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How many Uber chars have we forgotten?
How many MMOs have you played building your char up to top level, amassed the rarest gear, filled your coffers with gold, explored all the world had to offer, built and decorated a house... only to then suddenly have nothing to do? Only to walk away from it all and cancel your account?
Those people that are afraid of Darkfall and pvp type games want protection and predictability. They say, why should someone be able to steal a rare weapon from me that has taken me x days to aquire? I only have y hours a day to play and if my work is undone by griefers I refuse to play. So they become protected and are free to aquire loot. But when you've got everything and realize how boring the game is now... don't you ask yourself what the point was as you cancel your account and look for something more?
What if you could go back to one of these Uber chars you've left behind and play where there was some risk. You could actually influence each others char's lives. Loot each other after death. Break into each other's houses. Kill each others horses. People don't seem to understand that interaction and risk/reward is needed for lasting interest in an MMO.
We need an alternative to the grind -> protected aquisition of loot -> end of cycle -> expansion -> repeat
Comments
You just explained Darkfall...
I agree? I think... I don't know if I read it right or not
A good MMO should have enough content so that aquiring that uber gear is both fun and timerequiring. And once many players are starting to reach that point the bar should be raised by addition of new content and better things. That is what an MMO is about to me, the evolution of your character, constantly working to become better and stronger.
And it is not the end result that is interresting but the journey towards that result.
I am one of those people you refered to who gets annoyed by loosing stuff that i have worked hard on getting. Risk is one thing, but having all your work ruined because of one death is another. And in PvP it is next to impossible to be undefeted. At some point dying to another player is inevidable. Therefore, whats the point of spending time on collecting gear if there is no doubt that I will loose it.
A game like that either lacks that feeling of evolution that I want, and ends up just being a PvP-and-hope-you-manage-to-keep-what-you-steal game where content is negliegable, or a stale thing where everyone is afraid of engaging in PvP for fear of loosing their stuff. Thats my opinion.
I agree that we need an alternative to the types of games that have become most popular (and that I personally like) since there seems to be many people who want one. But the "grind -> expansion -> repeat" thing is what i believe most people like.
MMO = grind afterall, and the games that can disguise the grind in exciting content are the winners.
I know it's hard to understand when you've never been exposed to it. I'm assuming you've never played UO.
Anyway. Darkfall is not about collecting gear. It's not like all of the EQ clones that are out there right now where gear = only point of the game. Try to think outside of the little box that WoW has made for the MMO genre.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Since eventually everything will be play crafted besides the obvious stuff that drops from mobs and gathering resources the "uber" gear grind isn't going to really live beyond the 3 or 4 month point. Once servers are established, player cities have been constructed and razed, and the crafters are max skill it'll be a different game from launch, what is the reason why being there at launch is so important.
Also in open ended games like this there is normally a lot of things you can do if you have the guild support behind you to do it. The guild I am in for example wont be controlling any towns, castles, or land. We wont be doing epic raid boss encounters like fighting dragons and devils or clearing the hardest section of a dungeon multiple times a week. I mean I can see us doing PvE content but our goal is to have fun by messing with other players...
so in a game like DFO, the fact it's open pvp my one goal is able to turn into hundreds of possible ways to mess with people and have fun,... aka I don't see myself getting bored of DFO unless it is terrible.
www.scarybadguys.com
Never.
I detest this type of gameplay as it leads to burnout and results in the bitterness that you see on these boards on a daily basis. Any game can be a Sandbox - it just depends on the way you play and what you want to get out of a game.
I know it's hard to understand when you've never been exposed to it. I'm assuming you've never played UO.
I have been exposed to it, but not in UO no. I found the experience to be very frustrating.
Darkfall may not be as gearoriented as other games, but the question the OP asked was regarding what you do when you have collected all the best stuff and rare gear in the game.
And my sentence says "colecting gear" not whatever else you might be doing. Even those of us who are happy with "EQ clones" are capable of thinking "outside the box" as you said, when we choose to..
I hightlighted the red part because its one of the most poignant things said.
When people talk about the problems with finding a great endgame for MMOs there is nothing better than 'player-made' endgame. The possibilties are endless/unlimited, there are no real boundaries because you are the one making the story not the company. There are no raids or pvp content to chomp through and than ask yourself 'what now?', there is a chance for your own end-game out there.
A great example is EvE, a game that I wish I could love, its end-game is entirely player-driven, its endless, there is no 'what now?', people don't leave because they have nothing to do, there is always some different happening.
Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with MMO's such as WoW, WAR, etc, hell I played WoW for about 2 years. This is not another sandbox vs linear blah blah blah argument, because there is no right or wrong in this matter. What I'm saying is when it comes to endgame nothing will ever beat true player-driven risk/reward, because it keeps the game fresh, instead of endlessly repeating content.
I understand people with busy lives don't want to lose what they played hard for, and that is perfectly acceptable, we each have our different tastes.
O_o o_O
Never.
I detest this type of gameplay as it leads to burnout and results in the bitterness that you see on these boards on a daily basis. Any game can be a Sandbox - it just depends on the way you play and what you want to get out of a game.
I stop playing an MMO when I stop having fun. There has never been a time that I've had "nothing to do". There is always something to do, if you are having fun in your MMO.
Been playing MMO's since UO came out... I stay until it's not fun anymore... then I go find a new MMO. I figured everyone did the same thing.
If you had fun up until the time that you walked away... then what is there to complain about? That was the point of playing... right? To have fun?
It's not like you earn any kind of special award in real life the longer you stay playing a MMO. I don't understand the mentality of staying even 1 day in a MMO if you are not having fun. If you had fun... then when you walk away there should be nothing to complain about.
Granted, there are times when you feel your time in the MMO was cut short because of changes imposed upon the game... SWG. However, it still holds that as long as you were having fun... it was good while it lasted.
I'm glad I'm getting responses from some varied viewpoints as I'd hoped.
When I was first introduced to the concept of an mmo, I thought how amazing it would be to interact with other players. Surely, I thought, game developers would try to accentuate this new dimension of gaming by maximising the interaction between players. What could possibly be more challenging than real life antagonists in gaming? I imagined playing chess online against an opponent to the nth degree.
People reminisce about their experiences in UO and recall vividly adrenaline filled experiences over a decade ago like it was yesterday. (I apologize in advance to those who are too young and are sick of hearing about it
). What do all these "most exciting moment in an mmo" have in common?
They involved interacting with other players with something at risk.
People get some type of satisfaction aquiring things in today's mmos. Believe me I get it. I think about my char in Lotr. He is max lev. Did a lot of fun quests. Traded a ton on the auction house so is flush with cash. Everytime I logged in and saw all that I have accomplished it was satsifying. But the problem is that you are always reliant on the mmo to provide new content (ie expansions). The interaction with players is an afterthought. It's inevitable, at least for me, that I will get bored and cancel. At that moment, right before I pull the plug, I realize that I have been duped. All this stuff that I aquired is worthless. Before I cancel I wish I could go out and have some real fun. Do I really care now if someone kills me and takes my gear? I wish I could have a fight to the death with someone... permadeath! Perhaps way too extreme... but maybe some middle ground...
I must have played 20 mmos after UO... but please indulge me and let me share a few memorable experiences off the top of my head. It's been a long time so please forgive any inaccuracies:
1) My friend and I chop down trees all day for lumber and make shields to sell. With our clicking hands cramped up into claws, we finally raise enough cash for a deed for a small house. We scout out an open lot close to a xroads near town. So lucky to have such a good spot available. Now my friend scouts ahead as I follow a few clicks behind... knowing that if a pk ambushes, he could loot us of our small house deed that we worked all day for. Perhaps a bit too cautiously, we manage to approach our lot and build our house.
2) We discover that a thief has pickpocketed us of our house key which in essence means that the house we worked so hard for is his. In a manic craze, we scout all up and down the countryside for him. We must kill him and regain control of our home.
3) After being repeated killed by red pks, one bungles the job and my friend and I find ourselves pursuing him across the map. After what seems like a 2 hour chase (probably took all of 3 mins), we finally subdue him and put him down and loot him. We happened to be on the phone with each other and agree that our hearts are about to beat out of our chests!
4) Just farmed a bag full of reagents. Heading back to the house I see a guy at the xroads. Naked. Standing there. I don't know whether he's a noob that just got rolled or a GM archer about to separate me from my goods. I stand back cautiously anticipating his next move.
5) I'm a GM archer with a custom made xbow. Riding around on my horse I look for solos to gank. Instead, I encounter two with bows not afraid to stand their ground. Yes they are both shooting back. I take out the first one with two shots. As he hits the dirt, his glorious inventory shrouds his corpse like a peacocks plumes. The other one is better and it's close, but he goes down as well. I pick through their loot and put the best stuff on my NCP vendor sitting outside my house. I have competitive prices I think to myself. Perhaps these two will buy their stuff back.
The cheapest, easiest, and most common method for keeping players intersted is the introduction of new items/equipment.
All the devs do is paint a neat icon, plus give it a cool sounding name and voila they trapped you for another 6 months while you grind for that item.
I have had uber chars and yes I left for the exact reason you mentioned, boredom. The only reason I logged on was to aquire items, and when you have them all, there is no reason to return.
Watch Led Zeppelin, Darkfall Tribute
Watch Johnny Cash, Darkfall Tribute
There is no evolution or revolutionairy sytem in chance the numbers tier1 tier2 tier 3 tier4 tier5 tier6 teir7 and so on its just a mindless grind boring as hell in crap game.
But themepark are the sewers of the mmo with rats grinding all day for years poluting it more and more:P
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
The characters from my MMOG past, both mine and other gamers, that I remember, had made an impact because ot the accomplishments they achieved. They had a reputaion as a crafter or adventurer or explorer or quest solver or roleplayer etc., not because they had rare loot. The rare loot may be a byproduct or reward, but the deeds and accomplishments are what establish notoriety.
I remember an early AC moment when I was on a hill waiting for a mob to spawn (which it would ever minute or so). I looked around me and there were 20 other people waiting next to me. I remember thinking: something is wrong when you can play an mmo and completely ignore everyone around you.
Why make a game where 21 people are focused on a mob about to spawn? That mob has got to be pretty damn interesting. Does an uber loot table make him interesting? Is a bunch of people playing a single player game concurrently an mmo?
At the same time, games like AoC at launch (I canceled and vow never to give Funcom another dollar) have player interaction in the form of pvp but with no risk and no reward. Unless you consider having to walk from the rez point risk and interfering with people's quests rewarding. A tacked on pvp flag with no consideration for game mechanics is less than worthless.
So Darkfall comes and promises a break from the WoW formula. Even if they just represent a different philosophy of mmo that's something worthwhile... reminding us that there's alternatives to what we've been settling for. Of course I hope that they are more than that and actually release a product in the near future!
The thing I love about games like this is that there are no uber characters. Only the person behind the character can be considered uber or not, because all that shiny loot can disappear in a heartbeat.
"It's better to burn out, than fade away!"
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