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General: You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
After playing the single-player RPG Zelda: Twilight Princess, Player Perspectives columnist Jaime Skelton wrote this article on the magic of video games and what MMOs can do to re-capture it.
This past week, I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Now I'll warn you now, this is my first Zelda game and this is also my first play-through (and I'm playing blind - i.e. no walk-throughs or outside help). I lived a very console-deprived youth. I had an original NES and a Sega Genesis, after which consoles were deemed too expensive in my household; my gaming was redirected back to PCs. Until a few years ago, I actually thought the little guy in green was Zelda. Although I am in a console-loving home now, I have a lot of gaming to catch up on, but, as you all know, MMOs can suck a lot of that time away.
I ended up playing Twilight Princess on a whim; my husband has been pushing for me to play Zelda, any Zelda, for a while now. After watching a friend play through some of Ocarina of Time, I finally acted on my husband's advice, chose Twilight Princess, and began playing. Although I often only pick up RPGs for a few hours before quitting, I've been consistent in playing a few hours almost every night. A few nights ago, I went through an interesting boss sequence, one which involved mounted combat, good timing, and foresight. It lasted several minutes, and when it was over, I leaned back in my chair with a huge grin. My arms ached, but it was fun, and the excitement of that entire boss fight lasted for a long while afterward.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Holy crap, This is like the first time i've read something on this site from a blogger and can totally relate.
The way this person feels after playing Zelda is exactly how I felt after completing Mass Effect.
Your spot on, the mmo genre never was fun when it came to pve and the high quality single player games are pulling so far away i find myself sticking to games with pvp for my only enjoyment.
What a great article.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
The problem with MMO's is that they have taken all the challenge out of the games to appease the masses of the "I want it now" generation. Heaven forbid they have to work for anything. All the baubles are in predetermined locations so you don't have to search for them. Quests have no mystery to them, they lead you by the hand to finish them. Death has very little meaning in these games.
The class level system has not helped either. Putting your character into a straight jacket with little freedom to evolve your character as you see fit.
Funny, UO initially was not like that. Neither was AC1. EQ started this although it was far more challenging than what we have today. EQ did introduce the horrid raid scenarios though,
Sad to say, I see nothing coming down the pike to change this whatsoever.
The way I see it this is a case of vastly greater AI and script than most MMO even bother putting on their most prized raid bosses.
Also you can make a single player game dynamic, fast acting and responsive because you do not need to take into consideration the network architecture required to efficiently transmit player actions to the other players.
I agree with just about everything you have said in this article. I would love to see the MMO developers reach into that "bag of tricks" and bring some of that unpredictability to a game. Thing is, though, I don't think we'll remember the first developer to do it as much as we'll remember the first time the players actually accept it.
You say
"The problem with the industry needing innovation is that while the players can chant that mantra until they're hoarse, the responsibility lies in the developers' hands to provide it. Until they take that responsibility seriously, players are left waiting either empty-handed or entertaining themselves with the same-old."
but I think part of the responsibility also lies with the community of players. My line would have been something like, 'players can chant that mantra until they're hoarse, but when a developer does try something new it is often met with instant cries of "Fail!" '.
I'm not saying the big innovation is out there already, just that we have not been giving developers much of an incentive to look for it yet. If and when it does arrive we'll probably be able to look back through gaming history to see its origins in other systems that were either too unpolished, or were unfortunate enough to arrive before critical mass had been reached and players were more willing to give "new" a fighting chance.
I do hope to see that day soon, but I fear we are not able to embrace "new" in a way that speaks to the financial needs of development and production of an MMO right now.
So.. yea...
Figured out ten years ago that MMOs have issues and you've just caught up. Well I hope that the rest of the industry catches up soon too.
RPGs are very concentrated experiences. 12 hours and it's done. The game designers put everything you need into it-characters,story,progression.
With MMOs I think it's largely what you put into it. You design a character,you pick your quest chain. Killing 10 rats is interesting if you make it an interesting adventure. It only becomes boring when you apply an RPG 'leveling-up-to-endgame' mentality to it. Hell, I've spent 12 hours fishing in an MMO. It became a contest because I made it one. I don't want some RPG game designer telling me what to do next and what fun is.
i don't think that the two need to be seperate.
Play LoTRO, many of the man quests use instancing cleverly. For example humans watch their city burn for the tutorial, once out of the tutorial our taking quests in the now destroyed city trying to rebuild. In the "epic book" one is a dungon quest and only if you have that part of the quest active does a cutscene end a fight with one of the bosses.
sure you'll segregate the players who "have gone through hell" from those who havent but it adds to imersion.
Let's hope the new Bioware MMO will bring something new to the genre. I've given up on MMOs for now, and I am only playing League of Legends when I feel the PvP cravings. At least there I can skip straight to the action.
Todays mmo devs did this to themselves. In choosing to make mmos solo centric they pulled the wool from the eyes of the mmo gamer.
At the start of the mmo genre our games were nothing but big worlds filled with mobs of varying difficulty.
It was pretty simple yet through social interactions the terrible content was masked.
Now that every game let you solo easily we now notice the horrid fetch quests, the grinds, the lack of a good story.
Now we put these games up against single player adventures.
Oh well, These devs deserve the criticism.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Quests were meaningful in the old EQ. If i did one, it was long and very involved.
I have thought for a while now that if games were to make several story lines that span different level ranges, players will not get bored with muyltiple run throughs becuase they are in the same place with a different branch of the story.
Its a simple idea that could really be worked on so that we have minimal amounts of "Teh orks around hear ar many, kill 10 plz"
I agree with most of the article but the "one time experience" I'm not going along with. I never cared a lot if xyz was popping up somewhere again. I cared how much fun or effort it was to kill him or it. Thus MY experience when it HAPPENED was important - but not the one others would have or if I could (different from must) experience it again. People wouldn't reply games voluntarily AND have fun if the knowledge that even the boss abc is there again would be a problem.
The problem I see in MMO quest design today is they are for convinience, casual playstyle and plain lack of money and good quest designers chopped down in single tiny pieces. Efforts of thinking by the player is not part of the calculation. And no, imprecise or aweful location descriptions equals not "I ask the player to think".
I for example remember a very funny quest in Vanguard where I had to do some jump'n'run like stuff to find someone hidden on a roof. I knew that guy was there. I had to figure out how to get there. Took me some time until I managed. But alone the fact that THIS simple experience stands out as positive ... tells us about the sorry state of game ... err quests I think.
The lack of surprise (traps, fainting and waking up somewhere unknown?), unexpected turns in story, fights that are not defined by "n" (the number of mobs you need to kill or loot pieces you need to obtain) but if you figure out something tricky, have good timing, react to a challenging mob ... that is missing in MMOs usually and can be found way more often in single player RPGs.
I have a few of those things in the last EQ2 event quests I'm fond of. I can't put in words how I enjoy the story lines of those recent quests! The halloween thingie with one turning into a werewolf and growing stronger, the maze was fun and the first time I voluntarily repeated a zone, several times even. The cinematic parts. Nice. The quest where I was attacked in the vampire village and screen turned black and I woke suddenly up somewhere else and npc's greeting me when stepping outside "Oh you have woken?" ... atmosphere. The last valentines day quest with the traps in roofs and floors - nice. The will-of-a-tyrann quests both in Queynos and Freeport - great. I didn't expect the Freeport ending. And it took me some time before I started thinking that there must be a trick for the Queynos version and not just plain bad game design. Those are the things that make quests fun. The remainder and main chunk of quests in MMOs unfortunatelly is just that ... the biggest chunk but the remainder,
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ...
Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse
Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2
Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
You forget the major hurdle MMOs have to face, many types of people play and have many levels of skill. If you make quests exciting/challenging to the skilled players, the less skilled players can't come close to beating it and get frustrated to no end. Create quests that are doable by the less skilled players and the skilled players are now bored and simple breeze through the content.
Last month Asheron's Call introduced a new quest for an augment (augments are permanent additions to your character for different skills/stats etc.). Asheron's Call, for those who don't know, is a skill tree/classles game. This means people can set their characters up in many different ways.
Well this quest that was introduced was a challenge, even many skilled players died the first time they entered the dungeon. So there were 3 different threads that went on for pages and pages where the less skilled players (or those who set up their characters in a very weak way) were complaining to no end that the quest wasn't fair. Naturally those who completed the quest said it was fair and very doable and offered strategy tips. It didn't matter though because those who couldn't beat the quest took it PERSONAL, they were angry that the game was beating them and that clearly something was wrong and needed to be changed.
So when a Turbine dev explained the quest and why it was the way it was (basically saying it wouldn't be changed) those people felt even more insulted because they couldn't accept that they weren't skilled enough to complete the quest (this quest was a solo only so each person had to do it completly by themselves, no one else could even enter the dungeon with you). Some people said the opposite and were thrilled that any actually challenging and thus exciting quest had been added and asked for more.
I think the real issue comes down to that, most MMOs set themselves at a level where everyone can complete it. If players reach a point and think "Well I could never do that" then they might quit because they feel defeated. This results in true gamers breezing through every MMO released without any challenge at all.
You are 100% right, I am gad I am not the only one that sees this into todays games, Gone are the days of engaging play, I kinda blame wow for coming along and dumbing down the mmo world, I have named those I want it now folks to the "Instant Gratification Generation" they have pretty much ruined the mmo world, its a shame that even pve games are so care bear these days..
Posted by Snarlingwolf above
Well this quest that was introduced was a challenge, even many skilled players died the first time they entered the dungeon. So there were 3 different threads that went on for pages and pages where the less skilled players (or those who set up their characters in a very weak way) were complaining to no end that the quest wasn't fair. Naturally those who completed the quest said it was fair and very doable and offered strategy tips. It didn't matter though because those who couldn't beat the quest took it PERSONAL, they were angry that the game was beating them and that clearly something was wrong and needed to be changed.
My Thoughts nothing against poster..
I would not expect to waltz into a new encounter and defeat it the first time, if so then really whats the point of the encounter, there should be a learning curve some trial an error, this really shows exactly my point about the state of mmo's today, I know AC has been around along time and turbine can make some great quests, I know this from lotro. dieing on the fisrt attempt then complaining in the forums translates to me just give me the prize
, I am glad to see turbine dev's sticking to thier guns on this one.
It is and will always be a marketing decision. Take all the challenge out of a game so that every person, no matter how unfamiliar it is with MMOs, can beat the game in a minimum of time.
Greater achievements then shift over to the time invested being the deciding factor. They become dull and repetetive.
I personally cant think of a way that brings the majority of players back to the point where they get encouraged by challenging encounters instead of complaining on the forums.
Good read,
One of the problems i see is that most MMO's are built around a business strategy first and not around the fun first.
And you can see it, cash shop and subscriptions are not fluid in any manner, it's pure cutthroat.
When they start building MMO's for the sake of fun, then they'll make progress.
There's 3 games I'm hoping will deliver
- The Elderscrolls online... or is it Oblivion i dunno...Whatever it'll be called - www.tentonhammer.com/node/61590
- Miner Wars - www.minerwars.com/?aid=14
- DawnTide- www.dawntide.net/
Godspeed my fellow gamer
I agree with SnarlingWolf's comment, and go one step further in saying that MMORPGs should have a high challenge rating, regardless of player skill.
Let me give some background that led to my feelings on the topic. A short time ago, I picked up Demon's Souls for the PS3. I had unsubbed from WoW just before that and was looking for a fun console game. Sitting down, I made a character and jumped into the game. An hour later, I was frustrated. The game was hard... unforgivingly hard. Each level had its own tricks and traps, enemies were relentless (even if the AI was weird at times) and charging into a fight meant almost certain death. After another hour of playing and experiencing (what I then thought to be) the incredibly harsh death penalty several times over, I put the controller down and said, "Enough."
A week later, and after giving myself time to cool off, I found myself thinking of the game. It had wiped the floor with me and I thought to myself, "Why?" Why couldn't I beat it? I consider myself a capable gamer, but I looked at the games I had been playing and realized I had been gaming in Easy World. WoW had softened me, and now I was playing a game with more versatile features. Realizing this, I sat down again and started playing the game, but this time I took my time and thought about my actions.
Where once I got slaughtered by a blue-eyed demon knight on the first level, I spent a few minutes learned his tactics, dodging his blows, and landing hits when and where I could. After letting him heal himself by mistake, I finally downed him and felt something I hadn't in a long while. Accomplishment. I had taken out a minor minion of the level and I felt great.
I never felt this while playing WoW or other games like AoC. I was challenged now and a part of my brain switched on that made me adapt to the game, not the other way around. Personally, I would love an MMO to adapt greater AI and have an experience more like Demon's Souls (adapted for MMO landscapes, of course). I love the game through and through now because I understand it, took the time to learn and mold myself to what was required, all while shaping a character.
MMORPGs, regardless of what types of people play them, need to have a strong challenging world where not everyone can achieve the 'pinnacle' of success. It'd be there, and always would be, but I don't want to be one of the hundreds of thousands who have achieved the same thing. If 'casual' gamers can't do everything, so be it; that's the fate of a 'casual' gamer. You can still accomplish significant things, but not everything. If you want to pursue challenges, take the time to learn and adapt to the game.
Tl;dr version: Demon's Souls gave me a wake-up call and a new perspective when looking at MMORPGs. I know there are other inspiring games out there, but this one showed me I need to be challenged and even killed a few times so I can remember the world is in control, not me. It shouldn't matter what your playstyle is; an MMO world should challenge you to learn its secrets and strategies in order to succeed.
Well since I want a challenge quest I take no offense to you thinking the same thing ;-)
However there are a lot of people who do not, they don't like things being challenging or the chance that they may fail, my point being that because there are so many people like that the MMO companies make their quests/content too easy.
Now granted AC is one of those nice games where you drop items on death and get vitae when you die (5% reduction in skills, die again before clearing it then it becomes 10% etc etc). So death has a bit more meaning, but it is clear that people don't want a challenge by the certain people that typed up a storm over having a challenging quest they died in. Three threads at the same time that stayed on top of the boards for weeks, it was ridiculous to read.
Part of the problem is the old "end-game" discussion. MMOs are not supposed to end, so you stay and pay the sub. Business model. *shrugs*
Other than that, yes, heroic, I only felt in single player MMOs, but even there you need to level at times with side-quests or grinds to get to where you have to go. Dragon Age Origin, all is well, but at times, when fighting through dungeons I just thought "sigh, another fight, the same as the last 10". But the *EPIC* final battles and movie scenes made it well worth it.
Will I play DA again? Not so sure, since I am not an achievement hogg. Sure, different side-stories due to the different backgrounds, even if you play evil vs good makes a difference, but the overall outcome is basically the same. Mass Effect 1 is the only thing I see a difference, depending on your playstyle, *if* you imported the savegame into ME2.
Anyway, that aside,
All this leads to what I call MMO tourism. Get tired of one, you test the next. Wait for yet another new title to appear, realize it basically is the same, return to your old or continue searching for a new one....
I agree with this article. Especially the part where it is pointed to that it is up to the developers to bring about some changes. Anyone who says that it is up to the gamers to "vote with their wallets" just doesn't "get" this hobby/addiction. MMO gamers are going to play...something...whatever it is...even if they don't 100% like the game. This is what's supporting this industry. What is expected in return is that the developers listen to their consumer base and offer up more variety of types and approaches to making MMOs. Not a reliance on a particular pattern/method of making them. The gamers mentioned keep supporting the industry in hopes that some day they will see the MMO made that contains what they want.
Now, whether it is naive of them to hold onto such wishes is another story. I personally do think we are at a key point where a significant amount of players may exit the genre due to a stagnation in approach to MMO design.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Are people forgetting there are plenty of games that give you a since of achievement like Mass effect or Zelda.
Eve Online
No set character skill system ( Be what you want to be!)
Living history (99.9% of what happens in Eve is player driven and player history/)
Examples
Great BOB and Goon Wars
- these two factions have been fighting it out for 2 - 4years
- Systems 100s of systems have been fought over and lost and gained.
Everything you do in Eve is a one time thing...
We raid some else space and take it from them i can not wait a week and redo the fight. it becomes the history of eve.
Now there is a game that i have been beta testing that is pushing MMOs to be non rinse and repeat.
Mortal online
the problem being is that as a community. these games are Niche market games very small player base needing to be leveraged over years of development to gain a strong player base.
I know that you guys are talking about pve content but that fact is that the only way to make a MMO that has a truly persistent world is to make it player driven world.
"Give the players a sandbox and let them build the world they want!" - Nox404
Long Live the Sandbox!
EDIT: Will go back and fix grammar and spelling mistakes when i get home from work, Sorry.
Alot of players are tired of the genre - like the Op. And there are alot of ppl that are still hoping that the genre will be able to move forward and add more creativity and options for MMO gamers. Thats why alot of us come back. But I have stoped hoping now. Until I see a game that really focuses on strong AI and more randomised content rather than predefined combat - or a gankfest like most of the PVP in these games are.
I have to agree with the main point of the OP. To me that is one of the biggest problems with MMOs these days.
They fall into one of two categories:
Either like say Champions Online they are "fun" but completely lack all challenge or depth of content
or
They have totally lost sight of making the game-play itself fun
Play FFxi and learn about good PvE, dur
its all the spoonfed playerbases faults anyways. If everyone wants to be able to solo all the time then don't expect good meaningful pve. If everyone wants to be able to get all the gear super easy and fast, then don't expect good PvE. Oh and PvP? You can't have PvP and good PvE its been proven time and time again. Balancing for PvP makes PvE lame cause everyone has to be everything so that PvP is balanced. PvE suffers from this greatly.
Again look at FFxi, no PvP and Forced grouping = good PvE
I agree.
The problem is we have like five sandbox games to choose from and hundreds of linear mmos.
Not one of those sandbox games are made by a big time developer (CCP is now but not at first).
So most people don't notice them (besides Eve).
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Players are partly to blame here, the main reason in MMO's that combat, and AI has not evolved is because players require the predictability.
To the point where AI is intentionally weakened down in most MMO titles.
On a side note, this is why i highly enjoy Global agendas PvE, the AI is wonderful and the combat can approach that of PvP in a good number of cases. However many get caught up on the nature of "The boss battle" GA employs at the end, forgetting that the AI they encountered before getting there gave them a good challenge.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me