Everything that an MMO has over single player is going to involve people. Competition, sharing a common goal, more balancing and support (albeit at a cost of a subscription usually) -- human beings are social animals. We thrive on this stuff, look at Facebook.
I don't necessarily agree. Personally, I detest Facebook and most other so-called social networking sites. I am social, but only with people I actually want to be around. There's a difference between being a social animal and being a herd animal. One has standards, the other, at least IMO, doesn't.
Let's take the two most popular examples, World of Warcraft and Dragon Age Origins
What does DAO do better than WoW? Pretty much everything. The story and the characters, voice acting and all, are very immersive in DAO, the combat system. You don't need to worry about balancing in a stand alone and magic users are way more powerful than anything else in DAO.
In DAO you can and do change the world and you don't step on anyone else's toes when you do so. You character in DAO makes decisions that affect whole peoples if not the whole planet.
DAO has a much more rich and detailed world than any MMO out today.
So what does WoW have that DAO doesn't? PvP, instanced dungeons, raids, seasonal events... I can't thing of anything else. But yeah, if it requires more than one person, WoW wins by default.
If you don't like social interaction, best stick with something like DAO. MMOs really are lacking in almost every other way.
Single player games are finite. The game world can be drastically different at the end from how they started. Also, most SP games are designed to entertain you 20-40 hours, a few even more. But no MMO would survive long if a player could be utterly maxed in that short a time. So you can't have the kind of fast-paced progress in an MMO you see in an SP game. Things have to take time, else players will stop paying and playing sooner rather than later.
Originally posted by Cephus404 Originally posted by Jairoe03 Everything that an MMO has over single player is going to involve people. Competition, sharing a common goal, more balancing and support (albeit at a cost of a subscription usually) -- human beings are social animals. We thrive on this stuff, look at Facebook.
I don't necessarily agree. Personally, I detest Facebook and most other so-called social networking sites. I am social, but only with people I actually want to be around. There's a difference between being a social animal and being a herd animal. One has standards, the other, at least IMO, doesn't.
We're social as a species, not in the everybody-loves-talking-way, its more in the broad scheme of things in this world. It's the way we organize ourselves and enjoy interacting with others whether it is negatively or positively, whether its occassionally or all the time. Even if you are just there, you don't join any guild, just you being in the world puts you inside of its "virtual society".
This was just a generalization to reflect the biggest advantage(s) that MMO's bring to the table as opposed to single player where its the exact opposite (on a social level).
I was pondering this same thing recently. Over the weekend I started playing Fallout 3, and while I almost never read the text/story in an MMORPG I found myself engaging with the characters and reading all the text boxes and most of all, not caring about what level my character was. (even though the game clearly has levels/progression)
I haven't been able to pin down why I'm enjoying Fallout 3 so much, yet am loath to play Aion even one more minute.
Both have quests, both have levels, both have character progression and gear collecting, so whats the difference?
Overall depth and quality perhaps? In FO3, there are actually up to 5 or 6 possible paths you can follow in many npc interactions and your choices can make you good, neutral or evil which in turn determines some of your future choices.
I dunno, I had quit playing single player games a long time ago thinking they couldn't be fun for me, but it appears I was wrong.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The only aspect of single-player games that I feel is lacking in MMOs is the solo player challenge. I have never played a single-player game that beat a standard MMO in combat, game play, replayability, or plain old fun. Graphics used to seperate MMOs from SPs, but with games like AoC and Aion we have seen a lot progress here.
Story telling is nothing new or unique to SPs. Some MMOs tell stories better than others, just like some authors write better books than others.
This makes sense as far as the forum goes, but you can still dislike social interaction and play an MMO.
You can, but you shouldn't.
Why not?
Because your supposed to play how the elites tells you to play. Didn't you know=)
Personally, I don't play MMOs for the gameplay alone. Its simply too simplistic. The people is what makes them bearable at all and in some cases infuriating to play. As my time that I can dedicate to moving around useless pixels lessens, my willingness to invest what time I have into MMOs also lessens. Its all based on time spent playing and you have to spend A LOT of time to get anything out of them, esspecially on the social end. Lets get real. If you're not playing daily and people aren't seeing you regularly you might as well not exist. You can't really make friends in a game you play a couple of times a week for an hour a pop. You certainly can't pause in a dungeon when your wife wants to talk to you or your kid wants to ask you a question. I don't look to MMOs for my social outlet. I have family and actual human friends...not talking pixels or a voice on a microphone;)
I simply get more out of single player games. More of a challenge. Better stories. Better graphics. More engaging gameplay. And a PAUSE button. MMOs don't compete. Lately, when I want multiplayer, I find FPSs a better outlet as well. You play, you win or lose and its over. No fee. No drama. No relationships to foster.
Exploring a world isn't as cool as used to be, because no world has been as engaging as WOWs since 2004. No MMO so far has matched it, so there hasn't been much of a reason to invest in one. Making virtual friends isn't a reason to play either. I'm not using it as a second source of income, so what exactly are new MMOs offering me....nothing at all really.
I'm inclined to say EVERYTHING. I'm shocked by how unplosihed and lame MMO after MMO is, compared to SP games. The ONLY thing MMOs have going for them is that they're MMOs, i.e. full of other players, in a persistent world. I hear how much money goes into them, and I don't get it. Where does it all go? Does the online aspect complicate things so much that they end up wasting tons of money on bad decisions?
Partly, I think it's a matter of poor ideas, where devs can't think in MMO terms, and try to badly copy SP story types with instances and the like - but even in that respect, I've never seen an instance that can compare to a good SP game experience. People keep talking about TOR, but I bet it'll be more of the same in that respect. Maybe a little better, but it probably won't even compare to SWKOTOR2, and as an MMO, I don't know if it'll even compare to the early days of SWG.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
A game with other players in it. Whether I want to be social or not, a world with other non-scripted players is more fun and seems more real to me. So I play MMORPGs and solo my ass off.
But I'm going out on a limb here and guess that you (MMO_Doubter) have asked the question "why play solo in a multiplayer game" and been given this answer many times in any of the zillions of "forced grouping waaah waaah waaah" threads.
Fortunately, I don't need to conform my behavior to what other people think I should be doing. At least not in this case anyhow.
I can also roleplay the tower in a chess game and shout "is that a peasant at the horizon I see? I will smash it I will! Oh damn I broke one of my merlons!". -- maji
A game with other players in it. Whether I want to be social or not, a world with other non-scripted players is more fun and seems more real to me. So I play MMORPGs and solo my ass off.
But I'm going out on a limb here and guess that you (MMO_Doubter) have asked the question "why play solo in a multiplayer game" and been given this answer many times in any of the zillions of "forced grouping waaah waaah waaah" threads.
Fortunately, I don't need to conform my behavior to what other people think I should be doing. At least not in this case anyhow.
Fantastic answer.
Multiplayer means just as much in an MMO as it does in an FPS to me. I like MMOs primarily for the atmosphere and the competitive nature in PvP. The social aspect means little to me unless by social aspect you mean that I'll solo until I feel confident in my ability to PvP successfully. I don't like feigning interest in lolcatz while sitting around waiting for a group. I play for my own reason and entertainment, not to wait for others to enjoy myself, and luckily MMO companies understand that many MMO players favor solo play in a dynamic world. Thats just one of the many reasons I'll be giving TOR a try.
I don't think players need to feel like the hero, or like the center of attention. We're not all that selfish.
What we do need though is to CARE. We need to feel like what we're doing is FUN, without seeing through the thinly veiled quests to what they really are: kill x amount of monsters, kill one really big monster, gather these items, errand runs, escort missions. That's about it. We've begun to outsmart the formula and can reduce things down to those terms before we're even done reading the quest.
We need a game design that will make us forget about that, and get us focused on the upcoming adventure element of each quest. Like it's something exciting and interesting that we actually WANT to see and experience, for itself and not just for the reward. The gear should be a means to an end, to help you keep up with the enemies you're facing, and should never be in the spotlight. It's the context behind our time spent in the game that matters; we don't need to be the hero, we just need to actually feel like something is worth doing, and actually want to do it in the first place.
Before I discovered the world of mmorpg's I really enjoyed playing some of the good singleplayer games. But after mmorpg's I've barely touched an offline game, except when I've been offline for longer periods.
When I look back now, it seems to me that even with the limited world a singleplayer game have, it still have alot of immersion that mmorpg's have yet to achieve. Although i.e. Age of Conan came pretty close to telling a story singleplayer-style, there is still something missing.
Of course community is quite an immersion breaker, even on rp realms. But it's also the way that the game is setup, what the players are allowed to and not.
I think singleplayers make the gameworld more realistic... but seeing some people go into flame mode when the words "realistic" + "game" is used... I guess I'll say "believable" instead....
I'd like to see an mmorpg that would have the immersion of a singleplayer, but could it be done without limiting the good features of mmorpg's?
Difference in MMOPRG vs Single Player RPGs? Story. First and foremost is story. A story that gives your character purpose in the game world and a real goal to attain that is reachable. Next, a true sense of progression. In most single player rpgs you kill big bad monster A, its dead and not gonna come back again. You can clean out a dungeon and come back the next day and most likely its still cleaned out. Also, you dont run across other people who's sole desire is to try to have a negative impact on your game session.
And, contrary to what one of hte above posters said, yes I do want to be the hero. I want to embark on the heroe's journey to go from nothing into something magnificent and all powerful. I live everyday with work and being a normal schlub, I don't really want to go into game and see 40 other people dressed exactly as I am all doing the exact same thing I am doing. It degrades the accomplishment and minimalizes the fun and definitely throws out any chance of immersion.
I play any singleplayer game at most for 2 months. Afterwards its over. No matter how good the game is, after 2 months I'm always done.
So the advantage of singleplayer games is certainly the quality of the content. Thats because you dont stop playing the MMO after a while. You play them for years and years. The motivation is the social interaction. But the companies just dont have the amount of developers needed to create as much content so everyone has something to do at all times, like in singleplayer games.
Mind, a singleplayer game takes about 5 years to create. Big companies have up to 200 people working at such a game, in the late stages of the game production.
So to create a MMO where you have full singleplayer quality content at all times for all the players, you would need thousands of developers. Not even Blizzard has this kind of developer power available.
Before I discovered the world of mmorpg's I really enjoyed playing some of the good singleplayer games. But after mmorpg's I've barely touched an offline game, except when I've been offline for longer periods.
When I look back now, it seems to me that even with the limited world a singleplayer game have, it still have alot of immersion that mmorpg's have yet to achieve. Although i.e. Age of Conan came pretty close to telling a story singleplayer-style, there is still something missing.
Of course community is quite an immersion breaker, even on rp realms. But it's also the way that the game is setup, what the players are allowed to and not.
I think singleplayers make the gameworld more realistic... but seeing some people go into flame mode when the words "realistic" + "game" is used... I guess I'll say "believable" instead....
I'd like to see an mmorpg that would have the immersion of a singleplayer, but could it be done without limiting the good features of mmorpg's?
i understand what your saying, but. mmorpg's are meant to empower the players so they can create their emmersion. an mmorpg is all about the players imagination. some of them are really bad at provideing the content and freedom of play to bring player created emmersion into the game. some of these examples are wow lotro eq2 guild wars.
ive played a few mmorpg's now that offer the full deal in terms of emmersion they give you a back story and main story arc to the game that player can pursue or indulge in. and they provide ebough game mechanics and content for the players to make their own emmersion and stories too.
single player games only offer emmersion into the lineaer predifined story of the title, their is no swaying from it or no player creation or imagination required. you start the game you select your predertimend charecter choose a class knowing your on a rollercoaster that only has one set path to follow and only one ending to pursue with the possibilities of 2-3 diffrentialalities at the end. single player game sare short quick and only entertain for a limited amount of time.
the idea of an mmo was a presistant living breathing game world that the player could interact with. it would be a game that never ends and the player controls. mmorpg was the spawn of the orrginal virtual reality concepts. mmo was meant so that players could create their own stories and charecters and play them as they pleased and choose thier own paths and destinys in these make believe worlds. no single player game offers that to you. its the interation with other peoples imaginations that make mmorpg's the best form of game play. their so deep e x tensive and packed full of possibilities if they are created propperly with the right intent behind them. too many game developers are business driven these days which is ok. they are in it for the money, but thats is the only place their heads are at, this is proved by the likes of wow swg eq2 and all those other linear titles that make you do the same thing.. over and over and over again..
no mmorpg should have end game content, end game content is for single player titles. an mmo is supposed to be like real life, ongoing epic and vast, ever changeing and lots and lots of difffrent things to do and many surprises along the way..
i pay my subs because i expect game updates expansions and so on to make the games i play feel never ending. as soon as this feeling is lost in an mmorpg then the mmo is no longer an mmo but just another single player title that allows players to group up. it might as well be a direct connect or a lan session.
ive been playing online games for 10 years or so now and ive watched them get worse and worse and worse as the developers are drievn towards an ever greater need for wealth. as they get richer the products get worse. online gameing was created by gamers. they used to be free to play. then the big companies moved in and took up the slack and put the funding into the games to bring us the massive persistant worlds such as eve-online.. eve-online swg are probably the last remaining remnants of the orriginal mmorpg concept and ideas. these games bring you as close as possible to the free realm persistant none ending game play we expect from an mmorpg.
now their is way way way too many people who are content with end game content and moving onto the next game. its this mentality that causes developers to gives us half games and quick plays that eventualy die out. its also this mentality that has spured the birth of item shops. your all in a rush to reach the end becasue they gave you an end asap.
in eve you cannot rush, but the game is compelling and gripping all the way through it, i say all the way through but thats inaccurate. ive been playign for 5 years and its just as exciteing for me now as it was when i was new to the game. its just as dangerous now as it was when i was new to the game. its just brilliant planning and programming and puts power in the hands of the players. all you need is an imagination to play eve. its that good you can progress when your at work too. you set your skills go to work come home and your that little bit closer to your next stage of eve-online spaceship evolution.
also in eve it doesnt matter how big your ship is. haing the biggest abddest ship means nothing. eve is about many people playing together. one lone wolf stands absolutely no chance against a team of smart quick thinking players in crappy ships.
even the most veteran of players can be brought to their knees by a handfull of noobs in eve. not like wow. if your not max level then your lunch for all the higher levels which is never fun. so every one rushes their charecters to max level to get the best items just so they cant be lunch anymore. itys so linear boreing and predictable. wow type games are bland and ained at the young impressionable types that cant really think for them selves. eve is for thinkers
single player games only offer emmersion into the lineaer predifined story of the title, their is no swaying from it or no player creation or imagination required. you start the game you select your predertimend charecter choose a class knowing your on a rollercoaster that only has one set path to follow and only one ending to pursue with the possibilities of 2-3 diffrentialalities at the end. single player game sare short quick and only entertain for a limited amount of time.
That's a very broad generalization. Single player games such as Oblivion and Fallout 3 offer more free-roaming and choice of immersion/content than many MMORPGs today. It's up to the players how and why to play the game. You can make up any stories or situations your heart desires. For one of my characters in Fallout 3, my main goal was to collect all the teddy bears I could find and store them in my bedroom. One character killed everything he saw no matter what. Another character refrained from using combat at all. Most, if not all, single player or MMOs can be played this way. It's ultimately up to the player and their imagination.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Am I the only person who caught this? They lack fun gameplay. Most MMOs are all dice/turn based queue combat with NO world interaction, because the game engines can't handle that, AND massive amounts of people.
Single player games are finite. The game world can be drastically different at the end from how they started. Also, most SP games are designed to entertain you 20-40 hours, a few even more. But no MMO would survive long if a player could be utterly maxed in that short a time. So you can't have the kind of fast-paced progress in an MMO you see in an SP game. Things have to take time, else players will stop paying and playing sooner rather than later.
not necessarily I remember I bought an expansion for Morrowind once, I guess it's the only expansion for a single player I ever bought. But that changed some stuff in the classic Morrowind world and expanded it with a royal capital.
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I don't necessarily agree. Personally, I detest Facebook and most other so-called social networking sites. I am social, but only with people I actually want to be around. There's a difference between being a social animal and being a herd animal. One has standards, the other, at least IMO, doesn't.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
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Let's take the two most popular examples, World of Warcraft and Dragon Age Origins
What does DAO do better than WoW? Pretty much everything. The story and the characters, voice acting and all, are very immersive in DAO, the combat system. You don't need to worry about balancing in a stand alone and magic users are way more powerful than anything else in DAO.
In DAO you can and do change the world and you don't step on anyone else's toes when you do so. You character in DAO makes decisions that affect whole peoples if not the whole planet.
DAO has a much more rich and detailed world than any MMO out today.
So what does WoW have that DAO doesn't? PvP, instanced dungeons, raids, seasonal events... I can't thing of anything else. But yeah, if it requires more than one person, WoW wins by default.
If you don't like social interaction, best stick with something like DAO. MMOs really are lacking in almost every other way.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
"If you don't like social interaction," why the hell would you be on this site to begin with?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Single player games are finite. The game world can be drastically different at the end from how they started. Also, most SP games are designed to entertain you 20-40 hours, a few even more. But no MMO would survive long if a player could be utterly maxed in that short a time. So you can't have the kind of fast-paced progress in an MMO you see in an SP game. Things have to take time, else players will stop paying and playing sooner rather than later.
We're social as a species, not in the everybody-loves-talking-way, its more in the broad scheme of things in this world. It's the way we organize ourselves and enjoy interacting with others whether it is negatively or positively, whether its occassionally or all the time. Even if you are just there, you don't join any guild, just you being in the world puts you inside of its "virtual society".
This was just a generalization to reflect the biggest advantage(s) that MMO's bring to the table as opposed to single player where its the exact opposite (on a social level).
This makes sense as far as the forum goes, but you can still dislike social interaction and play an MMO.
You can, but you shouldn't.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I was pondering this same thing recently. Over the weekend I started playing Fallout 3, and while I almost never read the text/story in an MMORPG I found myself engaging with the characters and reading all the text boxes and most of all, not caring about what level my character was. (even though the game clearly has levels/progression)
I haven't been able to pin down why I'm enjoying Fallout 3 so much, yet am loath to play Aion even one more minute.
Both have quests, both have levels, both have character progression and gear collecting, so whats the difference?
Overall depth and quality perhaps? In FO3, there are actually up to 5 or 6 possible paths you can follow in many npc interactions and your choices can make you good, neutral or evil which in turn determines some of your future choices.
I dunno, I had quit playing single player games a long time ago thinking they couldn't be fun for me, but it appears I was wrong.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The only aspect of single-player games that I feel is lacking in MMOs is the solo player challenge. I have never played a single-player game that beat a standard MMO in combat, game play, replayability, or plain old fun. Graphics used to seperate MMOs from SPs, but with games like AoC and Aion we have seen a lot progress here.
Story telling is nothing new or unique to SPs. Some MMOs tell stories better than others, just like some authors write better books than others.
Why not?
Because your supposed to play how the elites tells you to play. Didn't you know=)
Personally, I don't play MMOs for the gameplay alone. Its simply too simplistic. The people is what makes them bearable at all and in some cases infuriating to play. As my time that I can dedicate to moving around useless pixels lessens, my willingness to invest what time I have into MMOs also lessens. Its all based on time spent playing and you have to spend A LOT of time to get anything out of them, esspecially on the social end. Lets get real. If you're not playing daily and people aren't seeing you regularly you might as well not exist. You can't really make friends in a game you play a couple of times a week for an hour a pop. You certainly can't pause in a dungeon when your wife wants to talk to you or your kid wants to ask you a question. I don't look to MMOs for my social outlet. I have family and actual human friends...not talking pixels or a voice on a microphone;)
I simply get more out of single player games. More of a challenge. Better stories. Better graphics. More engaging gameplay. And a PAUSE button. MMOs don't compete. Lately, when I want multiplayer, I find FPSs a better outlet as well. You play, you win or lose and its over. No fee. No drama. No relationships to foster.
Exploring a world isn't as cool as used to be, because no world has been as engaging as WOWs since 2004. No MMO so far has matched it, so there hasn't been much of a reason to invest in one. Making virtual friends isn't a reason to play either. I'm not using it as a second source of income, so what exactly are new MMOs offering me....nothing at all really.
What does multiplayer game mean to you?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The question is: what do mmo's lack in comparison to solo games.
>_>
<_<
-_-
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
I'm inclined to say EVERYTHING. I'm shocked by how unplosihed and lame MMO after MMO is, compared to SP games. The ONLY thing MMOs have going for them is that they're MMOs, i.e. full of other players, in a persistent world. I hear how much money goes into them, and I don't get it. Where does it all go? Does the online aspect complicate things so much that they end up wasting tons of money on bad decisions?
Partly, I think it's a matter of poor ideas, where devs can't think in MMO terms, and try to badly copy SP story types with instances and the like - but even in that respect, I've never seen an instance that can compare to a good SP game experience. People keep talking about TOR, but I bet it'll be more of the same in that respect. Maybe a little better, but it probably won't even compare to SWKOTOR2, and as an MMO, I don't know if it'll even compare to the early days of SWG.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
A game with other players in it. Whether I want to be social or not, a world with other non-scripted players is more fun and seems more real to me. So I play MMORPGs and solo my ass off.
But I'm going out on a limb here and guess that you (MMO_Doubter) have asked the question "why play solo in a multiplayer game" and been given this answer many times in any of the zillions of "forced grouping waaah waaah waaah" threads.
Fortunately, I don't need to conform my behavior to what other people think I should be doing. At least not in this case anyhow.
I can also roleplay the tower in a chess game and shout "is that a peasant at the horizon I see? I will smash it I will! Oh damn I broke one of my merlons!". -- maji
Fantastic answer.
Multiplayer means just as much in an MMO as it does in an FPS to me. I like MMOs primarily for the atmosphere and the competitive nature in PvP. The social aspect means little to me unless by social aspect you mean that I'll solo until I feel confident in my ability to PvP successfully. I don't like feigning interest in lolcatz while sitting around waiting for a group. I play for my own reason and entertainment, not to wait for others to enjoy myself, and luckily MMO companies understand that many MMO players favor solo play in a dynamic world. Thats just one of the many reasons I'll be giving TOR a try.
I liked the way of storytelling on FFXI, the only mmorpg where I kept reading everything the npcs said + so many nice storylines.
Never cared about the story in WoW i.e. <.<
I don't think players need to feel like the hero, or like the center of attention. We're not all that selfish.
What we do need though is to CARE. We need to feel like what we're doing is FUN, without seeing through the thinly veiled quests to what they really are: kill x amount of monsters, kill one really big monster, gather these items, errand runs, escort missions. That's about it. We've begun to outsmart the formula and can reduce things down to those terms before we're even done reading the quest.
We need a game design that will make us forget about that, and get us focused on the upcoming adventure element of each quest. Like it's something exciting and interesting that we actually WANT to see and experience, for itself and not just for the reward. The gear should be a means to an end, to help you keep up with the enemies you're facing, and should never be in the spotlight. It's the context behind our time spent in the game that matters; we don't need to be the hero, we just need to actually feel like something is worth doing, and actually want to do it in the first place.
Difference in MMOPRG vs Single Player RPGs? Story. First and foremost is story. A story that gives your character purpose in the game world and a real goal to attain that is reachable. Next, a true sense of progression. In most single player rpgs you kill big bad monster A, its dead and not gonna come back again. You can clean out a dungeon and come back the next day and most likely its still cleaned out. Also, you dont run across other people who's sole desire is to try to have a negative impact on your game session.
And, contrary to what one of hte above posters said, yes I do want to be the hero. I want to embark on the heroe's journey to go from nothing into something magnificent and all powerful. I live everyday with work and being a normal schlub, I don't really want to go into game and see 40 other people dressed exactly as I am all doing the exact same thing I am doing. It degrades the accomplishment and minimalizes the fun and definitely throws out any chance of immersion.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
I play any singleplayer game at most for 2 months. Afterwards its over. No matter how good the game is, after 2 months I'm always done.
So the advantage of singleplayer games is certainly the quality of the content. Thats because you dont stop playing the MMO after a while. You play them for years and years. The motivation is the social interaction. But the companies just dont have the amount of developers needed to create as much content so everyone has something to do at all times, like in singleplayer games.
Mind, a singleplayer game takes about 5 years to create. Big companies have up to 200 people working at such a game, in the late stages of the game production.
So to create a MMO where you have full singleplayer quality content at all times for all the players, you would need thousands of developers. Not even Blizzard has this kind of developer power available.
It means there's a lot of people around, nothing more. It doesn't actually obligate you to play *WITH* them.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
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i understand what your saying, but. mmorpg's are meant to empower the players so they can create their emmersion. an mmorpg is all about the players imagination. some of them are really bad at provideing the content and freedom of play to bring player created emmersion into the game. some of these examples are wow lotro eq2 guild wars.
ive played a few mmorpg's now that offer the full deal in terms of emmersion they give you a back story and main story arc to the game that player can pursue or indulge in. and they provide ebough game mechanics and content for the players to make their own emmersion and stories too.
single player games only offer emmersion into the lineaer predifined story of the title, their is no swaying from it or no player creation or imagination required. you start the game you select your predertimend charecter choose a class knowing your on a rollercoaster that only has one set path to follow and only one ending to pursue with the possibilities of 2-3 diffrentialalities at the end. single player game sare short quick and only entertain for a limited amount of time.
the idea of an mmo was a presistant living breathing game world that the player could interact with. it would be a game that never ends and the player controls. mmorpg was the spawn of the orrginal virtual reality concepts. mmo was meant so that players could create their own stories and charecters and play them as they pleased and choose thier own paths and destinys in these make believe worlds. no single player game offers that to you. its the interation with other peoples imaginations that make mmorpg's the best form of game play. their so deep e x tensive and packed full of possibilities if they are created propperly with the right intent behind them. too many game developers are business driven these days which is ok. they are in it for the money, but thats is the only place their heads are at, this is proved by the likes of wow swg eq2 and all those other linear titles that make you do the same thing.. over and over and over again..
no mmorpg should have end game content, end game content is for single player titles. an mmo is supposed to be like real life, ongoing epic and vast, ever changeing and lots and lots of difffrent things to do and many surprises along the way..
i pay my subs because i expect game updates expansions and so on to make the games i play feel never ending. as soon as this feeling is lost in an mmorpg then the mmo is no longer an mmo but just another single player title that allows players to group up. it might as well be a direct connect or a lan session.
ive been playing online games for 10 years or so now and ive watched them get worse and worse and worse as the developers are drievn towards an ever greater need for wealth. as they get richer the products get worse. online gameing was created by gamers. they used to be free to play. then the big companies moved in and took up the slack and put the funding into the games to bring us the massive persistant worlds such as eve-online.. eve-online swg are probably the last remaining remnants of the orriginal mmorpg concept and ideas. these games bring you as close as possible to the free realm persistant none ending game play we expect from an mmorpg.
now their is way way way too many people who are content with end game content and moving onto the next game. its this mentality that causes developers to gives us half games and quick plays that eventualy die out. its also this mentality that has spured the birth of item shops. your all in a rush to reach the end becasue they gave you an end asap.
in eve you cannot rush, but the game is compelling and gripping all the way through it, i say all the way through but thats inaccurate. ive been playign for 5 years and its just as exciteing for me now as it was when i was new to the game. its just as dangerous now as it was when i was new to the game. its just brilliant planning and programming and puts power in the hands of the players. all you need is an imagination to play eve. its that good you can progress when your at work too. you set your skills go to work come home and your that little bit closer to your next stage of eve-online spaceship evolution.
also in eve it doesnt matter how big your ship is. haing the biggest abddest ship means nothing. eve is about many people playing together. one lone wolf stands absolutely no chance against a team of smart quick thinking players in crappy ships.
even the most veteran of players can be brought to their knees by a handfull of noobs in eve. not like wow. if your not max level then your lunch for all the higher levels which is never fun. so every one rushes their charecters to max level to get the best items just so they cant be lunch anymore. itys so linear boreing and predictable. wow type games are bland and ained at the young impressionable types that cant really think for them selves. eve is for thinkers
That's a very broad generalization. Single player games such as Oblivion and Fallout 3 offer more free-roaming and choice of immersion/content than many MMORPGs today. It's up to the players how and why to play the game. You can make up any stories or situations your heart desires. For one of my characters in Fallout 3, my main goal was to collect all the teddy bears I could find and store them in my bedroom. One character killed everything he saw no matter what. Another character refrained from using combat at all. Most, if not all, single player or MMOs can be played this way. It's ultimately up to the player and their imagination.
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Am I the only person who caught this? They lack fun gameplay. Most MMOs are all dice/turn based queue combat with NO world interaction, because the game engines can't handle that, AND massive amounts of people.
That's the big difference.
not necessarily I remember I bought an expansion for Morrowind once, I guess it's the only expansion for a single player I ever bought. But that changed some stuff in the classic Morrowind world and expanded it with a royal capital.