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My useless rant against MMORPG's
lllco2lll
Member Posts: 10
This is my very first post so I hope you all are kind to me. Anyhow I've played many mmorpgs so far, but well somethings not right..... I don't really know how to put this into words, but well I am a casual gamer. Yet I want to play Online rpgs (role playing games) sadly I've been hyped about all these promising games i.e. City of heroes, FFxi, WoW, MxO, and old MUDS and RO you name it. I've never been able to really immerse into these games. In City of heroes it was such a dragging grind, also in ffxi.
However MxO was very promising before I got my hands on the beta, because the idea of really being in the Matrix. Living the matrix and what not was so promising. However after playing the beta I could tell where it was headed. Still fun but to me its not roleplaying enough.
Is there not a game that really has to concentrate on numbers soo much..... Sorry thats what most roleplaying games are based on, but still its supposed to be a roleplaying game it doesnt have to have attacks based on rolls. I don't really know where I'm getting at really. I just want to mindlessly whine at the fact that I tend to quit these MMORPGS well all of them because it was all really about "gaining levels."
I fell in love with rpg's when my friends sat me down to play classic D&D, but instead of mindless combats we mainly roleplayed the whole storyline and have battles according to the situation. I don't know I kinda hope one day there would be a mmorpg that would have no levels or "grinding" but just immersion where the player roleplays his/her character inside an immersive story like what some developers said so i.e. Lineage 2. I thought it was going to be a huge castle vs castle attack and conquer kings soldiers, but bleh mindless camp and kill mob game.
In WoW it was very promising to me I had a blast learning about the lore of it creating a character to fit a particular story line, but once I hit the leveling stages. It just.... became a level up game to me, because everyone else is leveling up. When did someone stated the idea that mmo"RPGS" was a game about leveling up. I don't know... I'm just sad and most of you are probably gonna flame at me saying things such as "shut up noob its an mmorpg you either like it or hate it, so go away"
Either I haven't found the best "roleplaying" game that has unique graphics and what not that interacts with a massive amount of people..........
Nevermind this post is useless I just want to express my opinions and cries of why I don't like this pointless trend of leveling.
Does anyone really understand how I feel? regardless of how terrible my grammar is....
I'm hoping Tabula Rasa lives up to its potential, but I'm scarred....
Comments
Try playing Neverwinter Nights or some other game like that, make your own private server, invite a few friends, and play. You can make your characters high level so you won't have to worry about leveling, and you and your friends can just coast along through with roleplaying.
_____________________________________
"Io rido, e rider mio non passa dentro;
Io ardo, e l'arsion mia non par di fore."
-Machiavelli
Keep your eye on Guild Wars too. They say they eliminate grinding and the unfun elements of RPGs...
I've played it, and really enjoy it. It's my favorite MMOG I've played to date so far. It is just in beta so far, but what they have I really like.
Guild Wars
Hmm I don't think there is a direct relationship between levelling and role playing.
For evidence lets go way back to EQ1 back in 2000.This is back then when levelling was a massive commitment.Race penalties,class penalities,long corpse retrieval and the exp was massively slow and 1/10th of level 59 could take as much as 50hrs constant exping .
So basically one of the hardest levelling periods in mmorpg history.But back then there was loads of role playing .Ogre talking like dummies,Dark elves refusing to have a high elf near them,loads and loads of role playing talk,iksar hissing ,iksar only guids(was in one for a short period),travelling rezzers who accepted no donation apart from food and water, etc.
Then people started noticing a thing called loot and uber mobs.Race guilds died fast,folks stop talking or behaing in a role playing way,clerics demanded huge amounts to even come near a zone to rezz so they could afford this uber loot.Role playing died.
Then we get games like SWG which if you are NOT grinding jedi is very easy to max up your skills.Dead easy in fact .Took me under a week to get master rifleman just after launch.And master artitect in what was it a few hours LOL.The game was even build for roleplaying and initally loads of people roleplayed and cared nothing about jedis.You had private clubs,wookies that actually roared,etc.
But when the FS slot opened people forgot about jedis ,few who had role playing close to their hear left and basically everyone forgot about it.
So really no matter how easy or hard a mmorpg is,no matter how much a game is build for roleplaying it is down to the community to roleplay.If they don't then the game simply will not have any roleplaying.
I think no mmorpg past,present or future can guarrantee you roleplaying .Its a community thing to get the meaning of RPG back into MMORPG.
For F's sake! I just typed out a post, and my effing browser deleted it. Eff, Eff, Mofo, Eff!
There! I feel slightly better.
5 words in your ear, if I may: A Tale In The Desert (or, to be more accurate, A Tale In The Desert 2).
Bah, pedants!
Nice way to break one's cherry on MMORPG.com. Your post is a perfectly sensible and reasonable one, unfortunately, you've discovered a well-known feature of the vast majority of MMORPGs: the RPG element is purely fictional and any resemblence to role-play is wholly co-incidental. No, a RP server just doesn't cut it. Even Brad McQuaid on the Vanguard website (in the FAQs) refers to MMORPGs and MMOGs [Massively Multi-player Online Games]. The dynamic of the vast majority of MMOGs is still the level/grind treadmill in one form or another. The only MMOG that I can think of that deviates from this treadmill(other posters may be able to provide more examples) is EVE Online.
As well as ATITD2, you may want to check out Second Life and that other life-sim game. Both are much more adult and non-linear than TSO [The Sims Online] - they're more online communities, for good or ill. That may or may not, float your boat. But the best advice I can give you is to check out ATAID2.
I cannot think of any other MMOG that would meet your criteria.
Regards,
Riotgirl
"If you think I'm plucky and scrappy and all I need is love, you're in way over your head. I don't have a heart of gold or get nice. There are a lot nicer people coming up. We call them losers."
That is correct. People roleplay, not the game itself. The game is merely a stage.
I wish my favorite game didn't have a leveling system.
Though I have no clue how to get rid of the treadmill when coming up with an mmorpg.
You should keep your eye out on Reclamation, the game is going to be HEAVILY focused on Roleplaying, and from what I hear about the game, if you are a roleplayer you should love it. Even me, the non-roleplayer, found it a very intriguing game. Check it out on the gamelist.
Yes I do. I'm in the same shoes, my friend, looking for 'the game'. Wish was looking to become one, but sadly it's over. I may still go back to play Gemstone4 - so far the only game where the RP was enforced (!) by the admins, and the fellow players! Great, great community there! Any off-char talk - even smilies - were frowned upon generally, many admins online, great RP players, nice content... If it wasn't a mud I would have never left it. But sadly it is, and I'm not as good at looking at a constantly scrolling screen as I was ;-)
anyway, looking forward to find the game sometime, without the mindless grind :-)
cya there!
Im a fanboi for sure, but i thought i would add my two cents worth and say that EvE might be different enough from the other games you have tried to possibly attract your attention, although maybe not. I share your opinion of leveling, and hack & slash style play. I am playing a D&D campaign at the moment where combat takes a back seat to a real storyline, in a 4-5 hour session we might have 3-4 encounters. The fun is character interaction and development. Not that EvE is completely like that, there is of course standard game stuff: mine for hours to make a thing, or do agent missions for hours in the hope of a bonus award, or kill npc's for $$ and loot. Where i think i differs, is that there is no leveling treadmill (replaced by other types of treadmills that you dont have to participate in if you dont want to). SKill progression is real time skill training, great for the casual gamer. No classes mean you are free to learn what you want when you want for whatever reason, complete freedom. The economy is 90% player based, as is 90% of the story line. Although there is story and such offered up by the developers, the more consistant storyline is provided by the corporations and alliances who vie for power. With the players creating the story content / deep seeded motivation the game doesnt get stale (Well not for me anyhow - many consider it boring - i consider it truely strategic and epic in nature). Anyhow even if you dont like it (there is a free trial so you can check it out), you may at least be pleased to see a game that differs from the norm. Death to Hegemony!
good luck in your search.
Gemstone4 was mentioned... and i have to agree, MUD's are the only mmo's i've seen where the majority of the population roleplayed.
Thats why i'm interested in Hero's Journey, by Simutronics. Yes, it appears to be just another fantasy mmo... but i have a good feeling that it'll be a niche product with a decent RP community. They plan to have servers with different rulesets, such as open PvP and i'm sure a RP server... so if they do as good a job enforcing RP as they do in their MUD's, i can see a true RP environment being formed.
*comfort*
Saddly it is easier for Devs to build a leveling system then to build a roleplaying system.
They even have issues to please all type of grinders lovers(think of all PvP vs Raiding vs Grouping vs Solo vs Tradeskills topic and arguing we have).
I hope for you they build something nice for roleplaying, but IMO you should try some clubs or peoples in your city. I mean, some guys here are eating and making food, events, all like in the medieval time, lot of talking, they simulate some combat with real armor and wooden weapons(ouchie) if it goes to your tastes. Roleplaying on a computer, it like the Olympics for the peoples with a deficiency, nop matter how nice and how hard you work it out, it will still be behind the real Olympic for most peoples.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
to tell the truth ive only found one mmorpg so far that you can truly immerse yourself in and thats wurm online. even though the graphics are bad its a good concept
That is exactly the keyword for EVE. "You don't have go through some menial, boring and repetitive grind to get to the good stuff, or the stuff you'll like." Yes, you can have boring time in EVE, just like in real life, but you don't have to. There's an infinite amount of ways of making cash in EVE, and mining is just reserved for the unimaginative.
Another big brownie point for EVE, that. In all other games, WoW and EQ2 included, the content design is such that a player/character can't have any impact in the game world. "Content" is something made by the Devs, introduced into the game and consumed by the players.
In EVE, most of the stuff that happens in the EVE universe springs from the player, corporation and alliance actions, politics, wars, trade and deals. To design it so, and to make it work is an impressive show of excellent game design, and also a show of how much trust you can put into the players as a game company.
When I play AO, WoW, L2 or EQ2 (played, wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole) I just can't help getting feeling that I'm being fed horse dung painted with pretty colors. I feel that the Devs are out there, somewhere, laughing their arses off watching me go through their stupid two-dimensional grinds created only to keep me in the game and paying their bills one more month. In EVE the Devs have truly earned my respect by not underestimating me as a player, and I have no problems handing them money for playing EVE every month.
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From fanbois to fanbois.
That is correct. People roleplay, not the game itself. The game is merely a stage.
Nice analogy. However I don't think the game is entirely without blame when it comes to lack of roleplaying. Sure the game is a stage, but the game also provides the props, linear progression games like WoW use cheap props that really don't help you're roleplaying at all.
Things like finding a sword but not being able to use it because you're 'not high enough level', or seeing a bat drop gold and a rusty dagger when you kill it. These things shatter immersion and force you out of character. They really hinder immersion in a big way, and immersion is key for roleplaying.
co2 I think what you need is a skill based game. Any game based on the linear progression system (ie classes and levels) will lack immersion simply because of the un-immersive nature of the system.
I personally am looking forward to Darkfall, and Trials of Ascension. These games focus a lot more on immersion due to their more realistic skill based systems. Both, however contain full unrestricted PVP so they are not for the weak spirited. You also might consider Roma Victor, it sounds very promising. I wish you luck in finding the mmorpg that works best for you.
*Signature*The Pessimist says the cup is half empty. The Optimist says the cup is half full. The Pragmatist says the cup is half full of air. The Engineer says the cup is operating at 50% capacity. The Psychologist says the cup is your mother. The Punk Kid also says the cup is your mother. The Cricket Player says his cup is definately full. Everyone knows that Pamela Andersons cups are full. The Defendant says it was like that when he found it. Me, I just ask the waitress for a refill.
As I said earlier in the post, Guild Wars holds a lot of promise. I've been beta testing, and they have got a lot of stuff bang on. There is no grinding. You even get a choice if you want to follow the storyline or not. The game is designed aroung PvP and GvG combat, and getting you there as quick as possible. And there is no "uber" loot that will make you stronger than everyone else. An expert player with a level 10 char, can actually stand a chance versus a level 20 char. And to ensure that everyone gets into the game fast, they have a level 20 player cap. That way it forces you to be skilled rather than have some uber armor or skill. You are on the same footing as everyone else, which gives you a great challenge.
And the GvG combat is superb. Basically to start a guild war, you get your guild together, and go to the opposing guilds guild hall. You have to take a NPC "thief" which is the only way you can open the doors in the opposing guild hall. Then you fight your way through the other guild, protecting your NPC. Once inside you have to hunt down an enemy NPC called the guildmaster, and kill him. All the while fighting off the other guild, and protecting your own NPC. I have seen games last as few as a few minutes to over a couple of hours. It's a riot and incredibley fun.
And if you are on at an odd hour playing, and no one else wants to group with you to quest you can simply take along some computer controlled NPCs who will fight alongside you. They are actually very smart, and I have no complaints with their AI as of yet.
And the questing is great as well. There are no line-ups, kill stealing, or any of that thanks to instanced questing. It leaves you with your group,
It's not a game to everyone's tastes, but it's my personal favorite so far. It hasn't released yet, but there is an upcoming beta that can be tried out.
Total speculation. The fan base will decide that after its released, ALL of the fanbase, including the fans that never read the books, only saw the movies.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Total speculation. The fan base will decide that after its released, ALL of the fanbase, including the fans that never read the books, only saw the movies.
No I think he's right... to begin with, MEO will have some of the best roleplaying around. But it depends on what kind of a game system how long that will last.
What others have said before about level/class based games and roleplaying is true. Go ask anyone in one of those games what set's one of their characters apart from another of their characters. They'll give you a description like "Well this one is a mule.. this one is optimized for PvP..." etc at the most, they'll tell you the race/class of each and leave it at that. Why is this happening, because a class/lvl based game is.. in the end ALL about the experience. Nothing seems to matter except how high your level it. It's the way EVERYTHING is compared with everything else. "This quest is for lvl 10-20" "You can't use this item unless you're lvl 2." "I only need 10Kxp for my next level." Add to that that most of these games force you to run back to a trainer or a town or somewhere to actually raise your skills/stats... So you spend the time killing monsters (that's all that gets you experience) and trainig, and in between you're running between the town and the moster farm. The utter ridiculousness of the environment you're in negates the possibility for role-playing. If I find a great-axe on the floor when I'm lvl 1, I could be the strongest character in the game, but I won't be able to pick it up and swing it unless I'm a certain level or I have a certain skill with great axes. If it's the only thing in my inventory, I am completely defenseless if I'm attacked. I can spend an hour in a forest dodging monsters I can't kill and hunting monsters I have a chance against and not get even slightly better at doing it. I have to return to a trainer as if what I was doing was completely unrelated. Classes and levels are evil. They are a holdover from the days of pen&paper when we didn't have computers to do all the number crunching. TSR and Wizards of the Coast are directly responsible for giving the system a new life in computer games. No one has ever given me an adequate reason for using such a system in a computer game and all evidence says that class/level mmorpgs have the lowest rp levels of them all.
An mmorpg should, even if it doesn't want to be a rpg, must make me the person more important than my character, its stats or its inventory. All of the character stuff should be assisting me in what I do in the game, not be the purpose behind what I do. I have plenty of single-player games where I can play the level game and make an uberwarmachine. I play mmorpgs to interact with other people. Our characters should help us do that, not be a hinderance to it.
It depends on what you mean by "new" genre. My first online game was Dragons Gate. It was called a MUD (multi user dungeon), but except for the graphics (there were no graphics), it played pretty much like UO does now. You could even build your own houses for in-game money. That was when I was still in high-school and the internet didn't even have graphics. UO doesn't do anything revolutionary, except they took advantage of a well-known name and put some fancy bells and whistles on it and suddenly a 'new' genre is born. I could hardly get excited about it, but I tried it.
The first thing I felt was dissapointment that the game world wasn't very big. Not only that, but people were complaining that it was as big as it was and they were upset at the time it took to get from point A to point B. DGate was frankly a huge world. I never felt like I had explored even close to the majority of what was out there, and they were adding more all the time. The first couple weeks of UO, I was finding it hard to find places I haddn't gone (except for those places that had monsters that I couldn't handle yet)
I was also dissapointed at how boring everything was. Players having conversations while fighting (point, click, type msgs while waiting for combat to be over) In DGate the elders (devs) would hang out with people, start quests on the spot, spawn monsters, generally liven things up (kinda like the Greek gods) In UO, there was nothing. I heard rumors of something like that happening, but never saw it. Once in DGate the (supposedly safe) town I was in was attacked without warning and quite a lot of players died. We were talking about it for weeks afterwards. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I heard something like that was done in UO, but the players were warned in advance. To me, that seemed like taking all the fun out of it.
I was confused by the multiple shards. It made no sense to me to advertise a mmorpg (massively multi-player, not just multiplayer) game and then segregate everyone. I have since tried to discover the reasoning behind it and only hear some vague (but nonesense) notion about server load and the world population distribution. I still find it confusing and frustrating to pick a world to adventure in and not only do I not know what it's like, but I can't change my mind once I choose.
These games are more than a decade apart. In computer terms that is a LONG time, yet the games are so similar I felt like accusing UO of stealing from DGate (and stealing the wrong things) and adding graphics and sound. Where are the improvements? I EXPECT graphics and sound to improve. It is pointless to advertise either on the box or in reviews. On the other hand, I will give up advances in either if it means a better game. Devs don't think that way. They want the game to LOOK better first, and then if there's time before release they make a better game. I've been waiting years for a guild/war/territory system like in SB, but the players can only be the soldiers, and have nothing to do with the economy behind the system, which is sometimes MORE important than the quality of the soldiers. They missed the point.
People use the term MMOG sometimes, but they're ALL MMOG's. I haven't seen a single MMORPG out there. In my optinon, the only difference between planetside and SB is the guild/war/territory system and the fact that you have a character sheet in SB. The results are disturbingly similar; endless warfare and the preparation for the next battle. Scattered around SB are guilds and cities that escape the warfare and simple exist, but they exist in spite of the system, not because of it, and that is the problem with SB, and the only thing the fans have to say to that is "Well PvP is what the game is all about." I will give credit where credit is due, and I have a few good things to say about it, but many more things against it. It's high quality crap, but it's still crap. I submit that DnL looks good because its not a game yet. SB looked like a really good game on paper before it came out, before the players were loosed on it. Now the game lies to people who aren't already playing, implying that the game is a role-playing game with epic adventures for the players to explore. When you get off the newbie island, you are rudely thrown into a landscape filled with guilds trying to recruit you to defend their cities, muggers that hang out in places called "farms" where the monsters live and ambush new players for fun. In war, both sides shamelessly exploit defects in the game, gain experience by grouping their footsoldiers together and making all but two or three of them hang around and talk (or leave their characters in game while they do RL stuff) while those few fight and gather experience for the rest. Players aren't sociable just for its own sake. You've got to be in a group leveling, or in town training or buying/selling stuff. Anything else is a waste of time. If you take the time for anything else, your adversary takes advantage of you and you "lose"
No wonder there's no roleplaying. If you role play, you automatically take a performance hit on your character. All characters are race cars, designed from the ground up to be perfect killing machines, with just enough variation that doesn't put you at a disadvanatage with your potential enemies. Pick the wrong skill-set and you're 'gimped' Everyone's on the same track. The only difference is how far along you are.
So why do I play it? Irrational hope that the game will somehow turn into something playable until something better comes along. Sometimes, I wish I could go back to DGate, but I'm addicted to graphics and sound now. So I'll wait until I see a game out there that is everything SB is, but better.
How many fricking times do I have to say "EVE Online" per day?
People just don't learn.
How many fricking times do I have to say "EVE Online" per day?
People just don't learn.
Can you build your own nation? Do you train or do your skills get better with use? are there safe zones or is it unrestricted PvP? Many people say "This game is great." Try to prove it and you find the holes.. Usually great big gaping ones.
"shut up noob its an mmorpg you either like it or hate it, so go away" - there you go
What is your point? I said that MEO actually being heavy roleplay iS PURE speculation. The user base will decide that after launch, either they will roleplay heavily or they will worry about their character "level". You sat and took that and turned it into a long rant on how you apparently don't like modern MMO's and how they work. Whats your point? You like Dragon's Gate, good, play it, enjoy it, I am happy for you.
As I said the first time, assuming MEO is going to be heavy roleplay is pure speculation and assumption.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
How many fricking times do I have to say "EVE Online" per day?
People just don't learn.
Can you build your own nation? Do you train or do your skills get better with use? are there safe zones or is it unrestricted PvP? Many people say "This game is great." Try to prove it and you find the holes.. Usually great big gaping ones.
Although it is likely not how you are imaganing it, you can build "nations" although they are called alliances, but they do control vast parts of space, and restrict others entry into, fight over, and use the reosources of the space in question. The tug of war that occurs over these areas is what creates alot of the games story line. These areas are not like some game's specific areas to be taken over, they are just a huge expanse of solar systems (3000 or so).
Skills are trained in real time, and different skills and the diferent levels of the different skills take different amounts of time to learn. different. Low levels of low level skills take minutes. High level of high level skills take weeks.
There are safe zones, semi safe zones and free for all zones.