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What happened to just having fun?
Lenogen
Member Posts: 22
It seems like games just can not be simply fun anymore. They need to be online with X amount of players. They need/don't need PvP. I think all of these factors have lead to us (the gamers) to not be able to have fun anymore.
My favorite games are Shadowbane, Fallout 2, Balduer's Gate, and Everquest. It just so happens that a few of my favorites are MMORPGS. I have played MMORPGS since 2000. I love them.
But
Somewhere someone says Game X sucks and it fails. To me Game X was awesome. I think that someone has just lost sight of the whole point of games: to have fun.
SWTOR looks cool. Who cares if its an MMO or not, its the fun we want not the titles.
I own a computer store and 85% of my gamer customers play WoW. Some are in love with it and some are just 'waiting for something better.'
REALLY? WoW came out in 2004, there have been TONS of fun games since then. Why play it if you don't like it?
Anyone else share my opinon?
Comments
I can answer this for the "competitive prism of view":
They are not fun because the focus on progressing to achieve more power and be more efficient, defeating others.
Because they can progress.
Fun is to defeat others, but to defeat others people need to progress.
So noone have fun, because everyone is trying to progress to have fun defeating others. Thats sums it up.
For "non competitive prism of view":
I think it stopped being fun due to whatever non combat content became relegated to second plane, thus neglecting other aspects of what the "non-competitive prism of view" though it was fun. Like story, roleplay, lore, questing (not the bullsh*t we have nowadays), crafting, building, exploring, harvesting, socializing, doing whatever you think its fun to do with the tools they offer you, etc...
But besides that I have no idea.
one man's fun is another man's grind.
I've been waiting for a game that focuses on the journey, not the destination, for some time...
The PVP part is becoming more and more competition.
Not only do you need to grind a lot in the games, arguably a lot more than in the first MMO....people now use G13-G15 keyboards, Belkin add-ons and other peripherals to WIN.
Even in FPS you can usually win with just a good mouse, in PVP MMO there is so much power coming from macros that it's not really a game anymore, it's more a simulation of a game within a contest really.
I agree...I don't like everything about every mmo...but I'd say I've had fun in 98% of them. Do I still play all of them...of course not...I just can't afford 20 MMOs a month...either monetarily or time-wise. So I chose a few I play regularly...WOW and LOTRO...and some I mess around with off and on..usually AoC and COX among others I've tried... All of which...I find fun because of the "G" in "MMORPG" ...more so than the"MMO". They are all GAMES.
Some people on this site can't stand the idea someone else is having fun playing a game they happen to not like. Don't ask me why but the forums on this site attracts these sorts of people like s*** attracts flies.
As for the reason why people play WoW but are sick of it and just waiting for the "next thing" to roll along; being one of those people I can give you my personal reason for doing so. I'm waiting for a game that truly feels "next-gen" at this point. I've been hopping from game to game constantly this past year and while I still play WoW every couple months, it fails to hold my attention like it used to a few years ago.
I concur whole heartedly.
I will add in for the competitive prism that since the field is never going to be balanced, in and out of game, those folks are always a well spring of frustration because someone else is doing it easier, or getting better. If the game rewarded a measurable skill there would be much less consternation.
Then add to the non competitive side of things all the roadblocks placed in the way of fun game play to appease the competitive folks who will play riddiculous amounts of time to get an edge. When those roadblocks get too much in the way of what was fun, the game ceases to be enjoyable.
I find different games fun for different reasons. But MMOs, to me, are largely fun for two reasons: the community, and how well I stack up against the community. It's very rarely fun in the same way that riding on a rollercoaster is fun. In fact, I would go so far as to say they generally aren't fun at all, and that instead it's about being part of a community, and about a sense of accomplishment. There are obviously different types of contentedness, and I think games are about helping people to be achieve contentedness, rather than just the small subset of contentedness achieved by having fun. Games have gone beyond the simple fun of playing games like Pacman (and we should admit that it's only fun for the first few games, after which it again becomes about how far you can get).
WoW is enjoyable because you play with people that you get to know. It's also enjoyable because you progress, and your progress can be measured against the progress of others. This point is driven home if we compare it to a game like Oblivion, which goes miles beyond MMOs in everything except community. This shows just how important the community is, because Oblivion, frankly, does not hold the interest of most people.
I played WAR when it first came out, but I only played for one month. Why? Because I'd already become a part of a certain WoW community. We're social creatures. If it weren't for the close-knit groups of people in WoW, new games would have a far greater chance for success. But instead, the next new MMO is going to have to take real strides of innovation before it steals any playerbase from WoW. I had to ask myself if having RVR combat was worth losing a bunch of friends (and yes, they're not people that we know in real life, but I think psychologically it's hard for us to tell the difference). The answer was obviously no. The game needs to be interesting enough for you to be immersed long enough for you to become part of a new community.
As far as your last statement, Lenogen, I strongly believe that people who say they're just "waiting for something better" are really just being tragically hip. 10+ million people play WoW, and probably 5 million of them are embarassed to say that they love every second of it.
Here is my view on this:
MMORPG players are in love with the idea of playing a persistant game for years. They want to form a relationship with the game that will stay fresh and exciting forever. In essence they are looking for a marriage and not just a short fling.
So a MMORPG player finds a new game and they hit it off. He plays it for hours, has fun and enjoys the excitement. However , at some point you start noticing that your 'true love' is not as perfect as you thought it would be. Doing the same things together gets boring. Some of the things your game nags you to do are just not fun for you but you do it in the hope that yoru reward will be worth it. Some games turn abusive on you and punish you for not being ambitions enough, having enough money or not devoting enough time to them.
When the inevitable break-up occurs it can be peaceful and you both go your seperate ways. Or it could be acrimonous where you belittle your former love to anyone who will listen. However, sooner or later you will experience the 'what-if' feelings and sneak a peek to see if things have changed. You might chance getting back together only to discover that things have not really changed.
The people you describe are simply not that interested in short-term flings and are looking for some game to share their lives with. In the meantime they simply cannot bear being alone so they stay with the 'girlfriend' who is not what they are fully looking for but 'will do' for now.
UO, AC, ATITD, EVE, and Puzzle Pirates are some that you may want to try.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Here is my view on this:
MMORPG players are in love with the idea of playing a persistant game for years. They want to form a relationship with the game that will stay fresh and exciting forever. In essence they are looking for a marriage and not just a short fling.
So a MMORPG player finds a new game and they hit it off. He plays it for hours, has fun and enjoys the excitement. However , at some point you start noticing that your 'true love' is not as perfect as you thought it would be. Doing the same things together gets boring. Some of the things your game nags you to do are just not fun for you but you do it in the hope that yoru reward will be worth it. Some games turn abusive on you and punish you for not being ambitions enough, having enough money or not devoting enough time to them.
When the inevitable break-up occurs it can be peaceful and you both go your seperate ways. Or it could be acrimonous where you belittle your former love to anyone who will listen. However, sooner or later you will experience the 'what-if' feelings and sneak a peek to see if things have changed. You might chance getting back together only to discover that things have not really changed.
The people you describe are simply not that interested in short-term flings and are looking for some game to share their lives with. In the meantime they simply cannot bear being alone so they stay with the 'girlfriend' who is not what they are fully looking for but 'will do' for now.
Great analogy.
Stop listening to others and just have fun. It's your privelege. Some people's idea of fun is saying how much fun they aren't having....
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Games aren't fun anymore because most of them (especially MMORPG) seeks to replace your real life with some sort of virtual world they want to get you addicted to. And addiction has "nothing" to do with fun. I do a lot of fun things that i'm not addicted with.
So the game developers by wanting to create "addicting" game play instead of "fun" game play, created this trend. And let's face it: A LOT of people hate their lives, so pretty much any kind of crap a developer with millions of dollars will throw at them will work. WoW just so happen to be the epitome and largest bastion of wannabes in the gaming world. Take anyone that plays WoW (or other retarded games like that) for more then 20+ hours a week and 90% of the time, that person's life is going nowhere and the game being played is the only place where they can actually find a sense of purpose and the power to dominate their prey like they are being fed on in "real life".
That leaves those of us who are just looking to have "fun", to become completely disenchanted by the current industry that puts us all in the same basket of retarded low lifes. Sorry but there's just no other way to say it.
I don't seek a game to replace my life: I seek a game(s) that adds a + value to it. BIG difference. And there ain't many of those. When you actually find one, you find yourself being alone to play it because most people you know are just addicted to other piece of garbage like WoW. Then your cool game dies, along with the community leaving you no choice to either not game at all, or play those piece of garbage until you get sick of it. For a gamer in the heart, that really suck ass. It could be compared as if you were a great fan of music, with a musical ear, but yet stuck to listen only Britney Spears and the Jonas brothers until you die.
It's an honest question to ask yourself if you'd rather be deaf.
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