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Why all these games are not fulfilling your needs.
He-ManVS
Member Posts: 41
All these MMORPG's and even many single player games have no soul.
Because :
Someone who is an expert is any given field has no soul. And since the industrial revolution and even before it's time, the ignorance of humanity wants to assemble and only have experts in any given field.
So while many of these individuals may reach by some peoples subjective opinion what they consider technical perfection in their given field, the final result of the creation is one that is ultimately soulless.
Thus resulting in soulless games.
Comments
Because back in the day mmo's were new, they started off small with a lot of bugs. The population was willing to allow for time to add more content, devs could re invest money to make them larger, and build.
Now, players quit fast.
Too much competition
Cost are higher
Server time is more expensive
Players are demanding higher graphics
Because of the failure rate, less sponsorship, and funding.
In other words :
If early games like UO, EQ1, EQ2, WoW, DAOC were created now from scratch, people would not put up with the slow progression of development.
It's almost at the point that it's over. Blizzard, Turbine, SOE ( I hate SOE ) may have a chance because of funding, to allow for long development to build a FULL game before release.
For me, they fail because I find I approach MMOs similar to the way I approach purchasing appliances. When I buy a new toaster, I expect it to do certain things: namely, toast bread. When a new toaster comes out, is marketed with "new toasting intensity," "faster toasting times," "hands-free crumb collection systems" and other such things, I expect that new toaster to have improved upon the faults of the old one, especially if it's made by the same company. MMOs don't really seem to do that, or the faults they're improving upon aren't the faults that irritated me in the first place. New generations of MMOs don't necessarily evolve; sometimes they just change, and the two things are not synonymous.
I played Asheron's Call for 4 1/2 years. I liked it. A lot. But there were things about it I didn't really care for. Like most people in their first big MMO, I stuck around for awhile (a really loooong while) hoping the things I didn't like would change, but that didn't really happen. When a new MMO came out, I'd try it thinking "Maybe this one will have the things I liked, but it'll have gotten rid of the things I didn't like." That didn't happen. That pattern repeated itself time and time again. New MMOs would come out, but very few of the "new improved features" were things I really wanted, and many of the old things I really enjoyed had been stripped away. At some point, that first MMO had dwindled to too small a population, its graphics had become too dated, and its code became incompatible with my operating system, making it no longer an option.
I think the problem is that MMO quality is A) simply too subjective, and
now big business, meaning new MMOs are targeting the lowest common denominator to maximize their potential playerbases. Every AAA title in recent history has been prettied up and slimmed down in an attempt to match the cover art on the boxes (pretty, anorexic women with heaving chests and sparkling hands). What's significant about that is that it's worked; the supermodels of the gaming industry have sold their boxes, so it's going to continue for quite some time. That's great news for the new generation of gamers, but it's pretty bad news for those of us who just want a nice piece of toast.
The ONE thing I have seen is the perception of game Devs NOT "listening" to the players seems to be a prevalent situation in MMOs and I don't know why. Usually they players who have bought the game and are PAYING to play it, have a pretty good idea of whats going on and what needs to be fixed/tweaked, but are usually over looked because the Devs are confident in their player bases ability to continue to pay to play.
This is one of the best posts I've ever read on these forums. 10/10
"We have barred the gates, but can not hold them for long...
They have taken the Bridge and the Second Hall...
We can not get out. The end comes.
Drums, drums in the deep. They are coming..."
That reasoning is pretty bizarre and I think 100% wrong. "Soulfulness" (which admittedly you haven't defined AT ALL) is rather independent of expertise. That said, expertise DOES help one express the "soul" of whatever you are trying to create.
I thought Jenuviel hit the nail on the head though. Though, we have seen very small improvements.
You, sir, deserve an award for this write-up. I recognize you as as wise man in our generation, for this single post contains more discernment within its text than a thousand others of equal length combined. Keep it up.
#K.
I found EVE. I'm very happy.
Not dead which eternal lie stranger aeons Death may die....yeah
Is that so!!
Ever heard the phrase "A sandwhich short of a picnic"? or "The lights are on but no one's home"?
But you are aware that this is pretty much how it works in media?
I mean, this is what has happened to music Looooooong ago. And movies and literature to a certain extent.
None of this is new. At all. It's so "same old same old" that it's barely even noticeable.
The problem seems to be that people who play(ed) these games don't seem to be senstive to anything prior to these games so they are all up in arms about something that was bound to happen and has happened for a good amount of time. few hundred years easily.
Let me get a group of my friends who are hard core jazz/blues enthusiasts to come and kvetch about the state of music. Don't even get me started on the guys who are all about Webern/Babbit.
Movies? Look I love all sorts of movies but if I was to bring my "A" game into every movie I see I would probably only see art house films and not even like half of those.
The problem here is that movies and music can still be made and still be different and intelligent and interesting for not a whole lot of money (comparatively). But apply that to mmo's and you get very dated graphics and developers who struggle to even finish a project.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen some indy project announced on this forum only to have a slew of people simply diss it because of graphics that look very dated.
This is what mmo's are up against. Now, I realize that some will come and say "its' only about gameplay, desiring graphics is shallow, etc, etc" but at the same time that opens up a whole can of worms such as "really? so the great artists spent their entire lives honing their artistic abilites and this is shallow?".
What needs to be taken from any of this is that the indy games are just going to have to have graphics that aren't the prettiest and that players will have to delve more into art design if they are going to get any sense of aesthetics. Because there is no way that new indy games are going to be able to compete in that department, let alone finish a project.
Look at all the issues Dark Fall had. Mortal Online too.
I highly doubt we will be getting any triple A titles that are going to compete pound for pound with the larger big budget things coming out.
I know we hear that some will come out but they aren't out yet. So my thought is that people should be supporting whatever is out there that is even remotely different. Otherwise they will fall by the wayside and it will be a rare thing to see another one again.
shame that.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well for one, when I log in a game to play, I actually want to play. The play part seems to have been lost in MMOs since the point of the game is no longer to play, but to find people capable of playing the game.
FFXI was just an eternal party seeking game. With a good party, sure it was fun, but it was also very rare.
WoW Try doing Naxx with people who cant press 1 2 3 4 while moving left and right. Even if you told people what to do, they found a way to be bad.
Also, do you really want to spend all your play time for several months just levelling up. Think about it, some cartoonlike guy in a game says, go collect 10 tails for me, and bring them back. You do it. All he says is aha thank you, heres some gold and XP. If thats your idea of a game, how about you try real life, you go out, get a job, your boss tells you, go cut 50 of this and that, put them together, and i pay you 25$/hour (if you can negociate, otherwise 10$/hour).
Ideally an MMO wouldnt be based on a set amount of players in the party but with the strength of the mobs scaled to the party size. So once I reach a point in a game where 30%+ of the time is spent looking for players with an IQ over 80... I just wind up giving up. Fights would be a challenge, not just pressing 1 2 on a keyboard, and 1 2 3 4 for certain fights.
Currently i'm just waiting on FFXIV, if they can't get it right, ill stick to shooters, at least sometimes in those games you find fun games where its challenging for both sides, but even then its getting rarer and rarer as people are quitting due to gaming companies (Activision) breaking their own products, or putting out incomplete games (EA)
I doubt that is the truth. The truth is that the old games offered a new experience. They had gameplay that no one else had and therefor you could ignore bugs and lack of content.
But nowadays are all games just copies from the games you mentioned (And Eve and Guildwars, also from 2003 & 2004).
If someone actually releases a different and fun game people will play it no matter if it has bugs or need more content. But why would anyone change their current game to another one with slightly better graphics, no content and the same experience?
If they want us to play the same old stuff they need to release a better game than the old one. A game that opens up a lot of new and fun things don't have to.
Games like Diablo, Half-life, EQ and Doom offered unique gameplay and that is why they become big. No one had done what they did before. Wow got big because EQ was very buggy (and slightly old at the time, it was already 5 years) and it offered almost the same gameplay with better polish. That and the fact that Blizzard had a few million fans that they knew how they want their games.
To release a full game is a huge advantage of course but just look on Eve, it started shaky and got big with time. It offers a different gameplay and CCP have always worked hard to update it. A fun game can become huge with time as long as it isn't the same crap as the rest is.
Besides, it isn't just about money. Arenanet made Guildwars on a really small budget and still sold 7 millions or so of it, because they have some really talented devs. It still have many fans after 6 years, mostly because it offers a gameplay that no one else does.
I think it's part of the develpment of games. First all was new and innovative, game developers/designers pushed the limits to create whatever they thought of.
The market and technology matured; fixed techniques ibecame know, people started working with models and structured planning. This is good and well but it will stiffel the creativity to some degree. Games slowly started to streamline to look like every other game out there, barring the exeptions which often hit it big or failed misserable.
Came in the corporations who saw the big bucks they could earn and with their comming the structure and models of working has become stricter. Games became more devoid of creativity and the feeling of more of the same creeped in with a greater intensity.
The big corps wanting to milk the gaming industry is slowing the natural development of gaming. Though despite them eventually there will be a time when more in the gaming industry become masters in their craft and start making innovative games with a soul, while if needed using the techniques they learned.
Its not evil developers, greedy corporation, there isnt enough sandbox/some niche market isnt being focused on enough. It isnt quality, or a lack of soul.
Its the player not the game.
People play too much, choose the class that is OP/FOTM/best PVP and force ourselves to level up as quickly as possible to get to the end game.
Play in moderation, and play to have fun (not to get to endgame or max out skills or grind for equipment) and even the shittiest game can be a good amount of fun.
Ever try playing these games for enjoyment?
The way i see it is that in most mmo's you progress through combat. Leveling up, doing quests, ect. It all revolves around combat.
The vast majority of mmo's have boring combat, IE: Click on a mob and watch it die. Or walk up to a mob, press 2-3 keys on your keyboard, rince and repeat. I used to be ok with it, but once i realized that the act of getting farther into a mmo wasn't fun for the most part i got bored of it. These days when i try a new mmo, i play, kill the first few mobs and see that it's basically the same thing as usual.
That is just one reason why mmo's don't really appeal to me nowadays, but i think it would be a huge change for me. A mmo fps might do it, or games like mabinogi heroes and continent of the ninth look rather appealing to me, we'll have to see when they come out.
I agree with what some have said, that games really are bad because developers put them out too fast, aiming at the lowest common denominator, etc. But you want to know who is really to blame for all of this?
THE PLAYERS!
Come on, you guys know it's crap. You know that these are incomplete games, filled with lies and broken features, no matter what it says on the box, that's not what you're getting in the game.
Yet you people KEEP BUYING BROKEN GAMES and then sitting around and complaining about it! You people get what you pay for and if you pay for crap, what do you expect? Certainly no developer is going to put a lot of work into a game if they know they can get a bunch of people buying boxes of crap.
So no, I don't feel bad for the gaming community, I put the blame squarely where it belongs: in their hands.
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
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
KId's television?
Why is it so repetitive? Because 10 year olds become 11 year olds. You get a new batch each year so you don't have to innovate. Your audience will always find your show new and innovative.
Harry Potter seems derivative to me. But to a 10 year old, Harry Potter is a fresh experience.
So what happens when you grow up? After you've read a hundred books or watched a hundred TV series?
You are much more difficult to please.
I bet the median age of MMORPG posters is 30. It might be even higher. It's not so easy to please you as it is a ten year old.
You are set in your ways.
The last book I really enjoyed reading was 'The Shipping News'. A ten year old wouldn't like it at all. It was written for adults. Perhaps what is needed is an adult MMO, something more meaty than sugary.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
To be fair, your toaster is doing the same thing. Just because a game is trying to be popular doesn't mean it can't ALSO be good. Someone brought up movies as a comparison to MMOs, but like toasters, there are still many good movies made every year by the big companies. Sure, there's a lot of crap too, and one would think we'd be better at not making by now. Seems to work that if you have a very small market, then the 1-2 things that are made for it SEEM great, because that's all anyone can ever experience. If you have a large market, then the consumer can be more discerning and has room to develop taste because the possibilities are more apparent. I'd suspect that has a lot to do with how "most" music/movies/tv shows/etc seem to be crap -- I say we still have a lot more good things than were around 30 years ago (well, music MIGHT be an exception there, but that's a complicated thing because it is much older and has to compete with other forms of entertainment -- I don't want to get into it).
Anyhow, we've had crappy MMOs for about 5 years now, give or take -- WoW, for all its current faults, was a pretty big step up in a lot of ways from what had come before (a TON of grind reduction, for instance). Things aren't THAT bad especially given that the market itself is so young and the products take so long to develop. A good part of why this has happened isn't because of a lack of innovation, imho, but because there's been a lack of companies taking the proper time to make a polished and complete product. Companies learn and that will get fixed. I don't think things are as dire as we sometimes like to pretend they are. There are number of good MMOs on the horizon (I think SWTOR and FFXIV will avoid the lack of polish problem and they are both innovating).
If that is so...why then when I play an old game from 10-20 years ago it is still fun to play. Heck a few years ago I played Castle Wolfenstein with all it's shortcommings I still enjoyed myself. It's not just the gamers getting older or more experienced.
Damn, thinking back now I want to play lemmings.
OP:
Everyone is an expert at something, even if it's clipping your own toenails. So, "garbage in garbage out" best describes your reasoning. Do I have no soul because I used to be a whiz at troubleshooting WIndows 3.1?
Like 80's music, any genre produces good and innovative stuff (Gary Numan, Metallica, The Cure) and shitty knock-offs (Kajagoogoo, Ratt, Bryan Adams). Then there are the knock-offs who turn out to be really good (Thompson Twins, Def Leppard, Howard Jones). Because there is money to be made, most of the market is going to be attempts to cash in by people who don't care about the quality of the end product.
The problem is expecting everything on the market to be innovative and original. There will never be enough of the truly innovative to satisfy a hungry market. The solution is to be open-minded enough to try enough variety to find the good knockoffs.
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
But I think there's is something to his point. Might not be the whole of the equation but when I was younger there were certain shows/games that I loved and now can't even get myself to watch them.
When I was younger I LOVED Jerry Lewis movies. After college I discovered one that I particulary loved, bought it and sat through some of the most grueling and dissapointing moments of my life.
what I would say is that if the game is good part of what players are experiencing is the game from their younger self with some added insight from their older self.
Additionally, I think many of these games just suffer from when they have been released.
Look I realize a lot of people diss the whole Star Trek online thing but if that came out, as is, about the time that Everquest was released, people would have gone nuts over it. In a positive. way.
Now it bears comparison from all that has gone before.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Ummm...these games are pretty much electronic in nature so...I don't know how much soul you would ever get out of them...
Maybe reading some Ram Dass would help you
If you are looking to MMO's to fulfill 'a need"...well, I think a dose of silly pscily and a sweat lodge would be a better idea...
...and how does someone w/ 9 posts become a "advanced member", but I have 26 post and I'm a novice...
Because, like a novice, you don't use the quote features.
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
Kind of a silly argument. A work doesn't have soul because someone who sucks at making it, or an amateur makes it. It has soul because of the skill of the person, and an expert novelist is not going to make soulless stuff. The problem of soul is games is that experts or skilled creative people aren't calling the shots, but businessmen and marketers are.
Even then "soul" is so subjective its impossible to use.
The real problem is so many MMO fans just don't want to let go of the past. They still are complaining about UO trammel and NGE and idolizing 10 year old games. No one else can match that ideal picture, and the games that try fail.
I think the whole gaming industry is not progressing at the expected rate anymore. Actually it seems it completely stalled ever since they started selling same sh** with different cover and apparently we love sh** more than anything seeing the amount of money we spend on it.