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Why everyone is always so unsatisfied
dippitydodah
Member Posts: 130
I put this as a reply to a post in the WAR open beta section but thought it was better off as it's own topic.
Truth right here.
I honestly don't believe games were meant to work this way, it would be like a movie that never ends and you expect it to always be good. The entire human condition is based off of overcoming adversity, and evolution of a person or character through that triumph. A story has a begining, rising action, climax , falling action and end. Long running TV series's run into the problem of stretching a plotline out over years as well, which is why all older shows were episodic with a completeness to each episode.
An mmo of any sort, has a snapshot in time where nothing can change, the hook is that they keep resetting the bar of power so your character becomes weak over and over through xpacks and new gear updates so that you get the feeling of accomplishment.
In the end a story without an end, and a story without a character's true impact on the world lacks any value whatsoever, and there in lies why it's so hard to develop a good game for. Because in the end a neverending story is not a story at all and a character's life that has no impact upon it's world (such as killing a huge boss and having it appear in the world again an hour later for someone else to kill ect) is no life at all as well.
The model doesn't fit into the human dynamic, but our need to escape from the boring mundaneness of the modern world has created a market for another world, one way or another sometime along the line that world might get created, but prolly not any time in the next 20 years
Comments
MMORPG=purpose in life.
No really that's what people seem to insist.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
I look at EVE and I tend to wonder if you ever tried it.
Read this… it’s a good example of how one person can effect an entire population.
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=842023
Look at this movie… this war has changed many things for many people.
http://myeve.eve-online.com/download/videos/Default.asp?a=download&vid=136
The pilots in this game are the ones shaping the game, the market, the latest ship trend and fits, the storyline...
In the end though, it's just a game... I'm glad to log on and glad to log off and go spend time with my family lol. That's where the biggest problem lies these days....
The most unsatisfied are those that know a better product can exist or does exist and the creative directed needed for this product to exist is not in charge or does not exist in any game company, but in general the unsatisfied are just waiting for the most advanced game ever made, to them I recommend freezing your head in a cryogenics chamber and waiting a millenium, in a thousand years games will be amazing, but the problem is they still won't be able to reanimate frozen heads.
--- Razimus
Ok, before I say anything else I need to throw this out there, the above quote is absolute poetry man. Way to go for making a clear, concise post that hit on all your main points and still managed to get lines like the one above in there.
But beyond that, the poster immediately after you was right, a lot of people expect some sort of life purpose to an MMO. The guy who linked to EVE (Which I still play from time to time) reiterates tihs point, individual players want to create structures and societies in these games that affect their real life. They need an MMO to be everything, and this lends to constant complaining for that ideal world.
And finally, the reason you've heard a thousand times before but I'm going to say anyway, because this is the internet. Its where generally good people let out their inner scumbag, and scumbags go to be themselves. Thanks to anonymity, geographic distance, and starting on a clean slate people complain, trash talk, act rude and racist, generally just bitch about everything because they can. We still enjoy MMO's and I really believe most MMO players understand that their complaints are ludicrouse, but they complain anyway.
Anyway, great post.
~ Life Goes On