. All these elements or depth are what make the games fun. Its about enjoying the ride than reaching the destination. The destination will come, in time, however some of the new generation of players simply want that instant sense of accomplishment, power, ability and big payoff rewards.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
nice post and so very true.
Which MMORPG has this feature?
I can't come up with one in my head atm... Maybe guild wars.
EDIT: And SWG, sorry
Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community
Correcting people since birth.
Which MMORPG has this feature?
I can't come up with one in my head atm... Maybe guild wars.
EDIT: And SWG, sorry
I would agree there is a lack of depth in some games now and there seems to be less attention on crafting and its intricacies which is something I personally enjoy in every MMO I've played. As far as new I suppose this also depends on perception, I say new as in a new game versus a new concept or generation of game.
Perhaps AOC will have some substantive depth to it since it has an origin and a lot of lore, unlike LOTRO which did have a lot of lore, but felt constrained because things had to fit with the Tolkien lore. Warhammer seems to be meeting the expectation of instant action, which I don't necessarily object to, however I have a wait and see approach to it.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
I so agree with Anofalye . Unlimited levels with level capped areas. Keep the soloers happy and keep the groupers happy.
content for all.
Though I don't understand games that you have to play for many months or even years to get to the content that is supposed to be the selling point of game.
I loved the look and feel of Linage II but I don't have the time or the desire to spend 1 to 2 years to start to siege castles which does look really fun.
I played and trained for nearly a year in EVE online and found I could do nothing exciting unless I joined a corp and even then I wasn't valued.
Asheron's Call, Champions Online, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, EverQuest, Lineage 2, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft.Waiting for SWTOR
at least some mmos ive seen are now realising you dont need all high level content at launch, the only ptroblem is scheduling that future content t ocompete with the leveling speed of your playerbase
If a game introduces new content too slowly, it will not hold the interest of the players. I like to use Chaos Legion and Sword of the New World for these examples.
Chaos Legion had you repeating the same 4 or 6 hit combo over and over and only using 1 ability from each of your minions. You spent about 2 hours of gameplay (through lvl 1 - 3) doing this. By this time people put the controler down and considered the game horrid. Funny thing is after that the game becomes like a Devil May Cry in combat, and Dynasty Warriors in level setup and mobs. It was beautifule the amount of abilities the character had......but they brought it out too slowly.
Sword of the New World had this interesting system of having 3 characters played at once. The intro levels to the game were great because you had quest to do and three different types of classes to explore and level up. The look and sound of the game had lots of style. But somewhere around lvl 6 of the game, you realize that the developers didn't have much in the way of quest and content lined up for the player. You finished alll the quest for you level in about 3 hours and had to spend 6+ hours grinding just to reach the next level and get a few more quest. As your level got higher, the grinds got longer. Somewhere arouned level 20, a crafting system was instroduced. Around level 25 an advanced PvP system was also introduced, but it tooks weeks to get to these key features.
WoWs enjoyment will either come from lvling up or end game raiding. I liked the leveling up content, good stories, a large variety of missions in comparision to other MMOs, and great worlds to explore. There were so many quest in WoW that a person could level up four characters at once in and prevent each character from entering the same zone and recieving the same quest. The typical player would reach end game only completely about 45% of the games quest.
I left WoW during the Burning Crusade end game content. I was forced to raid and I had to raid the dungeons in a specific order. I had to schedule for these raids because they were way tooo difficult for a pick up group to handle. My life is too random for scheduling game time. I could not gear up for the raids, even with heroic instance gear I found myself lacking. PvP was fun for about 4 months after BC launch but after that gear differences were too great and took fun out of PvP. Gear become more powerful than skill. The worst thing of all, all the gear in BC was uncreative in stats. Everything just added big numbers and nothing had anything special. I love having characters with off the wall abilities granted to me through items. WoW stopped providing that.
WoW, Eve, and CoH are the only MMO games that had a complete feel to them. The rest looked like betas when they first launched.
Games have become extremely dull at the beginning mainly restricted by the speed of new content. Imagine if one company took a huge chance and released a game where they employ hundreds of developers to constantly produce content.
Imagine if you could do a new raid every friday night? Imagine if you could do a new raid every night? If you didnt play for a day youd instantly create a choice between two new raids! This is extreme obviously but it shows how I think games should be run.
WoW for example - people follow a stringent guide just like a very mundane job until they hit 70 blinded by the possibility that the game will be fun. In the meantime 70s are quitting saying that end-game is still boring as the content is too slow. What if you had raiding tiers instead of levels. The game is released with 50 raids each progressively harder and a new one is released each week? If you had one char at raid lvl 50 you could just raid a second set for your alt instead of being punished to repeat 50 raids.
My point: Levelling up is mis-advertising. You work for months to hit max level under the premise that you'll encounter a completely different game at the end. You cant be telling me that a level 5 instance is as fun as end-game raiding? Its a ploy to buy more time from release while they make more content when they could have just made raid content instead of levelling content.
--
Note: PlayNC will refuse to allow you access to your account if you forget your password and can't provide a scanned image of the product key for the first product you purchased..... LOL
I guess I have a different take on all this, or maybe it's the game developer in me, but with most games: single, player, multiplayer, and persistent multiplayer; I almost always have the most fun at the begining. There is a sense of wonder, of "I don't know what's going to happen next". Should I venture out from the starting spot, or will there be one hit agro in that spot? Who knows, I haven't been there before. What are the death penalties like? Before I know, I am very careful just to be sure. What kind of skills can I level up and how does it all work etc.
Once I learn the systems and see what the game has to offer first hand, then it starts to grow dull to me.
So no, I have the most fun at the begining, and have never seen this mythical "end game" which is so often talked about. I have grown bored of the game long before I am mid-way through. Then I move onto something else.
If it DOESN'T give me that new game smell of wonder in the beginning, I don't play for more than an hour.
The key to making a blockbuster game of any genre is to give gamers a reason not to quit in the first 5 minutes, then up the ante every half hour or so.
My brother tells me that COH gets fun at lvl 30. I tell him that it needs to be fun from start to finish.
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It depends on what the player wants.
If the player doesnt like the advancement/leveling game, then it's understandable that they would say something like that -- to them it is fun being at max level, when the process of leveling is behind them, and they can "just have fun" with their character. Of course, a good game designer will give you something other than levels to grind at max level, but that's another story.
One of the design elements of WoW that contributed to its success was its fast pacing. This made the game fun for many users from the beginning of the game until leveling began to slow in the 40s (pre-2.3 changes). It wasn't fun for the EQ1 crowd, because they found it too easy and lacking in depth, but for the average player Blizzard was aiming at the pacing -- fairly fast, giving people regular cookies, keeping people on the move to new environments -- helped make the leveling game less tedious the first time around.
Interesting opinion. Not one I can call wrong, except to say that it certainly does not apply to me.
Using Wow as the example: I have 3 level 70s and two in their 60s and I certainly DO NOT look forward to them hitting level 70. Why? Because then they'll be forced to do one of two things I dislike; PvP or raid. I really dislike raiding, I hate the predetermined boss-fight strategies, I hate that I can go through all of Kara and not get a single upgrade, I hate being told "stand here, do this when this happens, do this if this happens".
So, for me, Yes! that level 5 instance is more fun than end-game raiding. By a lot! I tend to either quit or roll an alt when I reach max level because the Wow end-game is nothing like the 1-70 game. Give me more of that! More stuff I can explore and do on my own, with slow but steady improvements to my character thru better gear or skills.
What I really can't understand is why every single one of these games does not have a massive randomized dungeon. One that is virtually bottomless, with progression getting tougher at every level. Have it scale (or have separate pathways) dependant on party-size, so a soloer or team of x number of players can enjoy it. Give me something to do at the top level that doesn't need a group! Almost every MMO I've played then quit is because of this reason.